Being authentic is being genuine, original and honest with ourselves.
Authenticity is being true to our personality and values regardless of any pressure imposed on us to act differently. This is when our actions, words, and behaviour matches our core identity. It gives us the reward of being true to ourselves since we don’t have to be worried about what we did/said or what we didn’t do/say because we know it was out of honesty. Authenticity comes with freedom since we can freely and openly speak up without fear or shame.
It is linked to power since it gives us the freedom to be authentic and choose to live on our own terms. This is because people know and understand what we’re made of, where we stand and what is important to us.
Authenticity requires courage because every move to being authentic exposes us to rejection and criticism. We have to face criticism to affirm our authentic selves.
There is no shame in being authentic. Shame makes us sacrifice our needs to accommodate others at our comfort’s expense, which limits our freedom to some degree.
When authentic, we tend to influence the people around us to be authentic, which in a way makes us feel emotionally accommodated since we have our emotional needs met.
We must be honest with our emotions first; then, we will be able to identify our needs. If we ignore our feelings, we become clueless about our needs, and we will not have them met because we don’t acknowledge them. We tend to feel stronger when honest with ourselves.
Here is what we have to do to be authentic;
Improve our self-esteem
We have to improve our self-esteem so that we don’t get triggered easily. Without self-esteem, we tend to take everything very personally, making us feel ashamed. In the same case, we get to express ourselves without shame openly.
We have to be confident enough to set boundaries and stick to them
Identify your needs, then communicate how we feel about them. Always communicate a boundary when a certain thing is directed to you and you feel triggered or disturbed to protect your emotional being. Our ability to set boundaries makes us feel stronger.
We have to be assertive enough in what we choose to do
When we can set limits and say “no” when we don’t feel like it, we become generous enough to take a “no” from someone else because we understand them, which builds a good connection between us. This also reduces the chances of feeling rejected whenever we get a no from someone else, whatever the case.
