The Story Beneath the Story

We all have the version of a story that we tell the world. It’s polished, edited, and shaped into something that makes sense and that is easy to communicate.

I left that job because it wasn’t a good fit.

We drifted apart.

It was just one of those things.

These stories aren’t lies—they’re shorthand. They help us move through conversations without having to unpack the messy truth or expose vulnerability. But if you’ve ever walked away from a dinner party or coffee date feeling strangely hollow after telling your “easy version,” you know the cost. Something inside of you still wants to be heard.

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Beneath those neat explanations lives another story. The one that’s tangled, contradictory, and maybe even a little uncomfortable. The story where you admit:

• You didn’t just “leave the job”—you left because your worth was questioned daily.

• You didn’t just “drift apart”—you stopped calling because it hurt too much to feel like you cared more than they did.

• It wasn’t “just one of those things”—it was grief that you still carry.

  
  

This deeper version is rarely the one we share aloud. But it’s the one that holds the truth of our experience.

When we only ever tell the polished version, we risk minimizing ourselves. We gloss over the rawness, the pain, the growth, and the lessons. Healing comes when we allow ourselves to write the unspoken version too.

Writing is powerful because it doesn’t require you to package the story for anyone else. On the page, there is no audience, no performance. There’s just you, the pen, and your truth. When you give a voice to what’s beneath the surface, you create space for relief, clarity, and even forgiveness.

Photo by Alexander Van Steenberge on Unsplash

Sometimes, the act of naming what’s unspoken is enough. Other times, you may find that writing the deeper story helps you integrate it into the larger arc of your life. You see yourself not as someone who failed, or was broken, but as someone who endured, who adapted, who survived.

Think of a story you’ve told others many times. It might be the way you explain why you left a relationship, how you changed careers, or even how you got through a tough season.

Step One: Write out the “public” version you’ve shared before. Don’t overthink it. Capture it as you usually tell it.

Step Two: Now, write it again. This time, write the story as if no one will ever read it. Be unflinchingly honest. Let the hard parts, the tender parts, the shameful or complicated parts come to the surface.

When you finish, sit with both versions. Notice the differences. Notice what it feels like to finally let the hidden truth breathe on the page.

You may discover that the second story doesn’t replace the first—it simply deepens it. Both can coexist: the version you share with the world, and the one that restores you to yourself.

Healing often begins not in the story we tell others, but in the one we finally tell ourselves.