Why Does Authenticity Matter?
It can cost you everything...it did for me.
Hi friends,
I think I had an overambitious goal of writing every week when I started these letters while also running my web design business full-time. Don’t worry, the HCR letters are continuing, but they may go bi-weekly now so I don’t burn out and start writing gibberish. Although that could be entertaining to some degree…
Beginning of the end sounds a bit dramatic last time, huh? In many ways, it truly was, but it was also the beginning of something new and lasting - the deep dive into discovering my true self and letting that self shine.
I talk about authenticity A LOT. It’s the cornerstone of my work in The Heart-Centered Rebel™ and all that I do. So much so that I consider it the first tenet of being a heart-centered rebel. But when I sit down to define ‘authenticity’ I often find myself struggling with articulating the intangible feeling - that sense of knowing or our ‘ownedness.’
I’m in love with that word - ‘ownedness.’ In philosopher Martin Heidegger’s book written in 1927, “Being and Time,” to explain authenticity, he coined the term “Eigenlichkeit” which is a fusion of Eigen, meaning ‘own,’ and Keit, meaning ‘ness.’ Putting it together, it means ‘ownedness’ or ‘being one’s own self.’ For me, it describes authenticity perfectly.
Authenticity matters. Being yourself, I believe, is the true key to happiness. However, authenticity is an evolving journey, not a once and done. It’s not like you stand up and say, “Okay! I’m authentic now!” and move on with your life. Although, in some ways, that’d be nice if it was so easy.
Pauline E. Leonard, who wrote about navigating the road of authenticity that “[b]ecoming authentic is a process, a journey, not an end in itself; it is an inner and outer journey and requires a continual examination of one’s multiple identities within the context of the communities in which one lives, works, and interacts” (Leonard, 2005, p. 7f).
Our true selves will evolve with different situations we encounter, new things we learn (or unlearn), new experiences - everything we process in life will ultimately change us in some way.
Authenticity matters because if we aren’t our true selves, we lose ourselves. We lose the very essence of our being. Our authenticity is our essence and when we deny our essence, our internal being, we die - literally and figuratively. We suffer physical, emotional, and mental pain. Life loses its purpose.
The tough part is that authenticity requires vulnerability which opens us up to the emotional pain of rejection. We’re afraid to be judged for who we really are. Altering our behavior, ideas, thoughts, choices, etc. for the sake of conformity, to be accepted by others, restricts us from true happiness. People who pretend just to fit in, have a difficult time making meaningful connections with others. If you are accepted for who you’re pretending to be, you will never feel accepted for who you really are. Close relationships are difficult to form and the absence of close relationships drains our soul.
I got married young in life. I was 21 and he was 20. I was a junior in college. He was in a band and working full-time. As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in a conservative religion and went to a Christian college based on the same Nazarene religion. While the college liked to think it was more liberal than other Christian Nazarene schools (especially in the art department where I spent most of my time), it was a facade.
There was this immense pressure put on young women at the college that *this was it* - this was the place you were supposed to find your Christian husband, marry, go on and have the 2.5 kids, involve yourselves in the Church continually, and live a happy, Christian married life. If you didn’t find “Mr. Right” at college, you may be shit out of luck. It may not have been overtly stated, but it was definitely subliminally pushed. My college friends were finding their soon-to-be spouses, hooking up, and getting engaged quickly. At times, it was a whirlwind. There’s even a joke in the Christian circles that a woman goes to a Christian college for their “Mrs.” degree (that joke is still very prevalent today).
I didn’t date many guys throughout high school or college. I was always selective about who I spent my time with. As an INFP, I prefer to make deeper connections with a few people rather than be the life of the party (or the dating scene). This doesn’t mean I didn’t date (as several people thought) - I did - but I preferred to only date guys that I felt had the possibility of being a life partner. This aspect of my personality and preference wasn’t the most accepted by my peers. Often I was asked if I was gay, a lesbian, did I hate men, was I snob, was there something wrong with me, and had friends always trying to set me up on blind dates thinking I needed the help (which is ironic considering most of my friends were guys at the time).
Like so many times before, I had to shove my true self down inside me because I was told it wasn’t the way I was ‘supposed’ to be. I didn’t want to be the one that everyone thought was a loser because I hadn’t found a husband at college. I questioned myself intently on whether or not something WAS wrong with me because I didn’t date a ton of guys. I wanted to fit in, to belong, to be somebody special that was accepted by others. So I agreed to one of those blind dates.
That blind date turned into many dates, to the point of excluding many friends. They were accepting and chalked it up to ‘new love.’ What we all didn’t realize at the time was the beginning of control and isolation. We got married one day after our one-year dating anniversary. Did you get that? Our one-year dating anniversary was the day before we got married. Talk about a whirlwind!
From the point of engagement, until the day I got married, I always felt an unease, a sense that maybe this wasn’t the right decision. But I squashed it thinking it was a part of me that was ‘wrong, melodramatic, emotional, and naive.’ Everyone was so excited for me that I was getting married! I suddenly had a bunch of new friends because of my association with him. I felt like I was ‘somebody’ rather than a nobody. Yet, those friends weren’t my friends. The friends I had before him were pushed away, quietly, sometimes loudly. I was told they weren’t good for me, that they were the wrong influence. Their calls went quiet. Our friendships fizzled.
It became a thing that if I had a ‘new’ friend, there had to be a boyfriend or male spouse that he could be friends with, too. Having single friends wasn’t appropriate. Having male single friends even less so. It became easier to let him make the friends. I was the good, Christian, submissive wife who supported him and let him ‘lead the household.’ When he made friends with couples, I had a defacto friend in the wife. Whether I liked them or not, I made nice.
I could be funny, smart, artistic, whatever I wanted, as long as it didn’t make him look bad or go against his (our?) beliefs. I couldn’t be ‘too much, too artistic, too emotional, too invested, too myself’ because it threatened his ego and his patriarchal religious belief system. When I was asked a question, he spoke for me. When I was asked to go out with a friend, he gave me permission (or not). When I needed or wanted to buy something, again I had to ask permission. For large financial decisions, it was between him and his father. My view or input didn’t count. When I had a miscarriage, he went to work instead of with me to the doctor because it was my problem, not his.
After 4 years into the marriage, I began to realize my true self had died.
I smothered my true self because I was told I wasn’t good enough, special enough, or loved enough when I was my true self. I became an empty shell that had nowhere to be my true self anymore. After the miscarriage was when I realized how much of my inner essence had died. My ‘ownedness’ no longer existed. I was ‘otherness.’ I was him. I was everyone else. I was the people pleaser who had no voice, no opinion, no purpose other than to exist for others.
It took someone coming alongside me to find my voice again. To rediscover my ‘ownedness’ and know that “I matter.” The more I became my true self, the worse my marriage and so-called friendships became. After 6 years of marriage, we divorced, and literally every. single. person. walked away from me, including my parents. This is not an exaggeration. Because I chose authenticity over trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be, I lost everything, including my home, my job, my income, my health insurance, my belongings, whatever I used to call my life was gone. Poof.
One of the things I learned through all of this and what came after during two incredibly difficult years of relearning my ‘ownedness,’ is that being authentic comes from within and is subject to one’s own view of oneself rather than from external sources. To be authentic means simply being true to oneself regardless of the pressure you might feel from friends, family members, colleagues, and wider society to be a certain way. We are only able to be truly authentic when we include ALL parts of ourselves.
Since being authentic is something that comes from within, it is only possible to be more authentic by paying greater attention to the fundamental beliefs we have that lie at our core. An authentic person has to operate in a way that is consistent with what they think and feel at the most fundamental level. What is authentic and true for me, may not be for you. This means that being authentic is not something that can ever be taught. But it is something you can choose to express and explore through various ways.
I’ll end with a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that I think says it all perfectly.
”To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Love,
K
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