Are you the real deal?

“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” ~Sarah Ban Breathnac

I’m sure we’ve all seen the stories on the news about a terrible thing that happened, whether it is child abuse and/or neglect, or a murder, and the neighbors are interviewed about the event.  Many times, the neighbors comment about how good the family or parents seemed to be, or how the individual seemed harmless, and they just can’t believe that the people they saw from their homes would be capable of doing such terrible and unthinkable things.

How often do we do the same thing (to a much lesser extent) within our own homes, or within our own bodies?

For example, I can think of times where the phone rings, and my kids are running around and having fun (and making lots of noise).  I have to shout over them to get them to be quiet, so that when I answer the phone, I project a “quiet and orderly” household to whoever is on the other side of the phone.  Never mind that I don’t want a call from someone trying to sell me something I don’t want; never mind that it may be one of those “robo-calls” that is spamming my phone number.  My desire to project something that is not authentic overrules everything else!

How often does this happen?  We think or say one thing, or act one way privately, and we conduct ourselves completely differently publicly?

I know that while I work extremely hard to be the same person publicly as I am privately, I still need work in this area, as I think that it’s almost hard wired into us to project “perfection” publicly while safely harboring “imperfection” privately.

I ask you to join me in challenging ourselves this week to choose to be authentic in our public and private lives.  Let’s work to project our authentic selves to anyone and everyone.   

Let’s face it – if we’re ashamed of how we would be viewed by others if they knew our “private” selves, then perhaps it’s time to modify what we think and what we say and how we act when we are not in the public eye.

Let’s work to be authentic!  Have a great week!

-Victor