We’re a little over half-way through the year, and I’ve been working a lot with this year’s intention word: authenticity.
At the beginning of the year I wrote about some of the practical ways one might cultivate authenticity and stay authentic in day-to-day life. I also tackled some of the contradictions that come with that (Is it authentic to step out of your comfort zone? How do we reconcile authenticity and audiences? How does authenticity work in the workplace?).
Now that I’ve spent some quality time really overthinking the subject, I wanted to share a few shorter articles that get into the less-practical aspects of authentic living. (Yep, still challenging myself to write shorter…)
Today we’re kicking it off with:
A significant omission from my previous article on cultivating authenticity
Here’s what I said:
I like this three-pillar approach to cultivating authenticity:
- Self awareness
- Genuine self-expression
- Alignment of actions with values
Essentially, once you know what is authentic to you, you can express it, and if you can express it, you can act in alignment with it.
There’s a step 1.5 in there that I think is really important if we want to walk in our authenticity, and that is:
Self-love. More specifically, loving the stuff you find in there.
In the arena of self-awareness, some of us will find we have a lot of resistance to the special little bits that make up who we are, what we like, or what we believe in.
Why?
I have to think it’s because we are all so unique, and yet we’ve grown up in a society that favours and rewards conformity and predictability. We have a tendency to want to hide or reject aspects of ourselves that aren’t traditionally “normal” for the sake of acceptance*. I don’t think we know we’re doing it half the time!
*Pile on the complexity that social convention also pokes fun at us for being “too normal” – you must be “normal”, but not so normal as to become “basic”. Be interesting, but only within the predetermined limitations of what is socially accepted as interesting. Too far and you’re just weird, unless you can get enough of the population to find your weirdness so consensually interesting that your brand of weird becomes normal. I… feel a headache coming on.
If you have cultivated self-awareness, but you don’t love what you find in there, what happens when you try to embrace genuine self-expression? It will feel ironically disingenuous to do so. Nevertheless, we then fall into the trap of thinking, “fear is for the weak!” and so we force ourselves out of our comfort zones anyways, because we think we “should”, because we want to live authentically.
This is not the image of authentic living that we had in mind!
It’s also not very loving.
I am slowly realizing that sometimes pushing yourself through fear by brute force isn’t the answer. Following Elizabeth Gilbert’s car metaphor in Big Magic, (apparently very foundational to my creative identity at this point), fear can sit in the passenger seat of your car-ride to creativity, and while it’s not allowed to touch the steering wheel, notice that at the same time you don’t just unceremoniously boot it out of the car altogether.
That self-love is the key in the ignition, moving everyone in the car forward.
(Dive into a gentler approach to moving with fear here!)
How do you know when you’re ready for genuine self-expression (and what’s love got to do with it)?
When do I hit the metaphorical (or literal) “publish” button?
A safe, private creative space is a great place to start experimenting with genuine self-expression; that is, taking what’s in there, and putting it “out here”. Right now! The stakes are low, so it makes a great arena for dancing around with curiosity, love and fear and seeing what works for you. The only person who could possibly judge what you make is… You! But you’re learning to love all the bits of authentic you, right?
Of course eventually, living an authentic life means genuine self-expression outside of the privacy of your own world, at least a little bit.
There are people out there. People that are not you, and may not understand what you’re doing or why.
The accountant in me needs to say, “Be practical and be mindful! Express, but choose your environment and audience wisely!” Keep in mind there’s a big difference between being mindful of your audience and self-censoring entirely. It takes some tact to know where the line is, but that’s a deep-dive for another day.
If you have cultivated self-awareness, and you’re now in that dance with love and fear, then how do you really know when you’re ready to release a genuine piece of you out into the world?
When you’re excited to do it.
I mostly write and paint, and in the name of “pushing through fear” I’ve published things that I was feeling nervous or embarrassed to publish. After having done that for a little while now, I realized that I either simply wasn’t ready for it, or I didn’t love it enough.
The easiest way to know if something is ready for release is when I’m excited to show it to people.
It’s not exactly excitement to see or hear reactions, it’s not excitement to “get it over with” and not have to think about it again – it’s genuine enjoyment of what I made and excitement to release it into the world… Because I love it. “If you love it, let it go,” as they say!
By the way, you can absolutely love something you made or did in all of its imperfection. What you do or make does not need to be “perfect” or even “good” to love it!
My theory is that once you’ve felt that sense of excitement, you know there’s a part of you in there that has given its authentic approval – you really do love it. If fears and judgements start pouring in after that and try to stamp the excitement out, then you can take your time and try to understand where those are coming from and why.
The creator, the worrier, the warrior – they’re all in the same car! They’re on the same team. I suspect if you take some time to understand those aspects of yourself, you’ll be able to work with them (rather than pushing past them), and you will feel confident in your decision to release your work.
I mean, mostly – nobody’s perfect, right?
And all the rest
That sounds wonderful for creative projects, but what about regular day-to-day life?
I think the same applies whether you’re at home by yourself, at work, with friends. Regardless of your environment or where your day-to-day life takes you, you can practice cycling through the 3 (4?) pillars in different contexts:
1. Become familiar with yourself, what you like, what moves you, what doesn’t.
1.5. Love those aspects that make you uniquely you.
2. Communicate those bits.
3. Make decisions and take actions that honour and are in alignment with them.
The more you can walk this path, the more natural and comfortable it will feel, and the less external factors will throw you out of balance. Eventually you’ll be walking around as yourself with a sense of ease, without having to think about it!
Ironically, this will then help you navigate circumstances that feel less “aligned” with your you-ness, from an empowered place. It’s because you’ll have learned your internal rules first, then you can break them.
The workplace seems to be a hot topic in the realm of authenticity, so I’ll use that as an example. I think many of us bully ourselves into liking our job (or just having a job in general):
“You should be thankful you have a job at all!”
“At least you don’t work in a…[enter your nightmare job here]”.
“Focus on the good, ignore the crap.”
Problem one: this sets the stage for an internal battle you must win to secure your livelihood. I don’t want to feel like I’m fighting with myself all the time.
Problem two: I think by telling yourself to toughen up or get over it, you’re effectively telling yourself that how you really feel doesn’t matter, you’re not enough as you are, your genuine preferences don’t matter, and other such rude sentiments.
Stop. Be a better friend to yourself!
The alternative is to patiently play with cultivating authenticity, because once you know and honour your authentic self, you can start to see clearly where you have made decisions that might not feel amazing or “true to you” right now, but you can see how they’re in your overall highest interest. So in the workplace example, you may not feel entirely aligned with your job in every aspect (most of us don’t!), but you chose it because at a high level it serves you well enough that many other authentic aspects of you feel well-cared for.
Authentic living is not black-and-white, things are not simply “authentic to you” or not. The point is to know what is first, and then use that knowledge to navigate life while honouring it. You get to choose what is acceptable to you and what is not. You choose what’s in your best interest at this point in time.
Doesn’t that feel empowered?
That’s all for this week – I’m excited to share a few more thoughts on working with authenticity this summer!
