Faking It to Authenticity: A Breakthrough Journey

The stories I have shared in my blogs so far, which link to my Mindful Poetic Stories podcast, are all part of my journey to authenticity.  I have dived into the dualities of the human experience, stepped into personal power, and described how to make our unique mark in the world.

I shared how negative self-talk sabotages us, and can hold us back if we continue to hang on to old, outdated,  disabling beliefs which no longer serve us, and they can be debilitating and how when we start to move away from self-sabotage towards self-love we can grow and transform our lives from the inside out. I shared my Love Letter to Self, (read here) and I encouraged you to work toward writing your own declaration of self-love (Listen here).

From my personal experience, I truly believe self-love is the best and most stable foundation to build your life from, and it really is sad how we have been conditioned to believe that self-love is selfish, which is not true and in itself is a limiting belief.

All of this self-sabotage of limiting beliefs, assumptions, insecurities, and feelings of being “less than” programmed in from a young age, can all lead to an inauthentic “faking it” style of being, which can eventually tear us down and even lead to burnout.

My poetic story Faking It was inspired by conversations I had with long-time friends who questioned the essence of my personal transformation stories and my old beliefs and thoughts I was describing.

One friend, who’s known me for over 20 years, said, “Patricia, your poems are great, but is it really true? To me you’ve always had it together. You’re amazing. This is all very negative and you have never been”.

And the same week another friend of 30 years shared, “Patricia I never saw you like you describe in your stories, to me you were always so full of confidence, always chasing the next adrenaline rush, yes going 100 miles an hour but you seemed to have it all, if the truth be known I wished I had had your life.”

Now I admit, that in the past, these comments would definitely have triggered me, I would have become defensive, and felt judged, because my first thoughts would have been of ‘poor me, why doesn’t anyone believe me, why doesn’t anyone ever understand me’… basically those childhood feelings and emotional wounds of “not feeling heard or seen” would have resurfaced inside me and caused a negative emotional reaction.

However, there is a very wise quote that says, “Heal so you can hear what’s being said without the filter of your wound”.

And I can vouch for the power of this quote; for me, conversations like this compound the fact that there is beauty and strength in healing the invisible emotional wounds we carry. Healing my triggers and my emotional reactions allowed me to now see these comments from my friends as an opportunity for open dialogue, curiosity and deeper understanding. Therefore, from my inner Sage authentic place, I found myself having very powerful positive conversations with my friends about how our perceptions shape our reality, creating a safe space where we all could learn.

I love moments like this that help me realise how far I have come on my transformational journey and how much openness and compassion has grown within me.

These comments from my friends also helped me reflect on an important truth: We don’t see people as they are; we see them as we are.

There’s an analogy called the Iceberg Theory, which I first came across in NLP, and it made so much sense as it illustrates the fact that we only ever see the tip of the iceberg — maybe about 10% — but the majority of it is under the water which can’t be seen at all. It is the very same when we are looking at another person, there is so much more going on under the surface that we could ever know or understand.

That illustrates beautifully the complexity of human beings.

In all our relationships, I believe we often only see that person in how they fit into our lives, we don’t always see them as how they feel they fit into their own life, a.k.a. their understanding of themselves.

However, another important truth is that we co-create the dynamic in all our relationships, and with all people we are in contact with.

For me, concerning faking it, I really have always felt like a chameleon, adapting to any situation to fit in. I look back and feel I mastered the art of fitting in so well. Underneath all saboteur influence, there is an underlying strength but also pain. I was hiding behind a mask of pain, fear and inner struggle, and only putting the bright side out to the world.

Fitting in happens when we don’t have belonging. In the words of Brené Brown who has researched this topic extensively, “Belonging is a requirement for human connection, when there is no feeling of belonging there is suffering.”

As you can read in my blog “Imposter Syndrome“, I always had a strong inner negative voice running the show inside me, telling me I wasn’t good enough and I would never be good enough, always comparing myself to others, and they were always better than me. In fact, the biggest fear for the old “faking it” me was that I would be “found out”!

Even at the beginning of my coaching journey, those old self-doubts resurfaced. I thought, Who am I to be a coach? what can I bring to the coaching world,  I’ll never be good enough to, there would always be coaches better than me!.

In this podcast episode Faking It, I share a pivotal moment on my mental fitness coaching journey with positive intelligence where I realised all I needed to do was become the coach I wished to be, not compared to anyone else, but compared to who I was yesterday, growing and devloping as unique me, authentically, and from that moment that was the journey I set out on.

There is a fundamental finding deep-rooted in positive psychology research and states; Success doesn’t bring happiness, but happiness does bring success!

Self-sabotaging behaviour might make us successful, but it will never bring the true inner happiness we seek.

Living in our Sage true essence from a place of authenticity will always bring happiness and success; it is a place of abundance where we can meet our full potential and thrive, a place of unconditional love.

Are you ready to take off the mask?

Well, if so, the answer is to learn how to come off the negative reinforcement loop of conditioned negative thoughts and beliefs, those self-sabotaging inner programmes.

I believe the greatest antidote to self-sabotage is the power of self-love.

Personal transformation isn’t just about change, it’s about reconnection.

Living authentically doesn’t mean abandoning responsibilities, its about reconnecting with the true essence of you, whether you are a mother navigating empty nest syndrome or someone struggling with imposter syndrome, the journey is the same: discover who you truly are beneath the roles you play, and learn to unconditionally love the essence of you.

I help clients with the 3 R’s process:
– Recognise: recognising and becoming aware of your patterns of behaviour
– Realise: realising which are helping and serving you, and which are hindering and debilitating you
– Reconnection: reconnecting with our inner wise Sage within to choose which to let go of, so you can live true to yourself.

The heaviest burdens that we carry are the thoughts in our head, however, as Nancy Kline wisely said, “The mind that holds the problem holds the solution, probably the best one.” In other words, the key to happiness and fulfilment lies within you.

Learn to live from a place of unconditional love and self-awareness, self-acceptance, and emotional regulation and abundance will follow.

Carl Jung said the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are!

I’m glad I took the journey and experienced my breakthrough to living authentically, having found the true me.

If you’re feeling stuck or uncertain about your own journey, I invite you to reach out and benefit from a free 1 hour (no obligation) coaching session via my website.

It would be a privilege to work together so you can start to explore the path to building mental fitness, self awareness, embracing vulnerability and creating healthy boundaries.

Experience the power and joy of self-love.

Please share this message with someone who you think would benefit and tune in to my Mindful Poetic Stories Podcast here