What it Means to Be Authentic, and How to Get There

Recently a question I received said ‘I want to be more authentic, but what does this really mean and how do I make this happen?’

And… of course, we know this – the answer is not simple, the shift doesn’t happen overnight and these changes take time. Even so – how do we know that we are being authentic? What does it even mean?

Authenticity means to be YOURSELF without external influences. But as nice as this sounds, is this really possible? Our minds are piled with layers and layers of influence.

• the societal conditioning (for example, the level of corruption in your society colours your idea of right or wrong)
• familial conditioning and trauma (if your parents repeatedly told you that you were not good enough, this is what you believe…. or you are a thoughtless rebel)
• karmic patterns (you may be bringing patterns and phobias from previous life experiences, from your ancestors, etc)
• environment (picking up negative energies, toxic family conditions, work stress, food, and hormones all affect our state of mind)

So you’re rarely being ‘yourself’.

Here are a few ways to be closer to your authentic self.

• Listen to your body: the body never lies. If a situation is making you uneasy, pay attention to that feeling. There is no need to jump to act on this feeling instantly – passive observation is key, the rest happens on its own.
• “What do I want/ need”: When we have been chronically people-pleasing, we lose touch with our own needs and desires. It helps in this situation to stop ourselves at every juncture and ask ourselves what WE want if all pressures and expectations are removed. We may or may not express or pursue what we want – that is a choice we make and is based on what is sensible, but it is important to know what we want before we decide to ignore it.
• Shift from SHOULDs to COULDs: Don’t ‘should’ yourself. When you become aware of this, you start realising how much of your life is lived by the self-talk of ‘I should’. Do things because you seek the consequence, because you seek to make that choice. Taking actions, speaking words that you ‘should’ is nothing but conditioning.
• Start getting closer to yourself: We complain that nobody understands us but what is really truly sad is that we don’t understand ourselves. If you cannot make a list of 5 solid positives and 5 meaningful negatives about yourself, then you barely know yourself at all. Usually if you’re on a spiritual pathway, your list of your own negative qualities will be much longer than the list of negative qualities of any other person you know, because you are focused on developing yourself. If your list of positive qualities is much longer than your list of negative qualities, you haven’t done enough shadow work to know your dark side intimately enough and as a result, self-love cannot go deep enough.
• Get serious about your Reiki practice: If you have any aspirations for a better life, not practicing Reiki is an indication that you are not serious about whatever it is that you desire. Reiki is the simplest, highest ROI tool out there. Do your self-healing morning and evening, all chakras front and back, 20 minutes each, every day.

Authenticity in Desire

Authenticity is not about pursuing whatever we want. Several times our desires aren’t even our own, they are a result of conditioning and the mass hypnosis we are subjected to by the media on an hourly basis.

• If you have a relatively healthy body with an average BMI, wanting to lose weight and be prettier or desiring a flat belly for the summer is a consequence of being brainwashed by the media into feeling ugly.
• Any lack of balance in your life is usually a sign of conditioning at work – for example if you neglect your family or responsibilities in the name of work, this is often conditioning at work.
• If you are OK with a moderate amount of cheating or bribery at work because ‘you can’t get ahead in this generation if you’re completely honest’ or ‘everyone does it’ – that is conditioning at work.
• If you’re desperately trying to fit in, most of your desires are likely not your own at all and are usually drowned out by the people-pleasing noise in your mind.

To be authentic in what we pursue it helps to ask why. Understanding why we’re after what we’re after can help us filter out the noise and settle at what our spirit truly seeks. This is the secret to abundance – because our true desires are in alignment with the universal will, and expand our horizons in all directions.

Authenticity in Relationships

Authenticity is NOT about saying and doing whatever we want. Being inconsiderate and selfish have no connection to authenticity.

• You’re hurting people by ‘just being honest’ – it means you are communicating not to connect more deeply but to dump your ideas at the other person even if they hurt. When you’re being authentic, first you learn to share your authentic self with those who value it- this is not something we shove into others’ faces. And then, you learn to share to connect, rather than to hurt, please or manipulate.
• You are seeking to be told what to do. Often we seek ‘guidance’ when we are lost, but really we’re just looking to be told what to do. It is important to learn to assess the risks and be prepared for the good and the bad consequences of our decisions. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, and both situations help us grow.
• You’re doing what serves you. Being authentic is not about getting our way. It is about knowing what we need and want. However, we may choose otherwise for several reasons. For example you might want to eat Chinese take out, but your spouse is under the weather and wants comfort food, so maybe you decide to make soup for dinner even though you’re tired.
  Here you are choosing love and care over your desire because you value your relationship more than momentary pleasure. One might take the same action – i.e. make dinner for a sick spouse to please them, or because they are afraid of being abused – so it is not the actions so much that determine if you’re being authentic, but the why behind your decision.

So, the key here is to get more deeply in touch with yourself, with your priorities, and then to act and speak based on that. Authenticity helps your words and actions align with your principles and values. And the clarity into what our principles and values are, come with repeatedly asking ourselves the question we asked before. “What do I need/ want in this moment?”

Give it time. We fall a thousand times before we learn to walk. There are times you’ll rejoice the standing, there are times you will cry at the falls – both are part of the journey. Be patient with yourself and keep at it. We overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, and we highly underestimate what we can accomplish in 10. Look at your Reiki self-healing practice as a life-long ritual, keep pushing your authenticity and see how you end up in a completely different place eventually. Good luck!

Article by Ashwita Goel, Reiki Master

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Having learned Meditation as a child, Ashwita incorporated Reiki into her life during her early teens. After a decade of witnessing the magic Reiki, she felt compelled to take up Reiki professionally, and ended her corporate career in 2007, taking up Reiki full-time. She eventually incorporated EFT, hypnotherapy and past life therapy into her work. Apart from her healing work, she teaches Reiki and meditation, and her book ‘Healing Through Reiki’ is available on Amazon. She holds regular full moon and new moon meditations at @AshwitaGoel. Her website is www.reiki-bangalore.com and her blog www.ashwita.com