Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, I want

to talk about authenticity.

A statement I want to first offer

you is we want to be careful

not to mistake being authentic

with being who we've always been.

Do not mistake being authentic

for being who you've always been.

Authenticity is a tough one

because what is it actually

asking of us to be authentic to

what aspect of our experience.

If we're feeling maybe weak in a moment.

It's like, I can't do this and the

narrative moving through our mind

that's saying like, I'm no good.

Should we be authentic to that?

And then go, yeah, I am no good.

And, you know, get caught

up in our own self pity.

Right.

Yeah.

I guess you could make an argument if

for that, if being authentic means just

meeting whatever is arising in the moment.

However, I think there are different

layers to what is arising in the moment

that we really want to pay attention

to on the journey of being authentic.

There's a difference between

being authentic to your past

self and being authentic to the

person you're inspired to become.

And a lot of times the experience that

is arising is an experience related to a

past pattern of condition, conditioning,

a past way of relating to a certain

experience that actually feels outdated.

And when that arises, we also

have this other voice that kind of

knows that that is an old pattern.

And that feels like, you

know what, actually, I want

to try something different.

Well, to follow that voice, that's saying,

I want to try something different is not

overriding your present moment experience.

Like some could argue that, right?

That the, the pain or the reality

of what's arising right now is

saying like, I should just not try

or whatever the pattern might be.

But then there's this other voice

that's saying, wait, I can try.

Like, which one do we follow?

Well, if we are inspired to be authentic

to the person where excited to grow into,

then we're going to follow that new voice

rather than that older pattern of self.

And that is a form of authenticity.

You're being authentic to what feels

most alive in you right now in terms

of how you want to relate to the

other experiences that are there.

Sometimes we do want to be authentic

to that older self or experiences

were going through related to that

older self of just like feeling sad

and I just want to be in my sadness.

I want to be in my self pity.

Right.

There's a difference between

sadness and self-pity.

We can be sad and that's just an

organic expression of our humanness

in relationship to what's arising.

But then we could go through

patterns of like, woe is me.

And sometimes right, we

can do that consciously.

It's like, I'm going to give myself

a period of time to consciously

go into this and just let myself

feel really bad for myself.

Sometimes working through that pattern

can be an important way of releasing it.

But we can let that be inspired

in the moment of like, does that

feel really important to me?

Does that feel like the authentic

response to this moment?

And if yes, then we

follow through with it.

If, no, if we're more inspired by

something different, a new way of

being, then responding to that is what

authenticity looks like in that moment.

So again, key take away here is that we

don't want to mistake being authentic

for being who we've always been.

And there's a big difference between

being authentic to your past self

and being authentic to the person

that you're inspired to become.

So see if you can bring this into your

day as you're exploring, like what does

it look like to be me, authentically me,

which is something we're all navigating.

And it's a big journey and

I'm wishing you well on it.

Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.