Being True to Yourself
Living as the person you know yourself to truly be is like going shoeless. Your toes are unconstrained and free to feel the ground, yet exposed to all the dangers of the elements. The pursuit of an authentic life, in all its barefoot bravery, begins with the inward odyssey of knowing who you are.
“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
- Baruch Spinoza
Self Discovery
We are not born with self awareness. It is a gradual realization that we are separate individuals, like the empty pages of a diary waiting to be filled with people and experiences. Our real selves are influenced first by parents and friends, later by teachers and employers and coming full circle in marriage, parenthood and old age. For most people, who they are is a composite drawn by other people.
“Real confidence comes from knowing and accepting yourself–your strengths and your limitations–in contrast to depending on affirmation from others.” – Judith M. Bardwick
The Courage to Paint Your Own Portrait
University of Georgia social psychologist Micahel Kernis scientifically describes authenticity as “”the unimpeded operation of one’s true or core self in one’s daily enterprise.” Easy for science to proclaim, but, in order to be true to yourself, how do you first reach the real you?
- Awareness – An honest evaluation of your good, bad and uglies leads to self-awareness. This entails not only knowing what you like and dislike, but trusting that your choices, your feelings, your reasons and your abilities are all true to your own nature.
- Limits – There are things we may wish to do that we are really able to do and other things that we dream of doing that are not realistic. Without taking a defeatist attitude, self-assessment must include permission to explore our greatest strengths while tempering that knowledge with understanding and accepting our weaknesses.
- Behavior – Blending what you know about yourself with everyday actions may be a difficult task for fear of rejection; however, permitting rather than masking behaviors that align with your real identity, is a harmony that is necessary for authentic living.