More about authenticity
Mental Health ideas and links for unschoolers
When Parents have Issues
Voices in your Head
Moments: Living in moments instead of by whole days.
I don't like the term "authentic," of human behavior. It suggests that all those doing anything differently are false, inauthentic, wrong.
If it means being thoughtful and mindful, those are much better terms and concepts to use. If it means living by principles and making careful decisions rather than stumbling along following vague rules, then let's talk about living by principles. But "authenticity" is a false clarity. It's not as real as it sounds.
Some people are walking around with emotions, beliefs, feelings, thoughts that are not really springing from something currently real in their lives, they are patterns of neurological activity in their brain that are sort of imprinted there, usually from chidhood. They are automatic but inaccurate responses to current conditions. When a child has been frequently shame and humiliated as a child for every little mistake or even just at the whim of a parent, then, when the child grows up, the adult brain will be triggered to experience similar shame and feelings of humiliation for relatively minor things and sometimes even for no real reason at all.I used to feel very uncomfortable with guilt. And I would dwell on it for days, at times.That's one reason people don't feel "authentic." They are feeling emotions that are out of line with current reality. It makes them feel like they are not themselves — they feel disassociated from their current selves. Guilt is often one of those emotions. It isn't comfortable. One reaction to that discomfort is to reject guilt and refuse to feel it. A better reaction is to examine that guilt and figure out intellectually whether it makes sense to feel guilty right then in response to what you really did. Using your more rational intelligence to think about feelings can help clean up those old patterns and free you up to think for yourself now, rather than have automatic responses triggered. Over time, if you do that, guilt will become what you feel when you mess up and don't live up to your own expectations of your own behavior — not something that comes from outside and drags you down. And what will be automatic about it will be the urge to do something to make things right if possible.
I'm glad I learned how to not let it take me down but instead to make things better the next time around (with all my relationships, not just with my daughter), with the generous help of such wise moms as Pam and Sandra and many others. It seems like a small detail, but it has been so important for me. Thank you once again, awesome unschooling moms!