Living An Authentic Life

In this session, we discuss the importance of clarity, congruence, and harmony in our actions and relationships. In order to achieve authenticity and congruence in our lives, it is imperative to explore ourselves and introspect. The session dives into the concepts of clarity, congruence, and harmony as essential elements in our lives: - Clarity in Thinking: Clarity is described as a state of clear understanding and decision-making without doubt. - Congruence in Actions: There is a need for our actions to be congruent with our thoughts and decisions. Acting in alignment with clarity leads to a sense of congruence. Incongruence between inner thoughts and external actions leads to conflict and inner turmoil. - Authenticity: We also explore the importance of authenticity and vulnerability in relationships and personal growth which require courage and openness - Responsibility vs. Blame: Responsibility is framed as the ability to respond and make forward-looking choices.

Transcript

Let's close our eyes.

Whatever I have to offer is based on four important adjectives or maybe they are nouns.

But the words are clarity,

Congruence,

Coherence and harmony.

What I mean by clarity is clarity in our thinking.

We know the state of being confused.

We know the state of not understanding something,

Not knowing what to do,

Either not knowing what to do because of no options or not knowing what to do because of multiple options,

What to do,

What to be,

Etc.

But we also know those moments when we were clear without a shred of doubt about something or the other.

Maybe she is the one or he is the one.

Maybe this is where I want to go to school.

This is the place I want to visit or even something mundane like,

Oh,

This is what I want to eat today,

Rather than looking at the menu and being confused.

Should I eat that?

Should I eat this?

No,

You just know,

Oh,

This is what I want.

That's what I call clarity,

Clarity in our mind.

And the second part,

Which is relevant for today's topic of discussion,

Is the word congruence,

Congruence in actions.

What I mean by that is being congruent with our thinking in our actions.

So if our actions stem from clarity,

Then we feel this congruence in our heart,

In our being.

Oh,

Yeah,

I acted this way because of this reason.

Many times,

Because of so much readily available information these days,

Information is not a problem.

Solutions are not a problem anymore.

For the problems that we have in life,

Solutions are no longer a problem.

The information of the solutions are no longer a problem.

But acting on those solutions,

If doesn't happen,

Then we feel this incongruence.

I know this,

I know this is right for me,

For my family,

For my future,

For my health,

For my emotional health,

Physical health.

But the actions are against that information,

That clarity in our mind.

That's what gives rise to conflict inside.

Because there is incongruence,

Incongruence inside,

Incongruence based on the lack of harmony between inside and outside.

What we think and what we act are not aligned.

That's why even if you have decided that,

You know what,

I'm going to eat healthy,

Take care of my health,

And you go to a party and there's this delicious cake that puts your discipline at the cusp of going down the drain.

You pick up that piece of cake and you start eating because you really want to.

But as you're eating it,

Because you love it,

You're not really enjoying it.

You're not enjoying it at all or to the capacity that you would because inside there's a conflict because no,

No,

No,

This is not,

You shouldn't be eating this,

You shouldn't be eating this and you are eating it.

So actually that act that should give you pleasure is giving you suffering,

Yet you can't stop eating it.

And even though you're eating it,

You're not getting the pleasure.

So it's like a quagmire of conflict.

You replace chocolate,

Piece of cake with something else or eating with something else.

We go through this churning of emotions,

Churning of conflict inside because what's inside is not reflected in our actions and that's when the conflict begins.

So congruence,

It's a very,

Very important aspect of our life which may facilitate or completely demolish what we do in terms of the example I just gave you.

Even though you are doing what you love,

Namely eating a piece of cake,

Even that is bringing us suffering.

That's how pivotal this incongruence can be in our life.

When I see my nephew and niece in a video call in India,

My brother and sister-in-law keep telling how,

How much they trouble and they're just kids,

They are nine and five year old children.

But I'm telling you where the seeds of incongruence gets sown and starts flowering.

Like all kids,

These kids trouble their parents,

It's their age to trouble,

To have fun.

When they're in school,

They're very well behaved.

When the guests come over,

They're very well behaved.

Like even in front of me on the video call,

If my mom is telling me something,

My niece will scold my mom saying,

Hey,

Don't tell him that,

It's only between us.

So we have this inauthentic actions,

Inauthentic in a way that,

Yeah,

I want to do it,

But I don't want to do it in front of him.

So I will do something which is a little more conforming.

This was something that was very personal in my own family.

But I'll tell you what I experienced at work a few years ago.

I used to work with this guy.

I'm an engineer,

By the way,

So I was working with this guy,

Fun guy.

I worked with him for a couple of years and then one evening,

We went out for dinner.

And he was,

He was different.

I didn't quite understand what was going on.

I've always been curious about culture.

So I wanted to understand more.

I started talking to my other American friends,

Trying to understand.

And many people said that,

No,

I don't want to be myself at work.

And that's what I realized even with my friend who had gone out for dinner with my co-worker,

There was difference.

So imagine working 40 hours a week and not being yourself.

And I didn't want to be that way.

So after a lot of soul searching,

So what I'm sharing with you is very intimate and very much experiential and very done by me or done through me kind of thing.

So I'm not telling you something which I've read somewhere.

This is something I live.

And before there are any objections about decorum and,

You know,

I'm talking about an average day.

I'm not talking when you are at important occasions,

You can't be cracking jokes,

Etc.

I'm talking about everyday life.

I mean,

This is about school versus at home or work versus at home.

But think about your relationships as well.

You act differently with your childhood friends versus your spouse's friends.

Maybe you acted differently with your ex versus you act with your current romantic partner.

Maybe the way you acted with your current partner when you met was very different,

Very freeing versus the way you act with them now.

Maybe walking on eggshells has changed you,

Not changed you internally,

Changed you in actions.

So internally,

There is still conflict.

Even in front of kids,

We act differently versus when the kids are not around.

We speak to our family members differently.

We speak differently when the kids are little versus kids are grown up.

So there's all kinds of conflicts that we have when this is what our heart really wants to be like,

Act like.

But we suppress it out of habit,

Out of compulsion,

Out of fear,

Fear of not being seen,

Fear of being seen.

So when we talk about authenticity,

Vulnerability,

What are we talking about?

How do they relate to us?

Be yourself.

This is the advice that is thrown around so randomly in our society.

I want to bring my authentic self to work.

I mentor a lot of kids at work and that's what they want to say.

Yes,

I want to bring my authentic self.

I think it is a very misunderstood approach where the focus is on actions,

Actions only without realizing the nuances of how we act.

What I just described to you in different situations,

In front of different people.

I remember sitting in my teacher's class years ago and she was giving this example where the way Mitesh acts in front of her is very different than how Mitesh acts in front of her in the presence of another person or a group of people.

This is how she used to teach me and that's when I started noticing,

Yes,

Sometimes I want recognition,

Sometimes I just want to sound smart,

Sometimes I want to exert authority.

That changes behavior.

Now is this authentic or should I always keep talking about what has happened to me?

How life has been tough for me?

Is that what the definition of vulnerability is?

If I were to capture this whole discussion,

It would be that one word,

Congruence.

Congruence that stems from clarity.

Not from fear,

Not from confusion,

Not from manipulation,

No,

From clarity where the inside is the same as outside and outside is the same as inside.

Some of us can take this to an extreme.

You know,

This is what I feel like telling you.

I'm just going to be honest and I'm going to,

You know,

Be unkind to you.

Yes,

It's an act of congruence,

Right?

I should be unkind to you and I'm being unkind to you.

Yes,

I'm congruent.

I'm authentic.

I'm honest because the focus is still on action.

What we need for congruence is clarity and a very special ingredient,

Namely courage.

So if we break this equation down that clarity plus courage is congruence,

What I mean by that is clarity comes from questioning,

Not questioning others,

Questioning ourselves.

Do I really want to be unkind?

Do you really think people want to be knowingly unkind in this world?

I think most of us are unkind out of ignorance,

Of out of not knowing,

Confusion,

Lack of clear understanding.

If we were to use this for our eating the cake analogy,

When we have decided to eat healthy,

A clear thing would be,

I have decided to be healthy.

I made that decision for a reason,

Right?

I want to take control of my,

My health.

Now no matter what dances in front of me,

What carrot is dangling,

A clear decision cannot tempt you.

It's very hard to,

To deter someone who is clear,

Who has clearly decided,

Not sort of kind of on shaky ground,

But clearly.

And this applies so many different places,

Even in relationships.

Do I want to walk on eggshells in my relationship and one of the most intimate relationships that we can have,

Right?

No,

I don't want to wear a mask anymore.

I don't want to be inauthentic,

But neither do I want to be unkind.

The foundation of relationships is love.

Friendship is a variation of love,

Still love.

And that's what is important to me.

And all my actions will be based on these two things.

Why?

Because I'm clear that my life is based on these two things,

Love and friendship,

Or just love.

And if I'm not acting that way,

If there is conflict,

Then I need a little bit of courage in my life,

Courage to sit down with my partner and tell them about walking on eggshells,

About not being seen,

About not being heard,

Not in a way to vent,

But in a way to communicate,

Yet being open to understanding the other person.

Because remember,

The foundation is love.

It's not about being right or being authoritative or venting.

No,

This is a sacred act.

Being yourself is a very sacred act.

That's why courage is important.

And once you have these two ingredients,

You will see that you will start feeling more and more congruent.

And congruence is not a byproduct of unintentionality.

Congruence happens when we are intentional.

Clarity doesn't come without being intentional.

Courage doesn't come without being intentional.

Not the courage where we can fight someone,

But the courage where we can be open.

Open to ourselves first,

In acknowledging and then accepting something,

And then open to others in sharing what we have just found.

That's why the meaning of vulnerability is lost somewhere.

Authenticity is lost somewhere.

It's a very sacred act.

You are being yourself,

No matter how quirky you are.

That's the fun part of being just the way you are.

But for that,

You'll have to know,

How am I?

What do I want to do?

Why do I want to do it?

What's important to me?

Why do I want to do what I want to do?

And why am I acting in a diagonally opposite way?

What am I hiding?

What am I hiding from?

Once you start journaling,

Once you start answering these questions,

Actions start popping out in your mind,

In your journaling,

Oh yeah,

I should do this,

I should do this.

And then that's where courage comes about.

Courage to act.

I mean,

It takes a lot of courage to write it down,

To acknowledge this is coming up and to accept that this has come up.

But it is still in the confines of our room,

Alone.

But you add another person,

No matter how intimate you are with this person,

It still takes magnitudes of courage.

And what you feel after that is this transparency,

Transparency of congruence.

You can call it authenticity.

You can call it vulnerability.

You can call it being yourself,

Soul searching for yourself and sprinkling courage on that soul searching and living it,

Not acting it out,

But living it.

So authenticity,

Congruence is not a one time act.

It takes a lifetime to align our entire life to this authenticity.

We have already lived so much of life,

Probably not being congruent,

In conflict,

Yearning for courage.

Maybe today's the day where we clearly decide no more.

I want to get clear about myself.

No matter how ugly or how dirty this process gets,

It's better out than in.

And this is not something that we need to advertise with people.

It's a very intimate,

Very,

Very intimate process that I'm inviting all of you to do.

You will find parts of you that are afraid,

That are selfish,

That are jealous,

That are ignorant,

That are cruel,

But they are all hiding.

So we don't want to be consciously cruel or consciously stupid or consciously ignorant.

We are a product of our society.

So forgive yourself for whatever shows up,

But embrace it.

I think this is an important segue into this interview that I was watching with a renowned brain surgeon.

And he was sharing this incident about his wife where she was diagnosed with cancer.

And this doctor,

No,

A mentor asked her,

Whose responsibility is this?

And she said,

It's not my fault that I got cancer.

So this mentor of hers pointed out that he was talking about responsibility,

Not about blame.

Responsibility is responding,

The ability to respond,

Which is a forward-looking approach.

Blame is backward-looking approach.

One takes the freedom away from us.

The other keeps the freedom within us.

The reason this segue is important is because when we do find things that are ugly in our journaling,

In our questioning,

In our explorations,

Whether we do it on a piece of paper or while talking,

I think those are the only two ways where you can really get deep without getting overwhelmed.

You don't want to go the route of regret or anger or blame.

That's why this story is important.

To find out,

Find out who are you,

What is important to you,

Why is it important for you.

Without being interested in stories about your past,

About what has happened or what should have happened,

No,

Factual.

What is important to you despite everything that has happened?

How do you want to live despite whatever happens or whatever has happened?

How do you want to show up?

How do you want to wake up every day and why?

What's important to you?

What is non-negotiable for you?

And how can you act from those places that you value so much?

Can you find a reason to act in congruence with what you just found out?

You might find a hundred reasons to not act that way.

Can you find one to do it?

To act,

To jump,

To care,

To love,

To share,

To talk,

To ask for help,

To offer help,

To say sorry,

To mean sorry,

To forgive without a sorry,

To hug tightly,

To love madly,

To nourish our bodies,

Our minds,

Our souls,

To nourish the bodies and minds and souls of our family members,

To put the head on our pillow every night and feel,

I lived my best day,

Even if it was shitty,

I did my best,

I was true,

True to myself.

Not to be congruent to a world of being authentic or being vulnerable,

But true to your core,

Which is not a whimsical act,

It's a sacred act because you went through the process of finding out.

And this finding out is a continuous process,

The more you find,

The more you have to find.

And that becomes a fun part to shed off all the conflicts,

All the masks,

All the personas,

All the images of us,

Right from childhood,

Where you realize that everything in my life has one thing in common,

Every area of my life,

Every relationship of my life,

Every action of my life has one thing in common,

That is you,

There is no work outside of you,

There's no relationship outside of you,

There's no friendship outside of you.

So you want to infuse this understanding with every action in your life,

Everywhere you show up,

You leave a perfume of you and you get to decide what that perfume is.

So we start cleaning house,

We start kindling this perfume,

Which is buried deep inside.

Let's take a pen and paper and start getting busy.

Thank you.

Reviews

You’re insights were truly a blessing for for which I am most grateful.

Hi Mitesh. So good to listen to this talk again for the 2nd time after attending your live. Thank you for the reminders and pointers. Much gratitude🙏😇🙏