Authenticity

What does authenticity mean to you? Authenticity means to be genuinely courageously you. It is the freedom to express ourselves, moving beyond a place of fear in alignment with both love and our inner source of power. Take a second to pause. Really, if you have a moment, sit down and close your eyes. Now think back, think fat back into your past. Think back to a time when you were a child, a moment of innocence and truth. Perhaps, it was a day of laying in the grass and looking up into the clouds or a happy memory with someone you love who loves you back.

How did you feel at that moment? What was your body like? When you check in with your heart, how did your heart recognize this moment in time as something unique and something true? What were the traits of that person from your memory, that person that was you? Were they kind, were they innocent, were they loved? At that moment, were there a million obligations that they felt they had to fulfill, or could they be present and recognize the beauty surrounding them. I think back to my childhood, moments with family that are bittersweet because we aren't together at this time. Then, I think back to how I felt. I wasn't worried about how I looked in those moments or if my hair was made up just so. I didn't care if my makeup was perfect or if I had to have makeup at all. I felt the surge of overwhelming acceptance and that feeling that you get when you are alive, you are awake, and you are present at that time because that time is your life. When I look back at those moments, I smile. What I take from those moments is a feeling of genuine authenticity, happiness, and the acknowledgment of grace; for a while, I'm no longer that little girl sitting in a field pointing at clouds, pretending they were castles in the sky; I am still me. However, what I gained from those moments were the reminder of who I am outside of any title, who I am out of any job, and if we stripped it all away, who I've always been and who I'll always be and in that, I am reminded of authenticity.