We search all year long to be real, to feel connected to ourselves and to others. Often, however, we lose this connection. We are not living out of our deepest passion, but we cannot find a way to bring it into our lives. We long to be more successful at work, but we lack the courage to take the necessary steps. Or perhaps a personal crisis, like a divorce or illness, has shaken our foundations. In order to survive, we let fear crush our true feelings, so that the creativity and wisdom we yearn to produce remain buried and unborn. In this way, we remain unaware and avoid our entire spectrum of emotions and beliefs, from fear to anger, loneliness to love, never transcending them to discover the authentic self that is filled with wisdom beyond the conventional.
Paradoxically, living from our authenticity means two things: on the one hand, connecting with our most intimate “core” truth, that unchanging place in us that receives our deepest inspiration, intuition and insight, and on the other hand, honoring the feelings and beliefs of our personal selves, instilled in us by our parents and society. In other words, living authentically means preserving a natural openness and harmony between our hearts, our bodies, and our minds. Once we have aligned with our truth at this “core” level, we can embrace our personal selves from a perspective of understanding, compassion, and freedom—in other words, from our “wholeness.” Being authentic, therefore, involves honoring all that we are: our thoughts and feelings and bodily sensations.
How do we lose our connection to our authentic selves?
Let’s call the larger, outer circle the “persona,” the public mask we display to the world. This is the part of us that seeks approval for our accomplishments in our daily and professional lives. Stuck in our “person,” we define our worth based on our superficial level of “success”: the type of car we drive, the size of our home or television screen, or the amount of power we have in our job.
The second circle can be called the “shadow”, the private self that we are afraid to show to others and often even to ourselves. This is the part of us that we suppress out of fear that it will be met with disapproval if it is acknowledged and expressed. The “shadow” is the voice in us that judges and fears our anger, our sadness, and even our love. He feels ashamed or guilty about what he interprets as our weaknesses and failures. In the depths of the “shadow”, we suffer from the fundamental belief that we are “bad”, or at least “not good enough”.
The more we fixate on or over-identify with these first two circles, the more we lose connection with the third, innermost circle, our “core.” This is the intuitive “gut” self that knows our own intrinsic goodness and self-love, and recognizes it in others as well. Our “core” is unaffected by either our perceived achievements or our shortcomings. Rather, it is the place in us that follows our deepest passions in the face of enormous social and psychological pressures. Think of the dissatisfied student who leaves business school to become a photographer, or the computer expert who quits his corporate job to start his own business. History provides many examples of people who have had the courage to speak beyond the conventional rules and follow the song of their souls.
However, to the extent that we stop listening to our center, our center stops communicating with us clearly and succinctly. Either we get stuck on the surface of the “person” or we sink into the depths of the “shadow,” believing that one or the other represents the real Truth about us: “I’m cool because I have a Mercedes.” !” or “I’m a failure because I don’t have a Mercedes.” These kinds of beliefs deeply affect our mind, heart, and body. When we define ourselves by such extreme voices, we become nothing more than a learned self.” good” and a learned “bad” self, but never a true and authentic self.
How can we recover our authentic voice?
Our Western culture teaches that the personal self is the center of our universe, the place where all our conditioned and competing voices live. In this model, the rational mind of the personal self reigns supreme. However, the first step to reclaiming our authenticity is to embrace a more expansive model of who we think we are and how we view the world. In truth, the totality of who we are is more than the sum total of our personal selves, our “person” and our “shadow”. It is necessary to deconstruct the old hierarchy that places our ego above our central self, our heart and our body. Once we realize that all of our parts deserve to be heard, we can begin to refocus our intentions and attention to reclaim our authentic voice.
Our ability to impartially observe any part of us has been called our “witnessing presence.” This refers to a place within us that is separate from our own conditioned beliefs and judgments. It allows us to differentiate, harmonize, and ultimately transcend them. Developing our “witnessing presence” just as we would any other muscle is the key to emerging from our blockages to an authentic way of life. From this perspective, we enter a space of awareness that is separate from, but also respectful of, our identifications with the thoughts and feelings of the personal self. This allows us to fully experience these beliefs without getting lost in them. From here, the authentic adult in us emerges, the person who can successfully integrate all the voices and conditioned personalities of him, as well as open himself to new inspirations.
Imagine you’ve been in business for fifteen years and you’ve just downsized. Your savings are minimal and your expenses haven’t changed: the monthly bills keep piling up in the mailbox and no new business comes in. A common response to such a situation would be to automatically respond with negative thoughts, beliefs, and feelings rooted in fear: “I will never be able to recover financially. What am I going to live on? I will never be able to support myself and my family.” Severe self-criticism and guilt often accompany these beliefs: “This is my fault! I must have done something wrong.” It is crucial to realize that these beliefs, whether they come from the “person” or the “shadow”, are just that: beliefs. Instead of representing the whole truth about us, our beliefs represent just one way to respond to a difficult situation. Actually, our deepest wisdom does not speak to us in judgment. When situations challenge us, it is the authentic adult in us, supported by the “witnessing presence”, who keeps reminding us that our negative thoughts and feelings are not based on actual reality, but on our predetermined conditioned beliefs.
An exercise: developing your “witnessing presence,” the key to unlocking your authentic voice
The following exercise is designed to launch you on your journey to recovering your authentic voice by helping you develop a strong “witness presence”:
1. Think of a situation that is currently a source of stress and conflict in your life. For example, this situation could imply a frustrated desire to advance professionally or personally. It could also involve difficulties in your family or in your romantic life.
2. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. In the left column, make a list of concrete facts that describe this situation. In the right column, list your feelings and beliefs about this situation.
3. We are often so ingrained in our feelings that we mistake them for facts. Carefully examine each item on each list and ask yourself, as best you can, if the “facts” are actually factually true, or if they are your emotions or subjective beliefs. Facts, for example, don’t tell us “The sky is falling!”, only feelings do!
4. Based on your findings, reconfigure the two lists so that you have a more accurate reflection of what information is purely factual and what is based on your own personal and subjective reactions.
5. Without judging, look at the column on the right, where you have listed your feelings. Do they seem out of proportion to the facts? If so, try to listen to them with the knowledge that these are their subjective beliefs and feelings, not the objective facts that define the situation or who you are.
6. Give yourself the space to inhabit and express these feelings on the page. You are now beginning to witness your feelings without fully identifying with them.
7. Go back to the “facts” of the situation with this new perspective. Having developed our “witnessing presence” and realizing that our subjective responses to a situation are not a direct reflection of reality, we are in fact developing our authentic voice, a tool of extraordinary power. The feelings and beliefs rooted in our “person” and our “shadow” suddenly become less intimidating. Their power over us is greatly diminished because we see them in their own light. This offers the adult in us the ability to approach challenging situations from a more conscious, creative and proactive place.
final thoughts
The power of owning our authentic voice applies to virtually every aspect of our lives, from relationships to our self-image and careers. The power of increased authenticity creates a broader perspective of hope and possibility, profoundly transforming our sense of who we are.
Aligned with this greater perspective, we have a second chance to overcome the limitations of our education. A space emerges for our authentic selves to flourish, manifesting our deepest inspiration, creativity, and wisdom. Having reclaimed our true power, our freedom, and our choice, we can truly drink from the well of our entire being.
By grounding ourselves in our authenticity, we not only change our personal sense of ourselves, but we radically transform our ability to communicate with others. We can respectfully honor divergent opinions, whether or not they agree with us. In this way, we even become a vehicle for enacting bigger changes in the world. Imagine the possibilities of a group of people coming together to express their authentic voices together.
©2008 Lynda Klau, Ph.D.