My Journey to Authenticity  David Irvine, M.S.W., Excerpt from Becoming Real, Journey to Authenticity (DC Press, Sanford, FL)

The destiny of the mighty oak tree is inscribed in the tiny acorn, and like that acorn, we are all born as a seed of possibilities to fulfill in our lifetime. Life is a journey that awakens us to who we are uniquely destined to be, to a voice we are meant to bring to life. All of our life experiences are necessary for this awakening to occur. The call of authenticity is to be a gardener, cultivating and nourishing the soil of our soul, creating an environment that supports the unfolding of our unique potential.

Through authenticity we become conscious contributors in our own lives as we transform our experiences into a portal to our life’s most vital work. We begin to see how we can learn and grow from each experience that comes to us. We acquire self-awareness resulting in new perceptions and new choices and shift from seeing ourselves as victims of our pain to co-creators of all our experiences. Every experience can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the meaning that you derive from it and the choices you make. Winning the lottery can, for example, send your life into ruins, while the death of a loved one can eventually bring you the blessing of a stronger character. We realize that pain, hardships and setbacks are not just obstacles to overcome but necessary experiences on the path of our innermost calling. One of the signs of the dawning of authenticity is the gradual extinguishing of blame and the subsequent emergence of the quiet acceptance of life’s conditions as they occur, while making full use of what happens to you, both in the present and the past. Circumstances in this context do not determine us, but rather, they reveal and shape us.

Just as we are born as a unique seed of possibilities, so too are we born into an environment that has expectations, that tells us how we “should” be in order to fit in. Rather than growing in support of our seed, we often align ourselves with the terms, conditions and pressures of the culture and thus lose touch with our authentic self, the inner essence that we are put here on earth to fulfill. With the intent to survive in a culture that attempts to dictate our choices, we bring to the world a facade, a covering, while something else, something private, is growing underneath. The authentic journey is to reconnect with and awaken to what is hidden, to recognize the vital growth that is going on below the surface, and to bring who we are meant to be back into the world in a conscious and renewed way.

I used to think that in order to be authentic, you had to be inauthentic first. Looking at how I was living twenty years ago, I could easily judge myself and say, “How inauthentic I was then!” But, now I am not so sure. The paradox is that as we recognize our past “inauthenticity,” we realize that we were probably as authentic as our consciousness would allow us to be at the time. I now know that I needed to fit into the culture and lose touch with my interior life for a time, just as I now know that I can no longer travel on a road of incongruency. “Inauthenticity” at times in your life will save you. You had to go through what you went through to be where you are today. Choosing gratitude and curiosity about your past, rather than blame and resentment, will help you open the door to a new life.

The authentic journey — manifesting the person you are meant to be — is akin to the work of an artist. I think of Michelangelo, who was asked once how he carved and created such magnificence and beauty from a slab of cold marble. Michelangelo reportedly replied, “I didn’t do anything. God put Pieta and David in the marble. They were already there. I only had to carve away the parts that kept you from seeing them!”

For me, carving away the parts that no longer fit, that blocked me and the world from my truest self, came through a series of events, significant turning points in my life. These led me through seven stages in the development of authenticity, from survival to spiritual maturity: vulnerability, compliance, defiance, humility, integrity, contribution, and a return to vulnerability. Like a chisel striking marble, these stages were initiated by the hammer of “instructional moments of disillusionment.” Although the experiences were painful and often traumatic at the time , they were actually necessary and profound teaching moments providing a passage to a deeper connection to my authentic self. At the time they seemed to be random occurrences that I coped with the best way I could and I didn’t know that they were leading me to my destiny. I was unaware that there was a guiding, compelling force calling me to my authentic self. Below the surface of my “traumas,” there was the power of a great sculptor, calling and preparing me to connect with a deeper essence that addressed the fundamental questions, “What is it, in my heart, in my soul, that I must do and be? Who am I, really?”

Like the work of an artist, there is no prescribed way to carve away the parts of your life that keep you from your destiny. The beauty of authenticity lies in your own unique expression of who you are meant to be. I have found that the seven stages can be used as guideposts in supporting you through your own distinctive excavation of your authentic self. I trust that my story will give you some perspective and sustenance on your journey.

The first stage of authenticity, vulnerability, begins in early childhood. The youngest of three siblings, I grew up in home that was a blend of chaos and order, mental illness and love, unpredictability and respect, breakdowns and breakthroughs. In my upbringing, along with all the darkness, there was also enormous respect and love given to us by my parents and the community that surrounded us. As in all families, we had elements of both health and dysfunction. My parents were wonderful people, with good values, enduring wisdom, and loving hearts. They also had their dark sides, and I am grateful today that they exposed us openly to who they were. Even though there was pain and trauma, I know now that it was all part of my destiny to grow up in the home and community that I was born into. I could not be the person I am today, complete with all my flaws and my subsequent gifts, without the raw metals of my upbringing.

As a child, my innate nature was to nurture. It was part of the acorn I was born with. With my vulnerable and open heart I created a room that was filled with a wide collection of dolls. I loved and played with the dolls through my preschool years. Then, in grade one I eagerly and innocently took them to school for show and tell. After enduring the laughter and ridicule of my classmates, I did what I needed to do as a six year old to survive — I packed those dolls away in boxes, refusing to subject myself to such pain again. That day I closed a part of my heart.

This experience marked my first conscious memory of the end of vulnerability. The world no longer felt safe, and I learned to hide, to pretend and to comply in order to survive. The hammer of rejection came down hard on my exposed spirit, and the pain of betrayal ended my innocence and closed the door to vulnerability. Hiding my dolls was a form of anesthesia that protected me from both the uncertainty of a perceived judgmental world and simultaneously insulated me from my authentic nature. It was not only the doll collection that was disowned and hidden in boxes that day. I closed down and disowned and hid away a piece of who I was. In an attempt to protect myself and survive in the best way I knew how, I began to separate from that nurturing self, from that deeper, authentic part of me. It was as though my seed of possibility, my seed of nurturing potential, my gift of love, was buried like the treasures in King Tut’s tomb. I made up my mind that day that there was little room for gentleness and sensitivity in my life. It was time to conform, to comply, to give the world what it wanted so I could be a part of humankind.

This experience marked the beginning of the next stage of my authentic path — the period of compliance, of conforming in order to “fit in,” of pleasing others in order to survive, of showing only a strong, competent side to match the world’s demands, to present myself as “good” on the outside while I covered up and denied the soft, sensitive side on the interior. When I was around tough kids, I knew how to act tough. When I was around smart kids, I knew how to act smart. I learned how to “imitate” in order to “integrate,” or at least I thought so at the time. I attempted to be a part of a world that I didn’t feel I belonged in, yet wanted so desperately to be a part of.

In high school, wanting so very much to “fit in” led me to try out for the football team. I was a great football player lacking only two things: size and talent. I had no speed, no agility, no ability to catch or throw, and I was a hundred and forty pounds. But because it was a small school, no one was cut. The coach really had no idea where to put me, so he assigned this scrawny fifteen-year-old to the offensive line. I think he was hoping I would get hurt so he could release me graciously. I ended up injuring myself after attempting to block a two hundred and twenty-five pound defensive tackle. While being carried off the field, I’m convinced that my friends back in the huddle could hear my quiet muttering, “Next time I am going to kill him!” I vowed that no one would ever see me cry, so not a tear was shed until I was alone in the emergency room.

During those elementary and adolescent years, unacknowledged depression surrounded me. Being depressed and not knowing it was, for me, like walking around unaware of high blood pressure. You don’t know it is there, but all of a sudden, clinical depression engulfs you like a heart attack of the soul, which is what happened to me years later. By trying to “fit in” to the culture, I was shutting off from my authentic self. With a closed heart, I was not aware of what was going on around me. On the surface, I was cheerful and, for the most part, cooperative. I hid behind the cloak of politeness and achievement in school. In middle school I gained popularity as a leader in student council and I had a girlfriend that I clung to for nearly six years. I took up competitive running and became a nationally ranked long-distance runner. Running was a socially acceptable way to escape the aloneness buried deep inside. All of these activities had an element of goodness, of usefulness to the world and to myself. Yet no amount of distraction from my girlfriend, achievement, or external recognition could fill the unidentified hole within a lonely and depressed adolescent.

During this time period, I immersed myself in the religion of my family. The best my “authentic self” could muster up at that time was to follow a code of moralistic ideals, values, and virtues that I took on as a part of the religious order in which I was raised. My goal then was to unquestionably conform to the expectations of others. Fundamentalism was my home. It offered me security, structure and clear solutions for dealing with an uncertain world and an insecure and unsettled inner spirit. Religion and its solutions along with my compliance gave me a much-needed road map for taking me into the tentative and uncertain world of adulthood. I walked blindly through life in those days with unquestionable obedience to the expectations of trusted, well-meaning, benevolent authority figures who were men of good standing and who role modeled their values. Unfortunately, I adapted a simple moralistic approach to life that reduced ethical living to making a list and checking it against an arbitrary image of perfectionism. I tried very hard in those days to be decent while carrying an illusion that someday I would actually be able to have a perfect checklist and get to the highest place in heaven.

After the “conforming adolescent” period that lasted until my mid-twenties, my independence began with the next stage of authentic expression — defiance. The instructional moment of disillusionment that inducted me into this stage came in the form of some significant growth experiences in my graduate education and through extensive study with the late renowned family therapist, Virginia Satir. My eyes were opened to new consciousness and at the age of twenty-four, I entered a seditious period and took the arm of rebellion with a vengeance. I escaped the shackles of conformity by running from all responsibility. “I want to be me!” I exclaimed. I then took my narcissism and left my marriage, a two-year old daughter, and the security of the church and in the process rejected any form of spirituality.

For the next fifteen years I lived with few virtues, values, or ideals except what gave me pleasure and relieved discomfort. It was during this time that I wrote my declaration of independence, proclaiming my liberty from the shackles of the dictatorship of fundamentalism. I did what I wanted when I wanted and with whom I wanted. I ran from both relationships and responsibilities. When the going got tough, I got going — in another direction. I turned to external sources of gratification — obsessive achievement and workaholism, to sustain and provide me with self-worth.

Looking back on this time, I realize now that in my attempt to break free of compliance, the ensuing defiance, although it was a necessary step away from conformity, actually swallowed my liberty. One’s freedom is limited in the stance of either compliance or defiance. I was able to project an image of autonomy, but the truth was that I was angry, afraid, and insecure. By denying, escaping, and avoiding this reality, I was not a lot further along the journey to living an authentic life than when I was escaping under the oppression of compliance. It was the opposite side of the same counterfeit coin. Yet I was, somehow, still growing in my own limited way. At least this time I had turned the coin over and was exploring a new side of myself — the side that could be explicitly rebellious, and thus, another step along the way.

During those defiant years, the insecurity, instability and depression that were formerly hidden under a blanket of conformity surfaced with retribution. Without the structure and security of fundamentalism, I was lost. I had no one — nothing to answer to. I lived an illusion of freedom, running aimlessly through life with no anchor or rudder to hold me back from the open sea or to protect me from the tempests of life. I had no roots to keep me from breaking in the storms.

As an unsettled and restless person in desperate search of inner peace and fulfillment, I sought answers from external sources. I signed up for personal development workshops, bought a myriad of self-help books, and entered psychotherapy. I went to Buddhist retreats and practiced letting go of attachments, getting in touch with my “beingness.” Then I would go to New-Age workshops, listen to mystics, and request guidance from psychic readers and channels. I would listen to motivational speakers talk about the “Power of Positive Thinking” and “If it is to be, it is up to me!” They would remind me there was no limit to how successful I could be or how much money I could create for myself. I went on vision quests, extended fasts, and sat in sweat lodges. I am grateful for all of these experiences because they helped shape me and brought me to where I am today. They were a part of the mosaic of my life, necessary in the development of my authenticity, and while everyone of them left me with a residue of growth, I longed for something “more,” something to sustain the inspiration, something to last longer than the few days following the “high” of a new insight.

Rather than sustained personal integrity or self-respect, I was a person, during these years, with “situational values.” My values emerged based on the situation in front of me. I gave the world what it wanted when I needed something back from the world. Moving still further away from my heart, I made my mark in the world through acquisition and admiration. I began a process, in my late twenties and thirties, of proving myself to the world, of portraying to the world my strength, of succeeding at business, of gaining self-worth by proving my importance in the world. I tried to fill my life with outside stuff. I bought a big house and filled it with things, but it didn’t fill the emptiness inside.

This was a disintegrating time for me, for I was not able to consciously amalgamate much of my new awareness into sustained change. Fleeing from reality will inevitably take you into discouragement. I lacked the integrity that transpires from facing yourself and from keeping promises to yourself and others. Once the high of the weekend retreat or the latest book subsided, I reverted to my old lost and insecure self. I was listening to all the external teachers and was caught in the trap of trying to conform to all of them. Even when I was practicing as a psychotherapist, facilitating personal growth workshops, or making presentations, I learned all the right words, but I was not coming from a grounded, integrated place. I was seeking authenticity out of desperation rather than out of trust. What I was searching for was peace in my fragmented interior world. I struggled in intimate relationships. I got depleted and burned out practicing as a psychotherapist, trying desperately to be helpful to people, not knowing that my helping was really about hiding — hiding a deep sense of aloneness and insecurity — and was not the compassion and wisdom that emerges from self respect and sustaining principles.

I developed an insatiable desire for “more” — more recognition, more success, more materialism, more acquisition, even more answers. What I recognize now is that I was trying to fill, in the words of Pascal, the “God sized hole in my heart,” and no amount of recognition or acquisition would fill that emptiness in my soul. No sooner would I get the praise and affirmation from the world than I would look around and ask myself, “is this all there is?” Then I would set another goal to fill the insatiable ambition for more. Behind the determination was a need to prove myself and seek approval from the world. This stemmed from insecurity, rather than a healthy desire to be good steward of the gifts that have come to me. Although I was vocationally successful, I was continually in debt, both spiritually and financially, convincing myself that if I just had enough possessions or spiritual experiences or knowledge or status, or recognition, I would fill the emptiness inside. This was also a time when I was very difficult to live with. Just as I helped many in my work, I hurt many in my personal life.

 My life had moved far from that seed of possibility. I was paying a price for being out of step with my true nature, with my destiny, and I was slowly and fervently being called to come back to myself. Both depression and manic busyness prevailed in my life. In 1986, my father died. The following year I ended a significant relationship and got very close to suicide. I checked myself in for psychiatric assessment and was diagnosed as having inherited my father’s bipolar disorder, which, I was told, would progress, and I would, in all likelihood, need to be on medication for the remainder of my life. I resisted the diagnosis and left with a firm resolve to not be like my father — to will my way into a different life. I reverted to my highly driven, manic self, not allowing a place for vulnerability, dependence, surrender, or humility. I know now that with no humility, confidence is unattainable. I reverted to my old self of over-working, over-accumulating, over-exercising, over-eating and over-helping. I moved every year or two, thinking that a geographic cure would somehow bring a degree of contentment to this unsettled restlessness that persisted and progressed. I continued to escape from the discomfort of facing myself honestly. The mood swings worsened over time. The lows got lower; the highs got higher. The illness became bigger than my self-knowledge and self-will combined. I became further and further removed from a conscious connection to my authentic self, from my spiritual roots.

In the following years, I channeled my energies into socially acceptable endeavors. I met and married my life-long partner, launched my speaking career, returned to the world of competitive running and continued to build my business into work that I loved. But the shadow side — the depressive and unmanageable manic tendencies — managed to creep into my life even though all appeared to be well on the surface. I found my endeavors to be both rewarding and insatiable. There was always another challenge to overcome, another goal to achieve, another race to run. I was always in search of more and better accomplishments. By needing my business for my worth, I allowed it to own me and was gone from my family more than two hundred days a year. Indeed, I had a rich standard of living and a poor quality of life. To the world I was a “success.” But there was incongruity between what I was teaching and how I was living. Each day, I got up with resolve to “do better” and stayed busy, always fearful of letting down the mask. But I didn’t have the awareness or tools to know how to stop the masquerade and be comfortable with what was underneath. Like the Cheshire Cat in Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, I was following the path of “any road will get you there” if you don’t know where you are going.

I was inducted into the next stage on the authentic journey — humility — through a series of inner nudges, inviting me to move forward on the path. These started with small wake-up calls — falling asleep at the wheel of my car and hitting an embankment late one night, anxiety attacks, bouts of depression, and inner desolation that swept over me like a black cloud in the middle of the night — but I have learned that if you push the snooze button — if you don’t listen to the early warnings, the universe has a way of increasing the intensity until you wake up. My “instructional moment of disillusionment,” that moment of awakening when I knew I needed to make some important changes in my life, came when I was working out of town and missed my daughter’s birth. Hayley was born early, and despite what I thought were adequate precautions, I was simply too busy working — achieving — to be realistic and make it to Val’s side in time. The irony of this painful situation is that Hayley was born while I was away leading a retreat on how to build a meaningful life beyond success, with enduring and lasting connections. This was when it began to dawn on me that my life was growing increasingly incongruent, disengaged from, and out of alignment with my inner values, with what mattered most to my authentic self. In my frantic and ambitious pursuit for wealth, I had succumbed to the poverty of spiritual isolation.

It was at this time, in my early forties, after sleepless nights, bouts of anxiety, and lengthy periods of despondency, that I began to realize I was living separate from my authentic self, my spiritual centre, and those closest to me. I hit a spiritual bottom that opened the door to humility — the deep realization that self-reliance alone will only take you so far, that self-will alone will eventually take you to a wall that you will never be able to climb alone. Entering into the stage of humility means to begin the search for the truth about yourself, to seek an understanding of what is going on within you and around you, and to surrender to a power beyond yourself. For me, the door of humility opened to reliance on the God of my understanding as my source of direction and strength. Recognizing the limits of self-will paradoxically brings strength. Discovering and turning to a power beyond self-reliance brings spiritual maturity as you turn to a divine center as the source of worth that sustains you beyond anything imaginable within the physical realm. I could not live any longer without faith and without a reliance on a power beyond myself. Without faith and the humility that is required to trust, I was at sea without a rudder or an anchor, drifting on the ocean of life. By surrendering to a power greater than myself and trusting that power, I gained the strength to face whatever comes. Living life from this spiritual source is no longer a search for happiness. Sustained contentment is independent of the fleeting emotions of happiness or unhappiness.

I know now that my need for recognition, power, and social acceptance was fueled by a profound sense of insecurity that stemmed from a disconnection to my spiritual roots. There was much incongruence between what my soul was yearning for and what the world was furnishing, for the world could not possibly fill this spiritual emptiness that I yearned for. I was on the journey to “find myself” and was, instead, lost in the darkness of self-will and self-centeredness. I began to fear again for my sanity. I felt things closing in the inner chamber of my life. I had real difficulty explaining to the people around me what was going on in my soul, behind the confident mask I showed to the world. But my family knew, as did the deepest part of me when I took the time to look in the mirror at night.

The rehabilitation of my authentic self through the process of humility began with truthfulness with myself. I began facing my compulsive and addictive tendencies. I started to face myself with honesty, open-mindedness, and a deep desire to change. I stopped running from my broken self and started looking at what was fueling my insatiable human hungers. I started to reach out for support from individuals who began to hold me accountable for living a life of character, rather than a life of comfort, for accepting and facing the weaknesses and darker aspects of myself. I began to create a structure for accountability to keep promises to myself and to others and for living a life of order and moderation. As I clarified what mattered most and aligned my choices in a very real way with my core virtues and values, my spirit was awakened. I started building a solid and sustaining spiritual foundation on which to build my life and rest my soul. With the rehabilitation of my authentic self, I learned that I need structure in my life — a community to support me and hold me accountable, a daily practice of connecting with a higher power, a structure for healing my past, adequate rest, good nutrition, and a daily commitment to overcome self-centeredness.

The awakening of my spiritual source and the reliance on a strength beyond myself ignited the restoration of my integrity — the next stage on the journey. Integrity — the inner union that emerges from keeping promises to yourself and others — is about integration. Integration can only come as we open ourselves to the entire spectrum of our inner life and create an accountable structure to hold our humanity in a socially responsible way. This kind of structure gives me an inner peace and my spirit is awakened as I am learning to see the world through a new set of lenses. My depressive nature and bipolar and addictive tendencies are always present, but by being honest with myself and mindful of these darker sides of my nature, I am learning to manage my mood swings in a socially responsible way. I have learned that my depression is the result of an imbalance in my approach to life — an imbalance that gives rise to chemical changes in the brain and central nervous system — and these chemical changes create and perpetuate the depression. Managing with depression begins with listening to it, not as a pathology to “cure,” but rather as an instructive indicator of imbalance. Healing depression then becomes a matter of restoring balance to the brain chemistry. I am able to achieve this though the use of nutrition, consistent and balanced exercise, new ways of thinking, ongoing support, and behavior changes.

As old tendencies no longer own me or control my life, I am able to feel some freedom. I am learning to face and talk openly about the fears, doubts, and insecurity that underlie the symptoms of over-work, frantic busyness, over-eating, addictive exercise, obsessive approval seeking, over-spending, and over-attachment to relationships. In this daily practice I am finding a degree of freedom and am on a healing journey of self-acceptance.

Gradually, the journey took me through the door to the next stage of authenticity — contribution. The darker, lowly aspects of my nature are gradually being transformed into useful gifts that serve a useful purpose as I learn to bring them into my community. Authenticity must be given away in order to be kept. We must give in order to live. We must serve in order to sustain ourselves. Civilization would cease if all of us were always and only for ourselves. As our gifts are awakened, particularly at mid-life, we must shine a light on these newly discovered talents and bring them into our community. If the unique and powerful life force within us is suppressed, it will be lost from the world and our spiritual, mental, and physical health will suffer. Authentic contribution comes not from our positions, but from the presence we bring to whatever roles that we hold. Contribution moves us to a place where we cease to define a good day by one in which everything goes our way, but rather, when, through some small act of ours, we were able to make a day better for someone else.

As I enter my second adulthood, and take root in the stages of integration and contribution, a variety of emotions surface. I have a sense of being more settled, both within and around me, and have less of a need to prove myself. I still like nice things around me — a nice car, a comfortable home — but materialism is now becoming my servant rather than my master.

Today I am less driven and more reflective. I am more comfortable with myself. I am more content. I have less of a need to make things happen, and more trust to let things happen. I am less interested in the approval of others and know that what others think of me is none of my business. I am less interested in getting my own way and more interested in getting out of my own way. Having gone through periods of betrayal and anguish, I am now finding myself returning to the mind-set and wonderment of a child, only with the eyes of a more spiritually mature and less self-centered adult. I have less of a need to write in order to sell books, and more of a yearning to write — and live — from my heart. I will never retire, if retirement means sitting still too long. I see myself forever contributing, learning, serving, and giving back what I have so generously been given and as I move into the next leg of my journey, I will work, contribute and serve in a new way. I will probably always work hard. It is a part of me, but I am learning to do so in a new, more relaxed way.

As I enter the second half of my life, I sense the promise of authentic living — a deep and sustaining inner peace, but I am also aware of moving into a new period of vulnerability. I am being initiated into an era of loss. I am losing some hair, some strength and flexibility, some eyesight, and some sexual potency. I take action daily to counter the natural effects of aging through renewed relationships, regular exercise, stimulating conversations and learning opportunities, but I am becoming increasingly aware of my own mortality and the frailness of life. I cannot deny the losses I am simultaneously experiencing. My hope is that I can walk gracefully through the next fifty years of my life and face death with the same sense of curiosity, wonderment, gratitude and acceptance than I am learning to live life with. This is a good time to be alive, and I would not have been able to say that had it not been for the grace of a power beyond me that helps me face what comes a day at a time.

This unfolding of my spiritual self and my authentic life is not based on external manipulation or strategies, but is like a seed that is growing in ways that cannot be fully comprehended by the rational mind. Authentic expression is like beauty: it is easier to experience, rather than describe, to recognize rather than analyze. The authentic life is much more of a work of art than an endeavor of strategy. Just as the work of an artist is never complete, so too the work of painting or sculpting or crafting an authentic life will go on a lifetime. By slowing down, listening carefully to our inner voice, allowing the pain, discomfort, and uneasiness of life to both touch us and shape us, then emerging with courage to follow through on our calling, we tap into the deep spiritual roots from which meaningful living emerges.

I clearly recall how the evening summer sun was glowing through the trees as we turned into the cemetery and followed the road that lead to the sunken headstones. Although my four-year-old daughter and I had spoken many times of her grandpa Harlie, this was Hayley’s first trip to his gravesite, three hours from where we lived. My father died seven years before her birth so she never knew the gift of his loving arms around her as she sat on his lap or the feel of his whiskers on her tender cheeks.

As we stepped out of the car, Hayley ran ahead looking for her grandfather’s name amidst the rows of granite stones. It didn’t take her long to find his gravestone. Wilfrid Harland Irvine, 1918-1986 — “A New Beginning” is inscribed on the bottom of the headstone and two seagulls are carved in the top corner, just as two seagulls are on every one of Dad’s paintings.

I stood beside my father’s grave, holding Hayley’s little hand in mine. Tears welled in my eyes as I sought words to tell Hayley what a great man her grandfather was, how proud he would have been of his beautiful granddaughter, and how much he would have loved her. At that moment, Hayley ever so tenderly surrounded both sides of my open hand with her tiny fingers and gently brought my palm to her heart.

I will never forget her words: “Don’t be afraid, Dad. Grandpa Harlie is still alive. He is a spirit. He is an angel. He lives right here in my heart.”

Hayley did not learn this. We had never had conversations about God or religion or angels or spirituality. Hayley knew this. It was a deep knowing that she brought with her to this world. It was the wisdom of innocence we are born with. The challenge for all who seek the authentic journey is to develop the capacity to embody this wisdom and to manifest it in the world. We do this, in part, by seeing the world through a set of lenses that allow us to take the experiences of life — a painful upbringing, the loss of a loved one, a hard-earned achievement, a troubled relationship, or an immense joy — all of the grief and the bliss, and let them shape us into an authentic self. Rather than a destination, authenticity is a method of travel. It is a way of being in the world. It is a way of relating to your self, relating to others, and relating to life, forever growing, changing, shaping, and becoming real.

© 2003 David Irvine. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Excerpted from Becoming Real, Journey to Authenticity (DC Press, Sanford, FL) by David Irvine.

 

David Irvine is a keynote speaker, workshop leader, consultant on the topics of authenticity, accountability, leadership and balanced living. and best selling author of Simple Living in a Complex World: Balancing Life’s Achievements and his new book, Becoming Real, Journey to Authenticity. He lives with his family in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. For more information, you can contact David at david@davidirvine.com or visit his website: www.davidirvine.com