Yulia,

By 'authentic,' do you mean whatever is from your true nature as opposed to what is from conditioning and habit? You do well to be so aware that you can catch yourself 'not being there.' I face the same challenges, it feels very familiar. As you said, it helps to have a partner or conscious friend who will mirror and catch us more often, 'in the act' of being unreal.

As you continue, you will feel it more yourself, catch yourself earlier.

I don't have any magic potions for always being authentic, but the latest tip for my own journey from the inner voice is to focus back on the questions, 'What is now? What is real? What is alive?'

Vision River
Aware by Design

Hi Guys - and hi Vision River - thanks for your contribution to Openhandweb - its good to have you here.

Personally I think you're both right. Being in relationship or having a conscious friend to mirror back authenticity can be of invaluable help in being real.

But being authentic also means embracing the situation exactly where it is right now. During the greatest and most radical time of my unfolding I had no one at all! I was completely alone with the people around me not understanding or empathising. I know this happens to many people out there.

So for me I learned to embrace that. I went deeper and deeper inside and my friends became 'profound self honesty' and the synchronistic voice of the universe. I learned to watch synchronicity in the patterns that played out in my life. I learned to ask "why am I creating that and what is it telling me?" I would take responsibility for what happened in the outer world and why people behaved to me the way they did. This became a powerful mirror too.

And I love your questions Vision River: "'What is now? What is real? What is alive?'" Yes indeed! If we keep asking things like that and keep being honest with ourselves, we become increasingly authentic.

Best wishes

Chris

Thank you very much for your comments, and it is right on time, since these are the things I am facing, yesterday and today.

When I wrote this entry, on the 07/06, I thought that being authentic is to be open, let the soul in, connect to the higher guidance and then let it flow out through me. It is very different now... since today's morning actually, and it appears much more complicated but also simple than how I 'perceived' it before.

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Yesterday I had two communications: one with a more 'matrixy' person and the other was with this conscious friend I've already introduced here

And it is VERY different.

Matrixy case:

I could see how I get infected by the noise, how I almost 'copied' the energetic state of the person, how amplification loop was building itself as a result. I felt myself climbing up from the center, from the body up into the head, felt this pressure in the head, and was watching how my voice was changing, how I was talking faster and faster, how it moved from being from within the body, climbing and concentrating within my mouth, and in the head. The head went like zzzzzz, going to blow up, the rest was emptied. And I felt these anxiety-like butterflies, tightness in the chest.

I experienced all kinds of stages of getting out, and going into the distortion, when I was pushing, getting into the mind and intellectualizing, hiding, feeling uncomfortable with silence, all these. How the field shrank, how I was jumping out of the presence... But I felt the awareness in the background and it made me accept it all, even thought there was some sadness about all this type of communication after the Transfiguration course and 'speaking the same language' with people there.

And of course there was a mirroring in this situation, as always.

I was feeling the noise and also there was the 'mimicry' of person's states. It is not something new. I know this feeling. I as if become others and begin to behave, move, feel like them. It is as if the body itself begins to catch it, like wear it... and I was also rather good at copying gestures, facial expressions, etc... and it felt so strong yesterday...

Now as I am sharing, realization is landing (this is what I also appreciate in sharing, it assists self-realization many times).

It is about identification with the body, like this is MY body. Why should I care that it mimics something else? It seems that this might be the spot. I attach some form to this body, like now it is me and now it is not, so there is some rigid 'idea' about how I am.

The message coming is that by releasing ANY attachment to it and freeing it from my identification and caring about it as ME or part of me, the body can be free to take any form, and won't cling onto any. So it is also relieved from others' forms sticking to it.

It is as if I have glue on me, so anything can stick. This is how we are brought up in this world - first being covered with glue and then sticking layers on it and copying others (parents, friends, classmates). Feels like washing this glue off the bodymind by non-identification, also if and when it is invaded, whatever sensations/feelings arise, so it then becomes transparent to the expression of the soul to move through it unimpaired by any layers, mine or others', but only the clear personality, which is part of the bodymind, built in.

Okay, it seems I have got some insight?

So, yesterday I tried to be as sensitive and attuned to the situation as I can. I had no fear of the consequences, but I felt very clumsy. I just felt I don't hit the tune, I was like trying to walk on the shaking string and kept felling off (which synchronistically reminds me of the slacklining I tried during the week in Cae Mabon).

I guess it takes some time to 'skill it': how to be within the sea of noise, feeling the field invaded by people and OC, while looking what these invasions are sitting on, my own distortions, feeling others' stuff, my own stuff, keep being present and aware, being pulled out of the center, seeing why, catching myself fleeing out of the body and landing back, seeing the reflection in the mirrors, processing it, finding the truth and also expressing it AND sometimes, in parallel do some 'service' by looking at the person, feeling where he is and letting the message land intact by my ego.

Piece of cake!

A catalysing friend case

I didn't mean to say that ONLY 'conscious' friends are of use and help For me too ANY situation and encounter is just the right one to learn from if it feels right to be in it, even though I can feel sometimes this 'RUUUUN!' on the emotional level, especially when there is some biggy thing to see in myself is on the way there.

It is just that with this friend in particular I am made to be aware all the time. With other 'conscious' people I can also sometime fool around and go a bit off the rails. But not with this one.

There are more things going on, like if I have blind-spots, then there's a red button going jjjjjjj, and the most 'painful' buttons are pushed, which I subconsciously avoid to spot and go into, just like yesterday. It's like processing nonstop during such interaction. And it is interesting how I feel toward him: both love on the soul level and discomfort and sometimes even anger and hatred on the ego/emotional level.

And in addition there is a great exchange on all the levels, and a soul-connection, which always somehow enhances the awareness and the soul influx (maybe not at the moment of facing and processing, but surely after, at least because of the joy of such direct and open communication and feeling free to be myself as I am, and being accepted as I am ).

So yesterday in the evening it was as challenging as always and I am still all stirred and have this dander, like not wanting to look at these things. So there was a shift in my perception of what being authentic is today in the morning, and it is synched with the comments here about being authentic. Amazing how it works!

Now being authentic for me is allowing. Simple, but not so easy to live.

It is more about being true to the moment and digging into it until I find my real self there.

It is like before it was about extraversion - expressing the true self, doing something. Now it went introverted - how I find the truth in the moment, it is BEING and then MAYBE expressing it. Once authentic being is hit, it expresses itself on its own, if it wants to happen, I don't need to do anything.

It is all about inside, not outside. (for me, now )

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All the dynamics is very different now. I was feeling something, becoming aware, but then the 'emotion' was dimmed, as if got shielded.

So yesterday and today I found I have built some restraining mechanism based on spirituality. I feel anger, this can't be true expression, it is a distortion, and then I as if restrain it in a way, and begin to look for something else, pull myself out of the feeling, and almost effort to be authentic. But THIS is the truth: I AM ANGRY NOW!

But how can I hold this balance line of feeling it all, allowing it to be, not restraining it, not suppressing, not denying, not running away from it, maybe even expressing it and releasing it in some constructive way if I can (like dancing some punk, shouting, or punching and kicking a pillow tied to the tree that agreed to take it )

then being aware that it comes from some distortion/attachment, spotting it - what is triggering it? where is the tightness? where is it coming from? where am I holding it? where am I storing it? where am I identified? and process it, release the identification.

then it is just melting, dissolving itself and then the space is cleared, there is emptiness, the I just am, and through it the flow can happen, and if all this process was fast enough, then it IS happening, on its own, before I even think 'ok, what to do now?' I am just watching myself being authentic.

By the way it is really similar to how the distorted feeling/behavior/expression is happening, you just find yourself feeling/doing something, watch yourself and are aware that it is distorted.

It is the same here. I just find myself being/expressing, watching it and feeling it is authentic, flowing, real, true.

And there is also a combination: when something authentic is flowing, but with distortions sitting on it.

In general it goes in increasing order of challenge and rareness: just being authentic, being and expressing authentically in general. It is like even if I am being authentic (connected and aligned), on the way to expressing it, it can be dimmed/overriden/distorted. And then it goes:

being authentic alone(whatever I do), being authentic with 'conscious' like-minded people and being authentic with people 'outside', with anybody, and the last one - in some extreme situations, like when I got lost in the railway station in London and almost choked to death there, coldn't breathe (and I was alone! so if I would have some matrixy company, I would probably need some angelic ambulance ).

I barely hit authentic beingness expression when I am not alone. And when if I do, it is just for a moment, and then ego is jumping in and it's gone. The ability to express authentically in the moment seems to do with the speed of processing a certain distortion standing on the way. The fluidity and the quickness of the release comes after several times of processing the 'spot', then the consciousness as if knows it and processes it in a glimpse of an eye, then the expression is coming through.

So much to learn and tune,
well I go do that now

Yulia

Yes, having a conscious friend for this work is helpful, yet as Chris pointed out, if I may para-phrase, it comes down to choices we make and the will to be self aware. Still, how can we be aware of what we are not aware of?

We can, because we have an ally within, the true self or whatever one wants to call it, who is always available to guide when the personality drops its defenses and listens. It is not always easy to hear higher dimensional guidance, with the 3d materialistic world surrounding us. Even when I start the day with centering, it is still too easy to be drawn into the stiffness of habits, the drama of emotions, to drift into thoughts of the past or trying to fix problems which don't yet exist. Or to think I am 'fine,' when that is only in my head and not the feeling in my heart.

Embracing the situation, accepting what is, letting go of fixed ideas and judgment, choosing self-responsibility without guilt, knowing who I am, discerning when I am expanded or contracted, and relaxing with humor (as Trinity posted) and not taking it all so seriously are pointers to being real in a (neutrally observed) false world.

It is as you say, Chris, that with the focus of being honest with ourselves we become increasingly more authentic.

with every word.

Thank you

Vision River, you said...

"Embracing the situation, accepting what is, letting go of fixed ideas and judgment, choosing self-responsibility without guilt, knowing who I am, discerning when I am expanded or contracted, and relaxing with humor (as Trinity posted) and not taking it all so seriously are pointers to being real in a (neutrally observed) false world."

Absolutely! Couldn't have said it better. To me this is what walking the path is all about.

Brilliant!

Chris