Authenticity and self-knowledge
(Nimue)
Finding your most authentic self is a process. Most of us have to spend time unpicking things around who we’ve been told we are and what we’ve been told we should be, in order to find ourselves. On top of that, the authentic self isn’t a state pf permanence. To be authentic is to be responsive. The true self responds to experience in order to change and grow. Experience allows us to be more than we were, and to go deeper into ourselves.
The most authentic version of you today may not look much like the you of a year ago, and be little like the you of ten years ago. Some creatures shed skins and shells to grow, and we can be similar on the inside.
While some of the quest for authenticity is inward looking, it’s also about how we decide to be. It’s not ideal having a version of yourself that only lives inside you head. Sometimes circumstances might make it unsafe to express our true selves, but if we are not in danger then we need to bring who we truly are into the world. How much space you have for your true self is an important question. Who are you allowed to be?
Living a life based on pretence is soul destroying. If you’ve felt unable to be your authentic self, don’t beat yourself up about it. Change, and grow as much as you can, because it’s the process of becoming more authentic that matters, not where you’ve been, or what other people have denied you. Be angry about that if you need to be, but don’t get trapped in it if you have room to break out.
Recently I’ve been trying to work out whether I’m actually quite laid back, or just not in the habit of even thinking about preferences. Do I go along with things out of apathy, or a desire to be cooperative, or a feeling there’s no point arguing? In the past it’s been all of those things. At the moment I’m finding that the desire to be cooperative is large, and that there are a lot of things I genuinely don’t have strong feelings about.
However, alongside those are things I really need and feel strongly about. Quiet time, outdoors time, social time, intellectual stimulation, affection, enough sleep, the right diet – these very basic underpinnings of life are really important to me. I don’t function well if I don’t have what I need, and I’m no longer willing to routinely compromise around the things I really need. But, with those in place I’m otherwise quite laid back and able to roll with things. The compromising on essentials is not part of my authentic self, it’s something that was put on me and that I’ve had to unpick.
Self knowledge is not something we can ever fully achieve. Every new experience reveals something to us about who we are. Every challenge calls on us to look at our values and priorities. Every day brings opportunities to try something new and seek better (for us) ways of living and being. Trying to live in an authentic way is really a commitment to exploring, experimenting, taking risks and being willing to change. For me, that’s an important part of what it means to be on the Druid path.
