When you live from your intuitive core, your belly, your heart, let your soul lead and spirit guide you, your words and actions will be naturally subversive.

You will go to your edge. You will soften. Become wildly tender.

The question is, will you wholly inhabit your own revolution? In beauty? This inner revolution is a perpetual ceremony of the heart. It’s what you are for.

When you are real, cooked down to the essence, rather than half-baked to get approval, to look good, the projections from others may fly, seek you out, and try to stick to you. Don’t let them. Instead, let your authenticity support you in carrying on whole-hearted, vulnerable conversations to resolve whatever arises. It is hard work. Uncomfortable. Deeply human. Can be harrowing. And often downright amazing. Intimate. Naked. Courageous work is marked by our solid presence. Here. Now.

I’d rather be whole than good, C. G. Jung said. And by whole, he meant real, messy, ensouled, deeply human, heartbroken open with compassion flowing first to ourselves, to resource and prepare to let it flow widely, to others.

Being too comfortable, amenable, pliable to the point of contorting yourself — is a ticket to selling your soul right up the river. Don’t buy it. When you live from your own knowingness, from your gut and your wildly-rooted intelligence, you feel alive. Genuinely, creatively alive.

What is Your Authentic Self? 

Being real — true to your Self, your soul — is gritty. And grit causes friction, and makes fire to clear the way for living a revolutionary act. This act is marked by the action that the earth and the soul of the world are crying out for. And the cry is going to get louder, more pain-filled, and grievous before enough souls answer wholeheartedly.

When you get real, it is actually not about you. Your individual program is only the ground from which you step. From which you step and choose whether you will make this life of yours a walk of grit and beauty, or one of accommodation to the forces that insist you do it their way, be well-behaved, produce, consume, make nice, and as the poet, Mary Oliver says, “barely breathing and calling it a life.”

Thing is we’re not talking a self-improvement project; that’s only the gateway. We are being used, so to speak; one way or the other, we go consciously, or we are abducted — individually and collectively, now. So it’s a great time to dive in.

When we realize we have no choice but to offer ourselves up — like a sacrifice — to the mystery of being alive, this guidance insists on shaping us as a soul-centered contributor. And we’re in it! Soul’s got us. And the mystery carries us along. We’re goners to those egoic, mechanistic, competitive ways; the ways that have undone the earth and so many souls who walk the earth, swim her waters, send roots down into her, and watch from the skies.

To inhabit your own core, your vital, knowing center, and a soul-centered way of being, you need to do the inner excavation. What we call, in Jungian psychology-speak, Shadow work and in shamanic-speak, Underworld soul work, including ego-dismemberment work to heal old wounds and retrieve parts of your soul you had otherwise disowned or split off. We need these pieces of our souls, as well as aspects of our bodies, and our connection with Spirit, and with the earth, along with the Other-than-human-ones and wild intelligent forms of life — to feel deliciously alive, ready to roll, to care for our own souls and look out for others. 

This is real adult work, asking everything of you. And will alter your world completely, but before that happens you’ll be met with severing old ways, dismemberment, metaphoric death, dreams, visions — both lovely and horrifically heart-pounding, yummy, gut-wrenching, Beauty, raging tears, sweet snot, broken open heart, blue-shimmering darkness, warm, comforting light. Rebirth. Love. Hope. A deep sense of connection with it all. And a palpable knowing of what you are for.

So it’s a slow dive, a conscious descent into the depths of your soul, the dark ground of your being and your dreams: the Underworld of your psyche. This is vital work — no way around it — to discover what you’ve tucked away in the archetypal Shadow of your own psyche. If you’re lucky you will unearth what you had otherwise disowned to adapt to the egoic, mechanistic, competitive, earth-ravaging ways of modern Western culture. And most often, these pieces of your otherwise whole psyche that you had disowned are what makes you utterly You. Beautifully. Creatively. Wildly alive. Authentically so. You. And you are needed here.

Your essential soul’s powers — what you were born with before you lost track of them and they, you — are to be found there, in that excavation into your dark depths, awaiting you to carry them home like mama leopard carries kitties. With a fierce tenderness, knowing that all life — yours, your beloveds, the earth, humans, and other than humans — is at stake. The world needs you to be fully alive. Real. The world needs you to find, bring home, and embody your soul’s gifts and healing powers. It’s messy work. It’s what we are for.

When you are transparent, you will stand out as you are truly seen. When you are transparent, others can “see through” you into you as your heart and true essence shine. You are clear, direct, and kind. You are not an enigma; you don’t leave people scratching their heads wondering what you just said and did.

You do not hide. You are honest to the bone. You are courage enfleshed.

What Does it Mean to be Congruent? 

When you are congruent, you are wholistically aligned. What you think, say, feel in your heart, feel in your body, and your actions will line up to support and reflect each other. You know it in your body, often in your gut, when you put your attention there.

Congruent. Authenticity happens in the guts and bowels of your life. Being authentic is the grunt work of the soul, of any deeply human, spiritual path. Being half here, half there, half-hearted, faking it to look good, strategizing to make things easier for yourself — that’s the common way of the unconscious clotted middle, driven by our egoic, addicted culture. It’s a way that lacks wholeheartedness. Lacks real courage to let the heartbreak. Shatter. Broken whole and holy open to finally know compassion for self, others, and earth. To live and love — on fire, fully alive. 

Being authentic and soul-centered costs you your ticket to ride from the collective mainstream to the illusion of safety and security. And opens the door to your bloody and glistening, broken whole heart — reveals to you the honey of this wildly delicious, messy life. Leaves you and those you touch, feeling radically free. Without choice now. Solid and light. Authenticity strips away all that is NOT real. All that is not made from love, to love. All that is of enriched soul and in-spired Spirit remains. There is no living a soul-centered life without being authentic — without mustering the courage to do the excavating in the dark: the Shadow work.

Again, C. G. Jung: “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”

What will you do? 

We have been taught from a very young age that honesty is the best policy. We are taught to be honest in all our dealings, big or small. We are schooled never to lie. We are told repeatedly that honesty is the most important of all ethics. However, what people tend to forget to teach us is the importance of self-honesty.

Being true to yourself is very important. You can be honest with the world, but as long as you are not honest with yourself, you are not being fair. Give the most importance to what you think of yourself rather than what others think of you. You can justify to the world why you did what you did, but as long you are not honest with yourself, it can be difficult to find peace.

For example, an individual might treat someone unfairly to gain something that was not rightfully theirs in order to be looked well upon by others. But deep down, the person may know what they did was wrong.

If we can’t gather up the courage to be honest with ourselves, we may continue to exhibit the same behaviors. Self-honesty is a trait that holds immense importance.

What’s True Will Continue to Exist

Nothing in the world is constant. Everything changes. However, for something to exist forever, it has to be true and authentic. You are what your core is. No matter how much you coat it with colors to please the world, you will always be what you are at the core. Your core is your truth.

No matter how much you coat it with colors to please the world, you will always be what you are at the core. Your core is your truth.

You can pretend to be things people expect you to be, but when you are honest with yourself, you will be proud of who you are. You will portray your core without being afraid of what people think of you.

This is because, at the end of the day, you can hide your truth from the world but not from yourself. Being true to yourself is important if you wish to be proud of who you are.

You Become More Fearless

When you are honest with yourself, you accept your weaknesses and flaws. You may know what some of those are. You may know what you are capable of and what you aren’t capable of. With enough self-knowledge, people’s judgments about you can become less important.

You may become more fearless, because when you know your capabilities, the world and the opinions of others can’t put you down. If someone tells you that you can’t do something which you know you can do, your morale will likely stay unaffected, enabling you to continue towards your goals fearlessly.

You Gain More Clarity

You will have better clarity about the things you want in life when you are completely honest with yourself. Your real identity is something only you know, and it is most often up to you to decide what your life goals are. People may dictate your priorities for you, but you can be honest about your needs, your wishes, and your priorities with yourself, at least. With more clarity, you may be able to put in more effort and dedication to achieve what you wish for.

Relationships Become Healthier

Honesty is the foundation of any relationship. No relationship can survive without honesty. If you fail to be honest with yourself, how can you ever be honest with anyone else? If you hide the truth from yourself, how can you expect to share it with anyone else? It’s nearly impossible to be honest with anyone as long as you aren’t honest with yourself.

To have a long-lasting and a healthy relationship, you must ensure that you are offering the other person the ‘true you.’ Relationships thrive when their foundations are based on two people who are honest with themselves and each other.

Life Becomes Beautiful

We strive for a positive public opinion because we have started to believe that we are what people think we are. We try to hide our reality from the world because we think it might disqualify us from the ‘in-crowd.’ When you are honest with yourself, you start owning your reality, and you stop hiding behind the public opinion. The life you were previously trying to hide from everyone starts feeling beautiful.

Being honest with yourself can make life easier, less complicated, and a lot more beautiful. You become less dependent on others and more dependent on yourself. You start loving yourself with all your flaws, and that’s the turning point toward contentment and inner peace.

Some people experience strong feelings of self-rejection that make it difficult to pursue or appreciate their true self. If you’re having a hard time practicing self-honesty, it can help to speak with a licensed and compassionate therapist.

I always find it interesting, from both an ethical and clinical standpoint, that for many people, truth has degrees. There appears to be a spectrum of truth that people see. There is a field of gray between the black and white of “Is this true or not?” This goes for people I know personally as well as those I see in therapy.

What is truth? This is an age-old question. The answer tends to differ, depending on the person you’re asking. As humans, we seem to be able to justify anything. We may make up reasons or excuses to skew the truth or bend the reality of a situation to fulfill what we’re trying to accomplish. We might do this to clear our conscience, ease a sense of shame, or diminish our accountability.  In other words, things are “true” as we perceive them to be true.

What about authenticity? To be authentic means to be genuine, real, true to yourself. There’s that word again: true. To be authentic in a relationship means being real and true to your partner as well as yourself. When we are authentic, we are reliable and trustworthy. But we may each have our own versions of truth, and what we present as authentic, in this scenario.

The Identities We Construct

It never fails to amaze me how many secrets a person can keep from their partner, and for what reasons. My counseling practice for couples contains a “no secrets” policy, and I make couples seeking help aware of this. [fat_widget_relationships_right]

Couples that come for counseling often have many layers of identity. They may present an altered version of themselves that they’ve created to get through their lives. The version of themselves they show to their partner may be far from genuine. Over the years they’ve constructed various personas: parent, employee, friend, child, and partner. These roles can come to feel like the true self. In other words, they become what they have made of themselves.

These personas are often a coping mechanism. They are a form of protection for those who are highly sensitive or easily wounded. People learn to construct an identity that helps shield them from further injury or trauma. They rely on this persona, which may change depending on circumstances, to hide their vulnerability.

This works in some situations, but it fails in others. When people show an edited version of themselves to the world, they often fail to develop areas of personality where they feel weak. As a result, they may not be able to fully evolve, or develop into full personhood.

When someone presents only a constructed version of the self to their partner, no matter how secure they are in the belief they are are being themselves, the relationship may lack an authentic emotional connection.

An edited persona can offer a sense of protection, so people may live under this pretense well into adulthood. An inauthentic self, or multiple selves, can make it easy for a person to adapt to any situation or circumstances. But living this way can create stress, self-doubt, and uncertainty about the future. People are also likely to worry a partner may not be able to love the “real” person inside, if they only know the “false” persona.

Living as a chameleon can cause a person to lose sight of their true nature. What’s more, the relationship itself is less authentic and vulnerable. Connection is important in relationships, both to create a sense of security and allow partners to be honest and vulnerable with one another. When an authentic connection is lacking, the relationship may feel unbalanced and off-kilter. Instead of simply being the best version of themselves, each partner is trying to be the best version of themselves for their partner. But when someone presents only a constructed version of the self, no matter how secure they are in the belief they are are being themselves, the relationship may lack an authentic emotional connection.

It can then become harder to remain focused on the relationship as a priority. Interactions can become strained, and conflict may become more frequent and more difficult to resolve. When conflict occurs, there are many layers to peel back, so getting to the real issue or heart of the matter becomes a challenge.

Working Toward Authenticity

When times get rough and the relationship faces challenges but has no resources to draw on, the constructed persona can begin to crumble under the pressure. The relationship begins to come apart because it has no basis in a real and vulnerable connection.

But repair is not impossible! Couples who seek help to address the problems and fix the relationship, trusting their partner to love who they really are, flaws and all, may find themselves learning to become more authentic and honest.

In therapy, this process can involve stripping away layers of persona to find the real truth (or self) underneath. As these constructs fall, the hidden self comes out. What is left is the raw, vulnerable person who has a real yearning for an emotional connection. All they want is to fix the issues in their relationship. They have a real yearning for an emotional connection. They learn to love that rawness in themselves and their partner. This can take their relationship to a completely new level.

When people decide to be that authentic with one another, it can be a total game-changer. When people learn they can love (and be loved!) for who they are, truly and authentically, they change.  The conversations change, and the emotions deepen. All of those varying faces a person has shown can be seen as parts that merge into a whole person, once they become vulnerable and authentic to their core.

So the real truth, as I see it, is that there’s only one truth. There’s only one of us. Who we are and who we will become when we are vulnerable, raw, and authentic—that is a truer version of ourselves than we’ve ever known before. Yes, it can be hard, painful, and frustrating to break through to this truth. But what I hear from the people I work with, more often than not, is that doing so is worth all of this. It’s worth everything to live a genuine and authentic life, to have a true relationship with one’s partner.

But this transformation is only possible with a deepened commitment, not only to one’s partner, but also to one’s own self. We must be willing to see it through and live that authentic life. If we can withstand the process, the results can transform us.

If you are finding it difficult to become more authentic, with yourself or with your partner, a compassionate and qualified counselor can help you begin.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day regarding authenticity—a value that I place close to my heart. It seems, in these times of “fake news” and the questioning of the integrity of many of the systems around us, the idea of living an authentic life is sometimes met with a shrug.

Our society is built around the façade of masking our true selves to please others, to build our “brands,” and to be the face of whatever role we are playing in that particular moment—parent, partner/spouse, worker, boss, coach, friend, neighbor, caregiver. No matter what is actually happening inside us or in the other pieces of our life, we are taught to compartmentalize each section in order to be successful.

[fat_widget_right]

As a clinician, I am able to see the effects on those who have to put on these masks, to the detriment of their inner happiness. I see the toll it can take on those who feel pressured to act as if they are a certain way, feel a certain way, or believe a certain thing that isn’t a reflection of their true self.

It can be heartbreaking.

It hurts to see a spouse pretend she has been happy for years in a stagnant marriage because she couldn’t stand the idea of judgment from being vulnerable with peers or family members.

It can be devastating to watch someone realize their shallow friendships are the cause of a deep feeling of loneliness despite constantly being around people.

It is horrible to see someone’s creative energy drained by a workplace that expects a happy face and a butt in a chair regardless of their ideas and desire to better serve.

So how can we better connect with who we are—even when there is a role to play?

There is often a fear of being authentic, especially within relationships. From a young age, we are told to “just be ourselves” without any additional prompting of who we are or should be. So often, we try to figure out who we are based on who everyone around us is, and how they respond to us within a situation. We spend our adolescent years “trying on” different identities, and then just going with the pieces that are accepted by those around us.

So when we are “being ourselves,” we are actually often being the person that the world has molded us into, for better or for worse.

When you can put responsibilities and roles aside to spend time doing things that fill your cup, you have more energy to spend on those responsibilities and roles over the long term—and they are less likely to suck you dry.

As adults, we get sucked into our routines with career and family life, often to the detriment of our creative minds and physical bodies. We begin to identify with those roles, often forgetting about our true value systems and the ways our idealist younger selves wanted to impact the world.

When processing with people in therapy about self-care, it can be revealing to talk about that idealist younger self. What did they love to do? What kind of people did they enjoy being around? What did they want for their future self? How are they different from who they are now?

While we often think of self-care as sitting in front of Netflix or getting a manicure, the most impactful self-care is finding ways to get back to our true identity and being authentic about what that looks like.

In other words, our responsible adult selves are good at taking the fun out of things.

If we go back and revisit that younger self, we often can find pieces of our identity that we can bring back into the picture to give ourselves more joy.

For example:

• If you enjoyed creating or spent time just listening to music as a child, or wrote short stories for fun, those are things that could bring a note of authenticity back into your life. In taking time for yourself to create in this way, you can bring more enjoyment into your life.
• If you were an athlete, but now find yourself at a desk job, you may want to find ways to incorporate the sports that you loved. Even if you can no longer physically play those sports, coaching them—or finding another way to be involved—could help you to reconnect with who you are.

When you can put responsibilities and roles aside to spend time doing things that fill your cup, you have more energy to spend on those responsibilities and roles over the long term—and they are less likely to suck you dry.

Learning about who we truly are, what we enjoy, and what really brings us to life can make those self-care moments go so much further. Because if you’re going to take time away to focus on doing something for yourself, it should be something that truly brings you joy.

If you’ve lost touch with who you really are, meeting with a licensed therapist may help.