Worthy of Authenticity

Reject Toxic Dating Expectations:

* Don’t come on too strong.* * Don’t be vulnerable.* *Open up more.* * Don’t be so difficult.* *Play hard to get.* *Stop making people chase you* * Don’t be so affectionate… they [guys, women, whomever] don’t like that.*

Where do we draw the line with feedback and advice? Is the advice about you? Or is it about who you should pretend to be to get in a relationship? When is it productive, and when is it shaping fake identity, limiting you from just being you? Most importantly, is it based on an accurate reflection of you [the one you agree with?].

People don’t like super jokey people, and you are a super jokey person, well sh*t, maybe they don’t really like you then. Allow yourself to show up authentically from the start and assess whether or not this person is moving on the same frequencies as you. If you are being performative and altering how you show [confirmation bias], you will need to continue to be the character that you have created.

Perhaps, you are shaping how you show up based on harmful things people have said to you in past relationships.

“You’re the type of woman[man/person] who will end up single forever.” “I just don’t understand you.” “You’re a whore.” “You are difficult.” “F*#k you b*%ch.” “I cheated because it felt too good to be true.” “It’s because of you…”

The power of words is real. The rules of dating, the expectations for relationships are heavily influenced by those around us. We may find ourselves changing the ways that we show up in relationships to counter these harmful narratives projected onto us by others. It is essential to combat those toxic narratives with true ones, not just repress the toxic ones. Repressed things always come back up and reopen wounds. Heal them, by replacing those deflected [distracting] toxic words with TRUTH! You are worthy of love, you add value… you may be more than someone can handle, and that is a result of their limitations and not your abundance.

I do believe it is society, and past experiences shape data points in which we alter the way we go into dating. However, the responsibility is really on us to refuse to give less than our true selves, and thereby receive less than our true worth. How you think about yourself, your personal framing of you, is at the center of your dating experiences. If you are projecting any identity that is not genuine, you are setting yourself up for restrictive and bounded love. Anyone who loves themselves enough to not put the pressure on themselves to be perfect [thereby reconstructing the idea of perfection] will see you for who you are… perfectly you.

How To Show Up Authentically? Know Yourself First

Building off of last week’s post, I have been doing a lot of reading about habits and personal beliefs. I started off re-reading The Alchemist, which is about pursuing your “personal legend” [faith and connection]. I then read The Hidden Messages in Water, which is about the power of our words and our thoughts, and how simple shifts connect us to the things around us and how love and gratitude have infinite power. I am now reading The Four Agreements, which is also about making critical shifts in living a more meaningful and purposeful life, giving grace and re-writing contrived “rules” that restrict us from being our true and authentic selves. I am not sure that others would suggest that Atomic Habits fits neatly into this book genre, but I do. The reason is that one of the most powerful things I took away from the book is the validation of the critical importance of reframing our thoughts to change behaviors. If you continuously repeat, you are not a morning person, for example, it will be hard to transform your actions to enjoy what the mornings have for you. Mornings for you may not fit neatly into the social conceptualization of what we think of as a “morning person,” but you may have a unique connection with the morning. If you take small steps to explore what the mornings mean to you, you can create new habits that start your day off right. The first step, however, is the reject the notion that you are not a morning person.

So, to apply this concept to dating—what kind of person are you? Think about who you are and who you want to be [who you genuinely are]. Perhaps others have come to label you as emotionless or unbothered, but you really see yourself as wanting to be full of emotions and vulnerable. The most significant barrier you have to overcome is getting out of that box you are in and overcoming the fear of being scrutinized, judged, or seen as hypocritical (shifty), which may be temporarily experienced as you express yourself anew. The reward of a more authentic you far outweighs any other individuals’ reconfiguration of their perception of you. The person who you have to be most vulnerable with is yourself.

This has been my experience.

I used to feel like I needed to be defensive to preserve my self-image of perfection. Therefore, when I would receive criticism, I would respond sharply to convince the other person that they misinterpreted my actions…whatever. We have to give ourselves the grace to grow. Why should we have it all figured out all the time? When we put these unrealistic expectations on ourselves, we become susceptible to the quick fixes that toxic narratives project onto us (i.e., “that’s just how you are.”). That is not who I am [defensive and snappy], and that mode of communication did not convey the love I felt in my heart. Therefore, I had to reconstruct that aspect of myself to show up authentically to who I really am—at the soul level. That required me to humble myself, alter and adjust, and show up vulnerably new. I now know the love I express is the love that is felt because my actions, behaviors, thoughts, and words align with what I feel in my entire being. If people who love you share with you that you are sharp and off-putting, by all means, process that. Understand it. It may be a gateway to understanding yourself better. A perspective that comes with love and care doesn’t attack you or attempt to humiliate you. Knowing yourself and what motivates your behaviors is a powerful tool rooted in love and grace.

If you don’t know yourself [or one aspect of yourself], that is okay. You can always reconnect, you must be patient, kind, and loving to yourself to make that reconnection. It is never impossible because the soul of who you are is constant. You have infinite and divine power within you.

If you do know yourself, it is critical to stop compromising on who you are to concede to your constructed views of perfection. Human perfection isn’t real unless it is what you already are. Perfectly growing, perfectly aspiring, perfectly exploring, perfectly committed to truth.

The grace that we learn for ourselves then transfers over to others as well. I was dating a man, and we were seemingly very happy together. One day he told me that his friends in “healthy” relationships gave him the good advice to consider whether he would rather be “happy” or “right,” and that he often chose to be happy by not bringing things up that didn’t sit right. I told him that sacrificing his voice, his thoughts, and his authentic self was not sustainable. I would rather that he show up and share what he thinks and feels so that we could genuinely assess our compatibility and develop an appreciation for one another’s’ voice. I could accept him for who he is as long as it is consistent [even if we didn’t agree on things]. If there is no consistency and if he lives each day weighing the options as to whether to be his authentic self or a compromised self, we didn’t stand a chance. I told him that we both deserve REAL love and not pleasantries of performative sacrifice.

Things went downhill from there. We ended up breaking up, and it hurt so badly. I held on tightly to the fake happy that I had made my reality, and I wanted to believe so badly that it was true. But, if he wasn’t giving me his real, then it wasn’t sustainable, and inevitably (as it did), the truth came to surface. At a fundamental and foundational level, we weren’t compatible. I thought perhaps we should have kept making the sacrifices. However, in a healthy relationship, there will already be compromise and sacrifice, your character CAN NOT be the thing that is sacrificed. Preferences of toothpaste, ego, where to spend the holidays…ok. Character? Nah. Our barrier created by toxic advice prohibited both of us from showing up wholeheartedly.

We all deserve to be our true selves in a relationship and to be seen…without having to prove our worth or value, and without having to choose between being validated and loved in our beliefs or being “happy” without conflict. Let’s get back to joy, which is experienced in the highs and the lows.

Leave a comment and let me know how you commit to authentically showing up.