Authenticity is not something we have or don’t have. It’s a practice – a conscious choice of how we want to live. Authenticity is a collection of choices we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen. –  Brene Brown

This is a good quote to sum up the complicated idea of what it means to be authentic. This ongoing process of making conscious choices about what suits us, what speaks to us, what makes us feel alive. The alternative to this is following someone else’s dreams, it’s asking for permission to be who we are or feel what we feel. The exact opposite of being conscious in the present moment. It’s around us all the time, half-lived lives, lives lived for others, according to others expectations. It’s too easy to give away what is most real in ourselves to fit in or be accepted. This is partly why I love my husband so much. He just does his own quirky, unique thing. No asking, no second guessing, no seeking approval, which endlessly inspires me. It also gets me thinking about where, when, and how often I ask for permission to be myself.

Second guessing our authentic responses, or waiting until we get some kind of confirmation from someone else, is a hesitation. It’s like waiting for a false perfection that will never come. We never really live the truth of what’s inside, our authenticity remains hidden, and we remain a copy instead of an original. 

So when did we stop being enough? When did we start comparing ourselves against others and deciding we came up short? I think of it as a slow process of chipping away. We change a small something for someone because it makes things easier, then it happens again and again until in some ways we are unrecognizable to ourselves. I’d be lying if I said it was easy to be authentic, in fact it is the real death-defying work of our lives. It requires an enormous amount of courage and absolute fearlessness on our part. We can’t afford to care about what others think of us, and start looking inside for our own answers, trusting that what we find within is exactly what we need, that it will reveal who we really are and what really matters to us.

I wonder if we all secretly feel like outsiders, all of us looking in on others lives like they have the secrets figured out. They have the right clothes, house, car, job, whatever it is we think we want. And so we believe they are living a perfect life. When in fact they are probably looking at us thinking the exact same thing. We all live strange, quirky lives, maybe we should just embrace that. Embrace what is in this moment. In the end it is always the same answer, we all have to do our own work. Thoughtfully seeking the answers to the questions our soul has, and then seeing what fits for us. There is no shortcut to being authentic.

So why not accept ourselves as we are in this moment? It definitely cuts through a lot of the confusion. What’s the alternative? Never feeling comfortable in our own skin? Maybe I asked for permission because I didn’t completely trust what I was doing. The truth is the path is complicated and unclear. We will never know all the ramifications of our actions. The only thing we can do is follow what feels right for us, in our heart, in our gut. We don’t have to know how things will turn out, we just have to trust ourselves and follow what has meaning for us. Have faith in ourselves that we will make the right decisions. Nothing will ever be perfect. We ride it out, make mistakes, make amends. That’s the work, and each of us gets to choose who we will be and what we will stand for.

But what we don’t need is anyone else’s permission to live our authentic life.

kb