About Flourishing Souls
When something flourishes, it grows or develops in a healthy or vigorous way. It thrives, succeeds, and produces.
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Would you describe yourself as flourishing? Do you feel your body, mind, and heart are growing and expanding in wonderful ways?
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If not, that may be why you are here.
​"There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself,
the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly,
a damaged human being into a whole one.
That is spirituality."
-Ellen Bass
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Flourishing Souls is not a feel-good self-help place. It is faith-based, but you don't have to be a part of any faith to benefit from what is here. The focus of this inter-spiritual ministry is to explore the depth of the enneagram and apply its spiritual dimensions to your life. One profound connection to self and God is by using the wisdom of the Enneagram with Contemplative prayer forms.
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Flourishing Souls is not going to ask you to be more, do better, or fix something that is broken in you. There is no judgment for you to discover your true self. You already have within your God-created essence what you need. You are enough. Yet, most of us have places that have been covered or ignored and need to be healed and restored. That is the journey I would like to walk with you to see and live into.
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The Flourishing Souls approach will ask you to see what you already possess and encourage you to release the things that no longer work in your life. Becoming self-aware is the beginning of seeing who you already are. Nothing is missing, but perhaps not everything you are is working for you as well as you hoped. This is what the Enneagram can offer.
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Perhaps you have been a good, loving, and faithful person. Trying to be your best and still, something about God seems distant or out of your grasp. This is where one or more of the quiet, contemplative prayers can allow your heart to hear, your mind to expand, and your body to embrace the unconditional, fully accepting love of God already present to you. To experience this is to begin flourishing as the person God created you to be.
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If you have been a part of a faith community that seems to be more about doing, than about being… Or if you have hit a wall in life that is saying, “is this all there is to faith?” If you realize you are deconstructing your faith, which worries you, you are in the right place. You may be craving a new way to connect with God: body, spirit, and mind. This may be your next step. Becoming more awake to our own lives also connects you to God's Spirit at a deeper level as well.
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Flourishing Souls is not therapy. It is not counseling. Those forms of personal growth are greatly encouraged if you have problems or trauma in your life that need real attention and care. This Enneagram path of inner transformation is to awaken you to personality patterns.. It guides you to see how you react to the world rather than consciously responding to life. It reminds you where you have over-protected your heart, mind, or body and lost touch with those precious aspects of your soul.
"What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?"
-Thomas Merton
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What the Enneagram does is help find patterns or habits from early childhood to address how they shaped you showing up in the world. It reveals many Jungian concepts in Object Relations. Best of all there are no judgments as to why. The beauty of the Enneagram is to see, claim, and adjust to how you respond to yourself, the people around you, and the world. There is no shame in how we respond to life, only new opportunities to ask, "I wonder why I do that?" The Enneagram offers a beautiful opening to more of the joy and challenges life offers. It is a grounded, conscious, and healthy way to live.
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Here is a Welcome Video... More about Jill is below...
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Jill has a deep understanding of the Divine, Enneagram Spirituality, LGBTQIA+ support, Grief and Loss, and more.
"Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity."
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-Thomas Merton-
About Jill Smith
Rev. Dr. Jill Schneider Smith is a United Methodist pastor, a teacher, a contemplative, an Enneagram educator, and a soul activist. Meaning her work is to help people pay attention to the most powerful part of their being: their soul.
The body, mind, and heart together make up the essence of who we are created to be. But, many people do not live present in this juicy interior space. We do not show our true selves to the world. Jill's ministry is meant to journey with others on a contemplative path of spiritual formation*. The Enneagram is a wonderful tool for waking us up to who we are and why we might have been afraid to show it.
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Jill is a pastor in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. For over twenty years, she has sought new ways to connect people in life-giving ways to God. As a pastor in large and small churches, traditional and blended services, her experience is wide and deep. Gifted in preaching and pastoral care, she has witnessed how faith experience has changed over the years. Convinced people are hungry for deep inner connections to God, she is aware most typical US religious institutions do not teach people to love themselves or even know themselves fully. These were the seeds for starting Flourishing Souls.
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Where much of Jill's time and money has gone:
* A doctor of Ministry in Christian Spirituality from Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California
* Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theo. Seminary, Charlotte, NC
* B.A. in Sociology from Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts
* Accreditation as a Practitioner in the Integrative Enneagram (iEQ9)
* Enneagram Certification in Conscious Living with Russ Hudson & Jessica Dibb
Currently: in a Spiritual Direction program with the Haden Institute
* A member of the International Enneagram Association
* on the Board of Directors for Rowan Vocational Opportunities
* involved in community justice issues in her historic community
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Jill is mom to two amazing young men making their mark on the world. She loves big dogs and has two tri-color collies. She loves dark coffee and deep conversations. She prefers movies with deep plot twists and more profound books than entertaining. World travel is an unrelenting desire she still hopes to add to this second half of her life.
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Jill and her husband, Wayne, live in Salisbury, North Carolina, in a 100-year-old bungalow where the front porch is the best room in the house.
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