It’s the last day of March, which means a guest post on The Anxious Morning! Today my friend Bethany McLaughlin steps in to share some of her experience with recovery and the topic of being authentic and true to oneself along the way. Sometimes, the process of recovery seems to conflict with the ideal of authenticity and Bethany did a tremendous job of shining some light on this issue.
As I embarked on my journey out of disordered anxiety and learned about floating, accepting, surrender, and all the rest of what we talk about, I wondered if these concepts conflicted with being authentic. Authenticity has long been a core value of mine, and it's something that gets talked about a lot in mental health and self development circles. We’re admonished all the time to be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and express ourselves openly and honestly. If you’re like me and were raised in an environment where your thoughts and feelings weren’t heard and supported, you may have worked hard since then to practice speaking up, sharing your feelings, and showing up as yourself without hiding. Then you find yourself in recovery from an anxiety disorder, and you’re told to “model the behavior of a non-anxious person” and spend less time talking about how you feel! For me, that took a while to come to terms with.
If I’m really scared and experiencing a torrent of anxious thoughts and sensations, how can I just stand at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables for dinner? I need to devote myself to my fear! How can I be around people when I’m consumed with worries about my health and converse about other topics? I don’t want to be fake. If I don’t act according to my feelings, isn’t that inauthentic?
I had a negative connotation with “fake it till you make it,” which is a phrase we hear often. “Fake it" reminded me of all the times growing up that I’d been forced to do things I didn’t want to do and knew that it didn’t matter to anyone how I felt. But here’s what I learned: you can be authentically scared shitless and authentically brave at the same time. You can authentically feel like you need to scream and run from the room and authentically make the choice not to engage with anxiety and stay right where you are.
Authenticity is not believing and doing whatever your thoughts suggest to you. Authenticity can be much more about making active choices that support what you value while accepting yourself however you may feel while you do that. What could be more authentic than living out what is most important to us?
What could be more “fake" than acting in opposition to that? Yes, I may feel afraid or uncertain in the moment, but I also can be determined to move forward through that, and I can remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. Most importantly: I choose my actions freely—not because anyone is forcing me to, not because I don’t matter, but exactly because I do matter and because I want what I know is in my best interests and gets me where I want to go.
Authenticity accounts for everything. Within it, we acknowledge all of our feelings, but we get to decide what we’re going to do with them, being true to our values and goals.
P.S. Another thing that helped me internalize this concept was the following meme. There are few things I appreciate more than a solid, edifying meme.
Unlike some of our other guest writers, Bethany doesn’t have a social media presence or books or courses for me to point you at. She’s just an outstanding human learning, growing, and sharing here and there along the way. If you really want to see more from Bethany, she’s an admin in my Facebook group so the place is full of her wisdom and her kindness.
https://theanxioustruth.com/facebookgroup
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
64. The Conflict of Authenticity In Recovery