Overcoming fear and stepping into our most authentic selves will always come at a cost, but the beauty lies in the long-term gains. We all have a story of overcoming fear and seeing something come to fruition with intention, courage, and consistency. However, staying motivated, energized, and encouraged to be our authentic selves—especially as BIPOC women—where the risk of being whole, and our worth and value are consistently questioned—is overwhelming.
BIPOC women, whether in our professional or personal relationships, are asked to live the most incongruent lives. We are praised for an act of strength in one area of our life and decimated for small moments of vulnerability and humanness in another. Receiving conflicting messages confuses us and limits our perceived communal, relational, and self-acceptance.
And sadly, these discordant messages have been with us all our lives, beginning in childhood. The messages received from maternal guardians were about remaining in our feminine energy – clean, vibrant, petite, proper, pretty, put-together – to obtain the ultimate prize of being chosen by a man: prioritizing cis-hetero-monogamous partnership over all things. Simultaneously, we were then rigidly taught to remain in our masculine energy and hold full and singular responsibility for our safety, finances, employment, housing, and future because “men cannot be depended on.”
Our teachers, school administrators, coaches, and other adults external to our household taught us that our worth was based on the external—what we know, what we do well, and how resilient we are. The pressure to know everything, do everything well, and be everything for everyone has driven us toward people-pleasing, perfectionism, and all-or-nothing thinking that keeps us stuck in the most limiting narratives.
Then, we graduate from college and graduate school and become professional women who are promised less and egregiously requested for more. We are asked to prove our intellect, leadership, character, and power while being told to be smaller, show docility, tone down our voices, step aside, and be team players. So it makes you wonder: How can we fully express ourselves when the demands placed upon us conflict?
That said, being authentic comes with its share of pressure, challenges, and conflict for BIPOC women. It requires the courage to be disliked and the stress of being misunderstood. However, overcoming the fear, confusion, and disorientation of being ourselves in professional, personal, and communal relationships is one of the most rewarding, self-actualizing, and freeing things we can ever do for ourselves and the people around us.
So what does it mean to live authentically, and how does it free us in our relationships?
Authenticity is defined as the state of being genuine to ourselves and others; when we step into authenticity, we bring forth all the parts of ourselves without judgment and with self-compassion. When we live authentically, we allow for the internal—thoughts, beliefs, and values—and external—actions and words—to be aligned and congruent. When we live authentically, we are active in our challenge of cognitive dissonance and incongruence. When we live authentically, affirming ourselves first, we experience less anxiety. If living authentically provides us with so much present and future good, why wouldn’t we embrace it?
Did someone say, Fear…
The fear of being seen, judged, disregarded, invalidated, denied, denigrated, and experiencing inequity, prejudice, and injustice impacts BIPOC women more harshly than most. And sadly that fear is two-fold—holding both truth and falseness. When in-the-moment fear surfaces, our brain and body respond by leading us toward a path of first consciousness: fight, flight, freeze, and appease or—with a breath and a pause—toward another path of second consciousness: flexibility, nuance, and curiosity. Fear also coalesces around our future. Future fear is deceptive and disheartening. It is self-sabotaging and substantiated by assumptions connected to past experiences. Coincidently, future fear is also about needing to self-protect and control the uncontrollable—other people and other people’s emotionality.
That said, fear can be debilitating and exhausting. However, when we—
(1) Embrace authenticity with and through fear,
(2) Use strategies and resources to minimize fear’s intensity, and
(3) Remind ourselves that we have done hard things before;
Being our most authentic selves with our communities can be the most empowering and healthy action we ever do.
First, we don’t have to start big to be our authentic selves with fear. For example, visualize your journey towards authenticity in your relationships as a step ladder. We all have to take that first step to traverse the ladder. While it may feel scary as we look up and see what is to come, each rung provides a moment to situate yourself, settle, and feel what’s happening within us. Each rung signifies a minor but healthy risk toward authenticity; it involves sharing a piece of yourself and being open to vulnerability, allowing you to receive it in return and set an example for others. Being authentic on a small scale could also look like permitting yourself to respond, “I don’t know,” to a question you’ve been asked in conversation with a friend, colleague, or family member. This example is something I wrestle with often with my BIPOC women clients, who, in both their personal and professional spaces, are expected to have all the answers and facts. When you relinquish the need to “be right” or “have an answer,” you re-establish your humanity and sever the superwoman story.
Second, when you use specific strategies and resources in intimidating authenticity moments, you see fear’s intensity lessen. Some of my go-to resources with clients are body-based exercises that help reduce anxiety, self-compassion exercises that remind us of our worth, and boundary-setting actions that allow us to value our “no,” our space, and our needs. Some of my favorite body-based resources include the Balance mediation app and Open meditation app, The Vagus Nerve Deck: 75 Exercises to Reset Your Nervous System by Melissa Romano, and a walk in nature. So, consider trying meditation, practicing 1-2 of the 75 exercises from The Vagus Nerve Deck, and stepping outside to smile at the sun. When considering self-compassion, identify your favorite image, affirming phrase, or gesture to remind yourself of your worth. Lastly, for boundary setting, I recommend reading Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab, and Setting Boundaries that Stick by Juliane Taylor Shore and putting their boundary-based wisdom and suggestions into practice.
Third, remember that you have done hard things before. Whether you just had a tough conversation yesterday or years prior, you can access past experiences that show you moving through, recovering, and surviving complex situations. And if you’ve done it before, you can do it again. If you have difficulty remembering a moment of courageous authenticity, make it a journaling practice to write or record the stories of your most authentic moments with friends, partners, and colleagues. Then, make it a habit to write down or record these moments in the present as they happen. Reading and listening to our previous moments of strength in vulnerability will always be sustaining and validating.
To close, stepping into our authentic selves can feel risky, but those healthy risks create opportunities for BIPOC women to transform their lives for the better. When we show up authentically, we interact in ways that reflect integrity, strength, and groundedness—ways we can truly be proud of. As you move toward authenticity, take small, intentional steps, lean on deliberate tools, and remind yourself of the hard things you’ve already overcome. Trust that your intentionality will reveal its beauty.
