10 Helpful Ways to Get Closer to Your Authentic Self

Have you been struggling? Do you feel like the world is just passing you by and you’re sitting still, all alone? Well, I promise, you are not alone. Nearly every person I’ve met so far in my life has gone through a time like this in their life. Self doubt, self sabotage, negative self talk, etc. can all be extremely damaging to our connection to and our sense of self.

So, who are you, really? You might ask yourself this question all of the time and have a thousand answers related to your work, your family, or your hobbies… but that isn’t really YOU. Who is behind all of these thoughts, ideas, and emotions that you have every day? What drives you to reach your goals? How do your past experiences shape who you are? These are the difficult questions we have to ask ourselves to begin the journey of finding our authentic self.

What does it mean to be true to our authentic self? Being true to that means that we live a life where what we say aligns with our actions. It goes beyond what you do to make a living, who you date, your family, etc. It is who you are at your deepest core. It is about being true to yourself through your thoughts, words, and actions, and having these three areas match each other. When we aren’t in touch with our authentic self, it’s easy to go into “people pleasing” mode and do and say things based on what is expected of us, or based on social and peer pressure.

Here are some tips and tricks I’ve used to learn more about myself and to start living a more authentic life. Feel free to use the ones that speak to you on your own journey, if you’d like.

1. Shadow Work

Have you heard of shadow work? Shadow work is a term used for working with your unconscious mind to uncover parts of yourself that you hide and repress from yourself. Shadow work can look like going to therapy for guidance during your experience, finding journaling prompts online to help you discover some of your repressed emotions, or reading through shadow work articles, books, or blogs to assist you on your journey. It’s about asking yourself the deep, dark questions that we need to ask to get to the root of the problem. None of us are broken, we just have to find a way to break past the ominous, dreary wall.

2. Self-Help Books

During my struggles, I have often turned to a variety of self-help books to guide me through certain hardships in my life. Whether it be issues with dependence, relationships, work, or family… nine times out of ten, there is a book that can help you get through it. Now, a book won’t be the only thing to help you, it’s how you perceive and retain the information that helps.

A few books that I would recommend specifically on the authentic self would be: What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry, Unlocking Your Authentic Self by Jennifer Hunt, and How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera. They’re a great place to start when you have so many questions about who you really are.

3. Mindfulness

Being mindful means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens. It’s the easiest thing in the world to get all caught up in the chaotic activities in life, but from time to time, we really need to be able to slow down, notice the things around us, and just be more generally aware of what we think, what we do, what we say, and how we feel at any given time. Try to focus on your breathing and notice the little things about your surroundings. The wind blowing your hair in your face, the warmth of the sun on your skin, the little things.

4. Self-Love

There was one day where I was sitting in my therapist’s office and we were talking about self-love, because Lord knows that I could definitely benefit from some in my life, but she mentioned to me that she sees so many people who have so little love for themselves. This fact immediately made me cringe and a strong feeling of sadness overwhelmed me.

The truth is, we cannot possibly show love to anyone else in this world until we have some form of love for ourselves first. You are already in the most important relationship you will ever have in your life, with yourself. It is important to nurture that relationship and to really sit back and take a look at ourselves with all of the compassion in the universe.

5. Emotional Regulation Work

As adults, we should be able to regulate our emotions fairly easily. For most people, though, this is extremely difficult as a lot of us have grown up in unstable homes, witnessed addiction, been in abusive relationships, or many other scenarios. Emotional regulation is taught to young children in school, but why aren’t more adults talking about and teaching it? Simply because we don’t realize that a change needs to be made until we’re ready to see it.

The mind is a tricky little thing and it has an almost supernatural ability to get us to believe whatever it wants us to. We feel the feeling, we overreact, and we feel like crap about it later. The cycle feels simply never ending, but we hold the power to break that cycle. If we take the time to notice our emotions, analyze them, and take them for what they really are, we’re doing ourselves a great service. We’re rationalizing before reacting. This is emotional regulation and it is something that should have more focus than it does.

6. Re-parenting

Re-parenting is the process where you dig deep and find out what you may have missed out on in your childhood and how it affected you. The reparenting experience is all about inner child work. Figuring out what went wrong in your childhood that has given you some unhealthy coping mechanisms is not an easy task. It is painful, uncomfortable, and exhausting, but it is so worth it.

To re-parent yourself, you need to connect to your inner child, ask yourself the hard questions about how you grew up. Let go of all the shame and guilt you may feel about your childhood. Take the time to teach yourself all of the things that your parents couldn’t teach you. Work on establishing healthy boundaries in your relationships and learn to identify, express, manage, and accept your emotions for a better future.

7. Boundaries

As I stated in above about reparenting, establishing healthy boundaries in the relationships in your life is crucial to getting to your authentic self. Set aside time for yourself to analyze the relationships you’re in and see where you could possibly set some new boundaries. Start small and don’t be afraid of upsetting someone. Remember, someone who gets upset at your boundaries doesn’t respect you.

Boundaries are the basic principles you identify for yourself. It’s what you will and won’t accept or do, when and when you won’t say “no”. Identify those barriers and fears that are holding you back from setting these boundaries. Boundaries make our relationships better, and in turn, make us better in relationships.

8. Meditation/Prayer

Meditation and prayer can do wonders to bring out your authentic self. These practices center you and can bring you back to a state of homeostasis. Meditation, in particular, is an extremely powerful tool to use to connect with yourself and bring yourself back down to a calmer level. It allows you to bring your awareness back to yourself and your surroundings.

Prayer connects you with a higher power, something outside of yourself. It allows you to let go of your burdens, shame, and guilt and simply ask for guidance throughout life. It is of great comfort to be able to let go and ask for help, especially in hard times.

I personally recommend starting with alternate nose breathing if meditation causes you any anxiety. There are some incredibly informative videos about this on YouTube. Yoga With Adrienne has a fantastic one!

9. Journaling

When in doubt, write it out. Journaling is the best way to work out your inner battles with yourself. When you’re having a bad day, take out your notebook and write it all out. Get all of the negative feelings on paper, release the tension, let go. When you’re having a fantastic day, write about it as well. Take the awful with the perfect and when you look back, you’ll see how much you’ve overcome and how much you’ve grown.

Journaling is one of the best tools on this list for connecting with your authentic self. It’s much easier to ask yourself difficult questions when you’re writing it out rather than just overthinking yourself to death. Grab an empty notebook and a pen and write it all out.

10. Fulfilling Activities

The last thing on this list is finding fulfilling activities. Many of us have struggled with motivation to get up and do anything at least a few times. To make a step to start finding fulfilling activities that you thoroughly enjoy, think back to your childhood and your hobbies. Was there anything you were exhaustively interested in? Did you love to paint, play baseball, write, or draw? If you’re able to come up with anything, try it out again as an adult. What’s the harm?

Finding activities that give us a sense of fulfillment is part of connecting with your authentic self because in order to become your authentic self 100% of the time, you’re going to need to know what you actually enjoy doing, not just what you have to do.

Are you ready to ask yourself these heavy questions to get started on your journey to your authentic self?