Authenticity means being open, raw, and vulnerable enough to shed the masks we wear for different audiences. The speaker shares how disclosing past trauma tests whether people will accept the real you, and argues that showing up fully requires resisting the pressure to adapt yourself based on who's in the room.
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I would contribute by saying that from my perspective, you know, as I said in my TEDx talk, my definition of authenticity is to be open, real, raw, and vulnerable. So I do feel there's an element with the spontaneity that you're talking about. If we're not vulnerable to connect to being ourselves in that moment, just who we are, we're not really being authentic. We're still wearing a mask. Whether it's a false self or the ego or anything else, to truly be spontaneous and throw all weights aside, everything that is somebody else that we're trying to be, we have to be open, real, raw, and vulnerable. I do believe that we learn to adapt our mask, our personality, our likes, our dislikes, everything about how we communicate based on our environment. Even Melissa, just as you presented today, stating, now that I know who my audience is, I'm not sure I want to share exactly what I came prepared for. You had in your mind how you wanted to show up, and then when you see the audience here, you're like, hmm, maybe I want to change this, good or bad. Okay. We are always looking at the environment around us and the people we're communicating with, wondering, how am I going to be perceived if I say this, let alone received? So it's two elements. We're looking at how will you receive me if I tell you I was raped at 17, let alone what is your reaction going to be. Are you still going to love me? Are you still going to appreciate me? Are you going to still accept me? Or do you go like my parents and you think, well, she was being inappropriate, she brought that situation on. You have your own story in your mind, and we're all adapting to those experiences that come from our childhood. And so I, I personally believe that we all are learning how to be authentic based on our environment and the environment that allows us to show up and be ourselves allows us to be more authentic. And the true journey of being authentic is when we don't allow our environment to control how we respond and we show up regardless of who's on the call, regardless who's in the room, and we be ourselves 100%. And deal with the energy inside of us to communicate and relate to those around us. That's my opinion, but that's because that's what I've had to do in my journey to overcome my environment, my beliefs, my experiences, my trauma, all of it.
