let's get real about being real

Read time: 2 minutes

hey hey heyyyy,

authentic is the word of the year & the focus of the newsletter for the coming weeks. today we‘re diving right into the heart of the authenticity artichoke.

past the surface of status & selfies, through the layers of likes, looks, & labels to where the real you marinates.

your raw center.

heart-to-heart

let’s start with where we all sit according to last week’s reader poll.

seeing that 54% of you never or rarely felt authentic in the past 30 days hit hard.

& hit home.

i spent the majority of my life feeling not at all authentic.

i was the hide-and-seek champ of hiding my true self from others & even from myself. i was fully in denial & fully fooling myself too.

but this year? this year, i found my authentic self.

and wow do i love her.

authenticity is free

my hope is that sharing what i’ve learned in this past year on my journey to finding my authenticity helps you find yours.

keyword journey.

so let’s clear something up first.

no 10 step framework or masterclass or guru can make you authentic overnight.

you will not get struck by a lightning bolt feeling of enlightenment on the top of a mountaintop with a monk in the middle of the night.

authenticity is a daily event.

hell some even believe the purpose of life is to discover who we actually are.

but no matter what you believe, we all know that we feel better when we feel true to ourselves.

true to the version of us free from pain, shame, & doubt. free from inherited thoughts, beliefs, & behaviors. free from personal, peer, or professional pressures. free from societal, familial, educational, geographical, & technological conditioning.

free from all the bs.

free to be.

the secret is self-worth

finding your authenticity is the first step to living in your authenticity.

both are inside jobs.

with job requirements of high self-worth.

high self-worth means you really truly with your whole being believe you are worthy of love, belonging, respect, safety, & fulfillment. 

this feeling of worthiness is a deep internal feeling of inherent value of self.

internal self-worth is incredibly freeing.
external self-worth is extremely fragile.

if your self-worth is rooted in the external, you don’t control it. you’re always subject to changes in the environment as you believe your worth is based on what you have or what others think. you’re a puppet to the whims & fancies of our ever-changing world.

to make matters worse, looking for other’s permission, approval, & acceptance drains your energy. you deplete your battery trying to light up approval lightbulbs, which are energetic blackholes.

external self-worth is exhausting.
internal self worth is invigorating.

embracing your worthiness taps you into a more empowered state.

a place that no one else can damage, drain, replicate, or replace because it’s uniquely yours.

self-worth is not self-esteem

worth clarifying that self-worth is not the same thing as self-esteem.

self-worth is your rock. self-esteem is more of a rollercoaster.

self-worth is a self-evaluation of internal beliefs. it’s your value of yourself.

self-esteem, on the other hand, is an external evaluation of your appearances, accomplishments, & abilities varying by context, by age, by skill, by audience, & much more.

self-esteem is built on what you do.
self-worth is built on who you are.

you need to nurture both.

but self-worth takes the crown for authenticity

self-worth is self-work

the takeaway here is that authenticity requires high self-worth.

and the only person signing your self-worth permission slip is you.

it’s not up for debate.

it’s not a group project.

it’s not doable by chatgpt.

and someone's inability to see your worth doesn’t decrease your worth.

your worth can only be determined by you.

so while i know you’re so worthy as you already are, what really matter is that you know you’re so worthy exactly as you are in this moment.

be merrily you,

p.s. cats out of the bag, swiftie didn’t win oxford’s word of the year, but taylor swift did win time’s person of the year.

p.s. we’re continuing this authenticity conversation next week with tips on being authentic with your family. right in time for the holidays. so please help me get a pulse on where y’all stand.