An authentic journey - Is it risky? Are there pay-offs?
Hi everyone.
As I hope you are aware by now, the idea of this blog is to show a TOTAL authentic account of depression. I have decided to be honest at all costs. I came to this rather insane conclusion because I feel that only total authenticity and truthfulness will allow people to know what depression is REALLY like. In this way I hope it will be both cathartic and helpful to people suffering their own flavour of depression or mental health issue.
I have also started being totally authentic in my life. The masks of fake-self have been peeling off for decades. I have been deprogramming negative social conditioning like 'respect ALL people in authority' or 'Be nice' or 'Don't talk about your feelings'. There are dangers to any black and white rules as I hope you realise.
When some people begin the path of authenticity, which in my case was triggered by receiving person-centred counselling several years ago, they initially fear that they will become rude or opinionated, or maybe they even fear that they might attack someone physically! However this is almost certainly ridiculous in almost all cases. TRUE authenticity doesn't just mean listening to the 'negatives' it also means looking at ALL feelings, emotions, thoughts and everything else. In true essence most people's inbuilt kind or reasonable side far outweighs their darker side. The main harms in society are when people bottle up their darker side for a long time until it explodes. This can be on a small or large scale.
On a small scale someone might be annoyed with their housemate over washing up, however instead of bringing it up straight away, they decide not to say anything (maybe because they fear challenging someone as they have an anxiety about confrontation). So over time this annoyance grows each day, until eventually after three weeks or months they finally snap. However because these annoyances have all added together they are now a seething mess of anger! So the housemate explodes at the other housemate, or worse they take out their 'bottled up' anger on their boss or someone unrelated. The problem here is that the recipient will feel that this is a complete over-reaction, and in a lot of ways it is. If the issue had been raised straight away then the extreme emotional reaction could have been avoided.
An authentic person would probably say something far sooner. This might be difficult to predict, however when someone over-rides their emotions they are actually storing that emotion for another day. It doesn't really go away that quickly. A lot of us have been conditioned to see the showing of anger as a bad thing, however the authentic 'I' doesn't listen to this false conditioning of the self. Instead is expresses the annoyance or mild anger early on and therefore the resultant situation will be milder and therefore more easily resolved.
The 'nice' label is common for people with depression. However this is another mechanism of suppressing emotions. Someone might be out of order with us for something, and because we feel we want to be perceived as 'nice' we don't say anything. Instead we bottle up the negative emotion associated with what they did. We will then either get back at them unconsciously in a passive-aggressive manner, however this is a very destructive way of playing out this situation. Passive-aggression doesn't fix the problem and it will probably keep happening. The person in question has not been challenged to change! An authentic person would probably say something assertive much earlier.
Please don't confused 'being authentic' with being 'perfect'. Perfection doesn't exist, indeed trying to BE perfect is just another label that will make us suppress emotions again! So just 'be'. Being authentic means just 'being authentic'. You don't need to TRY to be this or that. Just act as you feel is right in the moment. This will never appear smooth or perfect, however it will have a grounded and stable base which feels right in your inner core!
[Therapists and counsellors reading this will certainly be thinking of Carl Rogers in relation to this article?]
The pay-off for being authentic is that when you are showing love it is PURE love. It has no fake element, it isn't exaggerated love, or showing love because you WANT something! It is TOTAL and PURE love. Just as when you are angry it is PURE anger! (Also please don't assume that anger (an emotion) leads to a guaranteed angry (re)action). Being authentic means we release emotions as we go, be don't bottle up.
Bottling up emotions creates tiredness and stress. It negatively effects our relationships, friendships... and so many things. Indeed being false version of yourself takes a lot of energy. You are always TRYING to or trying NOT to do something! If you are authentic then there IS no trying... you are just being (yourself).
When being authentic people can sense it. They know that your way of being is TOTALLY real. They don't have to like you for it, although a lot of people will respect you.
Being authentic also means that you are always 'empty' (a spiritual term). It really means that you don't have any seething emotions in the depths. It can also be thought of as living in the 'now', or to live in the present moment. In a lot of ways it relates to mindfulness meditation or non-duality. However mindfulness meditation isn't really authentic! Most people do it in order to 'transcend' their emotions. Mindfulness meditation IS useful as a coping strategy in some circumstances, so if you feel an authentic need to do it, then do. However it shouldn't be used to mask a problem.
Mindfulness meditation is often mis-used. For example I spoke to one lady a few months ago who had just finished a mindfulness meditation. As we were talking she thought it was good to use this form of meditation to accept the physical abuse from her husband. She thought she should be more understanding to it and accept it!!! Real wisdom would say to leave your husband. This attitude is akin to meditating in a burning room. As the flames are starting to burn, you observe the thought 'ow that burns'... you don't judge the thought, you just watch it, and often the thought floats away. You then breathe out. As you breathe in again you have the thought 'I should really get out of here'. Again you 'watch' the thought and don't judge the thought as good or bad. This is how a lot of people use this form of meditation! They use it as a psychological band aid to FIX a problem. However if the room is on fire, then leave the room and call the fire brigade! Meditate later! I feel the popular explosion of mindfulness in the West in the past few years is actually about creating an opiate for the masses.
Not to negate mindfulness totally, but it is best to mix obvious wisdom with it. If you were being authentic you would blatantly leave the room full of fire! It is THAT obvious! Indeed if you were authentic you'd put out the fire before it got too bad, and not just sit there like a fool.
Anyway, next time someone says 'keep it real', use this as a reminder to be authentic.
As I hope you are aware by now, the idea of this blog is to show a TOTAL authentic account of depression. I have decided to be honest at all costs. I came to this rather insane conclusion because I feel that only total authenticity and truthfulness will allow people to know what depression is REALLY like. In this way I hope it will be both cathartic and helpful to people suffering their own flavour of depression or mental health issue.
I have also started being totally authentic in my life. The masks of fake-self have been peeling off for decades. I have been deprogramming negative social conditioning like 'respect ALL people in authority' or 'Be nice' or 'Don't talk about your feelings'. There are dangers to any black and white rules as I hope you realise.
When some people begin the path of authenticity, which in my case was triggered by receiving person-centred counselling several years ago, they initially fear that they will become rude or opinionated, or maybe they even fear that they might attack someone physically! However this is almost certainly ridiculous in almost all cases. TRUE authenticity doesn't just mean listening to the 'negatives' it also means looking at ALL feelings, emotions, thoughts and everything else. In true essence most people's inbuilt kind or reasonable side far outweighs their darker side. The main harms in society are when people bottle up their darker side for a long time until it explodes. This can be on a small or large scale.
On a small scale someone might be annoyed with their housemate over washing up, however instead of bringing it up straight away, they decide not to say anything (maybe because they fear challenging someone as they have an anxiety about confrontation). So over time this annoyance grows each day, until eventually after three weeks or months they finally snap. However because these annoyances have all added together they are now a seething mess of anger! So the housemate explodes at the other housemate, or worse they take out their 'bottled up' anger on their boss or someone unrelated. The problem here is that the recipient will feel that this is a complete over-reaction, and in a lot of ways it is. If the issue had been raised straight away then the extreme emotional reaction could have been avoided.
An authentic person would probably say something far sooner. This might be difficult to predict, however when someone over-rides their emotions they are actually storing that emotion for another day. It doesn't really go away that quickly. A lot of us have been conditioned to see the showing of anger as a bad thing, however the authentic 'I' doesn't listen to this false conditioning of the self. Instead is expresses the annoyance or mild anger early on and therefore the resultant situation will be milder and therefore more easily resolved.
The 'nice' label is common for people with depression. However this is another mechanism of suppressing emotions. Someone might be out of order with us for something, and because we feel we want to be perceived as 'nice' we don't say anything. Instead we bottle up the negative emotion associated with what they did. We will then either get back at them unconsciously in a passive-aggressive manner, however this is a very destructive way of playing out this situation. Passive-aggression doesn't fix the problem and it will probably keep happening. The person in question has not been challenged to change! An authentic person would probably say something assertive much earlier.
Please don't confused 'being authentic' with being 'perfect'. Perfection doesn't exist, indeed trying to BE perfect is just another label that will make us suppress emotions again! So just 'be'. Being authentic means just 'being authentic'. You don't need to TRY to be this or that. Just act as you feel is right in the moment. This will never appear smooth or perfect, however it will have a grounded and stable base which feels right in your inner core!
[Therapists and counsellors reading this will certainly be thinking of Carl Rogers in relation to this article?]
The pay-off for being authentic is that when you are showing love it is PURE love. It has no fake element, it isn't exaggerated love, or showing love because you WANT something! It is TOTAL and PURE love. Just as when you are angry it is PURE anger! (Also please don't assume that anger (an emotion) leads to a guaranteed angry (re)action). Being authentic means we release emotions as we go, be don't bottle up.
Bottling up emotions creates tiredness and stress. It negatively effects our relationships, friendships... and so many things. Indeed being false version of yourself takes a lot of energy. You are always TRYING to or trying NOT to do something! If you are authentic then there IS no trying... you are just being (yourself).
When being authentic people can sense it. They know that your way of being is TOTALLY real. They don't have to like you for it, although a lot of people will respect you.
Being authentic also means that you are always 'empty' (a spiritual term). It really means that you don't have any seething emotions in the depths. It can also be thought of as living in the 'now', or to live in the present moment. In a lot of ways it relates to mindfulness meditation or non-duality. However mindfulness meditation isn't really authentic! Most people do it in order to 'transcend' their emotions. Mindfulness meditation IS useful as a coping strategy in some circumstances, so if you feel an authentic need to do it, then do. However it shouldn't be used to mask a problem.
Mindfulness meditation is often mis-used. For example I spoke to one lady a few months ago who had just finished a mindfulness meditation. As we were talking she thought it was good to use this form of meditation to accept the physical abuse from her husband. She thought she should be more understanding to it and accept it!!! Real wisdom would say to leave your husband. This attitude is akin to meditating in a burning room. As the flames are starting to burn, you observe the thought 'ow that burns'... you don't judge the thought, you just watch it, and often the thought floats away. You then breathe out. As you breathe in again you have the thought 'I should really get out of here'. Again you 'watch' the thought and don't judge the thought as good or bad. This is how a lot of people use this form of meditation! They use it as a psychological band aid to FIX a problem. However if the room is on fire, then leave the room and call the fire brigade! Meditate later! I feel the popular explosion of mindfulness in the West in the past few years is actually about creating an opiate for the masses.
Not to negate mindfulness totally, but it is best to mix obvious wisdom with it. If you were being authentic you would blatantly leave the room full of fire! It is THAT obvious! Indeed if you were authentic you'd put out the fire before it got too bad, and not just sit there like a fool.
Anyway, next time someone says 'keep it real', use this as a reminder to be authentic.
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