Stepping Into Authenticity
There is a desire for many of us to be authentic.
We want to be our true selves, speak up about what we believe in, follow our hearts in career and personal adventure, have boundaries that we keep in relationships, know who we are and what we want, and not settle for anything less.
YES, this feels empowering and exciting, how do we get there?
I don’t have one single answer for you, but I am an authenticity coach with a focus on emotional intelligence, so I will tell you about my process of stepping into authenticity.
Firstly, the question of “how do I get there/ or, what do I need to do to become authentic” might not be the question to ask yourself. The more skillful question might be, “What is stopping me from allowing myself to be that person who honors myself fully?”. The first question can imply that authenticity is something outside of ourselves that we have to obtain. The latter speaks to knowing we have authenticity within us and we have covered it up with some masks of conditioned beliefs.
Keep in mind that you have this “version” of you who knows what you want, need, desire, and respect for yourself, but has been suppressed due to valid reasons. These reasons could come from childhood, a manipulative parent or guardian, a gaslighting partner, a falling out with a friend in middle school, a teacher telling you that you’re not smart enough, or it may come from societal standards and passive things you picked up in the media of how people should act and the ramifications of not acting that way.
When we ask the question, “what is stopping me from allowing myself to be that version of myself”, we open up the doors to our patterns and tendencies of what we have been conditioned to do. After we start to break down our conditioning and our limiting beliefs, we can begin to challenge them.
One of my favorite sayings is: it’s simple but not easy. Once we have the basic understanding of what is stopping us from allowing ourselves to be this version of ourselves, we can start implementing a plan to get from A to B. A being where we are, and B being who we truly know we are.
For example, Jerry (They/Them ) says yes to everything and takes on too many projects. Jerry has their own desires and projects that they want to work on, but continues to put their projects on the back-burner to accommodate everyone else’s projects first. Jerry has a hard time saying no, not only because Jerry has a hard time feeling like they will be letting people down if they say no, but also because Jerry is genuinely excited that other people want to work with them which makes Jerry feel needed/wanted.
Jerry knows that it is not sustainable to say yes to everyone and that people won’t actually be that disappointed if they say no. Jerry knows their true self is capable of achieving amazing things if they just had the time to put in the work. Jerry acknowledges that it might be a form of self-sabotage by taking on so many other projects because they might have a subconscious fear of failure. Taking on the other projects will distract Jerry from the possibility of responsibility for their success as well as the potential of it not succeeding in the ways Jerry had always hoped.
Acknowledgment is the first part of this. The acknowledgment of what tendencies and patterns we have been playing out (in this case the constant saying yes is the pattern/fear of saying no, and how it makes Jerry feel is also a pattern of not having enough time to do their projects / which might build up resentment), acknowledging underlying reasons as to why we might be having these tendencies, and only when we acknowledge the fear that is keeping us in this way of navigating life will we be able to create a plan to change it.
Now we have a better understanding of our beliefs and fears. Fear is usually a belief and a belief is something that can be challenged and changed (usually). We might feel silly or childish for having some of these fears, but that is absolutely okay. Many of these fears and beliefs may have started in childhood and were never acknowledged or fully settled.
After you know your fears and beliefs, you can start to challenge them.
You can ask if there is a time that the belief was shown to be untrue. You can talk to your friends or people you trust openly about this and have a discussion - sometimes it is nice to know you are not the only one feeling this and talking to others can give a sense of security and feeling of empowerment instead of feeling trapped within it. You may also be met with other perspectives and/or validation and reassurance for your fears.
I usually guide my clients to slowly start walking into their fears with courage. This can look like making it a goal to say no to 2 or 3 people (in subtle small ways), and to see how it is received and how it is felt. After that becomes more fluid, finding the specific areas in their life that they have a hard time voicing their opposing thoughts and guiding them through effective communication techniques to empower them to speak up. This is paired with self resourcing techniques, such as breathwork and grounding, to ensure they can collect themselves before, during, and afterward. After we break down the walls of fear with exposure, we begin to feel more confident in our abilities to walk through uncomfortability and hardships. This will help us make decisions based on our highest good in many situations, instead of leading with fear and insecurity, we will begin to lead with love and confidence (Authenticity).
Again, this is much easier said than done. I am constantly breaking down my own limiting beliefs on a regular basis. The more you check in with yourself and understand your values, you will become very aware of when you are not making decisions based on your authenticity.
We are constantly learning about ourselves and often it is hard to understand what we genuinely want and need versus what our patterns and traumas are saying we want and need. We are creatures of habit and comfortability, so if you grew up or spent a lot of time with toxic communication and relationships, we see that as comfort because it is what we know (although it is pretty safe to say that it does not feel anything like genuine comfort most of the time). “Is this authentic or is this just comfortable” is also an amazing question to ask yourself. It will be hard to know the difference at first, but again, as soon as we start realizing our patterns and tendencies built from conditioning and what we have seen as “comfort”, we will be able to see the difference a bit more clearly over time.
You can read more about Authenticity Coaching and book a free exploration call with Charlie here.
