Narrative and Authenticity

It's a continuous question that we ask throughout life: "Who Am I?" The question may be easy to ask, but can we really answer with absolute certainty?

Another question that may be raised is "why is it so difficult to be authentic in today's society?" There are so many social stigma's in the modern day that it can be hard to just be yourself - no wonder so many people may question who they are.

So how can we tell who we are? How can we show that we're 'authentic'? What exactly can we say about ourselves to make us 'authentic'?

Narratives can tell you a lot about a person - the way they tell a story can show the position they're in. Sometimes it can be empowering and give the narrator a boost in confidence. This confidence makes a story more believable. But it can also swing the other way and give a sense of disempowerment.

If the story is told from leadership experiences, it can seem egocentric - this may be because we have been conditioned to tell a story in a way that we think others would want to hear it, which in turn, can make it untruthful.

Some may think that a narrative is a 'vehicle' to our authentic selves, but there's also a chance that this is just a trace of the absent authentic self - this narrative is actually a desire we have to be what we want to be. These desires can come from several sources, such as our culture, class, faith, the social environments that we live in and family members. Despite this desire, some believe that social stigma's still hold us back from being who we really want to be. Is it possible that we have a fear stopping us from truly being ourselves and therefore forcing us to act in certain ways so that we are socially accepted by others?

These narratives are almost always about our relationships as well, either with ourselves or with others. We tell these stories as it helps us to find out about our authentic selves - David Balm suggested that we are not 'free to make decisions' as our true selves due to the conditioning we have received throughout our lives. Does this suggest that our 'authentic' selves have been taken away? Has the conditioning we have received in our lives make us more inclined to adjust the stories we know to what we think others would want to hear, or even what we would want to hear from ourselves, so that people would not think badly in any way about you and therefore stop you from being ridiculed by others?

The points made so far suggest that authenticity is something that we are aware of and something that, if possible, we may try to change.

One of the speakers suggested that we become to 'absorbed' in our everyday lives to think about our true authenticities. He also stated that "If authenticity is an 'ideal', we need to recognise that inauthenticity is possible and likely, and we will end up there at some point in our lives."

However, I think the last point that was made in this discussion was the most valid:

"The only way to look at your 'authentic self' is to die and look back at your life in it's entirety"

But as this is not possible, how will we ever be able to determine our authentic selves?

Apologies if this didn't make sense...I wrote this based on the notes I'd made..