The expression many use to fit the purpose of appearing more credible in the world of rising collective consciousnes, but what it really means to be authentic or live an authentic life?
Simply said, you are being authentic whenever you are aligned with your truth. But how do you find your truth in the world full of hidden agendas and popularity contests?
People often talk about having balls...
Living in truth requires you to be courageous to be perceived in whatever way others may choose to perceive you - as unpopular, even weird or crazy. How do you fancy being labeled an outsider or a trouble maker? Because being aligned with your truth demads you to feel it deeply and express it freely without pleasing others to appear more likeable. It demands you to express yourself emotionally without fearing to appear 'weak'. It requires you to avoid saying things you don't really mean, things that are designed to make others feel better and things which intend to make others feel bad for you to feel better about yourself.
But feeling things deeply and speaking from our heart, which is where we hold our authentic desires encumbered by the acquired beliefs of the mind, is a huge feat for those of us who fear the truth and the shame attached to it.
When we were small, our core used to be aligned with truth all the time. Which is why we were so happy! At those times we didn't care how we look like in front of another toddler or an adult. Occasionally even now we can feel our truth in our chest as a warm feeling and in our gut as calm. It is the INNER REFERENCE we all possess which has the ability to precisely and intuitively guide us, yet from which we have, very sadly, disconnected in the name 'safety'.
Catching our carers lying or twisting the truth to their partner, bigging themselves up in front of the neighbours, talking badly about their friends behind their backs, or cheating to get ahead taught us that saving our face and winning is more important to our survival than being truthful. Children are very observant and will copy behaviours of others in order to feel safer in their own environment, particularly if they perceive those who display these behaviours as more powerful...
Game on?
Every time we squashed our truth, we discovered the price of being disconnected from our own authentic guidance: The bitter aftertaste of becoming overly reliant on how others perceive us. By giving into the inauthentic guidance of adults around us we, like them, started to grow our false, althoug somewhat protective, side which thrives on what others think of us. The more we can deceive them, the better we (temporarily) feel. As our inauthentic side grew, with it grew our fear of being found out which led to yet more hiding, more pretending, and more lies which formed the heavy mask of who we like to be: The honourable, the honest, the respectable, alas the be loved by everyone.
Who are we trying to fool?
Our authentic core always knows when we are pretending. Always. But the more we practice overriding our inner discomfort of deceiving ourselves, the more we become familiar with pretending and the more we manage to convince ourselves that this is who we really are: The dishonest, the disrespectful and disrespected, alas to be hated.
The shame!
We carry the truth of our false self, believing we are it. Afraid to show how we really feel on the inside, we feel greatly unsettled, UNSAFE. Losing ourselves, denying ourselves what is right for us, makes us feel helpless and alone. And as the lines between ourselves and others lying blur, we became prone to being manipulated further.
The disrespect!
By someone else pushing their agendas ahead of ours (be it on social media, in fashion, through culture, in politics) disregarding our truth, we are being disrespected. The disrespect then rings true on the inside of ourselves as confusion in our minds, pain in our hearts, and a nauseating feeling in our stomach. Our whole being feels hijacked, whilst our body signals that things aren’t the way they are supposed to be and feel. Being greatly uncomfortable sounds alarm bells in our head that we are unsafe which prompts the body to either reacting or freezing. When our truth is being challenged in an overwhelming way we may feel shocked, overcome by a profound sense of fear for our safety.
Not being able to constructively deal with our fear and release it, it builds up in a form of an ever present fear (anxiety) which can intensify into extreme spikes of fear (panic), prompting us to dealing with it head on.
The times when our truths were being challenged growing up, when we were unable to guide ourselves through those challenges by standing firmly in our truth, became greatly TRAUMATISING. The lingering, unresolved pain (of our childhoood perception of events) prevents us from emotionally revisiting these extremely disempowering events. Even though as adults we are capable to repair our psyche from a place of newly found safety, anchored in our inherent wisdom of the now, and heal ourselves (and our bodies) from a place of a loving understanding.
Experiencing compassion for ourselves comes from understanding how we've got lost and why. It certainnly wasn’t our fault that as children we have absorbed foreign agendas but it is our responsibility as adults to start connecting to the truth, getting to know ourselves better. To unburden ourselves from fear of looking good and start feeling good instead. Because being authentic is our, even though long forgotten, nature and peeling off the layers of our restrictive shell, challenging our false beliefs, working through our traumas as they surface, can only be done with the kind of perseverence our truth demands and we deserve.
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2024 Michaela Patel