Think about last time you were asked, “How are you”?
What was your answer?
According to culture, women are supposed to be “fine”. We’re not expected to be up nor down, to be ‘fine’ means to not disruptive, to stay in that middle-of-the-road space that doesn’t impact much of anything. For many of us, we’re met with these messages from childhood, as eloquently described by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in We Should All be Feminists:
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful.”
Society has been “teaching” girls and women that not taking up space is the goal, so when someone says to us, “How are you?” What stops us from telling the truth? Fear stops us. The fear of what other people will think if we actually shared how we felt. The fear of being authentic in the moment.
Can we be honest? We’re particularly interested in being liked, in impressing people, and wanting to look good. (I’ll tell the truth for all of us, it’s okay….)
Having the fear of being our authentic selves isn’t abnormal. We all want to be accepted and sometimes we tell ourselves that the real us wouldn’t be welcomed, so we tell ourselves to be ‘fine’.
We perform being ‘fine” because deep down we’re afraid that we’ll be uninvited, we’re afraid that we will lose some people, and we’re afraid that won’t be granted access because we’re not falling in line with the expectation.
Culture dictates that we fit in and be duplicates of whatever is deemed the flavor of the moment, right? So why would we want to rock the boat? The fear of being authentic causes us to accept being followers of others instead of being leaders of ourselves.
It’s not our fault that we struggle with being authentic. It’s our responsibility to create the environment where we can practice being authentic.
We have the freedom to cultivate authenticity in our lives. Here’s how to do it:
- Admit that you are worthy. Not because of anything you’ve done/will do, but because you are. Period.
- Look at yourself objectively. Making mistakes doesn’t change your worthiness. (Go back to #1 for the reminder).
- Treat yourself like the person who loves you most would treat you. Handle yourself with tender loving care.
- Practice courage. This post goes into the link between confidence and courage.
As scary as it is to think about what it feels like to be left out, consider that it’s not a loss when our authenticity causes people to stop including us. We haven’t lost anything, we’ve created space for those who match our vibe to come in.
Authenticity is about the choice to show up and be real…to be honest…to let our true selves be seen, and it’s something we get to practice every day.
The more conformable we are with our authenticity, the more comfortable we’ll become with releasing everything that isn’t aligned.
Stepping fully into our authentic selves is a part of the confidence journey, say yes to your becoming.
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