“What I am is good enough – if I would only be it openly.” – Carl Rogers
When Linda invited me to contribute to this month’s issue on Authentic Living, I was instantly reminded of the above quote, given to us by the late humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers. To me, these words embody the very essence of what it means to live authentically. Authenticity is simply the experience of being connected to ourselves – to our feelings, thoughts and the subtle ways in which our energy shifts from moment to moment – while at the same time being connected with another. To live authentically is to experience a seamless flow between ourselves and those we are with; to allow another’s experience of the moment to enhance our own experience of it, and vice versa. Authenticity is the basis of connectedness and intimacy, and is a prerequisite to getting into the vibration of “flow” that we feel in those experiences and relationships in our lives that are truly exceptional and evolutionary.
In theory at least, authenticity seems like something that should come about as easily and naturally as breathing – and it does, to some extent, when we’re young. In fact, if you ever want to see a shining example of what it is to be fully and authentically connected in the moment, just watch a young child at play. Unless the child is insecurely attached to one or both parents, what you’ll see is a human being engaged with Life without barriers, limitations or emotional walls diminish the fullness of his or her experience. But at some point in our development, as our awareness expands to include not only our own experience but also that of the significant others in our lives, we learn a skill that can be beneficial in the short term, but highly detrimental if it becomes a habit: We learn to disconnect from our own experience of what’s happening inside of us in order to connect with and meet the needs of those around us.
Now, are there times when having the ability to “step out” of ourselves is necessary in order to empathize with and attend to someone in need? Yes, of course. If you’ve ever been a caretaker of another person – an aging parent or a young child, for example – you understand that this is, at times, the most compassionate and appropriate action we can take. The problem arises when we devote more of our emotional, physical, intuitive, or creative energy to another than we devote to ourselves, because that’s the point at which we begin to compromise our own authentic needs for the sake of someone else’s. And the moment we allow someone else’s happiness to dictate when it is and is not okay to be authentically ourselves, this slippery slope gets even more slippery.
Of course, we don’t “learn” the art of compromising our authenticity in the same way we learn arithmetic. No one sits us down one day and says, “Listen. You need to make yourself invisible when Daddy gets home, or he will get angry and none of us will feel safe.” It’s unlikely that anyone told us in so many words, “Hey. You are not allowed to be the one who shines, because in this family, your sister (or brother) is the shiny one.” And yet, messages like these still come through loud and clear, and we absorb them all the same. When these kind of conditions on our authenticity, formed in childhood, go unidentified and unchallenged, we drag them into virtually relationship in our adult lives. We learn to subjugate our needs for the needs of others. We become people pleasers. We repeatedly find ourselves feeling like a victim. There are countless ways to relinquish our authenticity, but the path to reclaiming it begins with a single realization: We are all born with the intrinsic right to be completely and authentically ourselves, without pretense or posturing – and we alone have the power to grant or to deny ourselves this fundamental right.
To permit ourselves to be authentically who and how we are is to place ourselves in the driver’s seat of our own experience. It is to have the awareness and the willingness to listen to ourselves, to renegotiate relationships and situations that no longer serve us, and to become willing to ask for what we want and need in each changing situation. Authentic Living is a moment-by-moment practice. It’s learning to listen to that “still small voice within,” and to pay attention to the subtle energies of ease or tension; of excitement or apprehension that arise in response to each evolving area of our lives. It’s learning first how to distinguish our inner “YESes” and inner “NOs,” and then expressing those preferences responsibly and clearly.
On a very practical level, authenticity is having the courage to say, “You know, it feels like that is going to be too much for me tonight” – and to negotiate until we find an option that feels better and more nurturing. It’s to redirect our focus, so that instead of considering first what we think will make others happy and bending ourselves to comply with that, to look first inside ourselves, to see what feels good for us. Authenticity is more than just the key to our own happiness and high-self esteem; it’s also the doorway for true connectedness and intimacy with another.
I think of Authentic Living as a kind of internal allegiance we pledge to our inner being, which we commit to upholding regardless of what’s going on in our outer world. It’s a pledge to remain anchored in our own bodies, in our own energy field, and in our own source of wellbeing. For me, daily meditation is the key to living authentically, because it takes me beyond the superficial thoughts and judgments generated in the mind and into a direct feeling experience of what is actually happening within me. For some women, getting out into the quiet of nature may be the key that helps them get connected and stay connected when life gets busy or chaotic. Whatever the key is for you, the best news of all is that you don’t need to search for it anywhere except within yourself. The door to your authentic self doesn’t open from the outside in, but from the inside out.
