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I offer personalized spiritual direction to help you navigate your faith journey. I offer Enneagram typing and teaching to enhance your personal and inner growth.
Exploring Faith, Spirituality, & Self-growth
What qualifies me to serve?
I serve a variety of people who seek to deepen their relationship with God or their Higher Power. I successfully integrate enneagram knowledge with spiritual direction.
I hold a Masters in Pastoral Studies and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from Springhill Jesuit College, 2019.
Enneagram Certifications: Enneagram Practitioner (three certifications), Enneagram Coach (two certifications), and Enneagram Typing and Teaching Certification (one certification).
Serving makes us aware of our wholeness and its power. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others. Fixing and helping are draining, and over time we may burn out, but service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will renew us. In helping we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving we find a sense of gratitude. --Rachel Naomi Remen
I would love to meet with you in a free 30-minute Zoom call, if you'd like to explore the possibility of meeting with me as your spiritual director.
spiritual direction & the Enneagram
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL DIRECTION?
My definition: "Spiritual Direction describes an interpersonal relationship which seeks, through deep listening and conversation, to reveal where God is working in the directee's life, prompting a response which leads to action and a deepening of relationship with God." - Mary Maio
How does spiritual transformation happen?
Spiritual transformation takes place incrementally over time with others in the context of disciplines and practices that open us to God. In general, while we are still on this earth, our transformation will happen by degrees (see II Corinthians 3:18) and we need each other in order to grow. (see I Corinthians 12) - Ruth Haley Barton
What does the Enneagram have to do with Spiritual transformation?
Father Timothy Gallagher notes, in The Discernment of Spirits, three types of interior awareness: spiritual, psychological, and moral. He notes that "An expanding psychological self-awareness increases the space for spiritual awareness as well, and all efforts toward deepening our psychological awareness are of great value toward discernment" (p.23). The enneagram of personality types offers psychological growth to enhance spiritual growth.
reviews
Mary's kind, caring, and patient nature made the challenging inner odyssey of The Spiritual Exercises an ultimately uplifting experience. While this journey does ask one to delve into their darker aspects, the light on the other side of this trek is assured and bright, and having Mary join me on that journey was like always having a lantern in the dark, guiding me down the path.
-AFS
Georgia
I was at Adoration tonight reading through some of the entries I had written in my spiritual journal in the last year, and my work with you has made a huge difference in knowing myself and in my relationship to God. You have a real gift for guidance! I have gained so much from my time with you.
-NM
Georgia
Spiritual direction has been a source of inspiration and growth in my spiritual life which has spilled over into my physical and mental health as well. My prayer life has changed significantly as I have drawn closer to God. I am a better version of myself and I am able to share this with others. What a gift it has been!
-ND
Texas
Spiritual Direction has been a special blessing on my faith journey. I have been guided to several books and other resources that have significantly impacted my prayer life. I have been given “food for thought” that has deepened my spiritual awareness. I am grateful that I was led to seek out a Spiritual Director, and graced to find Mary Maio.
-GR
North Carolina
...has helped me learn deeper discernment, see and experience God's faithful intimate love for me, and keep moving forward with spiritual eyes. Thank you, Mary.
-AH
Wiscconsin
The Wilderness: Place of Testing and Clarity
I am currently reflecting on the following scripture passage and thoughts from Henri Nouwen for my upcoming reflection for the Ignatius House Contemplatio podcast, which will be released on July 17, 2025. I invite you to reflect with me. I'd love to hear from you via my email by clicking Share Your Thoughts.
The Wilderness - Places of Testing and Clarity
Matthew 4:1-11 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
But he answered, It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, and On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Henri Nouwen: It is this nothingness (in solitude) that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothing ness and make myself believe that I am worth something. The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone. The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender.