Authenticity is what makes me special. I am unique. It took me some time in preparing to write this post to get down to my authentic self, down to the good stuff. It took me stepping back and taking a day of rest. A break from my usual projects and endeavors. One of the best ways for me to do this is to adventure out into the world with my camera. I was thrilled to find some quirky and unique characters that inspired me. This always opens me up for revelation, and revelation was just what I needed to be open to the topic for this week’s show. Authenticity!
Getting to the good stuff
In one of our previous podcasts, maybe even the first one, Jill asked me what made me special. Why would someone choose me as a Reiki practitioner out of all the other energy workers available? My answer was, essentially, that what makes me special is that there is only one me. Only one Reiki practitioner with my unique experiences, insights, and gifts. Only one Reiki practitioner who sees the world through my eyes. I am special because I am authentic. Unique.
In my Reiki practice, I am working with the people and animals who are drawn into my space. People who feel intrigued, inspired by, interested in, or connected to me. This is a journey that began with me wanting to learn how to be authentic.
Authenticity
Authenticity. This has been a bit of a personal project for me, learning to be authentic. What exactly does it mean to be authentic? Mostly it means being exactly who you claim to be, and so, being trustworthy. So, why is it so challenging to be authentic? From here we could talk for days about the blocks in our lives that make it difficult to be our true selves, especially with other people. But for myself, I’m finding that my main roadblock to authenticity is simply fear. I want people to accept me and to like me. I want them to have a positive experience with me and so if I’m not in a place of mindfulness, and connection with myself, my instincts can project me forward into the qualities I think will shed me in the best light according to the people and situations I’m in.
For me, this means, not allowing uncomfortable situations, not rocking the boat, not expressing my own opinions – essentially, mirroring the energies of the situations I’m in. This creates a very classic inauthentic version of myself. This type of camouflaging doesn’t serve anyone in light of the truth that every soul is unique and differently equipped to bring a part of the whole in creating the greater picture of our humanity. And, it doesn’t work very well in the long-term.
After many years of trying to fit in with various groups and people in this way, I found myself exhausted and resentful. I was craving some real and true relationships and experiences. You know, authentic ones. The trick was gaining enough courage to take that first step and trust that I wasn’t too much, and that I was enough. This can be scary for anyone, and as an introvert, I was terrified! Still, it wasn’t enough for me to be a mirror anymore, I was getting the craving to shine.
Shining requires authenticity. Learning to become my true self cost me a number of relationships. It made sense, I was changing the foundation of the relationship by bringing in a different person; true-to-me, me. And though the transition was tricky, the further I moved down that road, the more baggage I was releasing, and the easier my journey was becoming. I could breathe more freely; I had more energy since I was allowing and flowing instead of forcing. The relationships I was nurturing were life-giving instead of draining. This is all personally reinforcing, empowering good stuff! So, go authenticity!
Principles of magnetism
And then I started learning about magnetism. The ability to attract and connect with people and scenarios that grow you toward your true self. Why do certain people attract certain other people? Energy is for real. Everything is energy. It’s everywhere, it affects everything. Life Force Energy is what makes my work with Reiki expansive and holistic. When I started to see the patterns in my life from a perspective that included the personality of energy, endless possibilities for learning and interacting with the life in me and around me opened up. As I began to live more authentically, I experienced the principles of magnetism. The more I was able to open up and be honest with myself, the more my relationships came into alignment with my heart’s desires. All that what was needed to spark it into existence was a little courage and some trust in myself.
Fabulous serendipity
First of all, isn’t this is a fabulous word? Serendipity. It’s the kind of word you hear that you might not know exactly what it means but you’re definitely on board! Serendipity is “the occurrence of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” This is the premise of some of our favorite stories and movies. When I experience this in my life, it sparks joy in me. More of this thing, please! This is the product of authenticity, magnetism, and energy. This takes me back to the basic premise of remote Reiki sessions – distance energy work. The bottom line being, everything is connected. Our energetic fields extend outward and interact with all sorts of other energies that foster connections which may feel coincidental, but are actually, creating alignments that lead us to our heart’s delights.
A lesson in serendipity
My most recent run-in with serendipity happened when I was selling my house this past March. I knew I would be taking some time between selling the house and starting the process of buying a new one because the housing market in Anacortes right now (and I know many other parts of the country), is crazy. Homes sell very quickly but then it is difficult to find another home to purchase. The plan was to find a place to rent for a year or so. My house sold within a week, but even before then I had been calling all the realtors and checking all the sites for rentals coming up– nothing.
The other thing making it difficult to find a place to rent was the fact that my family had very specific needs: Everyone needed a bedroom and I needed a space for my home office. Then, the trickiest part, we have 3 cats and a dog. No one wants to rent to creatures these days.
Even though it was stressful, I had a sense that we would have what we needed when we needed it. And then, (enter serendipity), a friend of mine encouraged me to check in with a previous landlord. I had rented from him before and the house was in a beautiful part of town. It had a view of the WA State Ferries coming and going from the San Juan Islands. Not to mention the most breathtaking sunsets over the water. So I called the landlord and lo and behold! His current renters were leaving and the house would be available to us and our creatures on May 1! The closing date on my house was May 5, so the 1st of May was just about as perfect as things could be! Indeed, I had what I needed exactly when I needed it. Serendipity!
Doing the work . . .
Over the years I have learned to hang in there with hard things as they came into my life. For a long time I lacked insight and wisdom and chose hard paths that were unhealthy for me. The older I got, though, the more I was able to learn from my experiences and to direct my need for challenge and hard work toward things that served me and the people around me. During my Reiki training, one of the exercises my Reiki Master, Heather, assigned to me was to create a sacred geometry for myself. To create a sacred geometry is to work with the geometry of the natural world, to essentially set your intentions for yourself and your energies for the purpose of being able to have a foundation from which to gauge your alignment with yourself.
. . . fairly effortlessly
The first point of my sacred geometry is “fairly effortless”. Meaning that I desire to exist within a space of trust and flow where I don’t need to force myself to conform to my own and other’s expectations of how things should be. Heather questioned me about it wondering why my first point couldn’t simply be “effortless”, as opposed to “fairly effortless”. This became a moment of revelation for me in which I realized that I do enjoy doing hard things. I like a little bit of resistance to push forward in my life. I enjoy being in difficult circumstances (from time to time) because it is a tremendous place of growth and evolution for me.
If I imagine my life to be a garden, I want it to be vital and beautiful and blooming, and that takes a lot of work. I have a deep need to shine. The best way I’ve learned how to achieve that in my life, is to engage the hard things when they come to me. And though it can be so so uncomfortable and stressful and wildly inconvenient, in the end, I always grow, which leads me deeper on the path of authenticity, and inevitably, to serendipity as well.
And finally, people are drawn to light. Light represents hope and healing and warmth. Even though it can be scary in the light, as we are seen there, it is also something we crave – to be seen and loved and accepted, just as we are – in all our brilliant authenticity! So, my hope as I journey even deeper into authenticity, is that I can be light. In all of my uniqueness, a presence of love and kindness and healing to those who are looking for it, that they might find their own unique beauty to shine as well.
Please enjoy my podcast where I talk about the path to authenticity:
