The path of authenticity: the psychology of inner transformation.

What does authenticity mean in psychology?

On the path that leads to inner transformation, psychology offers us knowledge, tools and points of reference to learn how to stay within the process of inner transformation, with all the complexities that characterise it.

Every path is personal and unique, and very often it is hard to recognise it and to recognise ourselves in it. This is why I decided to explore the concept of authenticity in the light of psychological dynamics. The word derives from the Greek αὐϑεντικός and means "author", in the sense of one "who acts from oneself", one who has "authority over oneself".

The etymology points to the psychological process of developing awareness, that is, learning to work on ourselves consciously, getting to know ourselves within the process of transformation and passing through it while staying true to our own authenticity.

Authenticity is a value dear to me because it lies at the root of everything that is meant to last; walking this path means walking Our path, in all its uniqueness, being aligned with our nature in its purest essence.

The reflection I will share in this article comes from the difficulties we experience in staying in deep contact with ourselves and in living the processes of transformation that growth and inner evolution require.

Don't look for the path, be the path.

Every day we are called to pass through our inner world and to recognise that we have needs that are sometimes submerged; at times we perceive a kind of dissonance with the reality we live in, and a difficulty, even an unconscious one, in acting within it in a way that is consistent with our inner nature and good for our wellbeing.

As individuals we are searching for a form of inner freedom that is hard to define; we do not always manage to feel our deep needs clearly or to discern what no longer belongs to us. We are searching for someone or something to relieve us of the thankless task of inhabiting ourselves in this time, with all the difficulties it brings.

Sometimes we are confined in mental patterns that become prisons; we stay trapped in our expectations, chasing illusory directions outside ourselves.

When this happens, how can we return to our path? How can we feel and understand which way to go?

THE PRESENT IS THE DESTINATION.

The first step on a journey into our authenticity is finding a way to reconnect with strength, trust and courage. They live within us and in the truest relationships we have built, such as important bonds with other people, places or passions.

We can recognise this connection because it gives us a sense of wellbeing, lightness and expansion, an awakening of our inner energy, and it reminds us that this underlying determination can always be reborn within us.

The second step is to carry on with discipline and compassion along the path of our present, ready to explore the complex nature of the psychological experience we are living, made of light and shadow, continuous dynamic tensions that tend towards inner harmony.

The search for authenticity is a journey, a search of the heart, for meaning and for a deep understanding of ourselves and of things that is not mediated by mental patterns and lives in the present, not in the past or the future, where in fact we cannot act.

A path BEYOND THE MIND: awareness.

"Authenticity is the lightness of easing your own burden and being able to look at yourself from above."

(Ezio Bosso)

The mind is a machine that never stops, a tireless producer of thoughts, whose cognitive structure tends to simplify reality and produce interpretations, associations, meanings and countless cognitive distortions.

We can think of it metaphorically as a territory made of many well-trodden roads and just as much untrodden ground. The trodden paths are patterns formed over our history and experience; they are easier to retrace and simple to find, automatic. For this reason our mind very often dominates our thoughts and hooks them onto our emotions, so that we keep running into the same thoughts, the same reactions and the same dysfunctional dynamics.

Eastern psychology, as a centuries-old tradition of knowledge and wisdom, comes to our aid and teaches us that: we cannot find the key to what is unresolved in experiences that only temporarily feed our sense of lack.

Indeed, when dysfunctional patterns keep repeating, our time takes the shape of a space inhabited by lack, a condition that makes us unable to stay in new, empty, unknown territory and that pulls our attention away from the present, directing it towards the search for a happiness that is not now but deferred to the future, to a distant space where we cannot act consciously.

We remain suspended in the limbo of waiting for change, but we are not truly present to ourselves when we have the opportunity to create it.

So it is precious to learn to stay, to dwell in the unknown, the uncomfortable, the unresolved. To learn to observe new ground, so as to give ourselves an alternative, a new path in our present.

How can we practise stepping off the paths traced by the mind and living in the present?

"The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it."

J. Hillman

Mindful presence is will and attention intentionally directed to what is there in a given moment; it is the capacity to stay, to dwell with what exists and shows itself in the instant in which we can observe and feel it.

What emerges, then, is the need to tune in to these inner states and keep listening, day by day, discerning sensations, emotions, feelings and thoughts.

In this process we need to acknowledge the human quality of our inner states, in their fragility and variability, from the most wonderful feeling to the most hidden, destructive one.

There comes a moment when we need to walk towards transformation and change, to pause in the places of the soul that frighten us most. Only in this way can we learn to dwell in what we call lack, explore it and understand it, find hidden treasures in it and welcome them.

To discover and cultivate in ourselves the art of taking care, the grace of self-compassion and the strength of conscious attention, in silent respect for and acceptance of what is there.

"We can learn to dwell with the turning of the seasons, with drought, with blossoming and with the beauty of rebirth." (James Hillman)

Entering this process means connecting with our centre, freeing ourselves from the expectation that it is the outside world's job to fulfil this inner task.

The path of authenticity is a search of the heart, for a knowledge beyond the mind, for a felt sense that invites us to come home, to a deep understanding of the self, to the dwelling place of our essence.

There comes a moment when we need to become free travellers in a space we can inhabit with awareness and serenity, a space that is nothing other than our psyche, that is, our home.

If you would like to set out on your own path of authenticity and cultivate your awareness, discover my personal growth programmes:

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Francesca Peruzzi, psychologist

Clinical and wellbeing psychologist.

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