The Authenticity Trap

The unspoken authorities our lives answer to make being “authentic” impossible.

Photo by Zbigniew Kortas on Unsplash

It’s all the rage in healing circles right now to push the idea that healed folks show up to all the spaces of their lives as their authentic self.

Most definitions of just what our “authentic self” involves:

• Some combination of doing what we want without concern for what others think.
• Letting our emotions and attitudes about a given relationship show.
• Leaving the masks behind.

In a way, it’s individualism in its highest form. Do whatever you want, however you want, whenever you want to do it.

Focusing on making this “true-core” something the world can see dismisses the historic efforts folks have made to survive within the cultural context they were living through, ignores the reality of unwritten social contracts, and neglects the costs of violating those contracts. It’s the ultimate “be yourself” message without consideration for the consequences of being yourself.

Twenty years ago, I walked through the world not swearing, trying to be unseen, and providing universal accommodation. The evangelical church I joined just a few years before assigned me a friend. Using the religious authority I granted them, they even told us we had to get together once a week so I could talk about what discipleship things I had struggled with in the last week. I did my job in a way that left few imprints behind, making silly architectural ideas work and meeting impossible deadlines without complaint. That version of me feels so far away from who I am now and how I walk in the world.

But when folks talk about that version of me not being authentic, I get defensive. My shoulders tighten, my jaw firms, and my fists clench as I silently scream. I was authentically trying to survive and find my way out of Zombieville. Stop dismissing the fact that everyone puts on different hats or masks based on their context.

In the movie The Return to Oz, a character has a hall of heads, and when she feels the need, she can change one head out for another. (I made my family leave when we tried to watch the movie and haven’t rewatched it, so the details are sketchy.) The thing is, she didn’t leave the hall of heads without actually choosing which head to wear. Our masks are like that too. Even at home, there are expectations I meet.

While defensiveness fuels my response to authenticity, it connects how I behaved in the world to the cultural context I was experiencing. Within the church culture, which provided me necessary tools for learning how to live in a community, I stopped swearing and worked at blending into the woodwork because women were not to be seen, ya know.

My work culture tasked me with designing a building so it wouldn’t fall while meeting as many of the architects’ aesthetic concerns and staying out of the way of the ventilation system. My behavior, while not reflecting the grumpy Gus I can be within, was culturally appropriate if I wanted to remain a member of the church and keep my job.

Of those three things I was trying to do - not swearing, trying to be unseen, and providing universal accommodation - only the not swearing was made explicit. The other two expectations, and many of their associates, remained unwritten and unspoken elements of the social contract I signed when I joined those groups.

It’s something Black women have been trying to beat over our thick skulls for years, the unspoken elements of the social contract cannot be safely ignored. Do you know how folks would show up if they followed your directives to start living as their ‘authentic’ self? Do you actually want to deal with them as they let loose the knots they’ve tied themselves up in to be able to be in your space?

Are you ready for more folks in your life to blurt stuff out at seemingly random times, to become messier, to lose stuff more often, stemming, asking you to turn down the radio, speak up for themselves more, and stop doing more than their share of the work in your relationships? (Sources: 2,3, and 4.)

Folks living in a way you’d call unauthentic often choose to live that way because they have experienced their authentic expressions being corrected, mocked, or threatened by the world. They’ve developed these behaviors you call unauthentic because that’s what the cultures they live among have told them they have to do if they want to feel any sense of safety or comfort.

These days, I approach authenticity from a less binary (authentic vs. inauthentic) perspective. I look at the situation I’m in and assess the type and manner of behavior I expect from myself in this context. Then, I walk in, holding the parts of myself I deem appropriate to the context at the forefront.

I show up authentically as the person I want to be right now in the space I’m in, with all of the considerations for safety, social constructs, and personal definitions of appropriate on board.

That’s being an authentic person who understands that I don’t live on this little section of the earth all by my lonesome.