For anyone who has not yet come across the work of Brené Brown, Phd get ready for an exciting journey. Brené’s work for the past 13 years focuses on vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. Out of her research she has developed two powerful clinical curriculums aimed at healing shame and developing our best selves.
A foundation of the Rising Strong™ and Daring Way™ curriculums are the 10 Guideposts for Wholehearted Living. These basic concepts are based on years of research and interviews with real people who are living their lives fully despite challenges.
While the concepts are basic, implementing them is not so simple. This new series will offer each of the 10 Guideposts with some honest examples of how to practice them and screw them up!
When thinking about the Guideposts the goal is not to be perfect (we will get to that later) but to become more aware of how we are living our lives and how our thoughts can affect our decisions and behaviors
The first Guidepost is:
Cultivating Authenticity and Letting go of What People Think
Many of us would like to think that we live by this concept on a daily basis – but we also lie to ourselves on a daily basis. We are all susceptible to this on some level so get honest.
I, like many other people, have spent many years worrying foremost about “what people will think” and spending much less time thinking about what I really want. It has been a part of my relationship with my spouse, my parenting, my friendships and a big part of my extended family.
This is a lesson I learned at an early age from grandparents who lived in small towns. There wasn’t much that happened in those small towns that didn’t make the gossip rounds. My grandmother was famous for saying “If you don’t want to read about it on the front page then don’t do it.”
Seems simple enough right? Of course we want to raise our children to “do the right thing” and to avoid scandal and gossip. However, we do not want to raise them to be so afraid of making mistakes that they are frozen in fear or so afraid to admit mistakes that they cover them up and create a web of lies that they cannot unravel.
Being our authentic selves is not easy. So many of us don’t really know who we are and what we want. We can’t see our authentic selves. God bless those of you who have this down. It is a daily struggle for me and takes awareness (hence my mindfulness practice – had to get that in there!) and a willingness to be honest and the ability to let go of worrying about what other people think.
To work on this we must cultivate awareness of our authentic selves and keep in mind our own personal values and goals. Knowing that feeling you get in your body when something doesn’t feel right or recognizing resentment or regret and listening to what it is trying to tell you. Usually it is saying: “You said yes, but you meant NO!” or “This is not who you are, why are you doing this?” Sometimes the real you is hiding in shame with thoughts like: “If they only knew the real me they wouldn’t like me.”
About 8 years ago I was running for a seat on my local RTM which is a non-partisan elected body. I passed out cards at the polling place with my phone number on them and a lady called me to tell me she voted for me but now wanted to get more information and asked what party I was affiliated with. When I told her I was a Democrat, I couched it by saying that I was from the south and “not too liberal.” Since we were trading voicemails she later called me back to tell me that some of her “Democrat friends from the south had registered as Republicans in our town because it was more acceptable.” I was floored by the suggestion but on reflection realized that I had brought it on myself for my apologetic answer to her question. While I had been able to be out in the public claiming my affiliation I was also making apologies and qualifying my support for the Democratic Party thus showing my own struggle with my authenticity.
Being your authentic self will get you some grief at times. You may burn some bridges and alienate some people. However, worrying about what people think will get you a lot of anxiety and resentment and isn’t healthy. You may find that the people and things you draw in with your inauthentic self are not what you need. And after all in the words of Taylor Swift, “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate…" Knowing our authentic selves is what allows us to “shake it off.”