being real

Last week I wrote about my envy of the skilled and lithe yoga teacher Angela Farmer. One of my yoga students was moved by my blog and sent it to a woman who was in contact with Angela. Yesterday I received a warm and lovely reply from Angela acknowledging my being real. By writing about my shadow self, the part of me I think I need to keep hidden to be accepted, surprising and heartwarming things come my way. I am finding the more I am willing to be my authentic self the more easily my life flows. Now this has a caveat. In the beginning it was very important to me to make myself emotionally vulnerable with people who supported me. I don't think it is smart to be real with people who will ridicule or get defensive in other unpleasant or unkind ways. We live in a culture that values pretense. In many situations what works the best is the presentation that appears the most confident. In the beginning of my journey toward increased authenticity I made the mistake of sharing my soul with people who judged me for not having it all together. I ended up feeling misunderstood and messed up. At first I thought if I shared myself honestly it would motivate other people to share themselves honestly. Then I would create the deeper connection I was seeking. Two problems: One is that when I am giving to get I rarely get what I imagined. The second is that I needed to develop discernment about taking care of myself with my sharing. If a person wants to share honestly my doing so could create some safety for him or her to do what he or she wanted to do anyway. I began to develop better detectors for my own emotional safety. How do I tell whether a person will be receptive to dropping down below a superficial exchange? In the beginning I resisted having a superficial exchange. I began to see a value in small talk. I saw how jumping right in was pretty intense for most other people even though they might be comfortable in a few exchanges. What were some good ways to drop down? It's always a good idea to ask the other person a question that you really want to know the answer to and then to listen to the answer attentively. It's amazing how much safety this can create and how much spaciousness for a satisfying exchange to occur. Also a comment about your present time experience provides an oppportunity to connect in the present. For instance," I am enjoying this party. It's kind of surprising given how challenging social situations can be for me." Eye contact and slowing down my breathing are helpful tools to relax and show up. What has worked for you when you want to connect?
After alot of practice being myself with other people has gotten much easier.I used to worry much more about what other people thought of me. Now I realize that other people are not usually thinking about me at all because they are more concerned with what I am thinking of them. I am now more able to validate internally.Internal validation is knowing I am OK from the inside rather than seeking external validation from others. This is not to say that I don't still take things personally. I am still the queen of taking things personally. What's changed is that I can sometimes notice my own reactivity with mindfulness and compassion. What do you notice about being more of your authentic self with others? What's scary about it? What's in it for you to do it?Is there someone you'd like to get to know better? A good place to start is to tell the person you'd like to get to know them better and suggest a meeting. Is there someone you'd be willing to practice on? I appreciate praciticing with you. Feel free to write comments to my blog. The e-mail link is now working.