The Story Underneath the Story

long we stopped noticing they were stories at all. And somewhere in all of that sitting, a question keeps coming up. A quiet one. Not dramatic. Just persistent.

Which ones were ever actually ours?

Not the ones that arrived before we had any say. Not the ones we built from the available evidence without ever checking if the evidence was right. Not the ones about who we are supposed to be by now and what that is supposed to look like.

The stories we have been looking at this month, we may have never stopped to ask if they were true. We may have just assumed that they were. That assumption became the fact. And that fact shaped everything that came after. And here is the thing about that. True and truth are not the same thing. We can carry something as fact for decades, and it still may never have been our truth.

Truth is what was always there before any of it arrived. Before the stories. Before the committee. Truth is simply who we are. And who we were born to be.

The ones underneath all of it. The ones that were always there. Those are not stories at all. Those are ours. They always were.

It is the end of May. Spring has done what spring does. Things have surfaced that were always underneath.

What happens when you finally hear one of them clearly enough to ask, is this actually mine?

If this is landing somewhere familiar, take the quiz at thereturningproject.com/journey. The workbook is at thereturningproject.com/let-it-stand.

The Returning Project is a space where women reclaim who they truly are, beyond who they were told to be. New posts every Sunday.

Inward. Onward. Go.