On “being your authentic self”: what does it really mean?
First, the why on the deep dive into authenticity: I was clearly having an issue on forming the kind of healthy, meaningful relationships I’ve wanted in my life. In fact, I’d say in some way we as a culture are. There must be a reason why we have a prevailing loneliness epidemic across the nation.
Trying to get to the bottom of it, I discovered:
AUTHENTICITY & VULNERABILITY -> MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS.
So clearly this authenticity piece is rather important to get there.
When I started my healing journey, I saw some form of “Be your authentic self!” plastered all over social media. I really don’t like conceptual words like “authentic” being thrown around without some kind of anchor to how it shows up in the everyday life. We can get into a rabbit hole of intellectualizing the hell out of it, but ultimately avoid any real personal connection, where healing happens.
I decided to get really honest, asking myself “How does the word authenticity show up in YOUR head?” My mind tells me “Well, I know what INAUTHENTICITY is:
Interesting. In the deepest, most honest places, my mind equates inauthenticity as kind of this over the top, dramatic fashion of “fake”. We are getting somewhere.
I’d say the vast majority of us are no Regina George. We aren’t often like the characters in reality TV and don’t walk around being “over the top fake”. Not consciously, anyway. So how does it REALLY show up? In the most stripped down, simplified sense, my therapist defines it as:
Authenticity = When your inside matches your outside.
Meaning authenticity is NOT:
- When I’m sad but don’t want others (or myself) to know I’m sad, so I put on a smile or act overly something else. Like bubbly.
- When someone close to me does something that is upsetting but choose not to say anything, giving some reason like “maybe I’m over reacting” or “they can’t handle it” because deep down I’m afraid of things like confrontation or their reaction.
- When I’m “super easy” to work/be with because deep down I don’t want to be “that gal” that rocks the boat, acting very agreeable.
- When I go on a date and spend time playing the character I’ve had temporary success with.
- When I edit texts and emails over and over again because deep down I’m hoping to portray a certain image of myself.
- And many MANY more.
For me, what authenticity looks like is not hiding behind a lot of people pleasing behaviors.
I will say that this work has had some “prerequisite” learnings before I was able to make these discoveries, which were 1) being able to sit with myself to honestly have these thoughts and 2) learning to commit to acceptance of whatever I find inside, so I could actually “hear” what’s happening. But we’ll save that for another post.
If this speaks to you in some way, I encourage you to ponder/journal about the following.
Deep inside, what does your mind believe is authentic/inauthentic?
How does it actually show up in your life?
