I am delighted to announce that the audiobook of my memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe has just been published! Narrated by the author, the audiobook has been a labour of love. It helps to grasp the meaning and flow by listening to the book read by its creator. Especially when it’s a memoir. The book is also available as a paperback and Kindle eBook on Amazon and elsewhere. Click here for the link to the audiobook if you’re based in Ireland or the UK.

Difficulty of breaking free from religious thinking, commitment & organisation

It can be incredibly hard to break away from religious thinking, a religious commitment and religious organisations. I found it very hard to learn to think for myself and harder still to trust myself enough to make a decision based on religious doubt and carry it out. I continually allowed religious people to undermine my decisions. Until I didn’t. I am happy that I narrated the audiobook of my experience. Just published.

Here’s the Audible summary of the book:

Summary of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe

Searingly honest coming-of-age memoir

Joe Armstrong spent nine years studying for the Catholic priesthood. He no longer believes in God. This is his acclaimed, searingly honest coming-of-age memoir of his nine years in the Marist Fathers seminary in 1980s Dublin, Ireland.

Procrastination

A case study of procrastination and self-discovery, it is of interest to anyone who has ever fluctuated this way and that and struggled to make a big life decision. It shows the author’s gradual transition from lack of confidence in himself to finally knowing what he wanted. It shows how he found the courage to make the hardest and best decision of his life.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom

It champions the wisdom of doubt, and sees doubt as the beginning of wisdom. It charts the author’s inner movement from obedience to a church to learning to obey himself. He learns to trust himself, think for himself, and be true to himself. 

Authentic insight into celibate seminarian & priestly life

This is a rare authentic insight into the true lives of celibate seminarians and priests.

Co-dependency

It is also of interest to those struggling with co-dependency, giving a frank portrayal of a complex relationship with a dysfunctional mother. It is also a fascinating portrayal of an experience with counselling, and how it can help us to break destructive patterns and gain authority for our lives.

Very well-written & performed, with humorous moments

Despite the profound theme, it is a compelling, easy-to-listen-to memoir, with many moments of humour. Superbly written, the audiobook is performed with panache by the author.

Here’s a recent review of the book by Canada-based Dr Nick Overduin, whose doctorate is in memoirs and biographies, so this is high praise coming from him:

Recent review of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe

Extremely well written

This book is extremely well written. For example, the constant combination of abstract notions with concrete imagery is delightfully articulate and amazingly agile also in its grammar. As a personal journey, it represents a huge accomplishment in staying faithful and true to oneself, one’s innermost spirit.

Struggle for freedom from sense of religious calling

It deals with two crises simultaneously. First of all, the author struggled with the enormous tensions involved in extricating himself from a constraining sense of religious calling in Ireland. He spent nine years training for the priesthood before deciding definitively that this was not a good pathway for himself.

Freedom from complex family relationships

But secondly, the author also needed to process very complex family dynamics during those nine years, particularly in relationship to his mother, but also an uncle, two brothers and a father, not to mention many formative relationships with friends and mentors.

Authenticity of memoir from author’s seminary journals

Since all the events recalled in the book’s decade happened quite a few years prior to this narrative production, the memoir’s accuracy and self-discipline profits greatly from the fact that the author made extensive forays into journaling while he was in that seminary long ago. He is therefore able to look back from the vantage point of age, more than thirty years after the events, but without re-casting things in his own reconstructed terms. The actual facts are constantly before him, and therefore also before the reader.

For people who struggle with demise of religion & complex families

It is clear that the author needed to write this journey down, not just for his own benefit and self-understanding, but so that readers anywhere who struggle with the widespread demise of religion alongside the prevalence of dysfunctionality within family systems will be able to recognize their own souls in the mirror of this book.

Ireland and Doubt becomes vivid

Ireland comes alive, and the nature of doubt becomes vivid; but more importantly, the world becomes alive, and the reader experiences an awakening of their own heart.

For other great reviews of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe, click here.