I was Ursula at our yearly Halloween party.
It was a ton of fun for most of us, except for my almost 2-year-old granddaughters. Poppy and Lady were not having it.
I could hear their little brains churning, “ What happened to Grandma? Where did she go? Ursula sounds like Grandma and looks a little bit like her, but that’s not my real grandma. “
Lady and Poppy are usually glued to me. They are my biggest fans. They see me and run to me with screams of delight. They only want me to hold them, feed them, play with them and I just love it. But during our costume party, they glanced at me warily from across the room and basically avoided me the entire night.
They knew the real me was inside that purple garb somewhere, but they just couldn’t get to it.
I wasn’t showing up as my true authentic grandma self.
Aren't we all guilty of this at times?
Sometimes we don’t show up as authentically as we could. We say and do what we think others expect of us. We put on our outer Ursula. But just as my little grandgirls could sniff out a phony and not want to be around me, so can other people see through the fictional lives we are presenting.
Being authentic is vital in building relationships and having compassion for others. It also can feel very vulnerable and unsupported at times. The lower brain would love to avoid these uncomfortable feelings and offers up thoughts of how people will reject us so it’s better to hide and fit in, put up walls and don’t make waves, etc....
This is false.
It’s fun pretending to be Ursula for a night but imagine me putting on the purple face and white hair every day to cover up the true Melinda.
Brenee Brown said, “Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
Let yourself be seen.
In the 2009 blockbuster movie Avatar, instead of hello, they greet each other with “I see you.” it means I see the love and your feelings and your soul and you mean everything to me.
Let’s put off the fake, drop the masks and really see each other.
Good news!
I got back to the real, authentic me this morning and face timed Poppy and Lady, and I am happy to report I am back in their good graces.
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