Day in my Life: Part 3 – Authenticity

There is safety in authenticity.

If I am being honest, this week has been exceptionally difficult for me. If you look on the date this will be posted, and you have any social media whatsoever, and you are someone who is exposed to accounts that discuss racial injustice, you may be able to put together why this has been a hard week. I want to talk about my viewpoints on race and the struggle that America is facing right now, but God and I decided this week was not that week. I am truly tired. BUT, I made a promise to myself that I would upload consistently and build my arsenal of posts so here I am.

I want to talk about authenticity.

I have struggled with representing myself authentically my whole life. And trying to decipher who is worthy of the real words of my heart has been complicated. It has been a constant battle and something that still scares me to no end. Through my early adulthood I have been pushing myself to be more open with sharing my feelings, even if it’s something trivial like stating what I want to eat for dinner. I have learned that unmet expectations are the result of unvoiced concerns. This week I read a quote from a Bible study that I have been reading on YouVersion. The study is about the need that people have to “wear masks” and conceal their true selves when they represent themselves to their world. I thought that this quote summed up the situation perfectly.

“No one tells us that when we wear masks, only our mask receives love.”

When I read this, not gonna lie, it was like someone slapped me in the face. I had never heard the “transparency situation” so eloquently and concisely phrased. It has been causing me to think long and hard about my motivation for not being completely authentic in how I describe how I feel and what I need.

Now, if you don’t know me personally, I want you to realize that receiving love is crucial to my existence. The way that I am wired, I HAVE to be sure that people love me at all times. I know that it is the deepest need for all humans to be known and loved, but I think that my brain goes into overdrive with that whole experience. It’s a toxic trait lol, I understand that and I am growing through it. But I have found myself doing so many things to drag love out of people. One of those things is hiding what I actually think about people, situations, hot topics, music.. You name it, I hide it. Honestly, I didn’t realize this was such a problem until I repeatedly contracted the sickening feeling of not being “seen” by people. I was so concerned with doing what I thought people needed from me that I had unknowingly created many different versions of myself. I was doing my best to identify with people but I was having a hard time keeping of track of the narrative that I was feeding them. I wasn’t identifying with myself. I wanted love from people but I was completely forgetting which of “myself” they were loving.

When I was little, I somehow learned the importance of playing hide and seek. I don’t remember when I started playing the game, but I was fully aware that I couldn’t stop. My life was perfectly fine as a result. From what I could tell there was no reason to change. I had friends whom I loved and I knew that my friends loved me. In high school especially, the most drama that was going on in my life was my friends and I liking the same celebrity, so there wasn’t much need for depth in representation and conversation. I wasn’t challenged to really search within myself until I got to college. There I had new friends who loved me, but I found myself needing more than that. I needed an identity.

The second that you step out of your parent’s house and people start asking you questions about yourself, it’s a recipe for a freak out session. At least it was for me. I had absolutely no idea how to go about communicating myself to people who didn’t know my family and my story already. So, I started doing the same thing that I did at home. Hiding. Luckily, I went to college with one of my good friends from home, so I had a safe place where I could talk about “real life” without reserve. Even though I had him, I knew that I wanted more for my new and growing friendships.

I think that it is instilled in human beings to always put their best face forward. Showing your “best self” is what will get you the job you applied for, the part you auditioned for, the boyfriend you’ve been searching for, and validation from those nearest you. But I am afraid that human beings are perpetually telling ourselves and our children the biggest lies.

Mistakes are invalid. Perfectionism is necessary. Failure is not an option.

I think it is the belief in these three things specifically that contributes to us putting our masks on. Why are we teaching ourselves that we need to be perfect creatures? I think that just looking around at our world today it’s obvious that that goal is not possible, but I digress… For so many years I told myself that I needed to be perfect. I refused to talk to anyone about the things that were actually bothering me. The only reason that I am secure enough to talk about it now is because I have learned that all of those above statements are untrue. You are going to make mistakes, period. Perfectionism is not necessary and it can be damaging. And failure is one of the most important parts of learning.

I remember one time I was telling one of my close friends about something horrible that I did in my past. I try not to tell anyone about it because I still can’t stand to relive those memories. It is a moment that I failed, bad. I made a mistake and sunk into the imperfection that I loathed. Hiding this mistake was necessary to the “perfect humans” narrative that I was feeding myself and it was rotting my soul away without me even noticing. When I told my friend this mistake I was SURE he would let me know that my mistake was not of God and that his opinion of me would change forever. I was wholeheartedly shocked when he said, “I am not disappointed in your mistakes, Isabella. If anything, it makes me love you more.”

I will never forget that moment. It’s like something switched inside of my brain. I started feeling secure. Why did sharing a close part of myself make someone feel as if they loved me more? That moment really has made me think, and I still reference it when I am having problems feeling open with people. I would always tell people that they could tell me anything and it wouldn’t change my perception of them at all, but I didn’t even believe that same truth for myself. I didn’t trust that my friends and family would meet me with the same love if they knew I had made mistakes. The freedom that I have now found in my friendships by being authentic in my words and actions has been mind blowing, if I’m being honest. I feel like it has also made me more secure in being myself. Why should I be scared of sharing myself with people who have repeatedly said and shown that they love me? That is no way to live, and I hope that more people begin to realize that.

However, my dear friend, you cannot go around sharing your authenticity with just anybody.

I think it was this misjudgment that caused me to start covering my authentic self. Sharing a dream, goal, preference, or mistake with someone who does not value your words or authenticity is a dangerous place to be. I remember when I was a young dance student, around my early high school years, I started to experience a fact of life.

Some friendships are not permanent.

I remember one girl in particular that I was friends with. She was around my age, and so we automatically had a lot in common. She was also a Christian, so we had that important life decision in common as well. I remember one experience specifically, when I shared with her something that I had been studying in the Bible. To my surprise, she said that she had been studying the same thing. How crazy! To me, this was a sure sign that we were going to be friends forever because God was speaking to us about the same things.

At the end of that dance season she left. Without saying a word to me about it.

What do you do when you start to open up to people just to have them leave shortly after? What is the point of being completely authentic and potentially being met with resistance when all of your friends are probably going to end up leaving you at some point? For a lot of my life, from then until recently, I thought that opening up to people was pointless. I thought I was shielding myself from hurt when I was hiding who I really was to gain “likes” from people. I had a gut feeling that not sharing my “real” self was somehow a disservice, not only to them but to myself. What right did I have to convince my friends that they were walking around with true information about me when in reality I knew I was just dishing out fake feelings and sentiments?

The truth is that authenticity is scary. But another truth is that authenticity is necessary. From my perspective now, I know that authentically sharing my life stories is part of my testimony, and that is one way that God says people will come to know Him. I think that God planted a certain knowing in all of us that gently nudges us to share our thoughts, share our stories, share our feelings. Sharing what is important to us is a crucial part of communication. Honestly, I think I have been hurt more by unmet expectations I have for people than anything else in the world. And why? Because I hesitated sharing myself and my needs with them.

Now I want you to know, friend, authenticity is a risk. I am not going to sit here and lie to you. People are unpredictable and I am here to tell you that you cannot control them. The only person that you can control is yourself. If I’m being honest, that realization was hard for me. I think that I am an undercover control freak, and when I feel like I can’t control a person or situation it really causes me to panic. I am still working on it, but the freedom that I have found in letting things go has been amazing.

Isabella, what if I get my feelings hurt? What if sharing my needs, wants, aspirations, and dreams with people ends up damaging me more than encouraging me?

Remember, authenticity is, in fact, a risk. While it is of crucial importance that you don’t just go about talking to any and everybody about the things that are close to your heart, if someone you trust happens to betray you, then that is not your fault. You can’t control them, you can only control you. I will never forget, last summer God said something to me that brought me so much peace, and I believe that it is a promise that He has made to all of us. He said to me, “When you share your heart, I will protect you. If the people around you do not steward the gift of authenticity that you have given them, I always will.”

You may not believe in God, and that is okay. But if you are a Christian, having the security that God is, in fact, reliable, gave me so much peace. I am not saying that I have represented myself authentically 100% of the time from then on, but I know that when I do make the conscious decision to be open, honest, and transparent, my true security is in God and not in the human beings that I am communicating with.

So how is there safety in authenticity? Well, there is safety in not having unmet expectations. Remember that if you do not communicate exactly what you are expecting from those around you, they will probably never know. There is also confidence that the close people around you really know who you are and not just the mask that you put on for the world. And finally, there is a grace that you can find, not only for yourself, but that you can extend to others. Remember when I told my friend about that big bad mistake and he created that safe space for me? Personally, whenever someone tells me what is really on their heart it also creates a stronger bond from me to them. It is a safe space.

I want to challenge you. How can you take a small step in representing yourself authentically this week? Don’t go crazy on me now, we can’t change the whole world in one day. But the small steps that you and I take this week, the God led steps that we take this week, those are the steps that will lead to permanent change. It is okay to be scared, but I believe in you. It could backfire completely, and remember, I’ve been there too. But know that God is the one protecting you and your heart. There is truly nothing that you can’t do.

Walk in wisdom and peace. Don’t just give your heart and soul to the person you pass on the street, but don’t be afraid of your own testimony. You are powerful and your story has purpose beyond what you can comprehend in this moment.

You can do it.

Much love,

Bells < 3