Authenticity is increasingly a desirable quality in every area of life, that brings out the true confidence of the person, attributed to the immense clarity the individual has of oneself. To understand how you can be more authentic, you will first need to know what being authentic essentially means and why it is important. This journey we are on, called life, has all to do with just this: to discover your most authentic self and return to who you are. Believe it or not, our accumulated experiences of all the hi's and lo's along the way are basically the crucial means to help us get to the core of who we are. The authentic self is guiding us to tune into it for everything we as humans yearn - love, joy, peace, courage, freedom, compassion, equanimity, truth - without which often result in higher stress and anxiety, and reduced well-being. Hence the saying, all we need is already within us, as such the 'work' we need to do is to uproot and discard everything that stands in the way of us feeling grounded and acting from this place of physical, mental, emotional and energetical wellness.
Authenticity means to act and express yourself in alignment and congruency with your inner thoughts, emotions, preferences, needs and desires. No matter the judgments, biases, injustice, criticisms and blame hurled or projected at you, you must know how to remain 100% truthful to yourself. To live authentically means that you intend to show up the way you are, raw and vulnerable, despite what others may think about you and simply strive to be known for you and the work you do. You purely observe, enthusiastically and with curiosity, everything that is happening around you and yet you wisely choose not to identify or engage with them, especially in cases of disempowering contexts. It does not mean you do not care about anyone or anything else but yourself, but you have a higher consciousness in understanding that your experience of your environment is a mirror or the reflection of either the sweetness or havoc taking place inside of you.
There is no need to ever compare your path with others, as you tap into the wonderful wealth of resources nestled deep within your soul and realize that you are always right where you need to be, on the road to finding your authentic self. Comparison will only tear you down even more and hurt or damage your self-esteem, or it can also lift you up self-righteously and boost your self-esteem, though rather short-lived and superficially. When you act authentically, nothing that others do or not do will ever disturb your peace of mind. You just be. You are able to see through the behaviours and attitudes of others as the level of consciousness they are at and in the same way, they are right where they need to be. To put simply, being authentic means that you consciously conduct your body, mind, emotions and energy in the way you intend to. That's your sovereignty. Yet to be there, it is much harder than it seems because it is likened to one swimming against the tides.
In order to better understand authenticity, it can be helpful to see that from its flip side, citing some day-to-day examples when people are being inauthentic. In my case, I used to down the homemade apple pie served to me even though I did not enjoy the taste nor was I feeling hungry, just to be 'nice' and avoid upsetting or embarrassing the person. Back in the days when I just started anew in the Netherlands, I hardly accepted the offer of others to speak in English and convinced myself to 'give my best' (or rather, 'try too hard') to understand the Dutch language despite the blatant struggle. Why? So that I did not have to feel shame, incompetent and 'not good enough'. When you do not speak up, for example, in a meeting or social event, in fear of being judged or criticized, you are being inauthentic - unless you really do not have your point of view about anything. When you stay in a job that stymies growth and does not motivate or excite you waking up for everyday but you need the paycheck, you are being inauthentic. (Before this sparks any controversial discussion, let me elaborate, if you decide to stay for the paycheck anyway, it is a decision for which being authentic would entail that you find ways to enjoy the work anyhow instead of lamenting about all the downsides of it.) When you find yourself saying yes to something, even though you very much want to say no and later end up with some sort of guilt, blame and/or resentment - that's people-pleasing and it is never your authentic self.
When you are not authentic, you basically settle for conformity to feel belong or fit in. You go along with the crowd even though your values do not align with it and it does not inspire you, but at least you don't have to stand alone. The impact is so insidious that you wither gradually before you even realize it. That begs the question: what stops you from being your authentic self, what ideally stands in your way? Authenticity beckons to transformation since noone is perfect and everyone needs to overcome themselves by shedding junks of disserving poor habits, garbage of disempowering and limiting thoughts and beliefs, and baggage of unfulfilled desires, by constantly trying to meet others' demands and expectations. Beneath that pile of 'rubbish', lies the gem of your authentic self that you have been searching for. So, back to the main question, how can you be your authentic self? Let's take a look.
1. Get deeper clarity about what you stand for; the beliefs and values you have, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, your needs and desires, and skills and competences you have or still require. True and solid confidence is borne out of clarity about oneself as the core foundation without which is as good as a mere 'performance'. You can consider this as a self-inquisition step. Part of having clarity about yourself includes wholly accepting and embracing every aspect of you - both the positives and areas for improvement. It is never easy to admit the flaws one has that which takes courage, transparency and vulnerability. One way to find out more about yourself would be to take credible personality assessments such as Gallup StrengthsFinder, Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), DISC and Enneagram, or the likes. In one way or another, you will tend to notice and merge some patterns of similarities and expand your understanding about yourself in an eye-opening way.
Your needs and desires will trigger the thoughts and beliefs you have and eventually influence your behaviour and actions you take to move forward. It is way more easier to suggest what one does not want than it is to articulate what one really needs and desires. Therefore, if by any chance you are not feeling happy and satisfied with where you are, try tracing your actions back to the beliefs you have and finally check in if you are clear about and aligned with what you really want.
2. Pay attention and increase your awareness on whether you have acted and behaved in congruence with everything that you stand for. This is an active and ongoing process of self-introspection. It is only through awareness of oneself with its surrounding that any change can begin to occur. To understand if you are staying true or authentic to yourself, there are questions that you can ask yourself, for examples:
Are you still who you are when noone is watching?
What stops you and why?
How long has this been happening?
What do you think could happen if you don't address it?
How do you feel about where you are right now?
What is it that you want so badly that has yet to happen in your experience?
What do you think you need to do to make it happen?
If you are given the choice, what would you ideally like to take shape in your life?
What are you going to do about it?
Any support or help that you may need to fulfill that?
You must ask better questions to get to quality answers for yourself. In this process, it will take radical honesty with yourself, personal integrity and your desire to change. Your intention supported by awareness will set the scene for the distance you will travel.
3. Take 100% responsibility of your own actions and recognize that you own the power to change your experience and circumstances. Everything in your external experience is a product of the thoughts and beliefs you embody, from which specific emotions shall arise. Are you happy and fulfilled, or are you stressed and anxious? It is a human tendency to complain and assign blame onto an outside factor than it is to tune into the internal deep well of thoughts we have, upon which our circumstances are influenced and made manifest. What is often forgotten is how one loses sight on what is within his/her control and what is not. You have no control over how other people would behave or the events that would take place. But, you have control over how you feel and hence the quality of your experience. While this arguably warrants a dedicated discussion on its own, it just means that if you want to feel better, you can choose better thoughts. It is oftentimes not the people or events that upset or uplift you but the meaning you assigned to it. It is your interpretations of what happened that will determine how you experience the context of situation. Taking full responsibility essentially returns the power to you to be at the driving seat and steer towards a new direction for yourself. Otherwise, you risk placing your destiny in the hands of others, constantly meeting the expectations and fulfilling the demands of theirs, instead of your own.
On the other hand, it is good to also take heed of your constantly evolving needs and desires at different phases of life. Nothing is set to stone and you are responsible and therefore can pivot as you see fit. While progress you make may not be linear and you may encounter various setbacks on this voyage, you will need to grow accustomed to it and, find joy and peace with the dance. This is the place where things tend to falter for most people because it is challenging as you are wrought with the very things you want to be rid of, as such you start questioning yourself, doubting if you are on the right track. When you take 100% responsibility, i.e. "response-ability" - you can choose to pause, take a step back, look at the situation from a distance, see it for what it is, then respond accordingly, and not simply reacting to it. When you can do that, every "problem" dissolves into simply a natural context you need to deal with.
4. Start doing the right things and implement one improvement step at a time that will help you inch closer back to who you are in essence. The previous three steps would have guided you towards a better understanding of who you are and who you are meant to be. At this stage, it is all about consciously observing and harvesting every opportunity that shows up every moment of the day to correct course and be better than who you were in the previous moment. For example, it can be as simple as refusing the dessert after dinner because you honor your full stomach and your body does not need it, no matter how delicious it looks. It may still be your desire to have the dessert but your desire to eat healthy trumps that and you act accordingly to what you value more. Or, you finally decline a close friend's invitation to meet up and socialize, to curl up in bed instead with a book, because that is exactly what you feel like doing that day. You are basically leading with your intention than to be led by what other expects of you. Therefore, this is a conscious interruption of unconscious behaviours or actions which have been running your life, following the close observation and heightened awareness towards your conduct relative to your environment.
You can always use your feelings and emotions as your sacred guide to evaluate if you are acting with authenticity. As you tune more into them, the feelings and emotions will shed light on the meaning you assigned to events in your experience, discern how you can shift that into a more empowering inference, and tip the scale back into balance. As feelings and emotions can sometimes create discomfort, being authentic is in part accepting them as they come, and sit through it without judging them as good nor bad, it is just how you experience them in the moment. If you somehow choose to avoid, ignore, suppress or numb them, you may find that they will show up in some other forms of events until you thoroughly work through the feelings and emotions, which otherwise would fade and dissipate in their own time. All in all, it is important to ensure that this step does not remain as merely an intellectual or cognitive process. It has to be embodied emotionally and physically to bear fruits.
5. Recognize your non-negotiables or boundaries, if any, communicate clearly to others whom you cross paths with and act consistently with them. There is a high chance when communication breaks down, that it more often than not attributes to the assumptions each party made of each other, that are never explicitly clarified. Instead of saying it like it is, it involves people beating around the bush with unspoken expectations, speaking in riddles or satire, or too much guesswork that never gets to the point - while hoping that the other person or party would sense what should be addressed. It is all about being clearcut about what falls within the acceptable radar for your own well-being and the implications when not. Not all boundaries when communicated will be respected and welcomed by others, being authentic in this context concerns honoring and respecting yourself, in spite of how other might perceive of or act difficult against you because of it.
Next to that, your boundaries will partly reflect the person that you are, and are ideally exercised consistently, without being wishy-washy or applied selectively with different people. This naturally summons your strength to stand up for yourself and in the process, potentially risk losing some relationships. Remember, you cannot change someone unless they will to it themselves. This can be extremely tricky when it is tempting to avoid 'stepping on anyone's toes' and hence relaxing the boundaries you have just so you feel acquainted and the instant relief from any complaints, conflicts or criticisms that might follow. When persisted, this will slowly deviate you from being whom you authentically can feel and be.
6. Show yourself some grace and compassion as you navigate through your journey towards reclaiming your beautiful and pure authentic self. It suffices to say that this journey is a lifelong marathon and not a sprint. It will require the concoction of trust, patience, resilience and faith to win the race. You will likely need to weather through the cycles of progress and regress with frustrations, discouragement, disappointment, exhaustion and confusion, before it becomes eye-opening, motivating, uplifting, promising and assuring again. Remind yourself that it has taken a long time for you to learn and build up all the unconscious behaviours that do not serve your higher self, it may just take equally amount of time to unlearn them to finally unlock your authenticity at the core. Therefore, it is wise to treat yourself with compassion and gentleness towards your mistakes and imperfect actions or decisions. You just need to notice it, learn from it and do better the next time round. You are your only competition! Spend some quiet moments daily to feel grateful for all your experiences and that you are here in the now, consciously learning the lessons that life throws at you that will hone you into a better person by the moment.
Above all, you deserve a pat on the shoulder for even trying while many others are either deep in slumber, with ignorance or have given up. If anything, remember that you are a spiritual being having a human experience and the game of authenticity is primarily about aligning to the divine energy within you that is your inner compass and only wants the best for you, if you can hear its guidance through instincts, intuitions and inspirations you receive. You are a limitless being with limitless potentials. Striving to discover your authenticity is the road of coming home to yourself and rejoice in love, joy, peace, equanimity and soul emancipation. It is a journey of expanding consciousness, individually, where you do your part, and collectively, by all humans who walk and have ever walked the Earth. Simply revel in this glorious life, let the exciting and daunting moments flow and events unfold in their own divine timing as you keenly anticipate, wholeheartedly experience and boldly chart your own path back to whom you are supposed to be.
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