Getting Discomfortable with Authentic Relating

First of all, I just want to take a moment to celebrate that this is the 50th episode of Discomfortable! Which means I’ve been doing the podcast for a whole year (more or less, math nerds). I want to thank everyone who is reading this right now, everyone who has listened to any episodes of the show, and everyone who has helped spread the good word (about shame, not Jesus). How am I going to celebrate? By doing 50 more episodes!

My 50th episode takes place at an Authentic Relating training course I did a few weekends ago in Stockholm, Sweden. As someone who prides himself on being pretty authentic, I was surprised to discover just how inauthentic I felt in this group. A feeling of shame about not being deep, dark, and emotional enough came creeping back from my adolescence and I found myself getting overly serious in an attempt to fit in. It made me question my entire style of relating and connecting to people, and even the tone of my podcast — am I trying too hard to be funny, light, and entertaining all the time??

Fortunately, the answer to my concerns came directly out of Authentic Relating itself. I eventually realized that it wasn’t about trying to be any one thing, or about prioritizing one aspect of my personality as more “real” than the rest. What it really comes down to is just being as aware and honest as I can be in the moment about all of the different aspects of my personality and all of the different things I am feeling so that I can fully and effectively communicate my truth to people, so that I can be fully seen!

I learned that I can just talk openly about my dark side. And my light side. And everything in-between, including my angst about not being “authentic” enough. I can just talk about it all as it comes up in real time, especially as it relates to the people I’m actually talking to at that moment — the very people I think I need to impress by being more “authentic”. That is Authentic Relating.

And easily the most surprising and uncomfortable side of my personality to emerge in this process was my straight side! Though I originally came out as bisexual in my twenties, that side of me was quickly orphaned as too complicated. So I was completely caught off guard when one of the female participants noted that there was an attraction between us and I suddenly realized… she was right! Needless to say, I foresee a super awkward episode about this topic in my near future.

As you can imagine, Authentic Relating is a very courageous task, but it yields incredible results. These Authentic Relating games or exercises very quickly created a strong bond or kinship among the participants, and it empowered people to say things they probably never would have shared with a group of strangers under “normal” circumstances. But the real challenge of Authentic Relating is that it isn’t meant just for an insular group or workshop, it’s meant to be practiced all the time, everywhere, with anyone and everyone!