In my last blog I closed by saying “Becoming is a verb.” Being always the same, thinking the same, feeling the same is a sign of someone with a rigid personality disorder. Have you ever known anyone who is always right and sure about it and needs to be in control?

You could say such a person is “authentically” stuck, like cement and more like a noun, not a verb. To evolve requires growing and changing.

The Velveteen Rabbit did not recognize living breathing rabbits who were hopping around because they were real. They did not have wind up mechanics and fake fur like he was used to in the nursery. Likewise, we may not recognize authenticity when it shows up because of our conditioned perceptions of what REAL is supposed to look like. Much of our culture is rushing around preoccupied—no matter what the cost—with looking a certain way,  having the latest “toys” and becoming some manufactured person designed to fit some media ideal. The more we struggle to fit the picture, the further away we get from being authentic. I’ve had many clients who succeeded in that endeavor. They talk to me about how empty and disconnected they feel. They have all the “good stuff” but along the way they have lost something of great value. Themselves. Many refer to it as their soul.

There is a great book about this by Mike Robbins. The title is “Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Taken.”

In Becoming Authentic we may need to shed a few layers we have piled on in our effort to be whatever we thought was expected and had survival value. Hopefully we are blessed by authentic and compassionate friends who will give us honest feed back and support. You are worth it. It takes a lot of energy to be who you aren’t.