Authenticity and The Courage To Let Your Real Self Shine Through

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The truth is, sometimes I’m not fine. There are moments my day hasn’t gone great, and yes, some days the weather really does stink.

That’s what I want to say at least, but I rarely do. How about you?

There are a lot of things about me I don’t say, many truths I keep tucked inside, hidden in the bottom drawer of my heart, for fear others wouldn’t want to hear about what’s really going on with me. Somehow I believe if I let them see the real me, they might think I’m crazy, too much to handle. Or they might just reject me altogether.

So I’ve learned to edit myself. If we’re honest, I think most of us edit ourselves. We’ve learned to do a fair job stitching together the prettiest sides of ourselves to show people while keeping the worn and ragged edges hidden out of sight. We pray no one will notice and try to convince ourselves that our patchwork looks as good as new. As long as no one gets too close.

Up close is where the reality of our threadbare and disheveled selves might poke through. Where the tears, the insecurities, the pockets full of unworthiness spill their ugly selves onto our identity. It isn’t pretty.

The problem is, all the years I hid my truest self, all the years I kept everyone at arm’s length, I also kept the beauty of intimacy and vulnerability from ever reaching my impenetrable, fear-filled heart.

Relationship is the casualty of a guarded heart, the victim of pretense and shame.

Authenticity at its core is transparency and admission of failure. It's the rejection of insincerity and hypocrisy. It's truth-telling about all areas of life, even our soul spaces, where our greatest fears and sorrows reside.

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Brene Brown describes authenticity as, the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.

Authenticity is a gift not just to ourselves, but to all of our relationships. Here are three ways you can start to cultivate authenticity and let your real self shine through.

Claim Your Belovedness

The more we as Christians own our worth based on God’s incredible love for us, the more we can begin to see ourselves as worthy, not based on performance, certainly not based on perfection, but based on position. Upon Whose we are. God’s beloved children.

Henri J.M. Nouwen describes, Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

When our worth is based solely on other’s acceptance or approval, it is a roller-coaster waiting for the next dive. It is inconsistent at best, bumpy throughout, and at some point always crashes to a halt.

However, knowing ourselves and our worth as God’s beloved, in whom He delights, is the strongest foundation for each of us to become curious, eager —to explore, to create, to dream, and possibly even to dare.

Resist The Urge To Strive

Striving is a lethal drug for a perfectionist. We remain almost helpless to resist its power, its compulsion to prove, to perform, to achieve. Yet striving will almost certainly destroy us from the inside out. It fills us with fear and empties us of any courage or creativity.

Striving has been one of the fiercest competitors throughout my life, and I would dare say, it has gotten the best of me many times in the past. What makes resisting the urge to strive so difficult is how intensely our culture celebrates it. We revere the pursuit of acquisition, we extol the virtue of accomplishment, and fantasize that rest is waiting for us just across the finish line. Until we cross the finish line, and realize that even here, there is no rest. Just another finish line, another demand, another task to prove our worth.

Martin Luther expressed, I have held many things in my hands, and have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.

Once our worth is settled, we can rest in believing whether we succeed or fail, whether we are celebrated or not, whether our ranking on amazon.com is at the top or on the bottom, we are enough. Period. Our performance is not attached to our worth.

Be More Emotionally Honest

No, that doesn’t mean to emotionally vomit on anyone and everyone with whom you come into contact. Emotional honesty simply means we become more intentional about accepting ourselves —our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, opinions, and perspectives —and we are not afraid to share appropriately and respectfully with those around us.

Psalm 32:1-2 (NLT) states, Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

Do you share freely your opinions with others, even if they differ? Do you find yourself withholding your thoughts and feelings from the people around you? Is your highest priority not to do or say anything that might make people unhappy with you?

We can find healthy, compassionate ways to let our true selves shine through without being disrespectful or unkind. The more we feel worthy, the easier it is to risk potential ridicule or rejection from others because we don’t need their approval to feel good about ourselves.

Mother Teresa shares, Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.

If you find yourself longing to let go of the façade or craving a place that is real, you can begin today to cultivate authenticity in your life.

Claim Your Belovedness. Your worth is settled.

Resist The Urge To Strive. You are enough.

Be More Emotionally Honest. Let the real you shine through.

Authenticity embraces our healing journey in its totality —the journey toward accepting who we are, toward becoming more courageous, toward embracing who we are not yet, but who we will one day be. The journey is beautiful, it is hopeful.  It is the way of peace.

About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with herself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

How I Stopped Faking It and Finally Got Real with God

How I Stopped Faking It and Finally Got Real with God

For most of my life the notion of victorious Christian living felt like a heavy weight against my chest. A trap. A burden. I would read about living victoriously, I heard more sermons that I could count on the topic, but to be honest, it always felt like a trick question, an undoable task, something I’d have to work for but really could never earn.

I knew I was supposed to see God as gracious and compassionate, the loving grandfather-image with long white robe gathering the children around, but it seemed strangely ironic that I would have to work so hard to experience a little bit of His compassion and mercy.

Everyone else seemed to be living the joy-filled Christian life. They were experiencing abundance in their Christian walk that I knew nothing of. I could tell something was off, but I had no idea how to achieve this life of faith except to work for it.

Performance became a drug. Somehow I felt powerful to control and claim my worth. It was an insatiable drive, an all-encompassing need to achieve, to earn, to prove myself in His presence. I didn’t realize until much later that performing took me farther away from His presence than I could ever imagine. It cost me the thing I longed for most – my relationship with God.

Somewhere in my incessant doing, as my wheels of striving became increasingly unhinged, I ultimately came to the end of my addiction. It was there I reached out for something different. I embraced some new principles that ultimately transformed my relationship with God. So here they are:

End My Relationship With “Shoulds,” “Ought-Tos” and “Musts"

For so long I felt horrific shame when I didn’t feel a sense of euphoria or joy at the thought of spending time with God. Good Christians should long to spend time with God, I thought. I ought to spend time with Him, I reasoned, though many times my heart wasn’t in it.

I chose instead to begin building my relationship with God on meaning. I got honest with myself and honest with God. I stopped pretending and started living authentically with Him. I stopped doing all the things I felt compelled to do but never really wanted to do. I stopped beating myself up for not being consistent with my quiet time.

From then on, I freed myself to simply enjoy being with Him. I discovered how to find meaning in the moments of His presence with no agenda, no lists, or excuses. In areas and moments I lacked desire, I simply prayed for God to fill me with His desire. I allowed myself to experience Him in ways that were meaningful to me, even if foreign at times. Whether a walk with Him through nature, a lovely melody of worship that echoed somewhere deep in my heart spaces, or whether it was sitting with Him as He healed old wounds that had been hidden by years of layered callouses, for the first time I allowed His presence to simply wash over me, and refresh me. I remembered that He loved me before I ever knew how to love Him.

Be Intentional with Gratitude

Brennan Manning describes gratitude this way:

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust — not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

I had grappled with gratitude for so long. It seemed I was always waiting to get to the other side of life’s trials to acknowledge His provision and His blessing in my life. I was holding my breath for this season of striving to pass to see the miracle, to give thanks, and to offer appreciation.

Lately I’ve begun to realize the power of gratitude in every moment on my journey. Whether in victory or in defeat, gratitude allows me to welcome all experiences into the fabric of my story and cultivate meaning from every encounter. Instead of seeing God as capricious and tempermental, I see Him now as a loving Father, intimately connected with every victory, every defeat, and equally tender and caring in every moment of my life. For now, the intentionality of gratitude means His presence is alive and thriving in my heart.

[clickToTweet tweet="The intentionality of gratitude means His presence is alive and thriving in my heart. " quote="The intentionality of gratitude means His presence is alive and thriving in my heart."]

Be Willing to Apologize – to Myself and to God

When I first stepped back from all of the ought-tos and musts and I discovered a quieting of some pressured spaces inside, I began to notice noisy thoughts flying wildly through my mind. These thoughts were cruel and punishing, relentless and terrible. These thoughts were about me, about everything I wasn’t, and nothing I could ever become. And for most of my life, I not only believed those thoughts, I also wholeheartedly believed those were the Father’s thoughts towards me.

You’ll never be good enough. You can’t get anything right. You’ll never be worthy, much less loved.

To be honest, I was bullying myself in a way that I would never allow another to be bullied.

It turns out I was also blaming God for how miserable I felt. I was insecure when I saw His favor in other people’s lives. I remained anxious, disconnected, and resentful because that somehow felt safer than allowing others to see how I really felt about God. I needed to keep my painful reality, my faulty faith hidden from the world, from myself, and from God.

When I began to risk getting honest and exposing the reality of my broken and bandaged self, I was freed from the prison of maintaining a crumbling façade. I was freed to apologize to myself and to God for my errant cruelty. I could stop pretending, performing, and perfecting, and get back to the basics of being, of living, of loving— myself and God. I could let go of what I thought a good Christian was because what I realized was that I didn’t need to be a good Christian as much as I needed to have a passionate connection with my Father.

I cannot do it on my own. I rest in His faithful provision to complete the work He has started, knowing that His work in my life is the ultimate gift of love.

About Lisa

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, coffee lover, and wife. My online community lisamurrayonline.com provides a compassionate place in the midst of the stresses and struggles of life. At heart, I am just a Southern girl who loves beautiful things, whether it is the beauty of words found in a deeply moving story, the beauty of a meal cooked with love, the beauty of a cup of coffee with a friend, or the beauty seen in far away landscapes and cultures. I have fallen passionately in love with the journey and believe it is among the most beautiful gifts to embrace and celebrate. While I grew up in the Florida sunshine, I live with my husband just outside Nashville in Franklin, TN.

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with herself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891