Living An Authentic Life

Living an authentic life is to live from the inside out. This indicates that we are listening to our intuition and inner voice to make decisions about our lives. The opposite indicates that we are living from the outside in, that we are generally concerned about living up to the expectations of others. Sometimes we do want to please others, but if we are people pleasers and don’t say “no” when we need to, then we will most likely end up exhausted and perhaps resentful.

Learning to live more from the “inside out” is one of the keys to maintaining our physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Most of us are acutely aware of times when we’ve been trying to live up to expectations of others, while feeling a need to slow down, and spend time in the quiet. There is an old saying, “You can’t give from an empty well.”

I’ve known these depleted moments and I’m quite certain that you have experienced them too.

“Care what other people think, and you will forever be their prisoner.” ~Lao Tzu[i]

This is a profound quote, but I also recognize the difficulty and the uncomfortable feelings that arise when breaking away from our early conditioning and boundaries.  As we develop more self-awareness, self-worth, and confidence, we will naturally change and develop stronger boundaries.

We came by our people pleasing skills naturally. We were built to care about others, to rely on others, to let others watch out for our safety and for us to watch out for them too. Staying in our herd, our hive, our pack, our tribe is how we stayed alive. The women, children and elders remained by the campfire while the able-bodied hunted to stay alive. By staying together and watching out for each other, they kept the tribe safe. These ways of staying true to our “tribe” was handed down to you and me.[ii]

Wanting to serve and please others is a good and often wonderful thing. The problem with people-pleasing in today’s world is that we often don’t have good boundaries to go with it. Our brain today says, “Let’s do whatever keeps everyone happy and please don’t upset the apple cart.” As a child, you listened and incorporated all the rules into your psyche. You absorbed all of it, whether healthy or not. Now that you are older, you’re still listening to that early conditioning.

People pleasing is a nagging problem for many people. If you are a people-pleaser, work diligently toward discovering who you are in relation to others and develop healthy self-worth and boundaries. Many who have struggled with low self-esteem don’t even know what their truth is, what their needs and values are, or what matters to them. They know that they want to fit in, for people to like them and not speak against them. They want to be seen as nice, kind, giving and good.[iii]

I know I’ve struggled with this too, people-pleasing and not wanting to upset the apple cart. There is a tendency in some families, (tribes, cults, or organizations) to go along with whatever the elder/leaders say no matter if it is based upon co-dependency, facts or common sense. If you were accustomed to this conditioning and at some point decided to break away, you will certainly remember the courage it took. You were likely said to be self-centered, non-caring, etc. If you have a tender heart, that hurt a great deal, but you were courageous and did it anyway.

Then you probably had to fight feelings of guilt because you weren’t pleasing your family or group. I have always appreciated this saying from Jesus to remain courageous in such times.

One day Jesus invited a man to follow Him and become His disciple—but the man refused. He said he would follow Jesus later, but first he wanted to go bury his father. Jesus responded, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:22).[iv]

What he was saying here is to put aside the old conditioning and rules from your past and follow the path of truth. When he said, “Follow me,” he was saying to follow the path toward wholeness and fulfillment, listening to your inner voice. Pleasing others may make your life a bit easier in the moment because you’re trying to avoid conflict, but your health and sanity are paying the price.

We all want to be seen as kind and loving but we must ask ourselves always if we are living authentically. When we take the time to our inner voice, live authentically from that place rather than what others will think of us, we can say that we are truly fulfilled.  Remind yourself every hour, every day that you are worthy of an authentic peaceful life. Lovingly always, JV

[i] Lao-Tzu – World History Encyclopedia

[ii] Are Humans Naturally Tribal? – Be Human Project

[iii] People-Pleasing | Psychology Today

[iv] Matthew 8:22 NIV – But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and – Bible Gateway