Living an Authentic Life

This is (late) Essay #51 of The 52 Essay Challenge, (I'm almost there!!) a series in which I write a new (unpolished & messy) essay each week during 2017.

Each year, I choose a word to carry me through the next twelve months. I use it as a touchstone, as something to remind me of how I want to live in the world. Now, if I’m being honest (and this has been my aim all year), I’ve forgotten this year’s word. Maybe it was HONEST. Hahaha! I don’t know. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about my word for the coming year.

AUTHENTIC.

There. My word for 2018. This is how I want to live. This is what I will strive for in the coming months, and hopefully, for a lifetime. I want to live an authentic life.

I know I’ve written about it before, touched on this notion of living authentically. But what does that mean, exactly? For me, it means to really tune into your heart. Your heart-soul. To listen to it carefully. To lead with love. To live honestly. To be true and truthful in all things, at all times.

That’s a tall order, if you ask me. My smaller self is saying: are you suuuure you want this to be the word? Capital Self says: Yes! Absolutely! Otherwise, what’s the point?

Now, what I just listed are all abstractions. What does that actually look like? In concrete terms? How does one practice this life of authenticity? That’s a harder question to answer. But maybe it starts with the small things.

Example:

A friend calls and wants to get together. You would like to see this person, but you are feeling too tired or you just aren’t in the mood to go out. Do you force yourself to go out? Or do you stay home? What does your heart say? Will you enjoy being out with your friend once you get there? Or will you inwardly grumble the whole time, imagining your warm cozy bed? Are you going out because you feel obligated and/or you don’t want to hurt your friend’s feelings? Or do you actually want to spend time with your friend?

I’ve been learning that I need to do what’s right for me because in the end, everybody wins (even if, sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it at the time). Of course, I’m not talking about a free pass to be reckless and do whatever the heck you want. I’m talking about honoring what you need to show love and care for yourself, which will then reflect back to others in your life. Very much like the protocol on flights: affix your oxygen mask to yourself first before helping others. What good are you to others if you’re passed out?

AUTHENTIC.

For me, this means to be my true self, one-hundred percent.

We all are selective about which parts of ourselves we show to certain people. There are parts we hide from others, certain parts we show only to a chosen few. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a myriad of personas. They’re all me, but they don’t often appear in public simultaneously. For example, my poet self doesn’t show up at family gatherings. My family doesn’t understand art or poetry or what it is that I do. And that’s okay, but I also don’t need to expend energy trying to explain to them this part of my life. Does this make me less authentic? No, I don’t think so. But tucking it away in order to make others feel comfortable? Yes. So, it’s a matter of intent. My family knows I’m a poet and I don’t hide it; it’s just a topic that holds no common ground in that setting. So in this regard, I’m honoring what I need while maintain an authentic life. I think. You follow? (I know  - it can get tricky.)

Recently, I was interviewed by Lisa Factora-Borchers for a piece in Bitch on the fragility of safety with regard to sexual violence and harassment. It went live yesterday. This was me going public as a rape survivor in a very big way, on a large platform.

Yes, I am a rape survivor.

And for a long time, I kept it from people. I didn’t want others to treat me differently as people are wont to do. I didn’t want them to treat me with fragility. If anything, that would just piss me off. But keeping it tucked away did not serve me. It felt like a secret, an open secret – it was there, some folks knew, but nobody talked about it. Still, a secret is a secret, even an open one, and keeping that part of me held inside felt inauthentic. I wasn’t wholly me. I wasn’t living a whole life.

My parents don’t know I was raped. But they might know now. Will we talk about it? Probably not. Because: Asian/Filipino. Do I want to talk about it with them? Not really. It wouldn’t be useful to me. (I mean, if they wanted to talk about it, sure, I’ll talk with them. But I’m not going to initiate a sit-down.) Does this make me less authentic? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

I think the point here is that I’ve released that hidden part of me into the light, into the world. As if to say: here I am world – all of me and my messy parts! Take it or leave it. Doesn’t matter. I am me and I don’t need anyone’s approval. I love myself –all of myself—enough to not need it. This is me and I’m good with that.

AUTHENTIC.

We are all multifaceted. I joke with my friend Emily: we both are jacks-of-all-trades, masters-of-none. What I’m hoping to do in the coming year is to put all those “trades”, all those selves, all those facets of me out into the light. To really be wholly me. Which means to be vulnerable, to be open to hurt and pain. But it also means to be open to love, which is vast and infinite.

I’m scared shitless.

But if I lead with love, maybe it won’t be so bad.

Here we go.