First of all, if you don't even know who you are that is a place to start. In my early adult life, I remember and even look back on pictures at how I dressed and how I did my hair and how I cooked and how I acted. It all was about what someone else thought I should wear, look like, act like, cook like, etc.. In an earlier blog post I talked about my decision to cut my hair short and spiky and how I was met with much opposition in that decision. The bottom line there is that you may not want your hair short and spiky but I do. And that is ok. You may not want to wear black, but I do. You may not like to allow your children to get their cartilage pierced, but I choose not to fight that battle. The fact is that we are all different and God made us this way. We all need to be tolerant and accepting of other people's desires, opinions, style of dress, and ways to raise their children because what may be good for one person may not be good for another person. But we should be supportive of what other people like and do as long as it is not harmful or against God's word. What we don't realize is that our support of others relieves a ton of pressure to allow us all to be Authentic. We are all human and as much as we would not like to let the opinions of others affect our decisions, the fact is that it does. So if we all would be in support of different people's different strategies to survive life, raising kids, and dressing themselves, then we would all feel much more free to be who we are. Let's face it, not everyone can just say "forget them, I am going to do what I want to do.". So a little tolerance and keeping your mouth shut with your opinions will help tremendously towards a birth of authentisism in everyone. Let's all take time to cut down the pressure by keeping our opinions to ourselves and only show support and not negativity unless it is harmful or against God's word, and your definition of harmful may not be really harmful in the grand scheme of things.
The reason people lie is because they believe the truth will not be good enough. Read that statement twice or three times. It is about as true as anything on this planet. One of the ways to be authentic is to tell the truth all the time and let that be good enough. When you realize that people lie because they believe the truth is not good enough then you can tell the truth all the time because your truth IS good enough. We all make mistakes and sometimes our truth is not pretty but it is part of the knitting of the fabric of our lives. If we are allowing ourselves to be authentic then we will admit that we are not perfect and tell of times when we made mistakes because God allows us to suffer to help others along the way. What I have been through may help someone else. But if I keep it to myself then who am I helping? I heard a story of Jews escaping concentration camps and the years of work they spent mapping and planning. Once they escaped do you think they kept their info to themselves? NO They shared it so others could escape. If we are transparent and share our struggles with others then we are being authentic and you will find that others will come out of the woodwork showing gratitude for sharing because they have been closet sufferers of the same thing. Being Authentic means being transparent. No one is perfect and if you act like you are then you are living a lie. Your story can help others.
This is the first installment of the Being Authentic Series. I hope it has helped just one person. I have many things to share about this and am excited to continue to think on the subject of being authentic. For today, I will leave you with one of my favorite mottos:
Be Yourself and let that be Good Enough
Now that is a point to ponder.
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