Living an Authentic Life
by Jackie Kosednar
When you live your life ignoring your true
gifts and talents, you are putting your trust in
a broken compass and an empty, fictional life.
Are you living a life that is in tune with your
authentic self — who you were designed
to be — or your fictional self —
the identity you made up from what your family and
the world told you to be? The latter is guaranteed
to keep you endlessly chasing fulfillment that never
arrives. We are taken away from our authentic self
by degrees throughout our lives. It happens because
of the conditioning we receive and believe from the
outside world. ‘Supposed to,’ ‘should
be,’ ‘of course you can,’ and other
false belief systems convince us to create patterns
of acting-like-someone-else in order to feel accepted.
The Authentic You
A key element in self-esteem is allowing yourself
to be who you are designed to be, in spite of your
bad character traits and the supposed ‘missing
elements’ of your personality. When people try
to be what they are not, chasing dreams not meant
to be or trying to live up to social models, self-esteem
goes down and so does physical health. Why? Because
you go against your energy flow and life path. You
feed the continuous pattern in your brain that says,
“I am not OK,” which feeds into the collective
belief, “We are not OK.”
I once asked my granddaughter Trinity, “Who
are you, Trin?” I expected her to answer “I
am grandma’s girl” or something cute like
that. Instead she looked at me very seriously and
said, “Grandma I am just me.”
Your authentic self is the you that can be found
at your core. It is not the part of you defined by
your job, function or role. It is first a uniqueness,
and then a composite of the skills, talents, and abilities
that belong to that uniqueness. These are real talents
— not ones you have pretended for approval.
It is all of the things that are uniquely yours and
need expression, rather than what you think you are
supposed to be and do. Human Design Technology shows
us our own design on paper: who we really are, and
the energies that are always present for us to use.
These energies move us along our life’s path.
How Do We Lose Sense of Our Authentic Self?
Human beings have a deep survival need to connect
with others and, hopefully, to be loved, appreciated
and recognized for our unique contributions. We need
to feel we are important. When we are ignored, rejected
or pushed into roles that others want for us, a confusion
and insecurity set in. Who we are becomes
unimportant. We start to believe that unless we change
to others’ expectations and ‘be somebody,’
we won’t be loved and are not important.
Society conditions us to believe that we can be anything
or anybody we want to be. We act out of the collective
presumption that we are made of plastic, to be molded
into any kind of individual we choose to be, as if
all humans are the same, with equal opportunities.
This just isn’t true. We are born unique, with
a built-in identity, and a path to walk in life. Only
your own path will bring you the fulfillment you are
instinctively looking for.
Divine Discontent
When you live your life ignoring your true gifts and
talents, while performing assigned, made-up or inherited
roles, you are putting your trust in a broken compass
and an empty, fictional life. When you're not living
faithfully to your authentic self, you feel as if
there is a hole in your soul. Living this way drains
you of the critical life energy you need to pursue
the things you truly value on your own timetable.
It takes energy to suppress our authenticity.
It also takes immense energy to keep yourself on
a path not designed for you, especially when life
is constantly trying to pull you in a different direction.
Sooner or later we fall into a deep rut; living becomes
a painful struggle because so much doesn’t work.
Regret sets in. “What’s it all for?”
Depression becomes a real issue. Getting back to the
authentic self can seem a daunting task when your
entire life — your career, choice of mate, and
learned behavior — is based on who you are not
designed to be.
Becoming Authentic
Living from your authentic self requires self-honesty.
Trying to be something you are not is a subtle dishonesty
that puts you on the wrong path. The more honest you
can be with yourself and others about who you are,
what you really want and what you value, the quicker
you move into your right place, along your natural
path — where all opportunities to live out what
is important to you exist. The real intention of the
Universe is for your life to be for you.
We are not here to live for or through others. You’re
here to express your uniqueness, to learn and grow,
and make a contribution to the world at large. In
the process, fulfillment happens; the pursuit of truth
is the fastest way to get there.
Becoming conscious requires self-reflection and observation.
This might entail sitting down with a journal and
accessing your life, thinking and behavior. You might
ask yourself: “What is important to me?”
or “What do I really want?” To determine
if your answer is a true desire, ask: “Why do
I want this?” Self-reflection wakes us up to
a deeper, more awake way of being. It creates an awareness
of our inner wisdom and intuition. On a daily basis
you can ask, “What’s running me?”
An authentic life is built from the inside out, with
attention to one’s Inner self. When we no longer
want to chase someone else’s dream, we begin
to live our own dreams. We become committed to the
idea of being our own person. When you live authentically,
you know what you stand for and make conscious choices
to honor those values.
When you are in harmony with what's important to
you and are being true to yourself, your life is authentic.
It is not necessarily a life that others admire or
think is good for you, and they might try to keep
you in the old mold. But it will be a life that you
know in your heart is your own and right for you.
Your authentic self will shine.
