When Authenticity Blows Logic Out of the Water

“You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there.”  -Edwin Louis

Authenticity, it’s a pretty self-explanatory word.  When you hear it, you probably think of synonyms like, “real”, “dependable” or “genuine.”  It’s certainly not a word to over-think or question, right?   Yes.  Until your Achilles’ heel is struck by that one inevitable circumstance that confronts your authentic self and turns your world upside down.  And you can trust that you will face such a situation at least once in your life.  Through some crisis – a combined catastrophe of faith, hope, doubt, love or life that storms your soul with such force and personal relevance that it makes you question everything you know – you suddenly become aware that almost all of your realities are nothing more than perceptions and your definition of “real” isn’t right.  It is now obvious that you’ve created a world of false truth for yourself, an invented paradigm of reason, rationalization, and explanation.  And worst of all, you didn’t even realize it.  Then what?  Where do you turn?  How do you rectify your past with your present and move forward with a true vision of your authentic future?  

After the dust settles, you eventually come to realize that you have two choices: withdraw or renew.  When these challenges threaten you, they can rarely be solved with thinking and analysis alone.  Nothing about these situations makes sense because circumstances like this are complicated and ugly and raw.  They don’t fit neatly into a pattern you’ve used to solve problems before and if you try to explain them through logic, they will beat you.  No, these are matters of your heart and spirit, something greater than you.  It’s time to dig deep and do a gut-check; time to stop using your strength alone to live and loosen your grip on control.  Because you know what?  It’s not all about you.  However, what you can control is how you react – what you feed your faith will determine if you’re destined to roll over and die or fight back.  And the glorious irony is, when you come out the other side, a true picture of authenticity will emerge.

Emily Flatt is a (fairly) typical 32-year-old living in St. Louis who loves to cook, try new restaurants and travel, is a huge Iowa football fan, Rock Chalks her Jayhawk basketball, enjoys red wine, has great family and friends, used to be in shape, trips over air, can’t sing and fancies herself to be decently witty.