The deeper understanding of authenticity and what it means to be truly authentic

Authenticity rooted over 500 years ago; the ideal authenticity has embedded in the value system of modern western civilisation. Despite its significance in the west, very few people live up to the ideal of authenticity. Psychiatric; Donald Winnicott mentions, “conceptualised the true self as the source of one spontaneous and creative energies, the sword of which we are abundant in children at play, but often repressed in adulthood”.?

In order to align with authenticity, we need to understand what is driving our thinking and our behaviours.?

Impact of Society

Many people find it safer and easier to lose themselves in the crowd amongst society. We behave how others behave, we invest in what others invest in, we dislike what others dislike, we judge one another because we have been conditioned to do so, we do all of this because we lack a deeper understanding of ourselves.?

Teaching others to supress their negative experiences is becoming a toxic conditioning of society, consequently these beliefs get passed down to our younger generations, this is causing society to become inherently toxic and therefore, challenging for individuals to be their authentic selves. As a result of this, we turn to addictions as a form of escapism, this could be anything from excessive television/social media time to substances, this comes from the conditioning of society and a set of beliefs we have been taught to accept.

So how can we become the authentic martyrs of today’s society? Society can judge an individual for their addictions, but it’s important to understand what pain this person is masking through their addictions. Many people build character armour in response to feelings of insecurity and vulnerability, this is due to fearing that our true self will be rejected, but the cost of character armour means we are not allowing ourselves to truly feel alive.?

Society is slowly becoming more aware of these problems we are facing, we are currently facing a war between traumatised sections of our society, and as a result, authentic individuals have gained insight and knowledge in what it truly means to be authentic and deeply connected to oneself. These are the people who can help lead by example for the ones who are still lost, and in return, create a healthier society.?

Fearing Authenticity

We all crave authenticity, yet some of us can’t find it. Having courage doesn’t mean fear does not exist, it is consciously choosing to act vulnerable. The fear of being authentic is different for each of us; to be open, real and raw about our struggles, mistakes and choices seems impossible. We feel we must be perfect but running for perfection is a head start towards failure.

Inauthenticity can be detrimental to our health, we find it hard to leave our authentic two selves because in childhood that wasn’t accepted, celebrated and recognised. It therefore becomes uncomfortable to be ourselves in a society that celebrates inauthenticity, the change to this is self-awareness and questioning yourself why, when we feel we acted from an inauthentic place.

Our authentic selves were never destroyed, we just lost touch with it, and it can always be regained, starting with self-awareness and reflection.?

It is easy to be authentic when we feel confident in comfortable environments but becoming truly authentic means we will act from a place of connection and authenticity in the uncomfortable situations and in front of people you are not comfortable with. Sharing our vulnerabilities with one another allows us all to understand that we can love our imperfections as much as our perfections, and when we are involved in triggering situations, we can come to realise this is an opportunity for growth.

Authenticity

As we age our past troubles become our template, but our stress apparatus inside of us begins to regulate through negative experiences. When we don’t know how to handle our struggles and if we don’t develop the mental tools, our negative experiences begin to pile up on each other, causing deeper wounds and feelings of hopelessness.?

Tapping into our authentic selves has the power to heal us while also increasing our quality of life. How do we do this? We must first start by accepting the pain we are in, stop resisting, doing this causes us further pain, but starting somewhere eventually reduces the pain significantly and gives us the tools and awareness to overcome any pain we may face in the future, however, many of us will not do this because we don’t how to be with pain, we close our hearts, we try and do too much, we take on too much responsibility or we deny responsibility all together, we think this is how we protect ourselves from pain, but this becomes a disconnection from ourselves.?

Anybody who opens themselves up to their wounds can tap into love for themselves and others, which then becomes very difficult in a society that gives us so many distractions from ourselves, this means people have been conditioned to feel uncomfortable with sitting with themselves alone, instead we think we must fill our emptiness with activities, acquisitions, relationships, beliefs and ideologies, rather than accepting feeling empty and the reason for this.??

We can start healing ourselves through many forms of self-expression, this is dependent on the individual which could be therapy, guidance, journaling or self-care practices. You can share your story in written and verbal formats, allowing pain to be felt rather than supressed, it is important we recognise and reflect on these feelings as it enables us to identify the feelings, accept them and move on. When we understand ourselves deeper, we will be able to pick up a piece of paper and identify the many different feelings we hold in that moment. If we mask negative feelings with time alone, those feelings will eventually return when the next experience forces us to re-open our wounds.

Healing takes extreme courage and the ability to step out of our comfort zone, many individuals don’t understand that such simple methods are extremely rewarding and therefore will carry on acting with addictive behaviours. Once an individual learns a skill to cope, accept and be compassionate and remove feelings of shame, they can then begin to navigate through life with much more joy, ease and optimism, which is the key to becoming our authentic selves.?

We shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we experience pain, we shouldn’t see this as failure, timescale is different for everyone, but the moment we accept and allow our struggles, is when we will heal and grow into authenticity.?

Sometimes for an individual, the ability to tap into our authenticity happen during the most difficult stages of our lives. The most difficult things happen to us become the most compassionate, as this allows them to open the door to their deeper selves as they look for a path to feel better. This is our subconscious putting roadblocks in our way, trying to direct us down the more rewarding path in the long term, and if we choose to let go and accept it, this will bring us in touch with ourselves.?

It is only once we have healed that we can see the tremendous growth we have made, going through the healing journey requires patience and courage, but we come from a place of power when we can reflect on how far we have come.??

Compassionate Curiosity

To help alleviate these pressures on one another we can start by practicing the power of compassionate curiosity, which should never be mistaken for pity. Empathy also invites another to heal, we can allow addictive personalities an abundance of compassion, which in return allows the individual to feel safe and accepted.

Compassion comes in various levels, finding discomfort in an individuals suffering is not enough, it must be deepened with the compassion of understanding why an individual feels this way, this allows you to gain a deeper understanding of why this person is hurting, and how can they be guided. Following this, compassion of recognition allows you to empathise and see the individual carries the same fears as us, they just haven’t yet mastered how to overcome their fear yet, this does not mean we are in a position to be above them.?

On the opposite scale we face judgement, being judgemental becomes extremely detrimental, and in modern society, we are all taught judging is acceptable, it is a quality we must unlearn, we must only use judgement to navigate through feelings of danger.?

When we are relatable through being vulnerable, we encourage people to love us, when they love us and they can relate to us, they do not feel alone, rewardingly we will become more alive, passionate and free knowing we have nothing to hide.?

When we show up authentic, we give others the space to accept us as we are which encourages them to accept themselves as they are. This allows judgement to be removed and true connection to be established, this will inspire others.?

We must remember, being in an individual’s life for the benefit of changing them turns into co-dependency, we can only guide them towards the journey, it is the individual’s choice to walk down the path, only when compassion is present is when an individual can allow themselves to see the truth.

Upon reflection, having compassion for other people can only start with compassion for ourselves, because our treatment of others reflects on how we feel about ourselves.?

We Come First

Another condition society leans towards is being too nice and believing its nothing but beneficial. This is another coping mechanism and often people do this for validation due to not feeling accepted and therefore not accepting ourselves, in return seeking acceptance through others and therefore putting our needs last.?

There is a way we can still be genuine, caring and help others, if we look after our own needs by accepting who we are so that we will not allow bad treatment for the sake of being nice.?

We are wired for attachment as a human race, if we are not in touch with ourselves on a gut level when we are out in the wild, then we will not survive out in the wild, being able to act on our awareness of oneself in relation to the environment, if we need something we pay attention to it, which is authenticity and if we don’t then we are in danger. We can pay attention to ourselves when we are hungry, it doesn’t feel good, so why can’t an individual pay attention to oneself when they feel negatively, this is when connecting with ourselves is necessary.?

We need authenticity to know what our needs are, without it we put others needs before our own or we turn to false needs in the form of substances or external distractions, we betray ourselves by doing this causing further disconnection and ultimately having to further endure shame.?

Summary

The art of authenticity is being open about our life experiences, being real about the challenges we face and being vulnerable about how it makes us feel, it is the resilient ability to love and accept yourself as you are and let go of fear.?

What would our lives look like if we stopped hiding and let people see us for who we are? Afterall, our pain is what makes us unique.?

The key is to understand positive change forces us to become relentlessly optimistic.