AUTHENTICITY REVISITED

I began last year, after reading a lot of Brene Brown, with a desire for 2018 to be my year of authenticity.  I wanted to be braver. I wanted to be more honest. I wanted to be less afraid of showing people who I was.

I thought that meant being more vocal about it all. I thought it meant shaking off shackles I had put on myself. I thought it meant feeling free to walk my own road without caring what anyone else thought. I thought it meant not apologizing for who I was and being brazen about it.

And then, unplanned things happened in my relationships with people that I didn't feel I could be brazen about. I had real issues that I needed to work through... it's just that this wasn't the space that I could do that in. I didn't want to hurt people. I didn't want to create any more gossip than necessary. And if that's what you were looking for, I think that you were probably frustrated with me.

I had to find different ways... but they were quiet. I needed sounding boards, but I needed sounding boards that would be gentle but honest, understanding but real, supportive but firm. Fortunately, I had those. Some had been in my life for a long time, and some had come into it probably for just that purpose.

At the end of the year, as I looked back on everything that had happened and everything that I had wanted it to be, I felt a sense of failure as I re-read that first entry of the year. The pulling-in that I had done, the self and other protection that I had tried to create -- it seemed like anything but authenticity.

As I think about it now, I think I was wrong. But, I think it was more about my internal authenticity than anything else. It wasn't about being outwardly brazen about who I am. It was about bringing who I am and the values I hold important into an internal balance with the choices I was making and the people I was involved with.

My tangle with authenticity wasn't quite what I expected it to be -- but I think that perhaps it was what I needed it to be.