authenticity

It May Be Simple But It’s Not Easy

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Lately two slightly absurd notions have been consuming me:  who is the real me, and what if I don’t like her very much?  It feels a little like tumbling down a rabbit hole to be confronted by a hallway where every door hides a version of me and I’m wondering if I’ll drink to shrink or eat to grow. 

Then I realise I’m too much in my head.   And putting too much emphasis on consistency, because of course we all have different sides.  We’re complex and messy and our personalities don’t have only one setting.   How I react to something today may be different tomorrow but does that make me inauthentic?  When I let my insecurities get the better of me, I’m not as generous spirited as I would hope.  And then I don’t like myself very much.  Maya Angelou said “when you know better, you do better” so I can only hope to learn from these times and go on to do better. I’m happier when I’m nicer.

If I do, then of course I won’t be the same person tomorrow that I am today because I will have grown from experience.  One of my biggest lessons is to accept it’s okay for me not to be perfect, that’s a doozy.  But who has lived and hasn’t made mistakes?  I need to get better at appreciating this.

I said ‘absurd’ because of course if I’m being true to myself then both of those questions are redundant.  There is only one me, in all of my messiness, and if I honour the essence of that then I’ll be someone I like.  So I need to get out of my head and tune into my gut because that keeps me authentic.  Simple, but not always easy.  It’s a minute-by-minute practice, but I’m learning.

A Little Late To The Party

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One of the symptoms of small island living is losing touch with what’s happening out there in the big, wild world (some long-termers hadn’t heard of Simon Cowell – it can have its advantages).  So I’m a little late to the Dr Brené Brown party.  I know the all-round-fabulous Suzy Greaves (writer, coach, editor extraordinaire) is a fan so, now that I have a fairly reliable internet connection and time on my hands, I hunted out Brene’s TedX Talks.  Thanks, Suzy, now I understand and am excited to read her books. 

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Along with the 15million+ viewers, I warmed to Brené’s genuineness as she talked about shame and vulnerability.  And I realised you can’t really be authentic without being vulnerable and vice versa; they are sides of the same coin.  It is because she is walking her talk so beautifully that Brené has become such a phenomenon, her willingness to be only real on that stage is why we feel such a connection to her.  That’s the power of vulnerability.  But we find it so hard.  For me it’s not so much that I perceive it as weakness, more the slightly wonky notion that not allowing ourselves to be vulnerable keeps us safe from hurt.  It’s something we fear because it opens us to potential harm, and so we admire and applaud those who have the courage to lean into it.  Reducing the potential to feel hurt also reduces the ability to feel joy, and so we insidiously harm ourselves anyway.  We’re left with a safe life that is more an existence than the experience of fully living. 

Vulnerability was the surprising revelation of Brené studying connection.  In her open, funny way she explains it wasn’t something she went looking for, in fact to say she resisted it would be a huge understatement: “It was a year long fight, a slugfest.  I lost the fight and probably won my life back.”  When somebody verbalises so eloquently it seems obvious, a forehead slapping “duh” moment.  Of course, vulnerability is key to acceptance and living wholeheartedly.  Why didn’t I see that before?  And of course it’s key to living authentically, which is why that can be such a challenge. 

Writing this blog is helping me be more authentic.  I’m bringing more awareness to my days and I have small wins, but I still have a long way to go – ironically illustrated by the fact that so far I’ve only told a couple of friends I’m doing it, I’ve been terrified to go public.  But if vulnerability and authenticity are so closely linked I need to let myself be seen.  That’s one of Brené’s observations of what we need to do to live a wholehearted life. 

I’m working on believing I am enough. 

 

 

By Brené Brown:  ‘Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead’, published by Portfolio Penguin

Ted Talk:  https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

Photo in public domain

Does Kindness Trump Authenticity?

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I am spending a lot of time with my family at the moment.  Which can be challenging for oh so many reasons (not least the endless supply of cake), but particularly when it comes to the sticky issue of being true to myself.  Not only is it easy to fall into playing to the stereotype they have of me (a big enough topic to have a post all of its own), it’s also raised for me the question:  does kindness trump authenticity?

As I imagine it is with most families (unless we’re even more screwed up than I realise), we have long established ways of communicating with each other.  Some of these are silly, childish traditions created when I was a different person (an actual child, for instance).  Particularly with my Dad.  I am not that person now, and who I am today wouldn’t behave that way.  But it would break my Dad’s heart if I didn’t play along.  And, even in the name of authenticity, I’m not prepared to do that.

So I was getting my knickers in a twist thinking about this.  Was I just taking an easy way out?  Then I started to make the distinction between honesty and authenticity.  I had been starting from the assumption that to be authentic you had to be honest.  Which is of course true.  But would it be enough to be honest with myself?  If I chose to be authentically kind?  Which made me wonder if perhaps sincerity is a more appropriate word.  More kind, in fact.

I’ve rubbed up against this honesty dilemma before.  Years ago when looking at my personal values, honesty was at the top of my list.  Oh yes, siree, I believed with all my stubborn Taurean heart that this was Number One Most Important to me, I had absolutely no truck with dishonesty.  Don’t be playing my friend if you weren’t going to be honest.  Or so I thought, until I looked at how this really played out in my life.  If a friend asked my opinion of her outfit and I thought she looked terrible, would I tell her?  If she was at home and able to change, then yes I’d definitely suggest something more flattering.  If we were already out and she could do nothing about it, I certainly wouldn’t tell her she looked like an exploding sausage, for example (unless so much wine had been consumed we’d both find it fall-off-our-seats hilarious … is there that much wine?).  What would be the point of ruining her evening?  So there I was, trampling on my number one value, which isn’t a smart thing to do.  It meant I had to review and revise:  yes, honesty is still hugely important to me, but in practice it appears kindness is more so.  Who’d have thought?  I surprised my stubborn self.

I’d love to live in a world where kindness and honesty could always be one and the same.  To never have these conflicts, to be honest and true and accepting of each other at all times.  And bluebirds would sit on my shoulder singing melodiously.  That’s certainly something to work towards, and in the meantime I’ll continue to muddle my way through doing my best to find a balance.  But until that day, yes, for me kindness trumps authenticity.  As long as it’s sincere.

 

What Comes First?

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I caught myself being inauthentic yesterday.  I had an email out of the blue from an ex, an Australian surfer-dude type.  Younger than me.  In my reply I found myself using his language – wicked, vibing, that sort of thing; certainly not words I would typically use.  And the reason wasn’t for common understanding, oh no.  I wasn’t modifying my language to be more appropriate or for easy comprehension.  I was doing it simply because I didn’t want to seem like a boring old fart.  I wasn’t confident enough to be my un-hip, authentic self.  Instead I was just excruciatingly embarrassing.  What a trade. 

At least this year of living authentically is bringing more awareness to my days.  It’s surprising how the little itty-bitty daily challenges are the ones that trip me up most.  The big stuff you can’t really miss, there are signposts you see miles in advance and so go in prepared, battle-ready.  But the little stuff, that’s more tricky, a minefield you sometimes don’t notice until you’re standing in the middle of it.  Because the little stuff is really the big stuff, it’s absolutely key to authenticity.  Every seemingly inconsequential compromise to being true to myself erodes a little more confidence.  And I need every molecule of confidence I can conjure up to do this.   

If you’re anything like me, a lifetime of trying to fit in and not stand out has blurred the edges so much that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish who the ‘real you’ is.  It requires living consciously, not reverting to default setting behaviour, and that level of awareness can be hard work.  But it’s worth it because I’ve noticed a chicken/egg scenario happening:  while it takes confidence to be authentic, being authentic also gives you confidence.

 

 

Authenticity vs. Affectation: how important is it, anyway?

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I love a good story.  I love make-believe.  I frequently lose myself in a good book or film.  I believe in making the best of ourselves and can even appreciate the technique of faking it until you make it.  So why does affectation dance on my last nerve?  A few days ago in a coffee shop my attention was drawn to a group of three women.  Actually, it was drawn to one of the three, whose manners were designed for precisely that purpose, so I didn’t feel bad looking.  The way she held herself, the way she laughed, everything felt contrived and it made my lip curl.  Being in the company of someone with artificial behaviour sets my teeth on edge (a proper visceral reaction which probably says something about me).  But if reality is just our perception anyway, where is the line between real and fake?

I’ve been struggling to write this blog, to define why it’s so important to me (I guessed that posting “Authenticity = Good, Affectation = Bad” probably wouldn’t cut it).  Not getting much help from the friends I tried to rope in hoping to pinch their thoughts, I went back to the beginning and checked the dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary defines affectation as “behaviour, speech or writing that is artificial and designed to impress; a studied display of feeling”, whereas authenticity is “the quality of being genuine”. So let’s start there:  affected behaviour doesn’t impress me, it’s authenticity that takes courage.

Looking around I see plenty of successful, inauthentic people.  So does it matter?  In the way that my reaction says something about me, the need to behave in such a studied and false manner tells us something about those who do it.  On my kinder, more generous days I can appreciate the possible insecurities behind it. But generally it just irritates me and I see it as a form of cheating.  OK so now I’m starting to understand:   perhaps I don’t mind ‘faking it until you make it’ because that’s a technique designed to help you feel better about yourself, whereas affectation is more to do with getting others to feel better about you but based on a falsity.

All of us present different sides of ourselves at different times, the side most appropriate to the occasion.  And it’s human nature to want to impress (possibly something to do with a primal need for security within a tribe or such like), but forming a genuine connection with another is hard enough without affectation undermining the value of our real selves.  How can you connect with someone who only presents ‘a studied display of feeling’?  But mainly it’s just annoying to be around.  An irritating interruption to the business of getting to know each other.