5 Signs Your Are Disconnected from Your Authentic Self and How to Fix Iit

When I was just a little girl, I was taught that the most important thing in life was to fit in. If you didn’t, it meant there was something wrong with you. So, I’ve created a version of myself that I thought was expected of me and presented it to the world. It received a lot of approval and I fell in love with it. I called it “my true self”.

I carried it with me for over 30 years. It served me well. I was loved and appreciated by many. By the time I reached my mid-thirties, I had all I used to dream about: a loving husband, three beautiful children, a dream house, and financial stability. But somehow, all I could feel was utter emptiness instead of joy and happiness. I was slowly sinking into a very painful and deep depression.

It took hours of therapy, coaching, and healing to make me realize that I was completely disconnected from my authentic self. I lived my life thinking that I was truly being myself but being “yourself” doesn’t mean being authentic. I know I wasn’t. What I called “myself” was an identity created by the expectations of others and my need to be like them and liked by them.

One of the biggest outcomes of my healing journey was the ability to recognize when my old self creeps in and tries to take over my life again. I managed to identify certain behaviours, feelings, and thoughts, and I used them to create a list of:

5 signs that you might be disconnected from your authentic self:

1.       You feel empty inside.

Although from the outside your life looks like you have absolutely everything to make you happy, deep inside you know there is something missing. Very often that missing part is your authentic self, its wants, dreams and desires. For over 30 years my main life focus was to fulfil the expectations of others: good education, well paid job, and marriage. I tried so hard to please others that I never learned how to be kind to myself. I neglected to celebrate my life here and now. Only when I finally accomplished all that I thought would make me happy, I realised how truly unhappy I was.

2.       You don’t feel good enough.

You constantly compare yourself to the people around you, feeling that you are not as good as them.

When you spend your childhood constantly trying to fit in to be accepted, you learn one very important “survival” skill: a comparison. It became my habit. It was so well programmed into my brain that I wasn’t aware that it ruled my life. I became a master at it and developed an amazing ability to find the smallest detail that would make me feel not as talented, not as pretty, not as fun… simply not as good as the other person.

3.       You are unable to be vulnerable.

You find it difficult to open up and talk about your true feelings even with your closest friends.

I’ve always had great friends and connected with people easily. After all, I was the master at making people like me. I would always be ready to listen to their problems and provided space for sharing but it was never easy for me to allow them to help me when I was going through tough time. Somehow, instead of running to my best friend, I would choose to deal with my pain and emotional struggles in solitude. Now I understand that I was simply scared to show my “true” face in case they rejected it.

4.       You constantly try to impress others.

You find yourself daydreaming about doing something amazing and get the recognition you desire.

By the time I was a teenager, I have already accepted that I would never be as good as others, so I created my own imaginary world, my dream self. She was beautiful and admired by others. I would run away into that place, whenever real life felt too mundane to handle. I dreamed about recreating that feeling in reality. I was desperate to do something that would impress others, something that would finally give me the confirmation that I was important, recognized, and seen.

5.       You don’t take action.

You dream big, but at the same time, you take no action toward your desires.

I have always been a dreamer. But for a long time, I was giving all my attention to another master: Fear. I was scared of failing. The idea of being judged by others and the potential of embarrassment would paralyze my every attempt at taking the first step.

 After hitting the biggest rock bottom of my life, I knew I couldn’t continue to be the same person that got me there, so  I started my quest to find my authentic self. And although everywhere I went for help, I could hear that I needed to “reconnect”, to “awake” to “uncover” the true self within me, I felt like that version of me was long dead and I had to build a new one from scratch. A few years into my journey, I am still under construction, and sometimes it is still messy and occasionally chaotic. But I no longer feel the need to pretend that it is perfect. And it is that freedom, that feeling of liberation that I call authenticity.

So if you are just starting your journey, here are a few tips that can make it easier for you:

1.       Authenticity starts where your identity ends. Your identity can easily become your prison. The moment you let go of the need to be “yourself”, your freedom begins, and your authentic self is being born.

2.       Being authentic is accepting of your humanity, with its limits, its traumas, its early childhood programming. It is being aware that they are a part of you and will creep up on you when you are tired, stressed or emotionally drained.

3.       Authenticity starts when you decide to not longer impress anybody and accept the discomfort of what your old self would define as embarrassment, failure, or judgment.

4.       Authenticity begins when you decide to silence your inner critic and judge and allow yourself to listen to your intuition.  

5.       It will be messy, and you will bounce back and forth a lot, and you will go through a rollercoaster of feelings, and it will most likely get worse just before it gets better but I promise you one thing – this will be the dream adventure of your lifetime.

if you are ready to start the journey toward your authentic self, book a 1:1 session with me : https://www.kasianissanka.co.uk/contact

Photo by Fernand De Canne on Unsplash)