Writer and entrepreneur Rachel Catherine Allen joins 100 Stories for a conversation about inherited narratives, family estrangement, religious identity, writing, personal agency, forgiveness, and how language shapes the stories we live by.

Rachel is the author of 23 books and founder of Bolt from the Blue Copywriting. She grew up in a deeply conservative religious family with a clear story about who she was supposed to become. Writing became one of the first places she could question that story and imagine another life.

She started journaling when she was nine. Years later, going no contact with her family forced her to rebuild her understanding of herself from the ground up.

Rachel describes a period when she had lost confidence in her own perception of reality and decided to begin with one thing she could trust: knowing when something hurt. From there came other questions. What feels safe? What makes me happy? Who do I want to become?

We talk about how inherited stories become identity, why seeing other people live differently can expand what feels possible, how words create worlds, and what it means to understand someone else’s narrative without giving that narrative authority over your life.

Rachel also talks about becoming many different versions of herself over time and why identity does not have to be a fixed destination.

The question I’m leaving with:

What story were you handed, and what are you doing with it now?

More about Rachel Catherine Allen: https://www.boltfromthebluecopywriting.com/

More about Paige Williams: https://paigewilliams.co/

StoryKeys: https://storykeys.co/

The 100 Stories Project: https://100storiesproject.com/