Our guest this week  is Anne Bokma . She is an award-winning freelance journalist and the author of My Year of Living Spiritually: From Woo-Woo to Wonderful—One Woman's Secular Quest for a More Soulful Life published by Douglas & McIntyre in October 2019.

A leading expert on North America's 80-million strong "spiritual-but-not-religious" demographic, Anne was the award-winning "Spiritual But Secular" columnist for the United Church Observer (now Broadview) for four years before writing her popular My Year of Living Spiritually blog for the magazine.

Anne also leads workshops and gives presentations on topics relating to spirituality and writing, including how she left a fundamentalist religion, the importance of finding community, how to live a more soulful life and what it takes to tell a good story. She is the founder of the 6-Minute Memoir “Speed Storytelling For a Cause” event, which features storytellers sharing tales on a common theme within a strict six-minute time limit. The event has raised more than $45,000 for local charities in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, since 2013.

You can find our more about Anne at her website here.

In this episode we talked about some of the challenges of losing your religion. A big part of the struggle is disappointing people. Sandy offers a free PDF course for anyone who needs to find the courage to end people-pleasing in their life. You can find it at her website https://www.sandyreynolds.com

And if you want to get support in writing a memoir you've been working on, reach out to Patti M. Hall