Dates

October 13-27, 2026

Day & Time

Tuesdays
1-2:30pm PT / 3-4:30pm CT

Format

3 Weekly
Virtual Sessions

Listening is the heart of every companioning relationship and its greatest ongoing discipline. We never fully arrive at it.

Whether you walk alongside others as a spiritual director, supervisor, friend, family member, or in any other companioning role, so much goes on internally as we try to listen well. Our minds distract us. Our feelings seem to get in the way. Our own stories, thoughts, and understandings quietly shape what we hear and how we hear it.

This series invites soul friends, anyone who walks alongside others, into a deeper exploration of what it means to listen: to the one in front of us, to the Spirit, to the silences, and to ourselves as we sit in the room together.

Through the experiential lens of the Experience Circle, we'll notice the entry places of our own listening. Where it is we first hear what's going on within ourselves, with God, and with those we accompany. We'll explore listening holistically while remaining present to the one we're hosting, and lean into curiosity as a doorway into evocative, compassionate listening. As we attend to our own internal movements, we'll begin to notice how they shape our posture with others, and we'll practice walking alongside others in theirs.

Our time together will be shaped by curiosity, non-judgment, compassion, and a gentle returning.

Together we'll explore:

  • The entry points where we first notice what's stirring in ourselves, in God, and in those we accompany
  • Listening holistically while remaining present to the one we are hosting
  • Curiosity as a doorway into evocative, compassionate listening
  • Noticing our own internal movements and how they shape our posture with others
  • Practicing presence with another's internal movements through guided companionship
This series blends teaching, experiential practice, and small-group time, offering space to notice your own patterns of listening and return to your relationships and ministry of accompaniment with renewed depth and freshness.

The Weekly Flow:

Week One: Listening to Self with God

  • Noticing inner movements and tendencies
  • Hearing, sensing, knowing the texture of God (color, image, sense)
  • Bringing curiosity, non-judgment, compassion, and returning

Week Two: Listening to Another with God

  • What is the experience?
  • Inviting underneath, or deeper into, the experience
  • Trusting the inner wisdom of the other
  • Noticing how you are noticing
  • Bringing curiosity, non-judgment, compassion, and returning

Week Three: Listening to a Group with God and One Another

  • Modeling presence
  • Listening from presence
  • Hosting the beauty created by all involved
  • Bringing and inviting curiosity, non-judgment, compassion, and returning

Who's it for:

Spiritual directors, supervisors, and any soul friend, including companioning roles as friends, family, and others who walk alongside people in their lives

Your Guide

Kathi Gatlin

Kathi Gatlin founded Boldly Loved and co-founded the Companioning Center to bring together her two greatest passions: spiritual formation and teaching. In this, she utilizes her DMin. in Leadership and Spiritual Formation from Portland Seminary and her M.Ed. earned through George Fox University.

Her greatest joy is walking alongside others, individually and in groups, in their own spiritual journey, sharing ways of understanding God anew through contemplative prayer and teaching, and to see them grow in the depth of their own understanding of who God is and who they are in relationship with God.

Kathi is a spiritual director, supervisor, writer, spiritual formation group facilitator, retreat speaker, and educator. For more information about Kathi, check out boldlyloved.org.