I’m not fake and you’re not wrong.
Throughout my career colleagues have shared feedback that I appear fake or inauthentic. I'm neither of those things.
And yet, they were wise to sense the barrier between us.
I learned long ago to fit in by hiding the parts of myself that I believed were unacceptable and unlovable. I built strategies to deal with questions that might reveal the messy aspects of my life and contorted to my surroundings so that others would not see my “too much-ness”. I believed that if people saw all of me, I would be rejected and abandoned. This fear drove me to reject and hide important parts of myself in exchange for belonging.
Author Toko-pa Turner describes this as false belonging.
“Our longing for community (…) is so powerful that it can drive us to join groups, relationships, or systems of belief that, to our diminished or divided self, give the false impression of belonging. But places of false belonging grant us conditional membership, requiring us to cut parts of ourselves off in order to fit in.” While false belonging can be useful and instructive for a time, the soul becomes restless…”
And my soul is restless. It’s calling for me to face my fears and tear down these carefully curated walls, not brick-by-brick, but all at once in exchange for what we all long for - authentic connection and belonging.
Tearing down the barriers between us requires that I tell you the truth, my truth, about the aspects of my life that I have previously hidden from you. Right now.
My brain and body are wired differently. I have dyslexia, ADD, and live in chronic pain.
Trauma shaped my childhood. I grew up in a poverty-stricken, abusive household where I never felt safe. To escape, I moved out on my own at 15 years old.
I don't have a formal degree. At 17, I dropped out of high school and at 18 I became a teen mom. My education has been earned through life experience.
I've used illegal drugs. As a teenager, I used street drugs as a means of rebelling and disconnecting. As an adult, I used psychedelics to heal my childhood trauma and connect to the sacredness of life.
I’m not religious. I am deeply spiritual and believe in a loving, creative force in the Universe that is called many different things by many different people.
You can see me now.
I want to see you too.
#authenticity #belonging #authenticbelonging
