What is a Spiritual Advisor?
Signs You May Need Spiritual Guidance Now
Let’s start with what a spiritual advisor is not.
Although some advisors are also therapists and life coaches, that is not always the case and it is dangerous to assume so unless they directly tell you as much. In any case, spirtual advisory is NOT a replacement for therapy and is NOT life coaching. A spiritual advisor is also not someone who’s going to tell you what you want to hear and send you home with a crystal and a good feeling (At least they shouldn’t be).
A spiritual advisor is someone who helps you see your life - your choices, your patterns, and your path - through a wider lens. Someone who holds a mirror up to the parts of you that don’t show up on a résumé or in a therapy session - the parts of you that already knows something is off, even when you can’t name that something.
Those are the parts we work with.
So what do we actually do?
It depends on the advisor and the tradition they practice from. Some work with prayer and scripture. Some work with energy and intuition. Some (like me) work with divination systems: Ifá, Tarot, cartomancy, and the wisdom that lives at the intersection of all of them.
But the through-line is the same. We help you get honest with yourself about what you want, what you’ve been avoiding, and about what your life is actually asking of you right now.
Sometimes that’s clarifying. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Usually it’s both.
The signs you might need spiritual guidance
You feel stuck in a way that doesn’t make sense on paper. Everything in your life might look fine from the outside, but internally something feels stagnant (like you keep moving but never quite arrive anywhere new).
You keep ending up in the same place. The circumstances change, but the dynamic stays familiar: Different relationship, same wound. Different job, same frustration. That kind of repetition is usually not a coincidence, but a pattern asking to be examined.
You’re at a decision point and logic alone isn’t resolving it. You’ve thought it throughn and you’ve talked to people you trust, but you’re still unable to move. Sometimes the real question underneath a decision isn’t about the options in front of you, it’s about who you’re becoming. That’s a different kind of conversation.
You’ve lost your sense of meaning or direction. Not just professionally or relationally, but in a deeper way. When the sense that your life has purpose starts to fade, practical advice rarely touches it.
Something has shifted and you can’t quite name it. A loss, a major transition, the end of a significant chapter. Life changes us, and spiritual guidance can help you find your footing in who you’re becoming rather than trying to hold onto who you were.
What spiritual guidance isn’t
I want to be straightforward about this: a spiritual advisor is not a substitute for mental health care, medical support, or any other professional help you may need. If that’s what the moment calls for, please reach for it.
What spiritual guidance addresses are the questions that exist alongside those things, and often underneath them. The ones that remain even after the immediate situation is resolved. Why does this pattern keep showing up in my life? What am I actually here to do? Who am I meant to become? Those are spiritual questions, and they deserve a space designed to hold them.
On finding the right fit
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a trollion times: Not everyone is for you. Not every spiritual advisor will be the right match, and that’s completely normal. What matters is finding someone who resonates with you - whose approach feels grounded and honest, and whose investment is genuinely in your growth rather than your continued dependence.
The right advisor points you back toward yourself. Over time you should need them less - not more. That’s the whole point. That’s how I know I’m doing my job right.
—Papa Eli
If you’re curious about what a session with me looks like, [Get Started Here]. If you have questions, my inbox is always open.