Karla Droste, M.S., Spiritual Director
Deepening Relationships with God
Karla Droste brings a wide variety of experiences and education to her spiritual direction practice. Trained at The Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, she holds certificates of completion for the three-year program in individual spiritual direction as well as an additional year’s training in group direction. Karla has been trained in the Ignatian tradition, including the Spiritual Exercises and the Rules of Discernment. She has completed several training programs in the Enneagram, including the Enneagram Professional Training Program (Helen Palmer’s Trifold School for Enneagram Studies) and the Enneagram Center of Marin. She also holds a master’s degree in economics.
Karla believes that a loving God is tangibly present in every human experience. She believes that spiritual direction can help us name and give voice to our experiences with God. She believes that the focus of spiritual direction is to deepen our relationship with God and ourselves. We learn to discern God’s voice from the myriad of other voices demanding our attention. We listen closely, discovering the thread of the Spirit in our everyday experiences.
Karla has worked with many members of the clergy, seminarians and chaplains and is particularly interested in accompanying those discerning their vocation in every aspect of their lives, including decisions about life direction, relationships and lifestyles, work and finance. The wife of an Episcopal priest, she has lived up close and personal with the unique challenges, ambiguities and demands of clergy life. She is committed to assisting those who wish to enhance their capacity to listen for God's direction, especially through transitions.
Karla also enjoys working with groups. She facilitated the spouses’ and partners’ group at two seminaries, including Princeton Theological Seminary and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) and lead the women’s spiritual direction group at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Leandro, where her husband Rob was the rector. She has taught different types of prayer, including Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer and led meditation and journaling workshops and group spiritual direction.
Karla co-created a parish retreat entitled Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts and has offered several spiritual gifts talks and workshops focusing on discerning God’s will in our lives. Trained in conflict resolution, Karla has also led workshops for seminaries, parish vestries and the Clinical Pastoral Education program at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, CA and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, GA.
Karla has walked through several major transitions of her own. She left a successful career as a regulatory economist for work more closely aligned with her spiritual values. She moved with her husband to the Bay Area in 1997, where he attended seminary and she enrolled in the three year Mercy Center spiritual direction training program. She subsequently enjoyed a thriving spiritual direction practice and helped to administer the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) chaplain training at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California.
After living seventeen years in the Bay Area, Karla and her husband moved to the Northeast, where her husband served as the Canon for Congregational Development and Mission for the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey. Her spiritual direction practice flourished as a result of focusing full time on building her practice, especially during the Covid years, when she expanded to working online with people all over the United States and Canada. She currently serves over fifty directees seeking God’s direction in their lives.
Karla’s most recent transition has been to move to the South of France with her retired husband, focusing on his art and painting; living in Nice since July, 2024. She is very excited about this new chapter in her journey with God and looks forward to building relationships and community in this new part of the world, while maintaining and tending to her relationships in the United States.
Karla loves to read, especially books on spiritual growth, literature classics, rock and roll biographies and stories about mountaineers. She loves live music and long walks by the Mediterranean under a bright blue sky, next to her favorite, palm trees, sitting in cafes and exploring the south of France, especially the patisseries on every corner, including her favorite, croissants au chocolat et aux amandes.
Karla is available for individual and group spiritual direction, including vocational discernment, spiritual gifts, conflict resolution, prayer and spiritual formation.