THE ART OF AUTHENTICITY

The Art of Being Me: The Art of Loving Yourself

Part 1

The poet says, “What I am is me, for that I came.” To go to your death, never knowing who you are, is the greatest tragedy of tragedies.”

Not being an art aficionado, however recognizing the basic elements of art with all the great artists, is to see a reflection of who they are in the works they produce. In fact they have no choice. It’s a compulsion for their true selves to be expressed in their work. If denied their authenticity, they clearly could not produce the greatness that we are all fortunate to share throughout the centuries. I recall in the movie, FRIDA, when Frida asks Diego Rivera if she was as talented as he. Diego replied, “You Frida, are even a better artist than me. I paint of what I see on the outside. You paint what you see on the inside.”

Not unlike great artists, great musicians, writers and the like, we who may not be artists as such, are artists in our own being. We must be ourselves, mainly because everyone else is already taken. What do I mean by that? We need to reflect what is within us; who we are, how we feel, our perceptions, our visions and our I am-ness.
It was Socrates who said, “A life unexamined is not a life worth living.”

So much of our lives have been lived in what I call survival roles, the adapted self. The adapted self, suffocated much of our authentic self. This is a gradual, insidious progression over time due to assignments and expectations of our family, teachers, social norms and mores, cultivating a need to adapt in order to matter and in some cases, to survive.

Somewhere within each of us lies the essence of our being. Without it, nothing really matters and nothing really works. Relationships suffer if we are not in our essence. Our work suffers, our families suffer, our mental and physical well-being is compromised. Relationships become “the killing fields” when our relational space becomes polluted. That space is where we live and our children play. It doesn’t improve unless we clean up the space. We can’t clean up the space unless we are in our essence. When two people are in their true essence, time is eternal, says, Martin Buber. When we don’t know what to do, what to say, how to be, we feel awkward, uneasy and uncomfortable in our own skin. We would rather be what others may want or expect us to be rather than reveal our true selves, fearing we will be rejected or shamed. This is a learned behavior. We weren’t born like this even if our nature is to be introverted or shy. This is a survival self; an adapted self, a false self; not our authentic self. To really be free; to know our soulful content, to know our purpose in life, not to be defined by what we do, but rather, who we are; that is our true self; who we truly are.

I grew up in the last age of innocence, the fifties, in Miami Beach a city that practiced apartheid, but we didn’t know it. We did not even know the word. There were colored and white fountains, colored and white bathrooms. The “colored”, later to be referred as black, were not even allowed onto Miami Beach without a pass after 5:00 PM. Sign on the public buses stated, “Colored to the back”. We never even knew that was wrong. It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I developed a social conscience. We lived in a bubble. Miami Beach was a special place; the 50’s a unique time. We thought we were going to marry, have children and live happily ever after. When reality struck, we were in shock. I suppose it was the assassination of John Kennedy that ended the age of innocence, followed by a raging, reckless war that woke us up to a new reality. The world had changed and has not stopped since, gaining momentum as the years pass.

I grew up in a time that as kids, we listened to our parents. We were more fearful of our fathers than the principal. We were free to skate in a park on Friday nights, never concerned about being mugged, raped or shot. Guns didn’t exist in my world. Drugs didn’t exist. Pot was a cooking utensil. Coke was a soda. Girls didn’t sleep with boys until they were married and if they did, they risked their reputation. Thing weren’t perfect. We had our share of dysfunction as most families, to a greater or lesser extent. Yet, those were the happiest times of our lives. We went from the age of Victorianism to the sexual revolution followed by the New Age, which morphed into the “Me Generation” that grew into a culture of addiction. The values we grew up with were replaced with narcissistic, self- serving, ego-driven, materialistic “stuff”. With that exchange, we grew into multi-generational addicts that was driven by our lost selves. Now replaced with technology, our authentic selves are being supplanted by computers, I pads, cell phones, and other robotic creatures that are destroying our humanness, and our I amness. We need to pull ourselves out of this mess, out of this black hole and find a way to be present to our inner self, to our partners, our children and our friends. God help us if we lose ourselves to technology. What a world this will be!

Next blog: PART II – OUR NEEDS

Joan E Childs, LCSW is a renowned psychotherapist, inspirational speaker and author of Do You Hate the One You Love: Strategies For Healing and Saving Your Relationship. In private practice since 1978, she specializes in individual and couple’s therapy, grief therapy, EMDR, NLP, inner child work and codependency. Learn more about her services at www.joanechilds.com.