Audacity to be Authentic

“Have the audacity to be authentic.” This statement feels bold, something brave people say.  Or it’s an option we use when the time is right. It can be a permission pass we give ourselves to show up more fully, but only if conditions are right enough to take action. Make the decision. Speak up. Raise our hands, and say, “Yes, count me in!’ or “No, count me out”. 

Being authentic can also sound like a really nice extra-curricular activity we do when the picture-perfect life has arrived. When we have enough time. When we have enough money. When we are pretty enough. Thin enough. Smart enough. Educated enough. Or when the conditions are right enough. The right words. The right people. Right mood. Dressed in the right outfit. In the right opportunity. When everything is just right, all the stars have aligned.  Only then do give ourselves permission to awaken our most treasured self, filled with the audacity to be authentic. 

Women are designed to conform. Physiologically, our bodies are made to shape-shift and conform to accommodate. The adapting and flexible nature of a woman is so exceptional that it allows her to hold and grow the space for another human being to be created and brought into the world through her. 

What happens when this life-giving system of a woman gets lost by over-accommodating and over-conforming that it becomes a habit of people pleasing?  She loses her own voice, expression, actions, dreams, and standards of her true self. A part of her will not be fully expressed or lived.

We are at a new crossroads for women today.  We are struggling in so many directions and painful life configurations because of cultural conditioning, expectations, family responsibilities and life obligations.   We often find ourselves separated from our own congruent knowing of what is true for ourselves. This can cause painful roadblocks that make us feel stuck, as if life’s quicksand has swallowed us up. 

No matter how much energy we output, we struggle to get unstuck, to gain our momentum and feel relief. We yearn for some of life’s breathing space. 

This phenomenon of being stuck, separated from our own authentic expressed self, I refer to as feeling outside of our own life. The stress of stuck life energy can become so chronically restrictive and constrictive, we lose parts of ourselves. The clarity we crave to have our own knowing or trust in life becomes layered with confusion and overwhelm. 

We can begin to self-transform with what I call the W-A-Y. 

Willingness to be worthy. 

Audacity to be Authentic. 

Yes to life. 

Willingness to be worthy means opening up more deeply to our personal relationship of self-love. Real, true self-love involves acts of honor, taking ourselves by the hand and walking ourselves out of the forest of self-betrayal and denial. 

Every time we say “yes” to something when on the inside we feel the gripping and tightening answer of “no”, we betray ourselves. We sink deeper into disconnection from our true selves.  The pain of disconnection feeds dysfunction, addiction, numbing and denying behaviors, only pushing us further outside of our own lives.  We can get back inside our lives by being willing to acknowledge our worthiness and to honor ourselves.

Step by step.

Moment by moment.

Decision by decision.

Simple acts of congruency restore our connection to self-love, such as saying “yes” when it’s a yes and saying “no” when it’s a no.

Authenticity is about reversing the direction of self-betrayal and denial. Saying “yes” to life is about accessing our authentic, soul-inspired self. It’s getting the answers from that inner source of guidance. Not holding back, not denying, but listening with honor to our own truthful whispers. It’s thi