~ Authentic~ Answers

Thank you all for your enthusiastic welcoming and comments, it is still a bit strange for me to have a written voice and it's still a bit "young"

I host a monthly Women's Wisdom Circle in my small community and asked the "Authentic"Question to those who are regulars within the Circle~

Their answers are as diverse and beautiful as they are and I hope you will relate to them here~

Authentic perhaps is understanding that you are a combination of beliefs and conditions that you can both sit within and struggle against. Finding yourself in everything and everyone and still somehow being just you. Being fragile and courageous in the same moment.
Being able to express your only’ness….

Authentic
is responding in the moment
with no story about who I think I am or
how things should be.
It is sensing, with all our senses, as a way to respond without thought.
It is responding according to my own level of consciousness.
I'll get back to you ...

Authentic means I can wear my new bright green shoes when I am inclined to be a wood nymph!

My answer is that I would take satisfaction in realizing that this moment is the most important moment in my life and that nothing else matters, because I cannot change the past and the future is up for grabs. The effort is getting to that realization and that is no easy task; a constant struggle if I wish it to be, or not by realizing to really "be" is the only way for me to be authentic. "To be or not to be, that is the question."

First, I had to be absolutely certain that I understood what authentic means. My dictionary says: genuine/ made, written or painted by the person who claimed to have done it,/ true and deserving to be believed or trusted.
So to be authentic means I have created who I am, I say "This is me" and I appear believable. Now....what would this "real me" do? Looking back over all the years of researching my True Self, I realize that I was always my genuine self-trying out all kinds of roles and ways of Being. Who else could I have possibly been? Some people believed my way of being and some didn't, but so what? Being authentic cannot be one static way of Being because everything is always changing. Wow, when I look back and see all the different hairdos, glasses and styles I wore, my Real Self sure was, and still is, a kaleidoscope. I have done so many things and still do. There is nothing to break out of, or be free of, to be my Authentic Self. Everything is just as it should be.

following your heart
and
I only care what anyone else thinks if they are important to me

What does authentic mean to me?
Speaking my truth, Being my truth - on all levels of my being - no matter what
Choosing to Do what I want, when I want, how I want.
Not caring what others think
Living through my Heart, allowing it to guide me