Celebrating Our Sheroes: Reclaiming the Stories We Carry

Toni Morrison and Glennon Doyle on identity, expectations, and finding our own perspective

Who told you who you are supposed to be?

It is a question that can sit quietly in the background of our lives.

Many of the beliefs we carry about identity—how we should live, what we should value, and who we are expected to become—are shaped by the people and circumstances around us. Family, culture, history, and personal experience can all become part of the stories we tell ourselves.

Bibliotherapy gives us an opportunity to pause and look at those stories with curiosity.

A book does not always give us an answer. Sometimes it simply gives us another perspective—one that helps us notice something about ourselves that we had not considered before.

This week in Celebrating Our Sheroes, we turn to the work of Toni Morrison and Glennon Doyle. Their writing is very different, but both offer opportunities to think about identity, expectations, memory, and the possibility of seeing ourselves differently.

Toni Morrison: The Stories We Inherit

Toni Morrison’s novels often explore the ways history, memory, race, family, and community shape individual lives.

In Beloved, Morrison tells the story of Sethe, a woman who escaped slavery but continues to live with the memories of what she experienced. The novel moves between past and present, showing how memory can remain deeply connected to the lives of those who carry it. Goodreads readers frequently describe the novel as powerful, challenging, and emotionally demanding, while its subject matter and structure can make it a book that requires slow and thoughtful reading.

Morrison’s work can invite us to consider the stories that existed before us.

Some are personal.

Some are cultural.

Some are connected to histories we did not choose but may still carry.

Through a bibliotherapeutic lens, reading Morrison can become an opportunity to ask:

What stories have influenced the way I understand myself?

How has my history shaped the way I see belonging, identity, or possibility?

There is no need to rush toward an answer. Morrison’s writing rewards attention and reflection.

Glennon Doyle: Questioning Expectations

Glennon Doyle approaches questions of identity through memoir and personal experience.

In Untamed, Doyle reflects on relationships, motherhood, divorce, family, expectations, and learning to trust her own inner voice. Goodreads describes the book as an intimate memoir and a call to reconsider the expectations that can shape women’s lives.

Readers have responded to the book in different ways. Many have connected with its themes of self-trust, boundaries, and questioning expectations, while other Goodreads reviewers have been more critical of Doyle’s approach and conclusions. That range of responses is itself a useful reminder that the same book can meet different readers in very different places.

For a reader approaching Untamed through bibliotherapy, the value may not be in agreeing with every idea.

It may be in asking:

Where am I living according to expectations rather than intention?

Which parts of my life feel genuinely chosen?

What does listening to my own voice mean to me?

These questions can open a space for reflection without requiring a reader to arrive at a particular conclusion.

Reading as a Way to Reconsider Our Stories

Morrison and Doyle write in very different forms and from very different perspectives.

Morrison’s fiction asks readers to engage deeply with history, memory, identity, and the experiences of her characters.

Doyle’s memoir invites readers into a more personal examination of expectations, relationships, and self-discovery.

Neither book needs to provide a formula for living.

Instead, they can become starting points for reflection.

Bibliotherapy is not about finding the “right” interpretation of a book.

It is about noticing what a book brings to the surface.

Perhaps it is a question.

Perhaps it is a memory.

Perhaps it is a belief we have never stopped to examine.

Sometimes simply noticing is where reflection begins.

A Reflection for the Week

As you read or think about the stories that have shaped you, consider:

• What beliefs about who I should be did I learn early in life?
• Which of those beliefs still feel true to me?
• Which ones might be worth questioning?

There is no need to rewrite your story overnight.

Sometimes we begin by understanding where the story came from.

Looking Ahead

As we continue Celebrating Our Sheroes, we can carry these questions with us: Who are we becoming? Which stories have shaped us? And what happens when we allow ourselves to look at those stories with fresh eyes?

A book may not change the story we have lived.

But sometimes, it can help us see it differently.

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Disclaimer

Bibliotherapy is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, medical treatment, medicaton, or therapy. Always seek the advice of a qualified health or mental health professional with any questions regarding medical or psychological conditions.