Happy Monday Beauty!
I am so glad you are here. I don't feel like I tell you that enough. Really, if you are here, if you are reading this, if you are interested in learning to love yourself more deeply, if you are feeling called to be nicer to you, then I am over the moon that you are here, reading this. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you, for giving me the permission and space to send my words into your home or work or commute environment. I know there are a lot of beings out there vying for your attention, so thank you for giving me a piece of it 🙂
Lets talk about authenticity today.
I know it may feel like this subject has been beat to death lately.
There has been a surge of people and social media influencers who have come out to say that they feel that many out there in social media land are not being their true selves. That they are not portraying their lives in a factual or truthful way, but are rather expressing what they want you to see, what they want you to believe about their lives.
Macro Mirrors The Micro
What we are seeing in social media - in the larger and louder expression of where human conciseness is at at this moment - is a mirror for what is going on in the individual lives of everyone on the planet.
We are all, to some degree, portraying ourselves as something we are not (generally speaking, I am positive that there are people on this planet living fully authentically). We are all expressing to the world an image that is not in total alignment with what is truly going on under the surface.
For most, this is because what is going on under the surface is something we have rejected. Something we have deemed unworthy. That we feel if we were to share with the world, we would most certainly lose love, respect, friendships, jobs, credibility and so on.
What we have rejected will usually fall into one of two categories (And sometimes it will fit into both!):
1. Things that are painful/that we deem unacceptable: These are what we would generally call our shadows. Those aspects of our light that we have decided are bad or wrong, and thus are now showing themselves in their most dramatically negative light. You can read more about the shadow here, here and here. Some examples of these would be addiction, anxiety, depression, rage - all things that only exist because a portion of your light has been transmuted. We hide the things about ourselves that we have rejected, because we fear that if we were to show them, we would be further rejected by others.
2. Things that are ordinary: We tend to want to express only our highest of highs or our lowest of lows. The things that exist in the middle tend to be considered uninteresting, and therefor un-worthy of being shown to the world. We hide away any aspects of ourselves and our lives that may be seen as simply 'normal' for fear that these things will make us an invisible part of the crowd.
This kind of hiding who we really are, sets up a kind of vicious cycle that keeps us trapped in hiding.
The reason for this cycle is simple:
1. You decide you have things about you that must be hidden because you cannot accept them.
2. This causes you to act in a way that is not truly authentic to who you are. This inauthentic version of you comes out in two ways: A). You put on a false persona - either in a very mild or very extreme way - in the hopes that you will be someone that others like, B). Your 'Shadow' awakens, and this aspect of yourself that you have rejected rears its head as something negative.
3. You will work hard to repress this aspect of yourself, but it will bubble over every so often when the pressure of trying to push it down becomes too great.
4. From there, you will attract people into your life that vibe with the person you are attempting to be, and, generally speaking, do NOT vibe with who you really are.
5.This in turn creates reinforcement that it is not OK for you to be who you are, because you truly see and feel like if you were to be yourself you would be rejected by 'everyone.'*
6. You continue to hide yourself away, convinced that if you were to be truly you, that you would be cast aside and left to be alone forever.
*This concept is the idea of your 'generalize other' - most of us think that the opinions of the 10-15 people we spend the most time with are the opinions of the world at large. So if your circle of friends do not like people who are loud and opinionated, you will feel like EVERYONE hates people who are loud and opinionated. This is why it can be so hard to break out of decided upon social constructs, because to your brain rejection from your current circle of friends or family really does mean rejection by the whole world. In reality there are lots of people who love people who are loud and opinionated, but to you it will feel like those people do not exist, because you are not interacting with them on a regular enough basis to include them in your 'everyone.'
How To Break Out Of The Cycle Of Self Rejection:
Phase One: Loving Your Shadows
As the title suggests, breaking out of this web of self rejection is very much an internal shift before it is an external event. Before you decide to start speaking your mind with no filter, or showing the world your true colours, you must first take some time to explore your inner world in a private place.
You must start by facing your own shadows, and bringing them out to the light.
This work is not complicated, but it can be delicate and a little intimidating at first. I have written a post that contains a detailed process for shadow healing, that I highly recommend you check out Here.
Of course, this is not the only process for healing your shadows that exists! If you find something else that resonates with you on a deeper level, please feel free to follow that. The idea is simply that you begin to move towards seeing yourself in a new light. Seeing yourself as someone YOU can approve of, accept and love - just as you are, right here right now.
This internal shift is essential for living a life of authenticity.
Phase Two: What Lights You Up?
Once you have started to adjust your internal perspective of yourself - once you have started to remember that you are actually fantastic and have nothing to be ashamed of, you can start to follow your inner nudges towards things that light you up.
In this phase, you do not have to shift anything in your social worlds if you do not want to.
Simply start to tune into the messages your body and mind are sending you about what feels great for you and what feels not so great.
Consider the activities that make you feel excited or relaxed. Consider the people that feel exciting or relaxing to be around. Consider the subjects you could learn about that make you feel excited and or relaxed. Even consider the foods you could eat that make you feel excited or relaxed.
Also consider those things that make you feel tight and tense. Those people that make you want to cross your arms in front of your chest or crawl under the table. Consider the foods that make you cringe or the subjects you would rather poke your eyes out than study.
Now start to follow those feel good nudges, and start minding the ones that feel not so good 🙂 Rather than dismissing your intuition as silly, or not knowing where it is going to go and thus writing it off, start to honour and respect your authenticity by engaging in activities and relationships that make you feel awesome. A huge part of being authentic in relation to others, is allowing yourself to express your authenticity through how you spend your time and energy. Your body is your greatest source of information where what is authentic to you is concerned. Listen to it.
Phase Three: What Nourishes You?
Next, start to build time into each day where you do things that are purely designed to make you feel good. That are designed to help you unwind, fill up and release any excess tensions or strains.
These activities may be things like reading light books, or books with a positive uplifting message, listening to youtube videos by people that inspire you, taking a hot bath, sipping a cup of tea, writing in a journal - anything that fosters a deeper connection between you and yourself, and anything that reminds you that you are amazing and can be/do/have anything you want.
These kind of fortifying activities are not to be done with the intention of making yourself 'better.' These are not self improvement missions. In fact, they are just the opposite. They are designed to remind you that you are already perfect, already awesome, already exactly as you need to be - and now you just need to start feeling like it.Taking time every day to nourish yourself and feed your soul is something that will keep you on your most amazing, authentic path for the rest of your life - regardless of what those around you are doing.
There will always be reasons to abandon yourself. If you are taking extra special care of you and nurturing yourself every day, you will be far less likely to give into those kind of temptations.
Phase Four: Sharing With Those You Trust:
Now, if you have not started to do this already, it is time to start showing your true colours with those in your life you know you can trust. Again, you do not have to start sharing a whole bunch of things you have kept hidden to everyone in your life. But it is time to start sharing who you truly are with the people in your life you can trust.
Due to the fact that you have been exploring these things, you will most likely already be noticing that you are attracting more people into your circle that more closely align with who you truly are. Or you may be noticing that the people you have always had in your life are starting to show you more of who they are, which you may be seeing is more in alignment with your true self than you thought. Or perhaps you are noticing that the people you have had in your life for a long time are actually not so opposed to your true self as you may have previously imagined.
Be transparent with these people. Share with them your new found passions. Tell them about the things you actually do not like. Speak your mind more openly.
Phase Five: Full Blown Authenticity Mode:
Now that you have gotten to this phase, I am willing to bet you are WAY less afraid to be who you really are. In fact, you most likely do not even need any more words of advice at this point, because you are most likely feeling so confident in who you are, feeling so much like YOU like who you are, that the thought of your friends and family possibly rejecting you is no big deal.
You have found you again, and you have learned to love you. Or you are at least on the road headed strongly in that direction.
This is the love and approval you were seeking through changing yourself in the first place. Now that you have this love and support coming from within, it is less risky to be yourself, because you now know if people choose not to accept you, that this is no big deal! You can accept you.
On the flip side, you have most likely started to find that you are coming into contact with people who think your real self is fantastic more and more. You are now a perfect match to a loving, supportive community that has the ability to hold space for you to be you. Loud and proud.
Thus, you need outside approval less, because you are approving of yourself by acting like you approve of yourself and you are getting more external approval than you could ever have dreamed of before.
Funny how that works, now isn't it.
Phase Six: Shape Shifting Authenticity:
Remember, you are going to learn, grow, expand and change for the rest of your life (ideally.)
This means that who you are authentically today, may not be who you are tomorrow.
The biggest key here is that you give yourself room to grow, and that you give others room to grow too. Authenticity is fluid, not static.
There are totally parts of you that are going to be who you are, no matter what. Other things like your interests, your ideals, your goals - those are going to change. Making room for personal growth and change is the final and most important phase in the authenticity journey. Be you, and make room for you to be different 🙂
Thus concludes our journey into authenticity. If any/all of this sounds like it is too good to be true, that is OK. You do not have to believe it is going to work in order for it to work 🙂 Just start with phase one, and work your way through the steps. If you get all the way to phase five and still feel stuck, tell me. I honestly want to know. If on the other hand you find yourself in a whole new self loving reality, I want to know that too!
You are worthy of feeling like you can be totally transparent and loved for who you are.
It all starts with you loving you.
<3
