The INauthentic Self (A Healing Meditation to Get Real)
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The Inauthentic Self
There’s so much conversation about authenticity and learning to be our “real selves.” But I think there’s also something important to learn from the places where we aren’t authentic.
Most of us have moments when we can feel ourselves adjusting who we are. We laugh when something isn’t really funny. We say yes when something inside us is saying no. We become quieter, easier, more agreeable, more impressive, less sensitive, or less needy. We hide our anger or vulnerability. We try to become the person we imagine someone else will find acceptable.
And then we may judge ourselves for it.
Why am I doing this again? Why do I care so much what they think? Why can’t I just be myself?
But from a somatic and parts-work perspective, I think there’s a much more useful question: What is this inauthentic part of me trying to do for me?
Inauthenticity can be a form of self-protection
Sometimes what we experience as being fake or inauthentic is actually a deeply learned relational adaptation.
Human beings learn who it is safe to be in relationship with other people. We learn what brings connection and what threatens it. We notice what gets criticized, rejected, ignored, mocked, punished, or misunderstood. And our nervous systems are constantly learning from those experiences.
Maybe you learned that being agreeable helped keep the peace. Maybe being impressive helped you feel valuable. Maybe you became exceptionally good at anticipating what other people needed because disappointing someone felt unbearable. Maybe you learned to hide your sensitivity, anger, creativity, intensity, needs, personal power, ambition, or vulnerability because those parts of you weren’t welcomed.
Over time, these strategies can become so automatic that we don’t experience them as strategies at all. We simply find ourselves becoming smaller around certain people, saying what we think someone wants to hear, or losing touch with what we actually want until we’re alone again.
In parts work, we might understand these as protector parts. Their job is not necessarily to help us feel authentic. Their job is to help us navigate whatever they believe could happen if we were fully ourselves.
Your protective parts have a reason for what they do
This is why trying to force ourselves to “just be authentic” doesn’t always work.
If some part of you believes that honesty could lead to rejection, criticism, conflict, humiliation, or loss of connection, that part has a very good reason to intervene. It may soften what you say, hide what you feel, make you more pleasing, or pull your attention away from your own experience and toward the reactions of the people around you.
These patterns can be frustrating, especially when we consciously know that we don’t want to live this way anymore. But our automatic protective responses aren’t changed simply because another part of us understands that they’re unnecessary.
They usually need something deeper.
They need our curiosity. They need enough safety to let us understand what they’re afraid of. And sometimes they need healing around the experiences that taught them these strategies were necessary in the first place.
Instead of asking, “Why can’t I just be myself?” we can begin asking, “What feels uncomfortable about being myself here?”
That question can open up a very different relationship with our inauthenticity.
Authenticity doesn’t mean expressing everything
I also don’t believe that healing means becoming completely authentic with everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Sometimes masking is intelligent. Sometimes placating someone is the safest choice. Sometimes a relationship simply isn’t intimate enough to hold everything that is true about you. And sometimes you may consciously decide that you don’t want to share what you really think or feel.
Not every situation is safe enough, or simply the right fit, for all of your authentic expression.
What’s important is learning to be authentic with yourself. When you have enough awareness and internal permission to know what you really know, feel what you really feel, and recognize your own needs, desires, boundaries, and preferences, you have more choice about what you do with that information.
You may choose to speak honestly. You may choose to hold something back. You may decide that this person isn’t someone you want to be vulnerable with, or that keeping the peace matters more in this particular moment. The important thing is that you know what is true for you underneath whatever you choose to do.
And this is very different from automatically contorting yourself before you’ve even had a chance to recognize your own experience. The more we can stay connected to ourselves internally, the more choice we have about how we want to show up in the outer world.
Listening to the inauthentic self
Learning to listen to and understand our inauthentic parts is an effective way we can begin to create real change in patterns that may have been with us for a very long time.
If you could simply decide to stop people-pleasing, stop performing, stop making yourself smaller, or stop worrying so much about how other people perceive you, you probably would have done it already. But these patterns usually have roots in our individual histories and life experiences. Some part of us learned that adapting in these ways helped us avoid rejection, criticism, conflict, shame, or some other experience that felt difficult or threatening.
When we slow down enough to listen to these parts instead of simply trying to override them, we can begin to understand what they’re protecting and what still needs our attention and care. We can work with the fear or hurt underneath the pattern, while also reconnecting with the needs, feelings, preferences, boundaries, and qualities we may have learned to hide.
Over time, this can give us more freedom in the places where we’ve been automatically adapting. We can become more aware of what’s actually true for us, trust our own inner knowing more deeply, and have more choice about how we want to respond. And as our protective parts begin to feel safer, we may find that we don’t need to work quite so hard to become who we think we’re supposed to be.
In this healing meditation, I’ll guide you through a compassionate exploration of one of these inauthentic patterns, so you can better understand what’s happening underneath it and reconnect with more of what feels honest and authentic within you.
Listen to this Healing Meditation FOR THE INAUTHENTIC SELF NOW!
Episode timing:
00:00 - Inauthenticity is a self-protective strategy
06:17 - Healing Meditation For The Inauthentic Self
28:24 - Reflections and Conclusion
How was that Healing Meditation For The Inauthentic Self for you?
What shifted within? And what did you realize?
Please let me know in the comments!
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Thanks so much for joining me today!
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About me
Hey, I’m Karena!
I’m a somatic emotional healing coach here to help you quickly identify and heal the subconscious blocks, old emotional wounds and self-sabotaging core beliefs that are holding you back!
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