I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about this concept lately. It seems to come up a lot with people I know who are on a similar path as myself and I have heard it come up in yoga class as well. Being Authentic. What does that mean exactly and how authentic should one really be.
One day about 3 years ago my yoga teacher brought up the subject of someone asking you how you are doing. How is it that you respond? Do you give a knee jerk response and smile and say “great! and you?” when that may not be the case or do you check into yourself and respond honestly and be authentic. Maybe you really just aren’t having the best day, do you say that? It is something that I have been thinking about since then and I work on this on a regular basis. This same teacher walked into class a couple of months ago and said to me “Hey Bonnie! How’s it going?” and I was having a great day and I said “Great!” and he stopped and said “Really?” and I smiled and checked into myself and said “Yeah, I really am great today, why?” and he just said “just making sure”. A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready for class and one of the other students asked me the same question and I was having a really rough week and it had taken everything I had to get myself to class that day, so I said “I’m OK” with very little enthusiasm and she responded “Well! that wasn’t very convincing!”. I was a bit taken aback and since I wasn’t doing too well ,I responded somewhat sarcastically “Well, sorry!” I just didn’t think I should have to pretend to be good when I clearly wasn’t good.
I haven’t had to work on it from the angle of asking the question and really wanting to know. I really want to know when I ask “how are you doing”. It is one of my pet peeves when someone clearly gives the knee jerk response. Equally annoying are the people who ask and never wait for your reply, simply moving on. Why ask if you don’t really want to know? I have actually sat and paused and had people not even notice that I didn’t answer their question.
When it comes to being authentically who I am though, that is something that has come with time and as much as I do feel I am “what you see is what you get” I am finding lately that this may not be the case. It is interesting how I feel like I can write so openly about what is going on with me inside on this blog and I can talk to people pretty openly about things that have happened in my life, but there have been times that I haven’t been able to say what I really need to say to someone.
Recently my son went though some things that brought this up right into my face. Here is someone that I love more than life itself. My kids are my whole world and without them I really don’t know where I would be today. However I do find that at times it is hard to just be real with them. And who deserves that more? Who else is looking to me for so much. Why can I be open and honest with everyone but them? I think I need to hold it all together and be strong for them. It’s like I don’t really have the luxury of falling apart. Well, the situation forced me to get real. It forced me to talk to them about things that I had no idea how to approach and things that were pretty uncomfortable. There was a lot of fear of how many directions things could go wrong. In the end it worked out well that I had handled things the way I did and the situation actually brought us all closer together. It was through allowing myself to be real and reach out to friends and neighbors and admitting that I was in over my head with the situation that I was able to get through it the way that I did.
But how Authentic should we be? I mean, does the person who asks you how you are deserve to drown in your problems? Do your kids really benefit from every story of your childhood? Does everyone on Facebook really want to hear about your healing, your running, how much you like pesto and what exactly your garden is doing today? How much of all that is really who you are? Is it being unauthentic when you choose to hold back because you are scared to death of rejection even when the reality is that you don’t want to hold back at all. Would pushing past that fear actually be authentic or is it authentic to live in fear? Maybe you are just a fearful person and that is just as valid. Or is the authenticity in being open about that fear, about being transparent? Reaching out and talking to someone about how terrified you are. Allowing someone to witness you just as you are. How you really are.
One thing that I do know is that the more I make the choice to just be real I am always amazed at how many times people will comment that it helped them in some way. Being authentic and expressing your fear, allowing yourself to be fearful and to feel vulnerable can be very helpful. Not only for yourself in that expressing this might get you the perspective or help that you need to move through a situation, but also to the person who is able to witness and help. It can show each other that we are all struggling with things and maybe it is ok to be real and maybe not try to be perfect, but just be. Just be human. And for once just be ok with who you are in that moment.
Thanks for everyone who reads this, those who follow and those who don’t. Thanks for witnessing my reality and taking a peak inside. I know how much it helps me to reach out in this way and my hope is that in doing so it might reach someone and help them too. With much love ❤ thanks for reading.
