Authentic Self: Becoming Who You Truly Are

There’s a quote I’ve always liked that’s usually attributed to my guy Carl Jung but there isn’t really any evidence that he said it. Whether they’re his words or not doesn’t really matter, the sentiment reflects one of the core ideas of the work we do in therapy.

Here’s the quote:

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are”.

It seems like a pretty simple concept, doesn’t it? But for many of us, it’s anything but.

As children, we learn how to adapt our behaviour. We learn which emotions are acceptable and which we are shamed for. We learn what earns us love, approval or safety and what leads to rejection and shaming. As a result we mould ourselves around those experiences. We might become:

·       Dependable

·       Good

·       Funny

·       A peacekeeper

·       A high achiever

·       Someone without needs or who never asks for help

As a child, these can be incredibly creative ways of getting through life and surviving tough environments. The difficulty can come later in life when these survival strategies become ingrained in our identity.

Many people come to counselling saying they feel lost, disconnected or uncertain of who they really are. They might have spent a long time looking after everyone else, masking parts of themselves that they might have been shamed for or living life according to which behaviour makes them palatable and acceptable to others. This could mean they’ve lost touch with their authentic self, with their preferences and their wants and needs.

The face we present to the world is known as the persona. It can be helpful sometimes when we’re navigating our way through work, relationships and society but when it becomes the centre of who we believe we are, it can show up as:

·       Dissatisfaction and thinking “there must be more to life than this”

·       Finding it hard to connect with feelings of joy and happiness

·       Feeling numb, exhausted or as if you’re just going through the motions

·       Not knowing what you want

·       Not recognising yourself anymore

·       Thinking everyone else has it sorted and you don’t

·       Knowing what everyone else wants but not knowing what you want

This is where therapy can help. The mask can be dropped. We can have a look at those parts that get hidden or you might be ashamed of. This could be:

·       Anger you couldn’t express

·       Tears you were not allowed to cry

·       Needs that got dismissed

·       A special interest you were told was boring

·       The creative part of you that got criticised

·       A belief you held that didn’t align with those around you

·       A controversial flavour of crisp you like (I see and respect your love of prawn cocktail).

I’m not joking about the crisps, being able to express our likes and dislikes is an important part of knowing ourselves and being authentic.

When I talk about authenticity, I don’t mean that the ultimate goal of therapy is to find some perfect self that’s been hidden away. It’s more complex than that. Authenticity means finding and integrating the multiple parts of who we are including the parts we’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying not to show others or avoided seeing ourselves.

You don’t have to carry on being the person you believed you had to be in order be accepted or loved. Your persona may have protected you once but it doesn’t have to define you for the rest of your life. It can feel like slow work sometimes but with compassion and curiosity you can ask yourself

“If I no longer have to be what everyone else needs me to be, who might I become?”