Being Authentic In Relationships

A talk about being your true self in relationships with others, including how to manage relationships with difficult people. Also - what are the three ingredients necessary for healthy and fulfilling relationships (whether those are with family, friends, or romantic partners)?

Listen to this talk to find out! And please share your thoughts in the reviews!

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to my channel Akasha Love.

This is a space where we talk about love for self and others and growing healthy authentic relationships amongst other things.

So today I wanted to come and speak a little bit about this topic of authenticity.

So I've been inspired by Daniel Mackler who's a really awesome youtuber.

He makes a lot of videos about this topic about being your true self,

Letting out your true self-expression,

Being who you really are in your relationships and following your soul's desires,

Your wild truth.

So what makes it difficult to be authentic in our relationships and what makes it easy?

So our first relationship is of course with ourselves and a lot of people even find it hard to be authentic with themselves.

So depending on how you have been treated in childhood,

In your family of origin,

In your school,

At your school experience,

Maybe in your university,

All your past experiences in relationships with people will form your sense of safety being yourself out in the world.

So if you have had a lot of negative and difficult experiences in relationships where you have felt unsafe to be yourself,

You may even find it really difficult knowing who you are at all.

So it might even be difficult to be authentic with yourself because you might be coming from a place of fear and the best way that I have learned to discover this is through journaling practice.

So I've been journaling for 40 years probably since I was about seven years old and this is a space where I give myself full permission to say whatever I really think to myself and that really helps with my own self-understanding and growth and development.

But if you have kind of repressed your true self over a long time,

Even that might be difficult for you.

So that's a really good starting point if you find that you have this feeling that maybe you don't really know who you are,

You don't know what you really think,

What is your authentic self because perhaps you've been so conditioned by your difficult relationships that you've become a really strong people pleaser or codependent.

So journaling is really a great place to start or start growing and building and developing that authentic relationship with your own self.

Then when we are talking about being able to be really authentic out in the world in our relationships with others,

This obviously depends on a lot of different things but it depends mainly on the level of safety that we feel with somebody.

If we don't feel safe in a relationship,

In a connection with somebody,

Then it's not going to feel safe to express our true opinions.

And why would we feel unsafe?

Because perhaps if we do express our true opinions,

Particularly about perhaps ways that this person has treated us,

Things that they have done in the past or said,

If when we express such opinions the reaction that we get is just aggression,

So immediate aggression and the desire to shut us down,

Then that obviously is not a safe relationship.

There's no safety in a relationship where if you express any negativity about an experience that you've had with a person,

Their immediate reaction is aggression and is intention to shut you down,

To stop you saying that,

That is clearly really unsafe.

Nothing good is going to come out of that interaction.

You're going to then basically be afraid to speak your mind,

Therefore if you're going to stay in relationship with that person you're going to have to start self-censoring,

You're going to have to really start editing everything that you say before it comes out of your mouth and that relationship obviously is not going to be an authentic one.

It's going to feel very fake,

Like you're going through the motions and eventually you're going to start questioning why you're even there.

Because what are you actually getting out of an interaction with somebody where you're not able to speak your mind,

You're not able to speak your truth,

You're not able to express yourself,

You're not able to share your real experience in the world,

Particularly anything related to the way that that person behaves or has behaved in the past.

So I think that's a common experience for people in family situations,

Where people have been in relationships with family members for many,

Many,

Many,

Many years and patterns of relating have been established.

So there might be a pattern of one person being a dominant and the other person being submissive and a more a pleaser kind of person and the dominant person is aggressive and brings up aggression whenever the submissive or pleaser person tries to bring out any difficulty or problem that they had with the other person.

So these dynamics may have been established in your family of origin over many,

Many,

Many years and you trying to change such a dynamic may very much,

May basically just not work.

So then you have to make the choice,

Do I stay in this basically fake relationship where I'm not able to be myself,

Where I have to self-censor,

Where I have to edit,

Where I have to basically just talk about the weather or do I not choose not to stay in that engagement.

And I think at least for me it feels like if I do stay in such relationships where I'm not safe to fully express myself,

To fully be who I am,

To fully talk about the things that I really need to talk about with such a person,

It feels really like a self-betrayal,

Like I'm basically betraying myself.

And the more relationships like that that you're in in your life,

The more you're going to actually lose yourself because you start to not even know who you are.

If most of your energy is going into self-censorship,

Editing,

Checking in with all of your fear receptors to see what's safe and what's not safe with all the people around you,

You're really going to start to lose yourself,

Lose your authentic self,

Not know who you are anymore,

What you think,

Yeah,

And what is your truth.

So I would not recommend that you stay in such relationships.

It's really much more damaging to our health than we can actually probably imagine.

I cannot overestimate the damage that being,

Having to,

Being forced to be inauthentic in relationships has a really big impact on our emotional health really.

And if you're not emotionally healthy,

This also has an impact on your physical health,

Absolutely.

I have heard from many people that,

My uncle actually being one,

Who says that cancer is a result of stuck emotions,

As a result of emotions which have not been processed,

Which are not moving freely through your body.

So if you're in a lot of difficult or damaging or harmful relationships,

This is going to cause a lot of stuck emotions,

It's going to cause emotional,

Lack of emotional well-being and that definitely can escalate into a physical illness like a cancer.

So I would say absolutely never underestimate the effects or the impact of inauthentic relationships on your life.

It can absolutely not be underestimated.

So how do we create authentic relationships?

First we need to take an audit,

Let's say of the people that we are in relationship with and work out who is safe and who is willing and interested in knowing who we truly are as a person.

And if we find that we are around or in relationships with a lot of people who are not interested or willing to see our true authentic self,

We should probably really take an inventory and ask why we are staying in those relationships with those people because,

As I said,

They can be very damaging to our health on all levels.

One thing that I really like when talking about this topic of authentic relationships,

Healthy relationships,

Is something that I saw on the channel of Dr.

Roberta Schaeler who's unfortunately recently passed away but she has an amazing channel here on YouTube as well.

She talks about relationships with difficult people that she calls hijackals.

So she talks about the basic foundations or building blocks of any healthy relationship being three things that is equality,

Mutuality and reciprocity.

So I think that's a really good way to check in with yourself in any of your relationships,

Checking whether they are healthy.

Ask if you feel that you are equal with this person.

That means you are on the same level basically.

You don't feel that they are dominating you and you're also not dominating them.

You're basically treating each other as equals.

Yeah and this is possible in all relationships even in relationships of a parent and an adult child.

Everybody is able to treat each other as equals but does not always happen.

So this is our first principle.

Is it an equal relationship?

Do you see yourself as equal with this person or do you feel like they are dominant or feel superior to you treating you like you are inferior?

Then perhaps there is not equality there in the relationship.

Mutuality,

Are you basically on the same page?

Are you both I understand that to be are you both do you share some really fundamental values?

Do you share enough fundamental values as a human being in order to have a safe relationship?

Such values might be truth,

Honesty,

We don't lie,

I don't lie to you,

You don't lie to me.

I think that's an absolute foundational for any healthy relationship.

They also might be around transparency.

I share my inner self with you and I expect you to be sharing all your inner self as well with me.

Another value could be around clarity,

So lack of manipulation,

Directness.

I tell you what I feel and what I think.

I tell you if I'm feeling offended or annoyed by you and I trust you also are going to tell me that because that creates safety,

That creates glue in the relationship.

So these are all basically foundational principles that we can agree on.

These are mutuality.

Are we sharing these same basic values?

That means that this third space which is the relationship is a safe nurturing space for us to engage in.

And then the third principle reciprocity,

Very very important.

Am I giving and also receiving?

So if you're in an unbalanced relationship yeah where you find you're giving a lot of the time and the other person is taking,

Taking everything that you're giving but not giving back to you,

Then that is not a reciprocal relationship.

If for example you're in a partnership with somebody and you support them,

You attend their important life events for example,

If they win a prize,

If they have an opening of an exhibition or something like that,

Reciprocity means that that person also supports you and your important life events.

So if it's only one way and not two ways,

If it's only you that's supporting them and attending their events and when it comes to your special event and they're somehow not available that weekend or that day,

Even if they are available,

They're too important to actually come and support you,

Then that's a lack of reciprocity and that's not going to feel healthy or safe because that creates an imbalance.

So all these things,

If we have an unequal relationship,

It's an imbalance.

We have a dominator or a submissive person.

If we have a relationship which is not mutual,

Then our values might not be connecting because one person believes lying is okay,

The other person is absolutely committed to the truth and honesty.

And then if we have a relationship which is not reciprocal,

Again,

Imbalanced.

I'm giving,

You're taking.

Yeah it's not,

We're not meeting in the middle,

We're not supporting each other equally.

And if we I think think about this relationship as a third entity.

So you have two people and then you have a third entity,

That third space.

Then imagine if that third space has a color in it that people are giving in.

So one person,

If one person is giving a lot more than the other person,

Imagine person A is putting in a lot of red color into that circle and that relationship space is a red circle full of that love and giving energy coming from person A.

Person B is not giving so much,

They are taking,

They're sucking out all that red color and bringing that into themselves.

But they're not putting back into that relational space much of their own energy.

So they're taking,

So they're being nurtured by that space,

That third entity,

That third space.

Imagine that person B being filled with that red color that person A is putting in and being nurtured and feeling enriched and energized by that red that person A is putting in.

But then the red is all gone because person B has taken it all and there's,

They have not put any other color in for person A.

So person A then has to keep resourcing themselves,

By themselves,

Not from the relationship because that space is not being filled by person B.

Then it's not mutual,

It's not reciprocal,

It's imbalanced,

Yeah?

It's not that,

It's not a healthy space,

That circle between those two people.

Person A eventually is going to feel totally depleted energetically and if they are healthy person they're going to tell person B what is going on and person B might get a chance to reflect,

Self-reflect and change the dynamic and choose to start putting in energy into that third space,

Choose to start pouring in yellow in and that person A is pouring in red and then they have a beautiful orange which mutually nourishes both of them.

Or person B might not be either willing or capable of nurturing the relational space in which case the relationship will disintegrate or dissolve.

So some,

Just some basic important concepts for how to know whether your,

The relationships you are in are healthy and what to do if you discover that they're really not.

So just ask yourself those three questions.

Is it equal?

Is it mutual?

Is it reciprocal?

And if not,

Ask yourself what you can do to change some of those dynamics.

And being authentic of course means we speak up,

We own our truth,

We say what we feel with our relational partner and maybe they are able to receive and accept that and process it and do something different.

Maybe they're not but that's what gives us the information back as to whether it is healthy or not.

So I think that's all I wanted to talk about today.

Reviews

Thank you Akasha for this insightful lecture 🙏🏾💜

So many ideas hit home, especially understanding when you find yourself self editing in a relationship because you feel being authentic is unsafe, you are in self betrayal and must find a pathway to protect yourself.