The Authenticity Paradox

We all have pretty strong images of ourselves, what we call ‘me’. We believe in and talk of growth and evolution, but we like to stay loyal to a core. How often do we actually allow our own image of ourselves to limit us.

                                  

There’s behavior which we are comfortable with and totally identify with and then there’s times we’ll find ourselves behaving in what we like to call, Atypical fashion......saying, that was really not me, so unlike me, I don’t know why I did it, such an aberration....... or in certain situations, you want to behave one way, and you'll find your mind saying....I couldn't do that, it’s so not me.

Really?

How is it that we forget how much situations can influence behavior, and maybe if we let go of this image that we need to stay loyal to, we could flow in some variance in given situations. After all, that’s also what evolution is. Where our bigger learnings might happen. After all, being ourselves in normal situations which are time tested is easy, can we be that in the newer ones? Are we willing to meet that ‘me’?

And a no brainer would be how this can cause conflict.....conflict between how I have behaved, or felt, versus how I ought to have....per myself.

So there’s this image of ourselves that’s restrictive, and the double whammy, there’s our image of the others image of us which will again strongly influence how we behave in certain situations. The pressure of losing credibility. Again source of conflict.

So much pressure from images.

Socrates famously asserted 'the unexamined life is not worth living'

Enlightenment philosophers secularized ideas of selfhood, but it took the 20th century's existentialists to question the idea that some original, actual, ultimate self resides within. One's choice of action creates the self—in Sartre's words, "existence precedes essence." 

Dan McAdams, a Northwestern psychology professor who has spent his career studying life stories, describes identity as “the internalized and evolving story that results from a person’s selective appropriation of past, present and future.” This isn’t just academic jargon. McAdams is saying that you have to believe your story—but also embrace how it changes over time, according to what you need it to do. Try out new stories about yourself, and keep editing them..

Most of us have personal narratives about defining moments that taught us important lessons. Consciously or not, we allow our stories, and the images of ourselves that they paint, to guide us in new situations. But the stories can become outdated as we grow, so sometimes it’s necessary to alter them dramatically or even to throw them out and start from scratch.

Increasingly, psychologists believe that our notion of selfhood needs to expand, to acknowledge that we "contain multitudes." An expansive vision of selfhood includes not just the parts of ourselves that we like and understand but also those that we don't. Our headspace is messier than we pretend, they say, and the search for authenticity is doomed if it's aimed at restricting our identities to what we want to be or who we think we should be.

"Whether there is a core self or not, we certainly believe that there is," says social psychologist Mark Leary of Duke University. And the longing to live from that self is real, as is the suffering of those who feel they aren't being true to themselves. Feelings of inauthenticity can be so uncomfortable that people resort to extreme measures to bring their outer lives in alignment with their inner bearings.

Another reason we're not always true to ourselves is that authenticity is not for the faint of heart. Accurate self-knowledge can be painful. "Our self-images can be highly biased, But in the long run, accuracy is almost always better than bias."

In order to realize an authentic life, says Kernis, one often has to set aside hedonic well-being—for eudaimonic well-being, a deeper, more meaningful state in which gratification is not usually immediate. Sissies need not apply.

Becoming authentic, then, means accepting not only contradiction and discomfort but personal faults and failures as well. Problematic aspects of our lives, emotions, and behaviors—the times we've yelled at the kids, lusted after the friends spouse, or fallen back on our promises to friends—are not breaches of your true self, Moore insists. They're clues to the broader and more comprehensive mystery of selfhood. "In fact," he notes, "we are all very subtle and very complex, and there are forces and resources within us that we have no control over. We will never find the limits of who we are.

Let Self Awareness take that leap...... let not images restrict....open ourselves to the more dynamic self within........keeps the zip and adventure alive :)