Several years ago, I had a word that chose me and then proceeded to nip at my heels like a stray puppy.
Authenticity.
Being myself. Figuring out who that person was.
Authenticity comes natural as children.
As children, we breathe easily. We feel deeply and powerfully and uninhibitedly. We wear the colors and patterns and designs we love and we play hard and laugh harder. We know what we love and what we hate with total assuredness.
As children, we hadn’t yet learned to look outside ourselves with worry about what others will think. We hadn’t yet begun to believe that it’s our job to make others happy.
We weren’t yet consumed with he-said/she-said, what-if or if/then thoughts around Who We Are
As children, we just simply ARE.
And then it begins to shift.
We’re told we’re “making” someone mad and we’re told we should be embarrassed of ourselves and so we decide to look to someone else’s thoughts and emotions without checking in with our own. We’re teased, or scoffed at for the things that previously left us wide-eyed with wonder, and so we choose to dull our excitement next time to play it cool. We’re punished for mistakes and graded for our attempts until we find it’s not safe to try new things or ask big, complicated questions that might have no answer.
And somewhere along the way we lose our spark and our adulthood becomes a journey back to ourselves, an obstacle course of beliefs and fears to meld what we always knew with what we’ve learned.
And really all we’re craving is to access that place within us that shines without fear.
Or maybe this was just my story. (But somehow I doubt it.)
Somewhere in my early 20′s I began to crave that spark I had let go of.
My craving manifested itself in the trying on of other women’s sparks.
I would see someone – all lit up and thriving and I would think to myself, “THAT is what I need; THAT is what I want.”
And somehow I would find myself unconsciously picking up words and tones in her voice.
I would find a shift like hers or cut my hair that way or get angry at my partner for not being like her partner, because THEN I could be happy.
I would think if only I had the things she had, I would feel that spark again.
I’m sure you know how that turned out. 
I felt more lost…and more confused than ever. I mean, I liked what she had and who she was. But it wasn’t working. What was real and what wasn’t?
That’s when the authenticity puppy started to nip me. In every action, in every word, every choice and every thought, I would hear my heart whisper, “Authenticity.”
And I would stop and ask myself, “What is truly authentic to me right now?”
Sometimes I would answer with, “Authentically, I want to call that guy an A-hole.”
But then I would feel the nip at my heel again and bring it back down to, “Authentically, I’m really hurt by what he said.”
That’s how it began. But this is how it ended.
I began to see those bright and vibrant women that so inspired me and think “I need her skirt! I need her laugh! I need her life!”
And I would feel the nip of authenticity asking me, “Tara, what is it you truly need?”
And my heart broke the first time I realized…I didn’t want the things she had.
I wanted a courage and confidence and vibrancy of my own. And that had nothing to do with what she had and I didn’t.
I looked at her and I craved that sense of joy in my bones and needed to laugh until my sides hurt. I wanted to burn with passion and purpose and have my only ache be from my hunger for life. I wanted to experience the adventure of living and to feel that unbreakable connection to the people I love.
And I want to feel that same connection with myself, too.
I began to see that I was so wrapped up in the means of what I wanted, the ideas of what “things” would get me to where she was that I failed to realize where “there” really was.
It was home.
Not home with my family or my house. It was that desire to find home in myself and dwell there fully without doubt or shame or guilt or fear.
I DIDN’T want the things she had. I wanted the feelings and the experience of living a full and courageous and vibrant life that I saw she lived. I wanted what I recognized in her about myself, my little self, the one I was before the fear and guilt and shame and doubt came into play.
And so I asked myself where to go from here…
But when I let go of what I thought I needed to find my way back…just like that, I started to find I was finally on my way.
It’s true. Often when we admire another woman, for whatever reason, we think we can get what they have by getting a skirt like theirs, or a tattoo like theirs, or a haircut like they have. It’s not about the trappings. It’s all about truth. We can be who we were created to be when we let go of the fear that we are not good enough and need to have something more than we already have to make us better. I love being myself and being the best at being myself I can be. There is no competition in this effort.
I absolutely adore this post. I know exactly how you feel. I remember when I was younger – primary school aged – looking at another girl in my class and thing, “I want to be just like her, pretty and nice.” I always had people that I aspired to be like and tried to emulate, and found myself standing wearing what I thought I should wear, doing what I thought I should do and still feeling mighty uncomfortable, and worse still, like at any moment I would be caught out as imposter.
It’s only been the last year or so, that I’ve discovered more core acceptance of myself. All of a sudden I can be in a situation that the old me would have been horrified to have been in, or wearing an outfit I considered “home” clothes when the delivery guy showed up, and finally feel that confidence. None of the circumstances are what I thought they would be, but my spirit is there and it’s growing each day.
Thanks for sharing your story. Is there any better feeling than knowing you aren’t alone in this stuff?
Thank you Tara! I’m now fifty (and a half!) years old and have spent all of the life that I can remember feeling that I am wrong and not good enough. Only in this last year have I begun to look to who I am authentically – it’s taking time (it’s buried very deep) but I’m getting there and finding people like yourself on the www helps – so again thank you. Your piece speaks to me (actually it feels like you wrote it especially for me) and gives me confidence that I will find myself – now I know where to look!
Very insightful, Tara. Thanks for sharing this wisdom.
i totally identify with this story; i think my greatest journey, my purpose is to find my true self, the self that is stripped away from every one of us by various methods: parents, teachers, society, religion,etc,etc,etc…
Wow, Tara. I could have written this! I look back now on the way I felt and am so relieved that I just let go and gave in to ME. I like to think I am shining that vibrantly now.
“I would find a shift like hers or cut my hair that way or get angry at my partner for not being like her partner, because THEN I could be happy.”
I can especially relate to this, my poor husband has put up with a lot over the years but when you stop searching and look inside, you realise just how perfect for you they really are.
Great post!
Love, love, love this post!!! Such a great reminder that following other people’s journeys will never us back to ourselves!
Beautifully said, I think so often we think we want what they have when it is like you said we want to feel like they feel but taken to that place from a true path of our souls. I am doing a workshop on Authenticity and will be linking to this post!
Mmmmm, yes. A deep, resounding, complete YES.
As a child, I remember holding up a magazine clipping of some celebrity next to my face in the mirror, and literally trying to figure out how I could make my face look more like hers. Quite the medicine for me now, in my 20s.
Bookmarking this post to savor!
This was gorgeous to read, and totally hit the nail on the head!
I remember being a teenager and feeling envious of all the girls around me. They were shorter than me (I had a growth spurt way before any of my friends did), they had shiny blonde hair, their clothes were so much trendier than mine. Every summer, I would vow to do lots of exercise, buy lots of new clothes and learn how to make my hair look really pretty, so all the boys would be falling over their feet to get to me in September, and all the girls would be looking at me with envy instead of me envying them.
Needless to say, it never happened.
I wasn’t being true to myself. I was trying to be someone I’m not. And now I realise that it’s only when we are true to ourselves that we can really shine.
But you’re so right. Being true to myself as an adult is a million times harder than it was when I was that freckly 7-year-old with a gap in her front teeth who loved to run and laugh with her friends.
[...] with Ronna Detrick (c/o A Year With Myself) where she goes nuts on the same subject; and then this post by Tara Wagner at Roots of She. Authenticity is apparently on everyone’s brain just [...]
Wow, this was a powerful read. Thank you for sharing!
[...] “I need what she has…” (How my jealousy led to my authenticity) by Tara Wagner, via Roots of She [...]
[...] post this week on Roots of She about authentic living and creating a life that works, for [...]
this is lovely.
i am currently in my early 20′s and scrounging around for some sense of self-love and freedom (to be myself). i don’t want to wait until i am much, much older to live authentically. i want to rediscover the person i lost in the mess of self-loathing. i want to shine brightly so i can share love with other people genuinely. of course i harbor ideas about what will eventually help me reach my “goal” of feeling at home in my body, my space, and of course i understand how these “goals” are probably hindering me as opposed to helping me. yet…
when you say: “But when I let go of what I thought I needed to find my way back…just like that, I started to find I was finally on my way.”
i have no idea how to “let go”. your liberation appears to have come “just like that” (after, naturally, a lot of struggle). i am feverish now in this struggle. i don’t know how to make it effortless and less of a battle. i don’t know how to let go. i think that is what i am looking for: an answer on how to let go. because nearly every person who reclaims her space always says she “let go”. but HOW? the how is what is torturing me.
(ending long ramble….now!
thank you much for this! it got me thinking…clearly.)
[...] “And somewhere along the way we lose our spark and our adulthood becomes a journey back to ourselves, an obstacle course of beliefs and fears to [...]
I can identify with your post! I definitely have the sense that I have lost some essential self-confidence since my early 20s. Now I’m working hard to accept myself and to be the kind of person I admire. Thanks for sharing this post and your journey–loved it!
This is so well written and just so REAL. Thank you, Tara. You surely have your authenticity going on big time