My T Talks of "Authenticity"

I have never felt inauthentic. I have felt wrong for that which is being me, but never that I was not me.

Sometimes I'm authentic when I'm eating pancakes and chocolate chip cookies, sometimes when I'm sweating it out at the gym. Eh, Hankster is always funnier.

Hey, don't blame me! (But thank you!!!) Sky, the OP, came up with the bbq chips vs salad choice. I'm just looking at it backwards, which is how it feels to me.

hmmm, no 'right'. I guess by bringing up that concept I'm muddying the waters of what the 'authentic' self means.

Maybe I was thinking that striving for what's 'right' is also a component of the 'authentic' self and should not be discounted in the search.

But, if it's just a mathematical equation, how much simpler life is. Hmmmm, but somehow I resist that simplicity.

But what if it feels better NOT to express honest feelings? Could a decision to NOT share also be considered authentic? For example if sharing feelings could cause hurt to someone, maybe it's more in line with the authentic self NOT to share?

hmmmm, but WHAT is selfishness? Isn't everything we do meant to make us feel better? Maybe sacrifices that convinces us that we're NOT selfish are indeed selfish because THAT'S how we can feel good about ourselves? And could we also not end our lives with regret that we didn't live to our full potential - potential to live a life more in line with our true selves? [but then again, I'm still trying to understand what that means - 'true' self.]

I think sometimes that we can begin to believe that the masks ARE us and it's so dang hard to remove them and uncover what lies beneath

Yeah, I think I sense what you mean. There ARE times when something feels so right that I cannot argue with it even with my exacting analytical mind.

What do *I* think being authentic entails? I am somewhat clueless. I guess like Anne mentioned - she knows it when she sees it but describing it is much more difficult. My problem is I'm not exactly sure I 'know' it when I see it.

So, I guess at some point we just KNOW?

Yeah, but I lie so well.

The answer may lie in this. Thank you.

This is so interesting. My T struggles to get me to access my feelings because she says they point to an authentic part of myself. I can analyze and 'think' nonstop. Give me an assignment and ask me to present conclusions in triplicate and I'm thrilled. YES, LET ME ANALYZE!!! Somehow or another, I suspect my thinking process is not the complete avenue to my own authenticity. Not sure though - thanks for your unput.

Oh yes, I get ya - When I've asked T "what should I DO?", she responds, "that's not the question to ask. The question is "who am I?"


Very lucky, it seems, that you have clarity in this arena.

It helps balance out all the arenas I have that are cloudy. I hope it becomes clearer to you.

Sure NOT sharing could absolutely be authentic. I don't believe that authenticity requires that you be an unfiltered fool, babbling to whoever will listen about your too-tight undies, your difficulty accepting your ex-husband's new lover, or how much you want to get even with your dead relatives. There's also a meaningful difference between sharing feelings that are along the lines of "you are a terrible bore" and something that has to do with you. I don't know if this is a good example or not, but it's been something that has been in my head, in T, and in conversation with the important people in my life lately. I have different pieces of the work that I do, and I recently decided that I'm going to give up certain kinds of cases because I just don't find them as satisfying as the other pieces of what I do. And because I want to make more time for a writing project or two that I'm really invested in. It feels like a very authentic move, because my reasons for giving these cases up are because they are not those that are most central to my "calling", they are really quite peripheral. And because the only benefit to them for me is money, and as far as my own sense of authenticity goes, money is much less of an important value than doing work that I love and making a difference in what I do. So to me it is about a decision that is authentic, and there is also authenticity in the process of coming to it and discussing it with others.

I don't know if that is useful at all to you, but that is what is evoked for me. I think that while it is important to think about others' reactions to sharing what's authentic to us, we have to realize that people will sometimes be upset or unhappy about what we share and that's okay. I had thought that maybe my H would be upset that I didn't want to cultivate more of these cases because he loves money, but apparently he cares more about my happiness than he does about how much I earn. If others are upset about who we are, well, that's their problem. If others are upset because we have given them upsetting feedback about themselves, well that may or may not be our problem and it may or may not be authentic to share it. If we are deliberately cruel or insensitive because we are so wrapped up in being authentic, then that's our problem.

But in general I think that sharing is more in line with authenticity and hiding who you are except for reasons of boundaries and privacy is not.

I was thinking more economics, not mathematics. They call it "opportunity cost". I'm kinda against calling one or the other choice "right", because my FOO has used that as an excuse to bully me into a particular action. While they do otherwise, of course! What I AM saying by calling it a recursive action, however, is that if you keep making small decisions and taking small authentic actions, I think you will find your authentic self emerging. That's why I try to encourage people not to fight their T, but to let their T help that self emerge. Easier said than done, I KNOW!!

ETA: I'm also saying, make the math harder by saying both choices are equally attractive, so you can't say to yourself, well A or eating chips is OBVIOUSLY bad. That would be cheating!

I guess what I was trying to say in my incredibly verbose and vague way (just like now in fact ), was that you don’t necessarily have to be ‘good’ or do the ‘right’ thing, to be authentic. That being authentic has nothing to do with external morality or taking care of yourself physically, which is how I read your food analogy.

The morality resides in being true to your own needs, wants and values and they may not be in any given moment what is seen by society as good or right or even acceptable. That’s where being authentic gets fraught and risky and can cause problems. When it clashes with other people’s perceptions of what is ok and not ok, or even if it clashes with your own perceptions of what is ok/not ok (think of the ‘dark side’, the Jungian shadow self…). We have a vested interest in not being ‘not ok’ and so it’s no wonder that working out what it is to be authentic is not the easiest thing in the world.

Sky you and me both, good with the intellectualising and understanding everything on what ends up being essentially, a pretty meaningless level. Satisfying and useful, but only takes us so far. I can see why feelings can be seen as deceptive, but only in the sense that they are not necessarily an accurate reflection of external reality. They ARE most decidedly, an accurate indication of one’s own truth, and one’s own truth is where authenticity resides. In that sense, both feeling and thought come together to give the experience that level of meaning that I take to be ‘just knowing’. Authenticity is never a guarantee of reality or certainty or external truth. Hm looking back over what I’ve written, I think I’m seeing authenticity as very much stemming from our emotional reality, not from the rational logical mind which is developed by and within the context of other people’s opinions values and beliefs. But then I also see authenticity as being who you really are, as distinct from who you are perceived to be or perceive yourself to be as an object in other people’s eyes.

LOL what I mean to say is, this is what I believe and it’s obviously based entirely on my own experience not on empirical reality. I couldn’t cite you research or anything, it’s just what I came up with when I thought about what you'd written. So though it sounds like I’m speaking from a know-it-all position, I don’t mean to say it like I’m telling some global universal truth. It’s just true for me.

Interesting topic too, hope you have some more thoughts on it .

Torn

Thanks Anne, Torn, SD and Hank for your comments. Food for thought.

As I continue to ponder this question - a question that is supremely meaningful to me because I may be making life changing decisions soon based on striving to live an authentic life - I am thinking about 2 other aspects that may tie into what authenticity is.

Could it be that if our behaviors and emotional reactions are dysfunctional because we are influenced by fear (or any of the emotions), then that 'fear' prevents us from living authentically? So, lessening the strong influence of negative emotions on how we live our lives will lead us to knowing ourselves better and accessing our deeper true selves?

I'll discuss the 2nd aspect I'm pondering for another time.