Begin Again

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Exactly ten years ago today, I started a seven day silent retreat that (on hindsight) marked my entry into ‘spiritual midlife’ and the painful gradual descent into more intense trauma recovery and deconstruction. Here's an excerpt from my retreat journal I wish to share with you: The grace I seek...

Feb 11, 2026

Naming the Unnameable

"Thanks, Ann, for articulating the 'inarticulatable'!" - A message from a friend about this week's Becoming Me episode I never know why some of my podcast episodes / videos do so much better than others. My guess is that some episodes strike a particularly resonant chord with more people and get ...

Feb 01, 2026

'Deconstruction' doesn't have to be a dirty word

"You help me stay Catholic." "Your words make me feel like there's still room in the Catholic Church for me." "You make me feel seen in my struggle with the Church." Ever since I started my podcast in 2020 and converted my social media account from a personal account to a public one to share abou...

Jan 18, 2026

Exhaling into 2026

"Will I be forgotten?" "Am I becoming irrelevant?" "Am I being lazy?" It's funny what slowing down in content creation in the last 6 weeks of the year and taking the last week of 2025 off from sharing anything publicly on social media still brings up in my poor exiled internal family parts. "Oth...

Jan 01, 2026

Seeking Simplicity and Rest at Christmas

Every year when December rolled around I used to feel my body bracing. I hated December, and I hated Christmas for a long time - secretly of course, because I didn't feel it was proper to disclose such a terribly impious sentiment. But as Catholic trauma therapist Brya Hanan recently explained in...

Dec 24, 2025

Has Abuse of Conscience become part of normal Catholic life?

"If you don't help correct him, he will go to hell. Do you want that on your conscience?" "A good and faithful Catholic will never do X." "If you do this and you don't go to confession before you receive Communion, you are risking your eternal soul because you are in mortal sin." "If you don't st...

Oct 12, 2025

What has Spiritual Abuse to do with our Integration Journey?

In this past year I have been wondering how my own journey of healing and integration led me into recognising the impact of spiritual abuse in my life - both as survivor and unwitting perpetrator. And maybe some of you who have been following my content for more than a year have wondered the sam...

Sep 29, 2025

How Culture, Disembodied Faith and Trauma Facilitate Spiritual Abuse

How can trying to grow in holiness be anything other than good? I grew up reading stories about the saints. When I was older I read the writings of saints. Catholic apologetics, spirituality, theology, philosophy - when I was in my twenties I read as much as I was able and took university level ...

Sep 09, 2025

Spiritual Abuse in Evangelisation and Discipleship

Growth and maturation is such an interesting process to observe in ourselves individually but also in our communities and in the Church collectively. I recall that back in 2009 when I started my season of full-time ecclesial ministry in a parish, I was on fire to evangelise and try and make disci...

Aug 26, 2025

Spiritual Abuse in a Catholic Context

If you wish to learn about spiritual abuse in a Catholic context, there is a workshop you need to know about! I share about this workshop at the end of this reflection. If you had asked me 12 years ago when I was in full-time parish ministry overseeing evangelisation, faith formation and disciple...

Jul 27, 2025

How Complex Trauma Froze My Heart to God's Mercy

A Sharing for Divine Mercy Sunday "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy..." As a Catholic, I sang that at every mass. But the truth was that for most of my life, my body felt rather frozen when I sang those words because I honestly did not know how to mean them. Intellectually, I u...

Apr 27, 2025

"Seeking Christ Elsewhere": A Reflection on Pope Francis' Final Easter Homily

On Easter Monday morning (in Singapore), I wrote a reflection on what has turned out to be Pope Francis' final Easter homily just a few hours before news of his passing was announced by the Vatican. I had planned to send this out on Divine Mercy Sunday, but decided to send it out now on the day ...

Apr 21, 2025

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