Being Authentic

Lately I have been thinking a lot about being authentic. My love and I was having a conversation about people around us; he was telling me about his chat with his guy-friends about people who are nice and not nice. I shared with him too that I was having a chat with my one of my colleagues on the idea of ‘being alone’. The topic was led to a question that I asked something for my colleagues to ponder about. I asked “We often wear different masks to adapt different situations and scenarios in our daily lives, how often do we take the time to get to know ourselves, to know the mask-less us?”

This is a very interesting question because ever since then, I cannot stop thinking about it. It made me asked myself; it has been 3 years or more now on my self-discovery journey, each day I remind myself to love myself. I do it through doing things for myself, to do what I love to show myself that I love myself. It can be through blogging, crafting, painting; and when I do all that, do I get carried away and come back to forgetting to be authentic?

I am glad to say that yes, I do forget to be authentic sometimes. It is not difficult to be authentic, just sometimes we tend to get carried away. And at this moment, as I am watching my mind, I am aware that I choose to say what I am saying right now. Even at this moment, I am aware that I am blogging about this, and I am aware that I am wondering what will my readers think or feel when they are reading this post.

When you are in this mode, being in a state of awareness, as aware as you are aware of breathing; you are walking along the line of being authentic.

While I sometimes do forget to and my mind gets carried away, I am still in love with the idea of being authentic. Being authentic has set my heart free; not free as what you perceive mentally, free in a form that no words can describe it.

So you might ask, what is being authentic about?

Being Authentic means:

• Believing that you are considered as a Person just like everybody else
• Believing that you deserve LOVE just like everybody else
• Believing that you are LOVE, you can love and you are a lovable person
• Believing that you have done all your best, even if you make mistakes, you believe that you learn through those mistakes instead
• Believing that your “dark” past is part of an experience that you are meant to embark on; both light and dark are beautiful
• Believing that you are not hopeless, but you are a miracle of life just like everybody else
• Believing that your needs are considered as a priority too, and your well-being is as important as everybody else
• Believing that it is okay to be you, even with all that flaws, you are still LOVE
• Believing that you are on your own journey for yourself and no one else
• Believing that the decisions you make are for yourself and no one else
• Believing that you are as beautiful as all beings in this world, and believe that you have a gift and talent especially for you
• Believing that it is okay to follow your needs without assuming that you are being judged by others
• Believing that you and your actions are your own responsibility

Most importantly, believing that it is okay to be you, in your vulnerable state, mask-less… and believing that they won’t judge you for being that way, including understanding that if they do, it has NOTHING to do with you.

"Believe it is okay to be you, mask-less 

and believe that you won’t be judged for being you. 

If they do, it has nothing to do with you."

[Click to tweet this]

Some of you might confuse Being Authentic with being careless or selfish. Your egoistic mind (not you) might not fully see the point as I have mentioned above if you:

• Always compare yourself with others
• Do not believe that your needs and well-being are important because then it makes you think that you are selfish
• Overcompensate yourself because it matters to you what others think of you
• Constantly self-destruct yourself with not very nice thoughts about yourself
• Constantly putting yourself down and believing that you are not good enough for others
• Constantly not appreciating good things happening to you, even in the smallest form
• Only doing something for the sake of what others will think of you
• Only doing things to please others, again for the sake of what others think of you
• Wanting to be LIKE others, not be YOU
• Make decisions based on others or for others, not for yourself
• Do things only because everyone is doing it, even if it doesn't agree with you
• Don't check with your intentions first before doing something
• Constantly trying to live up to others expectations not yours
• Constantly seeking approval of others not your own

I could go on... 

During my journey, I learned how to get to know myself better as friend to myself. It was a mixed emotion of both good and weird because growing up, it was more common for us to get to know others.

How often do we take the time to get to know ourselves?

It was this question that I asked myself; I begin to realize that Being Authentic somehow links to your inner-creative self. Being Authentic allows us to rise to creativity. We unmask, and go inward to be ONE with our truest form, our soul, which is where our creativity has been sleeping, waiting to be awakened by us.

Where you think the saying “We are naturally creative” comes from? I used to believe that one has to learn and trained and mold like a sculpture into becoming creative. How can we become creative when we are already creative?

I was deep rooted in believing that I wasn’t creative for many years, and when I finally learned to get in touch with my creative self, there was a sense of freedom; like a heavy boulder lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t know what it was called, but I soon learned that actually I was learning to be authentic.

The deeply rooted social system that we were raised to believe has only taught us to become followers and leaders of others, instead of teaching us to lead our own lives. Slowly we forget about ourselves, our lives, our well-being and what it means to live a really great life!

• We were told to follow the words of others, instead of following our gut feeling OR trusting ourselves when we are naturally intuitive.
• We were also told that it is not okay when something displeases us, and was told be practical instead
• We become Yes-men rather than be original, and we hardly ever ask ourselves “What is it I truly want?”
• We were also told that crying is a sign of weakness and that means, it is not okay to not be okay

I am always in the self-inquiry mode, querying about being authentic; I always struggle to say Yes and No when my heart actually meant otherwise. While I am aware of the works of an ego-mind that stops us from being authentic, I learned to see that many of us are leading the life of Fear. Fear of being rejected and judged. Fear, which is part of the ego-mind, prevents us from being authentic.

Yes, there might be various ideas for us to improve ourselves, but what I have learned is that it always starts from within us. Whether it is rising to creativity, or becoming a lovable person, we can travel inwards by:

• Knowing that your on-goings is only about you and yourself
• Knowing that your mistakes means more room for growth
• Knowing that dark means light, is beautiful, light is dark and is as beautiful too
• Knowing that no matter how others perceive you of your past and mistakes, you have already forgiven yourself, and move forward
• Knowing that you cannot undo the past but you can create future
• Knowing that the more positivity and love you bring, the more it breeds
• Knowing that your own voice matters, your heart matters, your being matters and your soul matters
• Knowing your intentions and responsibilities of your actions
• Knowing that what you want to do is what you want and not what others want

Coming back once again on how being authentic helps us rise to creativity; well, as the wise Vincent Van Gogh once said, “When you hear a voice that says you cannot paint, then by all means PAINT! And that voice will be silenced,”

Stay true to your Self, with light and love.