Authenticity – a way of being, rather than a destination

When we think of authenticity, most of us think of ‘being yourself’ but aren’t we, by virtue of being ourselves, always being ourselves? What ‘self’ are you being when you’re ‘being yourself’? and what other self are you being when you’re NOT being yourself?

It’s maybe not so simple. In the wellbeing research, authenticity is a concept that in unifying in a sort of ‘one ring to rule them all’ way. That figuring out authenticity might be not just a significant piece but the single most important piece to lasting wellbeing, very fascinating. Let’s look at a few conceptualizations and a few ways to explore cultivating a little more authenticity in our lives.

 (I love looking at how different researchers and writers define terms because that’s how they frame what it is they’re attempting to measure and how they measure it.)

One interesting model* describes 3 main components that exist within social contexts that may include pressure to be a certain way or to navigate smoothly.

The 3 components are:

1) the actual physiological things you are experiencing: what’s happening in your body;

2) your awareness of the things that are happening internally (physiology, thoughts, feelings, motivations);

3) actual behaviours, actions and emotional expression in the world

When these things are not aligned (or the outside pressure gets in too much), self-alienation occurs. When there is alignment - authentic living! Woohoo! My favourite part of this model is the embodied component of authenticity – it’s not something to do, it’s something you are, naturally, when body, mind, and action line up.

A second model** describes a 4-component model of authenticity.

1) awareness – knowing and trusting your feelings, thoughts, motivations, strengths etc;

2) unbiased processing – basically not fooling yourself, minimal denial, fairly objective and accepting regarding your strengths and weaknesses as a person;

3) behaviour – acting in alignment with the things you aware of not to please others or for outside motivations;

4) a relational orientation – not being ‘fake’ in your relationships, sharing the real you including flaws, valuing honesty and open communication.

As you can see there’s a fair amount of overlap, emphasis on self-awareness, behaviour, and interpersonal influence. My favourite part of this model is the unbiases processing component. This part can be a journey to get to because we need to cultivate the compassion to truly see ourselves without layers of judgement on top.

When we look at these two different models, we can see some similarities and a few differences, and it can help us have some sense of what we’re talking about when we talk about authenticity (something more tangible that “be yourself”) and can help us figure out where to begin if we want to start working towards greater authenticity. My personal philosophy is that authenticity is an orientation, rather than one specific target to land at. It’s developing a way of being where we start having greater awareness of our internal compass, more attuned compassion for the ways we have all self-alienated and become disconnected from ourselves, and a gradual peeling back of the layers of where our motivations, beliefs, and narratives have come from.

My 3 favourite places to start:

1.   Connecting to the body – when you have a feeling or thought going on, start to notice what you feel in your body. If you are stressed, how do you know? What do you feel, what does it feel like, what do you think that’s about? In the first model above, this connection between physiology and consciousness of inner processes is a powerful one; again, it’s gradual and there are some great ways to start practicing, but it can start as simple as “where do I notice that?”

2.    Notice what it feels like when you are ‘fake.’ Yes, we are slightly different in different circumstances and it makes sense that different sides of you come out at different times, but get curious about the times when you’re being a bit too fake for comfort and notice the people and situations where you don’t feel like to have to be fake. Gradually, in the relationships that are safe, we can bring more of our true-self and less of our fake-self to the party.

3.     Engage in ongoing self-reflection with curiosity and compassion. We can pursue the self-development process with too much self-judgement and be hard on ourselves for ways we would do things differently than we did in the past, etc. We need that blameless discernment in order to see things clearly (aka unbiased processing).

I hope you found this interesting! Authenticity is one of my favourite topics to explore.

If you want to engage in some curious self-awareness, check out my workbook, it’s free here

Xo

Martha

*.     Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of counseling psychology, 55(3), 385.

**    Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M. (2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, 283-357.