Living Authentically, with open wings
by Alfonsina Betancourt
Blame it on my artist’s heart but there has always been a certainty in me that the only road to happiness comes from living as authentically as we can. Hiding behind a more acceptable persona seems like an incredibly expensive prison. But sometimes honesty and transparency come with a very high price tag as well. I used to believe that those who live portraying an image of who they are not, to be liked by a group of people who don’t even like themselves, had to be in constant anguish. The fear of someone holding a mirror in front of them should be terrifying. And then there are all the lies and all the schemes that need to be strategized in order to support that unstable structure. Nope, too much work for me!
photo: @veronezcaroline
But then I realized how much courage, how much strength it takes to live authentically and I discovered that veracity was not exactly an easy road either. There are internal voices, society rules and expectation, unspoken commitments to keep connections no longer valid, and then our own insecurities that make living in full honesty an unsurmountable task.
The difference is that when we decide to be cohesive between who we are and who we portray to be, our souls thrive. Lies are the pesticide that kill any connection we have with our soul. How are we supposed to hear what our hearts have to say if we keep playing sirens’ songs that are anything but real? When we start pretending we don’t hear our soul’s desires, those desires become like unruling weed, expanding without ever bearing fruits or flowers.
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
— Carl Jung
So, we might decide we are done with the masks and start living authentically. Now what?
There are certain steps we can take to allow us to bring authenticity to every aspect of our lives.
Don’t hide: Yes, that means, no hiding any parts of yourself. That does not mean that you need to be an open book with the whole world and go on an Instagram rant about who you are (although if that helps you, please go ahead). It means that when it is appropriate, you bring a part of yourself that is true to the world. Sometimes that implies that there is a part of yourself that you keep private, but whatever part comes out needs to pass the “no bullshit test”. It also implies, that most parts of yourself will be seen by someone else, and hopefully you will have several meaningful connections who can see it all.
photo: @kmitchodge
2. Don’t get small: Clipping our wings in order to fit in into a small space is spiritual suicide. If someone is not ready to embrace your whole light, run away if you need to, but don’t become smaller. Being authentic means accepting you in your greatness. How the world perceives that is not your business. That does not mean we engage in a comparison game in which you determine if you are bigger than someone. That is arrogance, not authenticity. It is being cohesive with your whole potential.
3. Don’t be ashamed of who you are: We are no perfect, and especially we are no eternally good. We fault, we make mistakes, we screw up big time. We are supposed to, we are human. Making a mistake does not make us terrible people, it makes us humans. Let’s embrace our whole in full totality. We can’t be authentic while we deny parts of ourselves.
4. Speak you truth, always - and that does not mean you need to become an asshole: Brutal honesty is everything but honesty. It is poison disguised as truth. When we intend to live authentically, we recognize the areas where we disconnect from others. Recognizing our differences is healthy. Adding judgement to them, it is not only very dangerous, it can lead us to more disconnection. When we treat the truth as a gift, we don’t use it as cake intended to be thrown into someone’s face; we share it an enjoy it slowly. Living in coherence with our souls, we learn to disagree with kindness as in the other side of the phone line there is an actual complex human being. There is never a justification for becoming assholes. In fact, I think that when we insist on being judgmental, rude critics we are actually trying to deny parts of ourselves that get triggered and that unwillingness to see inside disconnects us from our truest selves and others.
photo: @matthardy
photo: @matthardy
5. Allow space for change: Our souls are not a set of commandments written in stone. Even when our essences tend to remain intact, there are an immense variety of moving parts of our persona that are meant to evolve. Living authentically implies we are constantly checking where and who we are at the moment; it is remaining fluid through the changing tides. Defying those changes do not allow us to live authentically if the version of who were were has expired.
6. Fire the ego: Ego is one of the worst advisors we could ever get. It makes us believe that we are better and smarter than who we are, and especially let us believe that our meaningful connections do not provide us what we need or that we need a lot of empty connections that can provide what seems important such as fame and reputation. When we see the world through the ego glasses, we are not seeing from our authentic soul. So many of our own personal mistakes and the world’s greatest failures come from pouring too much ego into a situation as it was a messy sauce. Authenticity is like a building: in order to get to the second floor where our authentic soul leaves, we need to leave the weight of ego in the first floor. That thing cannot go up the stairs.
photo: evan_bray
7. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions: In order to live authentically we need to be brave enough asking the uncomfortable questions. What does not seem relevant in our lives anymore? What connections do not offer the growth they once did? Where have we evolved enough to demand we move or change? When has something stopped being fulfilling? We can’t live honestly if we deny ourselves the honest answers. It takes tons of courage to do that, but it is a necessary part of the path to authenticity.
8. Stay committed to being YOU: When life throws us curve balls, it is very easy to hide in our shells. Sometimes the temporary solution of saying yes when we mean no, to hide a truth, to stay quiet, to make ourselves invisibles seem easier. We try to avoid hurt at all cost! In the long run we can only live authentically when we are committed to do in the hard times. When we are going against the current is when we demonstrate if this whole idea of being honest is really going to work. The essence of authenticity is that it needs to permeate our whole lives. We cannot be authentic at work, but a complete fakery at home, or viceversa. We are either embracing ourselves wholly, or we are still lying.
photo: @amarnathtade
I don’t have all the answers and I can’t say I have found the holy grail of how to achieve fulfillment. But in my experience, when we are able to live authentically and connected to our souls, everything else flourishes: relationships, jobs, personal growth. It does not mean there is less suffering, but there is more LIVING. And that is all I want to do until my last day on this earth, living with open wings.