When Your Authentic Self Is Disliked
I was shocked the other day to learn that not everyone thinks I’m awesome.
Well, not shocked so much as reminded. As someone strongly motivated by the creation and maintenance of good relationships, I find it deeply annoying and very frustrating that I cannot gain the affection and approval of every single person I meet. Truth be told, it knocks me off my feet.
It feels like a personal failure to set out in life to be kind, generous, and honest while some people experience me as the opposite - or worse. And it feels especially painful when relationships I hope to nurture go in directions that I never intended. The countless people with whom I have had genuine, life-giving connections disappear from memory when I meet the handful who just don’t like me no matter what. It feels like a moral failure has happened - either I did something wrong or they are in some way deficient.
There is a disappointing truth about leading from your core, authentic self: You will still experience rejection. And in fact, the rejection you experience may be all the more intense and hurt you all the more deeply.
As much as an encounter with authenticity can be an inspiring and safe experience, it can also threaten some people when they are faced with raw humanity. And as much as people complain about the limits and abuses of patriarchal and authoritarian patterns of leadership, many of us are still oriented to feel safe within their practice.
But sometimes, whether in everyday encounters or in the practice of leadership, people just don’t click. Sometimes, there is something about you - even the authentic you - that is experienced in ways that neither you nor your relational partner can help.
You may be asked to lead in a space that complicates your ability to communicate in your best ways. You may be asked to deliver a message or facilitate a conversation that either you or the group finds ill-timed, poorly done, or simply wrong. And your presence, regardless of moral intentions, may trigger responses from your companions that you won’t like. And these are just some of the scenarios of rejection that significantly include you!
It is important to remember in these times, that authenticity is not a tool for utility. In other words, we do not lead out our authentic selves simply to be more effective in bringing forth a goal. Leading from our authentic selves may in fact be more impactful as a vehicle for completing a task or realizing a vision, but that is not why it is done first and foremost.
We lead from our core because authenticity is life-giving even when it is not efficient or effective. Being your authentic self, even in the face of failed relationships or leadership, is a source of health and wholeness that sustains life at its most basic level. Striving for just and equitable relationships is neither preceded by nor followed by personal wholeness - they grow together. But, they are not automatic.
What this means in everyday terms is that you will sometimes:
lose your sense of self, yet have deep and meaningful connections
be grounded in your true self, yet fail to build connections
have no sense of self, and have no connections
be your true self and have deep and meaningful connections
Remember that authenticity requires vulnerability and vulnerability carries real risk. If you do not risk rejection, you are not practicing vulnerability. This means that while the conditions for one authentic self meeting another authentic self hold the ingredients for the most delicious relationships; it also contains the conditions for the bitterest of encounters. This is the shocking reminder that your authentic self will not always be liked; but it will always be needed.
Has rejection of your authentic self caused you to stop risking in the practice of vulnerability? Have you rejected someone else’s authenticity for fear of encountering raw humanity? How are you tempted to adopt the language of vulnerability without entering its risky core?