"You've got to find yourself first. Everything else will follow."
~ Charles De Lint

As I’m writing this, we’re having an impressive snowfall here on the East Coast, with more snow predicted for the weekend.

There’s something magical about a new fallen snow. It feels so clean and fresh. A balm for our tired souls.

Similarly, there’s something exciting about starting a new calendar year, and the opportunity for a reset. On the face of it, January is just another month, yet it feels rich with new possibilities somehow. Perhaps you’ve cracked open a new organizer, are finally trying your hand at journaling, or are making good headway going through your closets.

Since most of us are pretty hunkered down at the moment, rather than let our external circumstances discourage us, we can choose to use this pause to look inward and do some internal work.

One option is to harness the creative energy of the new year and use it to get to know ourselves better.

Doing so creates the opportunity to live more authentically when the world opens up again. There’s no time like the present to get started.

First, an aside. Several of you have asked how I came up with the name “The Authentic Lane” for this blog. I thought long and hard about what to call it and got some really helpful input from friends. I knew I wanted to write about the importance of emotional honesty (with ourselves and with others), so the word “authentic” felt like a good term.

The “lane” part of the name has two meanings. “Lane” is my childhood nickname, so in one sense, The Authentic Lane refers to the real me. This is what I strive to give you here with every post—my truth, as best I can articulate it. The second reference is symbolic of the lane or path we’re on together in this virtual space, along which we are moving forward day by day. (If you look closely at the photos I use with my posts, many of them feature lanes or paths!)

To the extent we stay in “the authentic lane,” being honest with ourselves and others, we will have greater success on our journey through life.

If you’re like most people, the idea of authenticity sounds great. We admire people who are genuine. “Be yourself,” we used to say back in the day. “Keep it real.” But sometimes it can be a challenge to even find your true self, much less show it to the world. In the moment, it can often seem easier to give others what they want, molding ourselves to the people we’re with, rather than speaking up and saying what we feel and believe in our hearts. 

In the early days of the blog, I talked about the mask we wear with others. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we use the mask for emotional protection, believing that our true selves will not be acceptable to others. But this practice of acting like chameleons can leave us questioning ourselves about our core beliefs.

If we take the time to investigate who we are and what we value, and learn how to communicate it honestly to others, so many things can align for us.

As adults, this discovery is where much of our emotional growth lies. Particularly in our twenties and thirties as we are trying to figure out our identity and what kind of life feels most like us. After that early surge of exploration, and some initial stabs at trying to create that life, we tend to coast for a while as we get busy finding jobs and partners and having kids.

But uncovering who we are is not something to do just once in our lives. It’s an iterative process that’s akin to cleaning out our closets every winter. We purge ideas that don’t fit us anymore, and add new ones based on our lived experiences.

If you think back, you’re not the same person you were in those young adult years.

It’s important to continue to reevaluate ourselves and our needs as we make our way through the remaining stages of our adult lives.

Just as our houses require maintenance, especially after storms, our psyches require regular attention as well.

If we put in the time on a periodic basis to evaluate our needs and get clear about our purpose, we will get closer and closer to living our truth.

Since authenticity is such an important topic, therapists and life coaches tend to write a lot about it. Here are some articles with advice on various aspects of getting to know yourself:

“Finding Your Authentic Self: How to Get to the Truth of Any Matter”

“Are You Living Authentically? What’s Standing In Your Way?”

“Finding Your Authentic Voice in 2022”

If you’re in a space where you feel motivated to do some personal exploration this week, try asking yourself under what circumstances you are your least authentic. What is it about those circumstances that causes you to be so? What would you be risking if you decided to be more honest with that person or in that situation?

“A strong sense of self helps us navigate life and brings meaning to our experiences,” says therapist Sharon Martin, who offers a list of questions  to help us get to know ourselves better. “Rediscovering yourself is a process.”

No matter when you choose to look inward, there’s much to learn if you truly want to live the life of your dreams!

Affectionately,

Elaine