NOT an attack on filters.
Filters are fun… if only I could remember to use them. This is not an attack on selfies or filters but rather a look into ourselves and how we reflect, project, and live within words and actions. Maybe even an outside view into what people say and how they behave. Not one of us is perfect, hence the fun with filters, right? Perceived perfection can be fun.
Living inside true authenticity takes a dive into how we feel about others and ourselves and how that comes across in how we treat everyone, including ourselves and those we love most.
If you’re a mom, you know…
The mom group that totally supports bottle feeding but then talks about how they’d never because breast is best. The whispers about that one mom everyone seems to love when she’s around. The debates and judgment instead of discussion for educated decision making in parenting.
Yep, a triggering example from the one moms group I joined when my kids were young as a struggling-doing-it-all-on-my-own-without-bottles-or-binkies-or-help-or-sleep-and-just-wanted-solutions-but got-judgment-from-every-direction-no-matter-what-actually-worked mom.
This kind of behind-the-back judgment is so common with women especially. But this doesn’t just happen in moms groups, of course.
We are not built for everyone’s liking.
I used to tell my kids they don’t have to be friends with everyone, but they do need to be friendly with everyone. Some days polite was swapped with friendly.
Whispers are louder than many think. We hear it. We can all hear it.
I’ve always said I’m an open book, but someone has to open the conversation to get to the content because I don’t like to talk about myself. This journey I’ve been on this year has been most difficult for me because I am talking more about myself. Learning when the actions of those I love are based in vulnerability and when they are not. Steeped in love facing truth or getting past a difficult moment rather than facing harsh reality.
I’d challenge not only an authentic, uplifting life but also a transparent one. Vulnerability (to me) is the truest form of love, and it’s the first thing to go when we stop living authentically because we begin to build walls of protection instead of allowing ourselves to show weakness and face the difficult shit. In short, living authentically feels like a trendy buzzword but not something many are actually doing with authenticity.
In diving into self-discovery work within myself and my group, I went back twenty years to an album I wrote titled Climbing Walls. I wrote a song for that album called Angry, and it went something like this:
Oh, you gotta wonder
Where it all started
And you gotta wonder
Where it began.
Why won’t I
Let you in?
Why am I building walls?
Oh for my sanity,
I am
Building walls…
And sometimes
I wonder
Should I be angry?
And should I question
if you hate me.
Should I be angry?
Or should I
Build up walls?
It goes on, of course.
This is what vulnerability looks like when we don’t allow ourselves to live authentically inside the vulnerable. We build walls. We question without authentic answers because the trust to be authentically vulnerable ceases.
This cycle, of course, becomes the chicken or the egg. Did we lose trust or vulnerability first? Did we begin to question ourselves and lost trust with those in our worlds to question them or to sit in a space of questioning with them?
So, how do we get to a place where we are truly living authentically, and where do we draw the necessary boundaries to protect ourselves from the world like refraining from building walls in front of those we love?
I’m still learning.
And I’m still imperfectly human.
But within those personal flaws, I think the answer lies in the question of what authenticity looks like individually.
For me, authenticity is genuine.
Genuine is exactly where I am at the moment.
Each moment is filled with my personal vulnerabilities.
Vulnerability to true love.
Love grows within its waves inside authentic vulnerable moments.
Moments where trust surrounds like a blanket of welcoming warmth and comfort.
Living inside the vulnerable is letting others in to see our authentic selves… the unfiltered, imperfect, questioning humans.
Living inside the vulnerable is a good place to be as long as we feel safe, and safety is often determined by the authenticity of those around us.
Simple, right?
No. Not at all. But, hey, let’s keep working on it. Together… because that’s authentic.
Be well
~Stella