Authenticity Isn't Fixed | It's a Practice, Not a Personality Trait

I was talking with a guest that I had on last year named Sasha Feldman and Sasha is an actor who has become a therapist so he was a working actor for 14 years and then pivoted and transitioned into the world of therapy he actually just became licensed like a couple days ago which is so freaking exciting and i re-watched our conversation and there was a part of it that i have not been able to stop thinking about and he was talking about his own journey toward authenticity and this is what he said A lot of my journey has been getting to know myself better, to being authentically me.

And authentically me would really mean being honest and open and aware of who I am in the moment.

Because I can't be authentic as a general idea because I'm constantly different.

Sometimes I'm confident, sometimes I'm not.

And so we can get really trapped in this idea of, oh, I'm a confident person, but I'm all of those things at any given time.

And I just sat with that because I think the way we've been throwing around authenticity at times, we've completely misunderstood what authenticity is.

We treat authenticity like it's something that you arrive at.

Like one day you do enough work on yourself, enough therapy, enough journaling, enough inner child healing, and you unlock the final, truest, most authentic version of yourself.

And then you get to be her consistently, permanently done.

And it sounds silly because we know that we're always growing and evolving and becoming, but I laugh when I say this because I'm like, oh yeah, there is a little bit.

I feel like same way with confidence.

Like I've worked with coaching clients before who've come into a session and been really down on themselves.

I'm like, hey, what's going on? And they're like, I just have been feeling so confident the last month working on XYZ.

And then now I'm doing this other thing and I don't feel confident anymore.

I thought I was confident in this thing and now that evaporated.

And it's like, well, yeah, confidence is not this like state of being that you arrive in.

It can change moment by moment.

You're probably not feeling confident because now you're pushing into a next level of growth.

So you're like, oh, I'm like kind of getting growing pains or I'm kind of getting back into beginner territory because I don't know what I'm doing here or I'm walking into a new room with people that I've never met before or I'm pitching myself for something that I've never played in that arena.

Like so my confidence is maybe wavering a little bit because I don't know how to mentally prepare myself for this new thing that I have never done before.

before yet.

That's just not how humans work.

And I think I've already said this.

I think deep down, we all know this, but we just haven't given ourselves permission to say that out loud, that you were not the same person you were five years ago.

You were probably not the same person you were six months ago.