Understanding Authenticity

Why living an authentic life comes with its own challenges

The challenges that I’ve gone through has built my character and shaped me into who I am as a person. I’m resilient and soft, but also rebellious. I question authority when I see inequities or injustice because I know what’s right in my heart and don’t care what people will think of me. I share my stories about growth and write about my life because I know someone was probably once in my shoes, feeling alone and misunderstood. I’m proud of myself because I’ve done the hard work to understand my complex human experience — equally diving deep into the parts of myself I hated while reflecting on the parts of myself that I loved.

When you’ve met yourself deeply, you embrace all that you are. You embrace your flaws and that type of energy radiates throughout you — it’s something people can feel when you’re around them. It happens because I’m truly living life in my purpose, which simply enjoy life and be a kinder human in this world. I’m an eternal optimist and have only recently come to the conclusion not everyone that is draw to your energy is trying to match it. Some unconsciously are trying to attach to it, as if it were a source of validation. Other people find ways to latch onto certain parts of yourself that make you unique: how you move, how you dress, how you act, what you do.

As someone who accidentally fell into the role of being a “micro-influencer”, I have mixed feelings about people calling me one. While I love being able to inspire creativity and encourage people to find meaning in their everyday, it’s been taking an emotional toll on me because I didn’t realize that people want what you have. Oprah wisely stated that “You can’t have a friend who wants your life.” This was never my intention. I don’t want people to want my life; I want people to love their life. I want people to feel inspired to live their life unapologetically. I want people to see the beauty that surrounds them every day that already existed. I want people to know that their life is a story that can be rewritten and edited at any time.

I didn’t really understand that until now. I’ve had take some space from people over the past couple of years because my intuition was guiding me to protect myself. As someone who’s very giving, you learn that people need to earn that spot in your life. Having empathy with boundaries is critical to keeping safe connections with people. Otherwise you’ll over-empathize and will feel resentful for compromising on your own values to keep people in your life that may not be aligned or reciprocal anymore. Your feelings matter and you don’t need to dim yourself down or hide your truth.

When you demonstrate empathy towards yourself as much as you do for others, you stop doing the emotional labor for others. You simply let them go, live your life, and let them go through the lessons in life that they were meant to learn. Their trauma was never yours to carry. You can choose peace by setting boundaries around people who you want to help but can’t because they continue to unconsciously inflict pain as a result of their own trauma. Send them love from afar, give appreciation for your time together, and wish them healing. That’s all you can do.