“This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.”
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
If you’ve known me for ten minutes, you know that my favorite word, my deepest longing, my overarching core value is authenticity. In fact, this very journey we’re on is in some way, for each of us, a path to who we are now.
It’s not just my life theme. If you Google “authenticity” (I did) you’ll get 570,000,000 results. It’s a very popular thing to seek, and judging from all that’s being written about it, it’s not that easy to find.
This week, I want to take that a step further and say that the difficulty doesn’t stop there. Once you do find the Yes-You and you begin to live your life in your own true skin, a decision remains …
With whom can we share it?
Authenticity vs. Transparency
Okay, so obviously we never want to completely “check ourselves at the door” and only reveal what we think people want to see.
But when we discover that center of ourselves that is everything we are – what I think of as the Soul – we also discover its vulnerability. “Transparency” was a popular word in the early 2000’s, especially in Evangelical Christian circles, and many of us soon learned – some of us painfully – that not everyone can be trusted with that very real, very strong yet very much potentially misunderstood part of us that is Soul.
Maybe you told all and sundry about your childhood abuse, and suddenly you were beset with well-meaning people who wanted to send you to their favorite therapist or set up an exorcism.
Perhaps you shared that you once had an extra-marital affair, and the next thing you knew women were clutching their husbands’ arms when you approached.
Could it be that you expressed doubts about your faith and a horrified friend offered to pray over you? You admitted that you sometimes can’t stand your own kids, and soon nobody wanted you around theirs? You talked about something “weird” you do and people full on laughed at you?
Transparency too often leads to judgment. We can say “I don’t care what people say about me,” but do we really mean it? We can still stick to who we are, but betrayal makes us want to keep it very close to the vest.
“The Soul Made Visible”
That can get pretty lonely. Something feels trapped inside, afraid to emerge into freedom. We want to believe, as Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote, that “Authenticity is the soul made visible.”
We’re right to want that. We’re also correct that if we share our deepest roots, some people are going to say they’re ugly.
Here’s what I’m thinking – and see if you agree: we can always live authentically – we just don’t have to share the most vulnerable parts of ourselves with everyone. That isn’t being false. It is taking care of the tender places.
This part of our journey is to find those people who will also care.
Choosing Our Confidants
This is what we’re about this week – answering the question, Who do I trust with the very center of myself?
We’ll work through it day by day, examining the qualities we look for in a confidant, a kindred spirit and identifying people we may not have considered.
For today’s question, gather on the path with us on Facebook – knowing you can surely confide in us.
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