Dear Kimberly: What Does It Mean to Be Authentic?

Kimberly McGlonn is back with gentle wisdom to help you navigate life’s tough situations. Have a Q for Kimberly? Fill out the form here and we’ll do our best to feature it in an upcoming column.

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Dear Kimberly: People talk all the time about being your authentic self, but how do I figure out what that means for me? I feel like I am different with different people — does that make me phony, or any less “real”? I’d really welcome your insight! — Reaching for Real

Dear Reaching for Real,

You hit on such a timely question. People constantly throw around the phrase “be authentic” and “be real,” but there’s not much clear instruction in culture or in classrooms as to how. Sometimes it can feel like we’re faking “being real,” or we can’t help but sense that other people are performing. What does it mean, then, to move through the world with authenticity? And how do we benefit from the art of being authentic?

I was so curious about that very question that I took a class about it, taught by psychologist Karissa Thacker, who has a background in the school of positive psychology and wrote an entire book on the art of authenticity. What I’ve learned from spending time with her is that authenticity can be dependent on the person you’re in front of. You have to recognize that you have many selves, and that that’s a good thing! The self that we are as parents is one true self that responds to how we meet and serve the needs of a person in our care. The same is true of the person we are in service to our elderly parents and in the context of their generational understanding or the language that we share as a family. The same is true for who we are with our homegirls, and the same can be true for who we are around the people we meet at work.

And it’s not that we’re being different or fake people; to the contrary, it’s that we’re allowing ourselves to embrace all that we are and to bring that all to the moment. There’s joy and there’s freedom and there’s peace in doing that — because it means that you go from constantly reinterpreting yourself to instead being present with who you are in a way that best serves what you need to do together.

Nine years of therapy taught me how powerful this acceptance of our multifaceted selves — this radical acceptance, as some call it — can be. Radical acceptance comes from Buddhist tradition and shows up in many spiritual philosophies, and it says that before we can meet anyone else with who they are, we have to accept all that we are. That means accepting things we may not be proud of, without beating ourselves up or holding ourselves to unfair standards. We have to honor the things that we’re ashamed of and the qualities that are not yet evolved — because those brought us to where we are today, and the learnings and growth we’ve gained.

And with that, we get to embrace our gifts.

When we get to that place of radically accepting what has been true of us, we get freedom to imagine who we might yet be. That is what it means to pursue authenticity: to pursue a sense of radical self-acceptance that’s rooted in a real sense of radical kindness. It’s radical because it has to take it all in, with observation and without judgement. And when we get to that place of being radically kind to ourselves, we also get to experience the joy of being radically kind to other people. Once we get to the point where we can wrap our arms widely around all that we are, we can move through the world without the burden of being fake. When you put down that baggage, you arrive at a deep and deserving freedom.

So where does one start? Oftentimes the freest and safest way to begin is to practice solitude. For some people, solitude means being still. For others, being in solitude means moving, often out in nature. So, come to that practice of being alone the way that you need to. If you are a visual person, bring along a blank journal so you can begin to doodle about who you are in that silence. If you are a written-language kind of person, travel with a lined journal. I’ve found it really helpful to reflect on who I’ve been as an opening question. Because I think as we understand who we’ve been, we can start to find language for who we are — and who we want to be. And that means accepting that to be authentic is to accept that you are always, always in a beautiful state of evolution.

With courage and care,
Kimberly