Learning to Live Life Authentically

There’s a lot of shame being in prison. Many prisoners will tell you that they are innocent, but the facts show otherwise. 

In Michigan, something like 90% + took plea deals rather than going to trial. That’s not to say that some took the plea deals because their past record would have had them serving impossibly long terms if they were convicted at trial for something they didn’t do. I’m sure that happens, but the vast majority are in fact guilty of the crimes they pled guilty to.

I’m reading a book about shame called “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown, and it’s an excellent look into the aspects of shame and how our psychology responds to it. One chapter was especially poignant for me. It’s on authenticity. I think there is a dearth of authenticity in today’s culture. I’ll be the first to admit that I find it very difficult to live authentically. In fact, authenticity in prison is like putting a sign on your forehead that says, “WEAK”. The major key to authenticity is vulnerability and you can’t be vulnerable in prison without appearing weak. In fact, if you don’t put up walls to protect yourself you will be taken advantage of. That means, if you want to be vulnerable you have to be vulnerable with someone outside of prison. But being vulnerable with someone outside of prison means being honest about everything that happens inside of prison and there are just some things better left unsaid. Prison is a toxic environment and a cauldron of the basest creature of humanity. There are people with no conscience and because of the training of prison life there are masters of manipulation. In fact, prison is the epitome of a perfect classroom for training to be inauthentic.

A quote from the Reverend Dimmesdale in the book “The Scarlet Letter” perfectly voices what I felt about myself when I first came to prison (and even now) because of the inauthenticity with which I lived my life before prison:

“No man, for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true”

It’s impossible to live a lie to others without finally coming to believe your own lie. If you lie to yourself and others often enough, that lie will soon take on the appearance of authenticity to your own mind. But authenticity and the appearance of authenticity are like night and day. They are like the knock-off clothing people are duped into buying these days. They look real. They feel real. They smell real. But on closer inspection you’ll find all kinds of flaws that point to the fact that they aren’t authentic.

It’s the same with our lives. We can put on appearances all we want. We can appear however we want to those around us. And we’ll probably fool most people because most people don’t care enough to look closely. They don’t care enough to ask the hard questions. They don’t care enough to see us for who we really are.

But as it says in “The Gifts of Imperfection”: Incongruent living is exhausting.

I think deep down every one of us WANTS to be authentic. We long for the trust with someone that will allow us to be our vulnerable selves. But we rarely find that person. It takes vulnerability to built trust and if you’ve been hurt enough you don’t want to lower your walls long enough to build that trust. It’s too risky. “What will he think of me?” “What if she hates me?”

I blame society and especially the media for promoting inauthentic living. We’re told how we’re supposed to look, how we’re supposed to act, what we’re supposed to believe. And if you don’t conform you’re vilified, perhaps not directly but indirectly for sure, by the popular media. You wear a size what?! Don’t you know, thin is in? You voted republican?! Don’t you know that republicans hate women and the poor? You didn’t go to college?! Don’t you know that you have to go to college to get a job? You’re an evangelical Christian?! Don’t know you know that Christians are the biggest bigots around today?

I’m sure you can fill in the blanks with something from your own life.

So what is authenticity anyway? Brown put it like this: “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

I like that definition. How can we embrace who we are when everyone around us tells us that who we are is wrong? So we wear different masks depending on who we’re around. If you’re a church-going person, or even if you grew up going to church, you know what I mean. Fighting or arguing all the way to church only to put on the mask of self-righteousness before you step out of the car and mingle with the saints. Or perhaps you’re fighting depression. But you know that people don’t like to have depressed people around them so you put on your mask of “everything’s ok” before you mingle with all the ‘happy’ people in this world. Little realizing that if everyone removed their own masks you’d see a lot of miserable, unhappy, and unrighteous people beneath.

So how can we live authentically? I think the first thing we have to do is learn to accept who we are and love ourselves, flaws and all. That’s not to say we can’t work on correcting our flaws. We can and we should. But it’s ok to not be perfect. We can even embrace our imperfections. Psychologists will tell you that all a flaw needs to fester and grow is to be hidden by our own shame. So be honest with yourself first and then be willing to show your true self to others. If you can admit to yourself that you aren’t all put together and are willing to be vulnerable enough to let others see that imperfection then you’re well on your way to working on those things you’d like to change.

I think the biggest reward to being authentic is that you attract authentic people into your life. You’ll find that those friends who pull away from your authenticity are afraid of being authentic themselves. Those weren’t the kinds of friends you needed in the first place. And soon you’ll find that you have new friends or deeper friendships with friends you already had because you’ve built those friendships deeper through authenticity.

When you believe in yourself, and you’re honest with yourself about your imperfections and vulnerabilities, you’re creating strength to live life wholeheartedly and with all the authenticity of who you are. Sure there are risks. It’s not easy to live authentically. Being vulnerable always creates a risk of being hurt. But the rewards of living an authentic life far outweigh the risks. The joy of living your life without masks will open up a world of possibilities.

I’m still trying to figure it out for myself. I want to live life authentically, but sometimes I don’t like the person who emerges. I’ve worn the mask of religion my whole life and fought to ‘fit in’ and gain the approval of religious people. But these are the same people who abandoned me in my moment of crisis. I want to hate them for it, but how can I was I was living inauthentically? So I fight wearing masks now. Even when that means appearing non-religious to those I would have previously fought to gain approval from. It means choosing to work on my flaws because I don’t like my flaws, not because I want the approval of others. It means learning to live my life authentically in private so what others see in public is the real me. It means admitting to myself that I don’t have it all figured out, and that’s okay. It means being willing to accept others with their flaws and imperfections and be able to say “it’s okay that you don’t have it all together. I don’t either.”

I know that when I leave prison life, it will be hard because people will look at me differently now that I have a ‘convict’ label. But living authentically means recognizing that others will see me differently and still being courageous enough to live authentically for myself. I refuse to wear masks to meet the approval of others any longer. If I don’t like something about myself, I’ll work on changing it. And at the risk of sounding arrogant, if you don’t like who I am right now, that’s okay. I won’t insult you by being who you want me to be instead of who I really am, because I’m choosing to live life authentically.