Spiritual Memoir

Memoir is an excellent way of forming a personal primer as to how you experience and engage with spirituality. In my practice I use a memoir-based approach that has its roots in a variety of different religious traditions. Memoir is a literary genre that allows us to explore ourselves and provides a platform with which we can engage in our own stories and invite others to engage in them as well. Memoir is not an autobiography; it is not necessarily even chronological but rather it is shaped by the specific lens of growth that the author desires. Within a spiritual context, charting our memoirs of divine encounters often illustrate vividly our own spiritual growth and development in ways perhaps we were unable to clearly see and distinguish. This can be very empowering for someone who believes that they are just beginning their spiritual journey, as it often highlights that they have in fact been engaging with spirituality and a higher power, though often in spaced out instances that are difficult to keep track of, if we are not specifically asked to recall them.

This is not to say that the work of memoir is all rainbows and butterflies. In fact, as a genre, memoir discourages us from writing in ways that think too highly of ourselves and values honesty and integrity in our stories. Often, we do not encounter the spiritual in seasons of flourishing, but in seasons of transition, suffering and loss. This is part of what makes spiritual memoir so personal, is its intersections into the parts of our lives that we are not proud of. One classic spiritual memoir that demonstrates an author’s ability to be honest with themselves about their encounters with a higher power is Saint Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine in his writing is at times painfully honest about situations and predicaments that he entered and later regretted. Yet his honesty in these situations does not diminish the ways in which his spirituality was present in these seasons, but rather helps to draw out the ways in which throughout his life Augustine encounters the divine.

Spiritual memoir, because it requires us to be so vulnerable and honest with ourselves is best done with the accompaniment of a spiritual counselor. It can be terrifying and jarring to share these experiences with folks in our everyday lives, and that fear can influence what we chose to say, and what we decide to conceal. Having a spiritual counselor provides us with the distance of anonymity as well as confidentiality. Similarly, in my own experience, being trauma informed and able to hold the stories of my clients in a way that acknowledges their emotions and helps them to find the divine within these stories is essential to fully utilizing the tools of spiritual memoir. Having someone outside ourselves, who is looking into us, allows for a fresh set of eyes into our stories and can identify and point out trends in our spiritual development that we might otherwise have been blind too.