Being Authentic

Authenticity is a highly valued idea. We all see that as good quality – in others.

And then we thrive to be authentic as if it’s something hard to do.

Ironically, it should be the easiest thing to do, because all children naturally know how to be authentic. We choose to get out of authenticity because we were taught that we needed to take care of others’ feelings as if others’ feelings were our responsibility. We have to be “nice”, to not hurt others – I’m not asking you to hurt anyone, but when “not hurting others” becomes a standard, it can be used and manipulated by others to get us eventually out of our authenticity when you choose to buy into it.

Authenticity actually doesn’t mean how we are in the world. It first foremost means being absolutely true and honest with oneself. It means having trust in oneself. It means not doing things because of how other people perceive them or your concern about how they perceive them, but because it’s important to you. Authentic is about YOU.

The grown-up mind has made what’s simple complicated, probably because we learned how to look outside of us, situations, and other people.

Some think being authentic is not telling lies, being good, doing the right things, the good things – the good-girl, good-boy syndrome. We have been programmed to think in those terms. But where does that concept of being a good girl, being a good boy really come from? It may just come from other people who want to keep you in line, who want to keep you doing what they want you to do. It has nothing to do with being authentic. It has something to do with control. It gets ingrained in us over and over again in the early years.

But we really don’t have to act that out anymore. It is not being authentic, that’s just following old programming that came in from somewhere else.

Authentic is being true to oneself, from the inside out. Some set up this whole series of complex things in life, what you think is right and wrong. There is a list written down in your head for you to be a “good person” – Things that you have to do in order to become worthy of loving yourself.

But funnily that list that you have in your head, you cannot achieve it and still be happy. Working with so many people from different walks of life for so many years I can say this: That list is unachievable.

So you might as well get rid of it right now.

It is not authentic to think that you have to be a certain shape or form, or literally, weight, as an example. That is a lie and a deception and very misleading and is causing many people many traumas. And you’ll not be able to fulfill it, because you focus on “I will only be good if I weigh a certain amount.” That is a cycle, and you can never weigh that amount because even if you reach it for a short period of time you’re going to go right back into cycles, you’re going to balloon out again. It is a self-perpetuating cycle, and weight is not the issue. It’s a distraction, and you’re not being authentic with yourself if you think that you have to be a certain weight.

Some tell themselves that they have to have a certain amount of spiritual enlightenment to be authentic and that is a great trap. They believe that they have to read all this material, study all these disciplines, go to all these classes, and do what the great masters did.

But that’s when they are not being authentic with themselves. They are actually sabotaging themselves by saying “I have to keep studying in order to be spiritual. I was bad. I’ve been told I was bad. So I have to keep studying and disciplining.” No. They will never get there. It’s only when you become authentic and do things for yourself, FOR YOURSELF, that you become authentic.

New age spirituality, in many cases, and religion, are very unauthentic. It is filled with all sorts of rituals and rhythms and obligations and rules and old words. And you can study these forever, only to chase your own spiritual tail. You don’t have to do it because you think they have to. Maybe you have been led to believe you have to do all this studying. That’s not being authentic.

What IS “authentic”? It is just being yourself.

Now I know these words are hard for some to hear. Do it for yourself, because you’ve always been told NOT to do it for yourself – How dare you to be selfish? But only until you do it because it is right for you, are you authentically true.

Rules are meant to control. Nothing wrong with them. But it is not authentic. Doing it for others because you feel obligated to do it for others is not authentic. Studying scriptures because you’ve been told this is the way to get to heaven is ignoring your own inner voices therefore it’s not authentic.

A lot of people’s God isn’t authentic. It was out of a book. It was fiction written by somebody else.

You are meant to free yourself because nobody else will do it for you. This is your simple truth. Not a bunch of esoteric jargon. Not anything to try to impress other people. Not to see how many degrees you can put up on the wall. Not to see what other people can say about you to pump you up. That is not authentic. That is feeding in the wrong place.

Have no need to impress anyone. None of the outside, none of the rules, none of the expectations that have been placed on you matters.

Now this sounds very selfish, doesn’t it? But you’ve been led to believe that you always have to do everything for everyone else and then, in the end, you are useless to everyone because you are burned out, you are so confused about who you are. You’re the antithesis of authenticity. So you really, in the long run, don’t do anyone else any good when you are always doing things for them.
Love your family. Love friends, but no need to try to impress any of them. It matters not what anyone else thinks about you, but that is exactly why they love you! When you are authentic with yourself, when you learn to truly fall in love with yourself, everyone else will be attracted to that. They will see that purity that you have. They will see your essence.

The authentic part of you is the charming part. It is the charismatic part. You don’t have to create that charisma, you don’t have to design and develop it. It’s the natural part that people are attracted to. When you are authentic with yourself, they are attracted to it.

Authentic is letting go of the things in your life that are false, and that really doesn’t mean anything. Society, in general, is under such a hypnotic overlay that they forget about what’s really important. They get very unauthentic, very distracted, doing everything to try just to get by. Doing everything to either please others or to keep others from getting upset with them. That is not authentic.

Speaking of authenticity, some call the part relating to their divinity the Higher Self. What about calling it your Authentic Self? It is truly the greater expanded Being that you are. While we’ve been so focused on this human aspect, let us not forgot, who we truly are, authentically.
This isn’t any grand spiritual mystery. It is common sense, about being authentic. So we get off the cycles in life that trap us.

We do not need to figure out the words or get philosophical with the words. Come back to the essence and the core. You will know.

Maybe I’m using some extreme words and examples here. But part of me being authentic is being extreme.