Authenticity and Vulnerability

The following blog post was in my inbox this week - It is a thoughtful piece and I hope you all find some value in it as well.   With Andrea's Permission, it is reprinted in full:

Authenticity Eye-to-Eye | Do You Get Self-Conscious or Fear the Limelight? Do Your Clients?

Jan  4, 07 07:03 PM | Posted by Andrea

"I don't want to be known."

The obstacle many business owners face is this fear of being known, don't you think? And alongside this is its corollary - the fear of not being seen, being invisible and misunderstood. Alas, it's quite the quandary. So what's a coach to do, for a fearful client of this kind, or indeed for themselves?

The below article "The Roots of Self-Consciousness" may be a beginning. It highlights a story from Jane Fonda, and goes on to provide a simple exercise to test the depth of your Authenticity.

Reprinted with thanks to author Lee Glickstein, Founder and President of the powerfully supportive Speaking Circles International which I've found very reliable as a referral to coaching clients seeking personal power from the stage. 

Worth reading especially at the Speaking Circles website is Lee's personal story of his first public speaking experience - truly horrifying. Almost as remarkable as the depth of his authenticity now.

----begin article----

A passage from Jane Fonda's autobiography pinpoints the root of self-consciousness. She writes about her first child at 9 months:

It is late at night; I can't get Vanessa to sleep; I am despondent. I am lying on my back on the floor, with Vanessa lying on my chest.

She lifts her head and looks straight into my eyes for what seems like an eternity. I feel she is looking into my soul, that she knows me, that she is my conscience. I get scared and have to look away. I don't want to be known.

This rings like a common recurring scenario for those of us who grew up with self-consciousness. Some of us had the other extreme: our gaze was returned aggressively. Likely we had some of both.

Imagine reliving such a scene over and over again until the pain of not being met (or having our eye space invaded to meet the need of another) brings us to a hiding place deep behind our eyes.

Whether survival depended on shying away from attention or performing to meet expectations, our automatic behavior mechanisms kick in most extremely when all eyes are on us. As a result, some are too terrified to cope at all in front of groups, while others have developed a passable act, even a great act.

Though coming from different directions, neither state allows authentic presence or expansive expression, so the way back to ourselves is fundamentally the same.

To gauge the nature and extent of your authenticity challenge, go to a mirror and simply meet your eyes for a minute. Just breathe and be with yourself. Do you need to smile? Wink? Grimace? Look away?

Are you judgmental? Are you counting the seconds for the time to end?

If doing this exercise in absolute peace with yourself is a challenge, you are not alone, and real authenticity with groups is not possible until you can be at ease with yourself.

If you take at least a minute each day to explore this exercise, and stay with it, you will eventually access self-ease.

The next step is to allow words to arise and be spoken into your eyes in the mirror without compromising the ease.

Then, do the silent gaze with a partner, followed by one minute turns as you allow words to arise easily with your partner.

This path of Relational Presence--whether practiced in the free home study program or accelerated in professionally facilitated Speaking Circles, is all about naturally reversing our earliest experiences of not being met and honored eye to eye.

The good news is that it's all we need to get the ball rolling toward accessing our inherent ease and power with groups and in the world.

----end article----

How authentic are you? Do you change 'selves' when different people are looking? 

What tools or exercises do you use to excavate the real you, or 'get naked' with your clients?

# # #

Andrea J. Lee is an award-winning author, entrepreneur, mentor, coach and consultant to business owners on five continents.

A thought-leader in the field of personal and business coaching, she builds and manages among the most innovative coach training organizations in the world and specializes in consulting to helping businesses.
               
Now CEO of the Andrea J. Lee Group of Companies, she consults, holds teleseminars, coaches, writes, speaks and develops advanced marketing, internet and business systems for coaches. 

Want to know more about Andrea Lee? 

As always, your comments are most welcome!
Cynthia
*************
Cynthia McKenna, LPC, NCC
Counseling & Life Coaching
www.cynthiamckennacounseling.com

Comments

[Dina at Web Content Awareness Day]

Cynthia, I have a question. I was following your "begin article" and "end article" indicators and became confused about the following (only because Andrea J. Lee's bio comes AFTER this section).

"How authentic are you? Do you change 'selves' when different people are looking?

What tools or exercises do you use to excavate the real you, or 'get naked' with your clients?"

To me, this feels like the most powerful part of the story. Just two short lines, and they will stay with me after I leave this page.

So, come clean and be known if there is some Cynthia to know here. Look us in the eye. Did you write those lines, or did Andrea?

Peace,

Dina

[Dina]

Cynthia,

The other day I made a boo-boo. I didn't realize that the ENTIRE post was from Andrea - I thought you were hiding in these words and I was for some unknown reason, urging you to pop out. Just saying it now for the heck of saying it - no need to publish this comment.

:)

Dina

[Cynthia Mckenna]

Dina,
as always, your comments are thought provoking.

The search for the authentic self is probably life-long for many of us - myself included.

Much of the work I do with clients is helping them feel safe enough to gaze deeply into their own lives, their own selves, and to come to peace with who/what they find there.

I am sorry if the post wasn't clear - this is all Andrea Lee's writing - and I think it is an exceptional piece. I know she wrote it for her clients/coaches, but it really addresses a truth.

Jung is quite famous for his conceptualization of the self, which includes the authentic self, the masks we wear to the world, and the shadow self (shame and fears) that the mask tries to hide.

I don't know if Andrea knows Jung's work, but he would be quite pleased with her articulation of this human condition.
Cynthia