Quotes About Authenticity

I will live my life from now on, I will not perform it.

Wherever you go in the world, there will be people to tell you it'll be bigger, stranger, better, more authentic if you take the time to go somewhere else instead; but if you are there, you won't be here. You can only be at one place at a time, and sleep in one bed each night. Sometimes it's good to know where you are when you wake up.

I heard in my own voice the tulmult of a young man playig a role, uneasily, repackaging black R&B music from America, relying on gimmicky outfits, and pretending to be wild & free when in reality he needed to be looked after by his mother.

The Artist's Way

Fully feeling people are also rewarded with increasing richness in their relationships – both with themselves and with others. Love manifests as a palpable warmth and excitement when it is grounded in the heart and body by feeling. Emotional love is so much more profound than the lightweight intellectual experiences of thought-bound people for whom love is often only an ideal, a dream, or a hungry expectation.

Self-esteem cannot be reclaimed while perfectionism prevails. Self-esteem is in many ways the opposite of perfectionism.

To the degree that our caretakers attack or abandon us for showing vulnerability, to that degree do we later avoid the authentic self-expression that is fundamental to intimacy. The outer critic forms to remind us that everyone else is surely as dangerous as our original caretakers. Subliminal memories of being scorned for seeking our parents' support then short-circuit our inclinations to share our troubles and ask for help.

Perfectionism also prevents us from letting in the love of others, no matter how abundant and genuine it is. When we are preoccupied with our deficiencies, we are often untouched by the nurturance others offer us. How tragic that so many of us are convinced we only deserve to be loved when we are happy or excelling.

the survivor learns to "follows his own bliss". He is freer to pursue activities and interests that naturally appeal to him. He evolves into his own sense of style. He may even feel emboldened to coif and dress himself without adherence to the standards of fashion. He may extend this freedom into his home décor. In this vein, I have seen many survivors discover their own aesthetic, as well as an increased appreciation of beauty in general.

All my relationships had been developed under the guise of my people-pleasing, funny guy persona, and in my current state there was not a joke anywhere to be found.

Many of the successful therapies I have guided come to an end when the client gains an earned secure relationship outside of our therapy. This is typically a partner or best friend with whom the person can truly be themselves.

Adult children benefit greatly from challenging and overthrowing false, destructive beliefs about forgiveness, blame, and emotionality. Life is inordinately more painful than necessary when we hate, shame, and abandon ourselves for not feeling "good." If we remain trapped in our families' legacy of disdaining all but the most exalted emotions, we may never feel authentically forgiving toward ourselves or anyone else.

The Tao of Fully Feeling, and it was written as an appeal to the general public to understand the consequences of trying to sanitize one's emotions.

Spiritual awakenings, as healing and wonderful as they are, do not magically create an authentic forgiveness of our real-life abusers. Spiritual forgiveness is not an alternative to the grieving that must precede authentic, interpersonal forgiveness.

Authentic sharing can be triggering, and sometimes flashes the survivor back to being punished or rejected for being vulnerable.

Perhaps there was no more detrimental consequence of our childhood abandonment than being forced to habitually hide our authentic selves. Many of us come out of childhood believing that what we have to say is as uninteresting to others as it was to our parents.

Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame.

When the moral judgment is removed, individuals are able to acknowledge and experience their authentic life energy freely.

Who we are being is more important than what we are doing.

To get from people you had to give a piece of yourself, a real piece that mattered. Just being nice was not enough.

What's the big-deal about "Rock" music, anyway? What does it have over, say, Polka music? Polka music has integrity - it's music made by down-to-earth, regular human beings, whereas "Rock" music is made by morons for the benefit of idiots!

It's too easy to be stupid, and too easy to wake up in the morning with the feeling you said something that had more to do with want and despair than need.

each technique carries a consistent message more important than any method: that each act that expresses trust in ourselves and belief in the validity of our own experience is always the right path to follow. Each act that is manipulative or filled with pretense is always self-destructive.

Acting on what matters means that we will consistently find ourselves feeling like we are living on the margin of our institutions and our culture. This calls for some detachment from the mainstream.