Uncover your Authentic Self
Anxiety is often a symptom of severe disconnection with ourselves. Therefore, as we heal through anxiety, our most authentic selves begin to emerge.
Something I used to say and often hear other people experiencing anxiety say is, “I wish I can just get back to myself when things were clearer and easier.”
The authentic self is characterized by living in alignment with our own values and needs, expressing our unique gifts, strengths and talents, speaking up and setting boundaries when we’ve had enough of something, listening clearly to the guiding nature of our intuition, and ultimately living a life that we WANT to live.
Therefore, we step into the happier, clearer, more creative, and peaceful version of ourselves.
Authenticity is defined as being genuine, to have a keen awareness of who you are and how you want to show up in the world.
When we are young we don’t get to consciously choose our lives, rather much of life then is decided for us by parental figures, older siblings, teachers, and other authority figures. Therefore, we download the world as we receive it and that becomes our operating system.
However, as we get older and develop an awareness of ourselves by using certain tools, we get to see the old habits, core beliefs, and conditioning that we’ve been unconsciously operating off of for so long. As soon as we become aware of this, we can begin to unlearn the things we don’t want and begin creating and expressing the things we do want.
This is where the authentic self really begins to emerge.
It’s like having a beautiful sports car that’s covered in mud. It’s got so much potential and yet none of its beauty is being expressed.
If you’d like to visualize this for a moment, living from your authentic self feels so much easier, lighter, clearer, and enlightening. We are in tune with our intuition. We make decisions in alignment with our own values and our own needs. We are empowered just by being exactly who we are, to live exactly as we’d like.
We are all unique with different gifts that exist within us, with different strengths waiting to be expressed, and with different experiences and understandings that can benefit the people around us and the world as a whole.
“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach
Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey of shedding what no longer serves you and we have the opportunity to do this in every decision we make on each day of our lives. We can choose to continue operating on this outdated conditioning or we can choose to create our lives and express that potential within.
The first step is to breed self-awareness. When we are self-aware we can start to understand what we’re doing and what’s not serving us so that we can rip the old out and plant the new.
Below are a few of my favorite practices for breeding self-awareness, unlearning old patterns, and creating new ones.
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Self Inquiry Journaling ( Writing about our experiences with curiosity )
- Therapy
- Coaching
- Intention & Goal Setting
In conclusion, our authentic self is that bright light at the core of each of us and it just takes some work to uncover.
Although there is work involved, I couldn’t be more grateful for arriving further and further into myself. The journey is incredibly rewarding with benefits appearing in my ability to show up creatively in my work projects, my intimate and platonic relationships, and the relationship I have with myself.
It’s so worth the work. ♥️
Express those unique gifts.
We are learning, growing, and evolving together. ✨
