Monday Notes: Learning to Be My Authentic Self

In How Being an Adoptee Taught Me to Lie, I shared how I’d learned three pertinent lessons: (1) lying was okay; (2) disassociating was required to live with my adoptive family; and (3) fitting in would help me gain a sense of belonging. Of course, these were false narratives, but it wasn’t until adulthood that I knew I had to reverse engineer everything I’d subconsciously learned. Here’s what I continue to practice in order to be a more authentic version of myself:

ADULT LESSON #1: Tell myself the truth.

As a child, I’d learned to lie about and suppress emotions, instead of processing them in healthy ways. So first, I had to learn to tell myself the truth. Practicing yoga began the process. Yoga taught me to slow my breath and movements. Consistent practice showed me how to observe what was happening in my body. Once I knew how I felt in a relaxed state, I began to recognize how my body felt in other settings. For example, I more readily noticed my rising heartbeat during a work meeting or the sluggish feel after a night of tossing and turning. Awareness helped me to tell myself the truth. Instead of saying, I’m fine when I wasn’t, I began saying, I’m tired or I’m angry or whatever. This eventually led to processing emotions, instead of pushing them away. In my estimation, telling the truth to yourself about yourself is the beginning of being honest.

ADULT LESSON #2: See people as they are, not as I want them to be.

As an adoptee, I’d learned to live in a perpetual fantasy world. This turned into me having a fantasy husband, fantasy children, and fantasy extended family and friends. Therefore, to be more truthful, I had to learn how to live in the real world and accept people for who they showed themselves to be. This level of acceptance required a close look at behavioral patterns. For example, I noticed some family only visited when I accomplished something. I had “friends” who I never heard from, unless I reached out first. The next step was being honest about how these acts made me feel, especially when it came to my relationship needs. Could I remain in non-symbiotic relationship with people? The answer depended on the relationship. Some, like mentor-mentee situations, are designed to be nonreciprocal; however, most relationships function best when two people relate with intention. Either way, I found it important to be honest with myself and the other person, rather than lying about their behaviors and how they affected me.

ADULT LESSON #3: Worry less about people’s responses to telling the truth.

After publishing Salve, many people have asked if I was concerned about what my family would say. My answer continues to be no, but I did worry that they would no longer love me. This answer revealed a lingering concern for belonging. Would my husband, daughters, or cousins see me as so far outside of the norm of our family that they would reject and abandon me? That’s what kept me up at night.

Ironically though, releasing Salve helped me to care less about the consequences of revealing truths about myself and my lived experience. At some point, I was ready to lose everyone because I’d decided that, whether people loved me or not, I would be fine. And guess what? I was right.

People who matter haven’t left me. My immediate family is currently walking this journey alongside me. Some who were friends when I published the book no longer hold that title; conversely, some who were distant friends are now closer because they see themselves in the truth I’ve told. The beauty of being honest is that people get to determine if they want to be in relationship with the real you or not. And you get to do the same.

ADULT LESSON #4: Enact internal accountability.

Accountability is at the root of adrienne maree brown’s latest book. She says internal accountability—that thing you do when no one is looking—is one way we will move forward with a new society.

For a very long time, my ability to disassociate prevented me from enacting internal accountability. I thought what I was doing didn’t matter if no one knew. This isn’t true. Maintaining secrets and lies, even if no one finds out, is detrimental to one’s health, if for no other reason than the effect of stress. But even if there are no stressors, lying isn’t right because you know what you’re doing. Internal accountability is a personal code of ethics that we should live by. brown also suggests that our personal ethics should stand apart from religion. For example, our internal accountability shouldn’t rely on if an omnipotent god will block you from the afterlife party. It should be important for you to hold yourself accountable based on the morals you’ve developed. I agree, and with practice, I’m learning to be accountable to myself, which again, requires first being truthful to me.

ADULT LESSON #5: Tell the truth as much as possible.

This lesson is still a bit challenging, which is why I’ve saved it for last. My desire is to be as honest with everyone in my life as much as I can. But there are barriers. I wonder if we need to be 100% truthful all the time. For example, sometimes I still determine how much truth I think someone else can handle. If it’s minimal, then I keep things to myself. Is that fair? Sometimes the truth may not be appropriate for the setting, like if you’re at work or your children are around. Other times, it may be unnecessary to divulge the entire truth, so again, I keep things to myself. Like I said, this part is still in its early stages, but I do think it’s an integral piece. Like brown said it’s important to “learn to speak the truth, learn to hear it, learn to honor that there are many truths, and become allergic to anything that isn’t the truth. Cause we live in the real world.” But I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like.

Let me know what you think about telling the truth to yourself and others. More than ever, I think being truthful has become essential for the times.

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