There Is Only One You So Honor The Energy That Comes From Being Authentically You
The key to standing out and making an impact is being yourself. Being authentic is so important to tap into the rich human reservoir of natural talent and energy each person has available to them so the life they lead is one of relevance and significance.
It takes effort to operate outside of our true and natural style (called conditioning). When we know who we are and live authentically, energy is abundant. For me, there were many years life seemed like such an incredible struggle. With time and experience I became aware of why struggle was such a consistent companion. In short: AUTHENTICITY. Up until my early forties I was not living an authentic or congruent life. In spite of the personal development work I’d done for over 30 years I was still not living to be me but rather I was living the old story of who my parents wanted me to be.
Before I met Dr. Sherry Buffington, I thought I had very clearly identified the person I was put on this Earth to be. Yet, once I learned about this powerful tool Sherry developed called the CORE MAP, I quickly saw I still had more work to do.
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
-C.G. Jung
Please note! I’m not trying to make a proverbial mountain out of a molehill with this information on authenticity. Studies done by Dr. Buffington indicate as much as 75% of the population is living out of a conditioned place and could not score congruently on a profile like CORE MAP. Yes this can affect how we live as well as how we present. If we’ve been living a deeply conditioned life there’s a whole host of issues and ailments potentially stemming from our incongruent patterns. Dr. Arlene Taylor and Dr. Katherine Benziger wrote in 1999 about the Falsification of Type and PASS (Prolonged Adaption Stress Syndrome).
Human beings are perhaps healthiest, happiest, and most successful when they can use and be rewarded for using their own innate giftedness, or what Dr. Carl Jung and Dr. Katherine Benziger call their natural lead function. Indeed, it can be said that when a person develops and uses his/her natural lead function in an environment which both supports and rewards that function, the experience is similar to if not identical with the experience of flow, identified by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (below).
For whatever reason, when this does not occur the brain is forced to spend large amounts of time functioning from areas requiring significantly greater expenditures of energy. In other words, the brain is forced to Falsify Type. The result is the brain and brain-body system experience stress, chronic anxiety and exhaustion. Indeed, Falsifying Type is so costly that over time it can lead to the development of a syndrome identified by Dr. Arlene Taylor, as PASS or Prolonged Adaptation Stress Syndrome. Significantly, one element of PASS is the experience, seemingly without cause, of chronic depression.
Basically if we are living over long periods of time outside of our natural self it can cost us physically and mentally.
“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”
-May Sarton
Dr. Benziger, studied the data of individuals who had been or were Falsifying Type and in her summary report she stated that:
- the short term results of falsification tend to be increased irritability, headaches, and difficulty in mastering new tasks.
- the long term results of falsification include exhaustion, depression, lack of joy, a homeostatic imbalance involving oxygen, the premature aging of the brain, and a vulnerability to illness.
Additionally, it seems we are taxing our brains in ways that can drain us of energy in addition to making us highly ineffective at whatever we might choose to do.
Benziger’s observations and thinking are supported by the research of Dr. Richard Haier of San Diego. Using PET scan studies, Haier demonstrated the brain needs to work much harder when not using the person’s natural lead function (which he establishes as an area of exceptional natural efficiency). Haier estimated the brain may need to work as much as 100 times harder when an individual is developing and / or using skills outside one’s area of natural efficiency.
” Once you find the authentic you then it’s time to go about creating the life you desire.” Marc W. Schwartz
BOOKS TO READ:
FLOW: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
YOUR BRAIN HAS A BENT (NOT A DENT) by Arlene R Taylor PhD and W Eugene Brewer EdD
“A lot of the conflict you have in your life exists simply because you’re not living in alignment; you’re not be being true to yourself.” Steve Maraboli
Marc Schwartz
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