Authenticity

Kids are authentic.  There are no facades, no false pretences. They are kids; playing, learning, and often putting their foot in mouth – both literally and figuratively, actually.  They laugh loud and uncontrollably.  They cry when necessary, and sometimes when it’s not.  They are true to their emotions and honest in their interactions with other people.

There is a sincerity and honesty in my children that I hope they carry through into adulthood.  My daughter is true to her spark in every way while my son is authentic in his sensitive and thoughtful nature.  Their actions are transparent and it’s in their transparency that I see their authenticity.

As their mother, I want to encourage and honour their true identities, but, that doesn’t mean I will allow my daughter to say hurtful things to another child, or adult, because her spunk can be challenging to reign in.   Nor, will I let my son’s confidence cross the line into arrogance just because he might be acting in a manner true to how he feels in that moment.

It seems the older we get, the better we are at masking our intentions and playing to our audience, making it difficult for people to see who we really are.  On the other hand, sometimes people can be too quick to excuse mean behaviour, claiming, as a child might, that they didn’t do anything wrong:  ’That’s just me. Take it or leave it.’

I know there is some truth in that last sentiment – we are only in control of our own actions and behaviours, but, still, I’m having an increasingly hard time putting up with ignorance under the guise of authenticity.

Stupid Fun Size Candy

In May I went to a Naturopath and started to eat a more balanced diet.  In June I started jogging.

July and August I continued to work out and completely avoided sugar.

In September I missed a few workouts.   The darker cool mornings made it far too cozy in bed.  And, I may have eaten a little bit of  some sugar.

Then, in October I inhaled more fun sized candy than any one person should in their lifetime.  In just one month, I managed to almost completely erase the good I’ve been working towards since May.

So, now it’s all about getting back on track.  My husband threw out all the leftover Hallowe’en candy (with the expectation that I won’t steal the kid’s…silly man) but what I really have to do is figure out how to get back into the healthy living mindset.

Tomorrow morning I will go for a jog (it’s really more of a fast-ish walk but I feel like I’ll use up more calories if I call it a jog) and start my day with a green smoothie or carrot juice.

Maybe since I’ve written it down now,  I’ll actually follow through…

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Our favourite green smoothie (for 4 – our kids love them):

2 bananas,  a large handful of baby spinach or kale, a glass of water (adjust to suit consistency preferences), frozen strawberries / blueberries / mixed fruit, flax-seed (about 1 tbsp).  We play with the fruit, adding various frozen or fresh as available.   Blend and enjoy.

It’s All About Me

There are six drafts sitting in WordPress waiting for me to click Publish, but I question each piece and can’t bring myself to post.  What if it’s not right?  Why am I writing this?  What do I want this blog to be, really?

Practising Authenticity was meant to be a place for me to, well, be me.   I am a writer, albeit an unpublished, insecure, over-thinking one, and I wanted a place where I could practise writing without the restrictions I have for my work blog.

Oh, I had big dreams.  I was going to post at a minimum of once a week.  It wouldn’t matter what the content was because, my writing would reflect the whole person that I am with varied interests, passions, struggles and triumphs.    Through my posts I would focus on an area of writing that I wanted to develop, heck, maybe just work to improve a grammar rule, but, I would be writing.  That was the important part – I would be writing and improving.

But then I got stuck.

A big part of my life is trying to lose weight.  I started to write posts about it, but, do I want this to be a weight loss blog?  No.

I’m deciding what to do with my business.  I wrote about it, but, do I want this to be about my perceived successes or failures with my business?  No.

I wrote a post about authenticity and how it’s bashed around in political discussions after each presidential debate, but, do I want this to be a political blog?  No.

My kids have been particularly awesome this past week and made me laugh continually with their Hallowe’en costume ideas.  I wrote about it, but, do I want this to be a blog about my kids?  No.

Then, I realized my blog can be all of these things because all of these things are me, and, although focused content may be better for blog stats, I didn’t start Practising Authenticity to worry about the statistics.  I will, of course, but I should get posting first…

Here we go…

I googled it, referred to my grammar books and asked around, only to become more confused.  I’d been using practising for years, yet that annoying little red spell-check line kept popping up.  How could there be so many different opinions on whether to use practise or practice?

Finally, I came across an article confirming that, yes, practise is a verb and practice is a noun, but, most people now recognize practice as both verb and noun thanks to our ever-changing grammar rules.  I know, I didn’t realize the rules were ever-changing either.

I had to make a decision: do I stick with my original (and more Canadian) title of Practising Authenticity or go with the more commonly accepted practicing?  Seems like a silly thing to worry about so much, right?  Pretty boring, but, sometimes, it’s the little things.

Sometimes it’s these little things that keep me from moving on to the big things, and, getting shit done.  The word practise is keeping me from putting words on the page, so, agree or disagree, I’m going with the s so that I can move on and start writing.

Now, with that out of the way, I can write me – authentically.  I have a hard time being the writer and taking myself out of the reader’s shoes.  I worry that I might offend – maybe where I feel a good cuss would work, someone else might think it inappropriate.   Maybe the way I remember a moment isn’t exactly as the person who shared it with me remembers it.  Of course, that’s the beautiful thing about perception and our varied experiences, but, I tend to over-think things.

It feels good to get that out of the way so I can simply tell you: this will be my space to work on me, to write through the varied, often befuddled but well-meaning me.  It would be great if someone happened upon this one day, maybe even wanted to comment, but, I’m not going to worry about that just now…