Are You Living Authentically?

How to create and live your dream life…

A few months ago a good friend of mine reached out to me asking me for my help as an empowerment coach because she was struggling with authenticity. I hadn’t heard of this before but the more details she described the more I understood - she had trouble sharing who she was. When I understood this, it resonated with me so much, because I had struggled with the same thing myself, and it took me years to get to where I am now - in a place and headspace where I am not only comfortable with who I am, but confident, and just fine sharing or not sharing what I choose to share about myself.

So what does it mean to live authentically?

I see it as living a life where you feel liberated to be, think, and act in a way that is unique to you. It’s having and sharing (if you choose to) your own opinions, without worrying about what others will think of you. Personally, I feel like in this day and age, it can be hard to live authentically - with the existence of social media, we are constantly bombarded with the thoughts and opinions of others, on top of whatever we grew up and were conditioned with. 

Even now, a year into my spiritual journey and three years into my entrepreneurship journey, I learn things about myself. Oftentimes realizing what I was conditioned to think and feel, even if I don’t actually feel that way. 

Now the most important question: How can you live authentically?

At the risk of sounding the most cliche, the answer is … stop caring what other people think and do what you want to do. At the end of the day, people really don’t care, and if you are living around other people’s thoughts and opinions, you’re not really living YOUR life, you’re living a life designed by, thought of, and facilitated by someone else. You can’t possibly care enough about someone to COMPLETELY alter your life, give up your dreams, your body, mind, spirit for…

But with this friend, I walked her through what she feared - was she afraid of what others would think? Or did it stem from something else? When she was growing up, did she feel safe to be who she was? Did she feel loved as she was? Or was she forced to be someone else in order to be loved and accepted. 

Those are very profound questions - sometimes it’s hard to face the truth of them too. We like to think our parents, teachers, friends, were all still looking out for us. But the truth of it is, that their truths may not be ours. In other words, what they believed, what their dreams for themselves were, their expectations cultural and personal, likely bled into your conditioning.

When you feel like you won’t be loved and accepted as you are, it’s in those moments you have to go back and look at your childhood, or younger years. What event occurred that made you feel this way? And once you realize it was never your fault for not feeling accepted, you are free to now replace that belief with a new one - and that is that you are absolutely loved and free to be, as you are. 

Here are a few journal prompts you can use to walk through:

Do I feel like I am living authentically? Why or why not?

What are my values and opinions? (You can be as extensive, broad, or deep with this one. But this one is where you get in touch with yourself)

What would living authentically look like?

What’s holding me back from living authentically?

What are my dreams? What’s my dream life?

Do I care what others think about me? Why?

When you were growing up, did you feel safe to be who you were?

Did you feel loved as you were? 

Or were you forced to be someone else in order to be loved and accepted?

Living authentically is living a life where you feel content with who you are, in whether you want to share who you are, and feeling confident and comfortable in sharing your life and who you are without fear of judgment. It’s also following and creating a life according to what you want. 

Don’t want that corporate job because you’re dreaming about running an online business and traveling the world? Do it. You’ll be miserable in corporate. 

Don’t want to have children but feel pressured by your parents to have them? Don’t do it, it’s your body and your life. You don’t owe anyone anything.

Want to move out of your city but are afraid of getting out of your comfort zone? Do it. Nothing amazing comes from staying within your comfort zone. 

And of course I understand there’s the fear - “what if people don’t accept me?” My dear, there are more than 7 billion people on the planet. You’re telling me, that among 7,000,000,000 people, you can’t find 1 who will love and accept you platonically or romantically? The odds are NOT in your favor for that. But I also believe that people who don’t like you...why would you want to be around them? Why would you want to spend time with people who either bore you, or are too much for you, or just in general don’t get you? That’s not the way to spend your time.

If you’re struggling with authenticity, reach out. Living authentically is the key to a happy life - unburdened by the dreams and opinions of others. I promise you.