Finding Your Authentic Self

Discovering your authentic self for the first time is like meeting a perfect stranger you’ve known all of your life. If one can get past their ego’s definition of who they are, it can be a truly enlightening experience.

But to get there, you have to push beyond those influences that up until now have defined who you think you are. Past life experiences, relationships, loves, losses, and a wide assortment of pivotal life-altering events that have all conspired to shape a personal vision of yourself in your head.

There have been a number of books that have influenced me in one way or another over the years. I’m sure the influence was heavily fortified by the lifestyle, angst, mood and my own psychic temperament at the time.

Most of us spend a lifetime painting our skin like a canvas of who we think we are. It’s a personal journey of ego, attitude, needs, desires, fears and wants. But in our quest for satisfaction in life we sometimes inadvertently let outside influences shape and define our true self.

Often times, there’s been collateral damage suffered and you didn’t even know it. It came from those youthful messages imparted on you by parents, teachers and friends. Everyone who thought they knew who you were, what you were and what you should become in life.

Writing for me has always been a journey to find my authentic voice and express it in my stories. Yet, I can’t unlock the shackles of past influences that color my many words. I’m not alone in this vernacular journey of detours, distractions and negative voices lurking in the back of my head. Recently, I’ve read two books that expanded the spectrum of that chasm in writing.

Larry McMurty (The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, Brokeback Mountain, etc.) and Micky Spillane (Kiss Me Deadly, I, the Jury, Vengeance is Mine) had two very different writing styles and yet each was true to their internal voice. They both had two distinctly different writing styles that, despite their stark differences, managed to connect very effectively with their respective audiences. Both authors found their voice and satisfaction in their own approach to story-telling. In short, they were honest to themselves and never wrote to a supposed audience or group of readers.

Finding our inner voice is different for each one of us. We all have it. We just need to find it. If one looks at creativity not just in terms of the arts, music, crafts, and all of its many manifestations but far beyond that, it is another world welcoming us to explore.

Creativity can be found in our ordinary, often times mundane acts of living. Albert Einstein said it best when speaking about creativity. “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.”

It means creating a lifestyle that embraces all that is important to you, your soul, and your inner cravings for your purpose in being alive. It means living by those principles that define who you are as a person, a spouse, a lover, a parent, a guardian, and a member of the human race. Living creatively can and should be your motivation for personal evolution, growth, learning and therefore, thriving in a complicated world.

For me, part of that organic process of writing is a new demand for more self-examination and thoughtful-processing of the past lives I’ve lived, my present environment and level of personal satisfaction.

It demands a closer examination of past relationships and my reaction to life events. It forces me out of old reflections, memories and explanations and gradually wipes away the dust and dirt of past assumptions to revealed a truer self. My research and writing have taken me on a journey I am only now beginning to better understand and appreciate. It’s all about answering the question of who I was back then and how it made me who I am today.

Helping me along the way is a daily detour I take to check-in inside my head. This practice is a monastic exercise but one with benefits. It’s finally coming face to face with the true me. Mind you I can’t say I know me that well even though it’s been over eight-one years of living in this skin.

As with any responsible enterprise it is our duty to find what it is that interests us the most. We must listen to our inner voice and answer its calling. To do this we must learn how to support our creativity. That means to take the time to daydream, doodle, imagine, and ponder those many ‘what if’s’ that seem to hang around the edges of our consciousness. Life-changing habits come from thoughts and energies beyond that which we normally access during our daily lives.

Then we must take those thoughts, ideas, concepts, and ‘what if’s’ and put them into concrete form or action. The tragedy here is not to try and fail but to do nothing at all. Each of us has an intuitive nature. We must harness the energy of and the power of that intuitive self in order to become limitless in our inner exploration.

You must first accept where you are in life and never regret the journey you took to get there. You should slow down and smell the flowers. That means eliminating toxic people and situations that do nothing but harm your self-worth. Practice the art of mindful living and appreciating your good fortune when intuition comes into your life.

It means breaking away from centuries-old assumptions, questioning old habits that hold us back and honestly looking deep within ourselves for the truth there. Creativity is a whole body and mind experience. It is a way of life not just an idea or an ambitious goal. It is preparing ourselves mentally and physically for the journey deep within ourselves that reveal truths about us we never knew. It is a mind-set that in turn is a road map that in turn is a guide to eternal truths…our truths about who we are and what we can become if we so desire.

Welcome to your inner journey. It’s going to be a wonderful, at times confusing, and ultimately satisfying trip. It’s better to jump on that train now than to wait at the station for another-life to arrive. It’s a journey I intend to follow for the rest of my life. A trek backwards that might help propel me forward with clarity and vision of who I really am.

·      Credit must be given to the following authors who wrote articles in ‘The Edge’ Magazine, June, 2016 on this subject matter. Theresa Nutt, Alley Brook, Jeanne Henderson, Lisa Sellman and Nick Seneca Jankel.