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What Needs to Be Said: Speak Your Truth, Release Shame, Find Oneness
A part memoir, part self-help book from a trans interfaith minister, offering guidance on growth, change and self-love.
Alex Reegan’s incredible story of healing and growth is your call to look within and live as your most authentic self.
As a trans man born into an evangelical Christian family that prevented his true identity from emerging, Alex spent years struggling with depression, anxiety, and addiction, trying to break free of the oppressive beliefs that bound him. After years of fighting—for his life, his freedom, and his truth—Alex learnt to surrender and come home to himself.
In this part memoir, part self-help book, Alex weaves his own story with healing guidance for you to take away and implement in your own life. You’ll find uplifting messages of compassion that will encourage you to let go of the things that are no longer serving you, as well as exercises such as journaling, self-reflection, and meditation to help you begin to heal and reclaim your connection to the divine that is within all of us.
This powerful book, with its raw honesty, vulnerability, and wisdom shows you how Alex rediscovered and embraced his authentic self and gives you what you need to do the same.
Alex Reegan’s incredible story of healing and growth is your call to look within and live as your most authentic self.
As a trans man born into an evangelical Christian family that prevented his true identity from emerging, Alex spent years struggling with depression, anxiety, and addiction, trying to break free of the oppressive beliefs that bound him. After years of fighting—for his life, his freedom, and his truth—Alex learnt to surrender and come home to himself.
In this part memoir, part self-help book, Alex weaves his own story with healing guidance for you to take away and implement in your own life. You’ll find uplifting messages of compassion that will encourage you to let go of the things that are no longer serving you, as well as exercises such as journaling, self-reflection, and meditation to help you begin to heal and reclaim your connection to the divine that is within all of us.
This powerful book, with its raw honesty, vulnerability, and wisdom shows you how Alex rediscovered and embraced his authentic self and gives you what you need to do the same.
- GenresMemoir
257 pages, Paperback
Published May 2, 2023
About the author
Alex Reegan
1 book1 followerAlex Reegan is the author of “What Needs To Be Said”, as well as an interfaith minister, speaker, and transformative spiritual coach who uses his intuitive wisdom to help guide people towards their own inner knowing. Born into an evangelical Christian family that prevented his true identity as a trans man from emerging, he spent years in depression, anxiety, and addiction trying to break free of the oppressive beliefs that bound him. His journey at last led him to sobriety, shamanism and then seminary, which helped him reclaim his faith and trust in the Divine. Through speaking engagements, workshops, one-on-one and group sessions with clients, Alex is profoundly dedicated to helping others speak their truth, release shame, and find oneness.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 13, 2026
Being authentically yourself around those that don’t want you to be authentic is scary and putting that experience in a book for all to read is brave. I appreciate the author taking the time and willpower to write this book about his experiences, especially since I now understand more clearly what it is like to be an outed LGBT person during an earlier period of conservative American society. My favorite parts of this book were the moments I found myself reflecting between my experiences and the author’s. Despite the turmoil that often accompanies coming out, there are profound moments of insight from the author that lead to greater self-acceptance.
Again, I appreciate the author’s bravery in writing this book. This book would be a good read for a young queer kid who wants to learn how to love themself and already likes reading so they’ll read anything. Would I give this book to a queer kid who wants to learn how to love themself that doesn’t like reading? Unfortunately no. The manner that the book is written is a bit confusing. It’s a cross between a memoir and a self help book. The author tells us about his experiences occasionally out of the order they occurred to serve the self help book narrative. However, I find the self help portions of the book to be weaker than when the author is talking about his life experiences. Rather than telling the readers what to do, I’d prefer if the author told us about his experiences and the readers come to their own conclusions about what to do if they find themselves in a similar situation. Perhaps this book isn’t meant for me. Regardless, I enjoyed the quick read and I found beauty in the author’s lived experiences.
Thank you Alex Reegan for speaking your truth.
Again, I appreciate the author’s bravery in writing this book. This book would be a good read for a young queer kid who wants to learn how to love themself and already likes reading so they’ll read anything. Would I give this book to a queer kid who wants to learn how to love themself that doesn’t like reading? Unfortunately no. The manner that the book is written is a bit confusing. It’s a cross between a memoir and a self help book. The author tells us about his experiences occasionally out of the order they occurred to serve the self help book narrative. However, I find the self help portions of the book to be weaker than when the author is talking about his life experiences. Rather than telling the readers what to do, I’d prefer if the author told us about his experiences and the readers come to their own conclusions about what to do if they find themselves in a similar situation. Perhaps this book isn’t meant for me. Regardless, I enjoyed the quick read and I found beauty in the author’s lived experiences.
Thank you Alex Reegan for speaking your truth.
Did Not Finish
March 8, 20242/5 so far.
I was really excited for this book at first. I had read I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah's Witness by Daniel Allen Cox and absolutely loved it. It was one of my top books for 2023. I picked this because I thought it would be similar. I suppose it is in topic, but where Daniel Allen Cox is funny and endearing, I found Alex Reegan to be trying too hard.
The tone/voice was off putting to me, maybe because I felt like I was talking to a "New Age Spiritual Guru" who wants to sell me on 5D or whatever, call it my spiritual trauma hindering my reading experience. It's not an easy voice for me to stand with, that's my problem and not his.
The choice for formatting certain quotes made it feel like an article, but I understand it was meant to draw attention to the most important and harmful points.
I respect and appreciate his inclusion of exercises/writing prompts, even if the wording in the message from his "god within" was off-putting.
"Dear beloved, guilt-mangled soul . . . . Your ancestral line is filled with guilt and shame and self-punishment."
"Dear beloved, resentment-filled self . . . . We know, we know, you carry much pain and resentment toward many of the people in your past still. You wonder how they live with themselves so breezily after the ways in which they treated you."
Any kind of exercise is always a wonderful addition to a book, so I applaud those authors who include them.
I would like to try this book again in a few months and see if it resonates with me better or I can at least give it the time to read it fully.
March 7, 2024.
I was really excited for this book at first. I had read I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah's Witness by Daniel Allen Cox and absolutely loved it. It was one of my top books for 2023. I picked this because I thought it would be similar. I suppose it is in topic, but where Daniel Allen Cox is funny and endearing, I found Alex Reegan to be trying too hard.
The tone/voice was off putting to me, maybe because I felt like I was talking to a "New Age Spiritual Guru" who wants to sell me on 5D or whatever, call it my spiritual trauma hindering my reading experience. It's not an easy voice for me to stand with, that's my problem and not his.
The choice for formatting certain quotes made it feel like an article, but I understand it was meant to draw attention to the most important and harmful points.
I respect and appreciate his inclusion of exercises/writing prompts, even if the wording in the message from his "god within" was off-putting.
"Dear beloved, guilt-mangled soul . . . . Your ancestral line is filled with guilt and shame and self-punishment."
"Dear beloved, resentment-filled self . . . . We know, we know, you carry much pain and resentment toward many of the people in your past still. You wonder how they live with themselves so breezily after the ways in which they treated you."
Any kind of exercise is always a wonderful addition to a book, so I applaud those authors who include them.
I would like to try this book again in a few months and see if it resonates with me better or I can at least give it the time to read it fully.
March 7, 2024.
September 7, 2023
Loved this book! Alex shares stories that resonate with me and also writing prompts and activities that help each chapter sink in.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews