What does it mean—this concept of authenticity? Does it mean that we reach a state of bliss in which we never allow ourselves to feel so-called “negative” feelings anymore? Does it mean that we always say what we mean, even to the point of dagger-like bluntness? Does it mean that we get to wear blue jeans to the corporate office because that’s what we want to do? Does it mean that we can disregard the wishes and boundaries of others because we are just being real?

Often, we don’t really know what authenticity means. We're enamored of the concept of “just be you," but we frequently don’t know who “you” is. As adolescents, we often believe that “being real” is anything that feels different from what our parents want us to do. As young adults, we often think that “being real” is “going after the dream,” even if we are unclear on what the dream actually is. In our mid-30s and early 40s, we may begin to explore a deeper meaning of the word “authentic.”

As we’ve written in other articles, we often wear a mask and costume that we put on early in life as a response to unspoken agendas projected onto us by our parents, our societies, our religions, etc. We often don’t even know we are wearing them. So, as we act and react in our worlds, we think we are responding to life in an authentic way. That’s just what we do. That’s just how we respond. That’s just “who I am.” We don’t know any other way of being than the rote way we just always respond to life.

Andrea Mathews

But when a crisis happens, when we just get older, or maybe we just get more disappointed in life, we might start asking different questions, through which we discover such things as deeper desires, dissatisfactions with jobs, careers, or relationships. Maybe we get itchy in our own skin. Sometimes we even say, “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

So begins the journey toward an authentic Self. It is the Self (capitalized for its emphasis on the deeper soul-like essence of who we are) that will slowly begin to dominate our choices, rather than the old mask and costume. Slowly, we will begin to challenge ourselves to dialogue with that deep essence so that we can hear it, listen to it, believe it, and act from it.

What does this mean about what we can expect from life as we begin to live more authentically? Does it mean that we will no longer have “negative” feelings? First, there is no such thing as a “negative” or a “positive” feeling—they are all just feelings. But there are some feelings that are more difficult than others. So, does it mean that we will be able to “overcome” these difficult feelings? This is one of the most confounding realities to decide upon in living an authentic life. We believe that once we start becoming more authentic everything is going to “get better.” And once life gets better then the feelings will be better, too. But what if our feelings are not always attached to our circumstances?

The truth is that you get better at handling life, life does not just get better. “Good” things will happen, and “bad” things will happen. Life will be life. There are some aspects of life that can be controlled and others that cannot be controlled.

We tend to believe that when we “become authentic” we will then be able to overcome not only our circumstances but our feelings as well. That we can, by the power of our choices, make everything “good.” Unfortunately, none of this is true. First, we do not “become” authentic. We are always in a process of “becoming” more and more authentic as we live and choose. Second, we don’t overcome feelings—we either allow ourselves to feel them, or we repress, suppress, or just stuff them.

Here’s what we can do. We can choose to deal with life as it happens. We can choose to stay in the moment. We can choose to listen to the Self and follow its urgings, its desires, its longings. We can open up to the colorful diversity of our own feelings—allowing them to exist. We can sit with those feelings in order to allow them to give us their authentic messages. We can listen to those messages, listening long enough and deeply enough to really suss out the most essential parts and then begin to act as needed. We can walk through life with openness—willing to be true to Self even as life acts like life.

Does that mean we will always “get it right?” No, I say the journey is more like two steps forward, one step back. But every time we take that step back, we find something we left back there that we needed. Further, it is also not true that we cease to suffer when we are in the process of becoming more authentic. But we can learn to be with our suffering as a loving friend would. We can learn to seek support and we can learn to self-soothe. If we can allow ourselves to be okay with these things—then guess what? We can live an authentic life.