Being authentic is an inner strength which helps you to feel powerful even when odds are against you. It makes you trustworthy and respected. It creates opportunities for you where others would least expect. Think Evolve brings you an illustrative article about being authentic. Imagine for a moment, if someone whom you are speaking to listens to you with a clear and open mind, looks at you without evaluating you and surprises you by appreciating something about you which no one lately has noticed ` how wonderful you would feel to be with that person! The joy of being understood and being accepted in spite of our limitations as human being is indescribable. It has to be felt. And now for the more familiar scenario ` you have just met someone at a social function and he describes his everyday traffic ordeal to you. While he speaks, you notice. Everything about him, his attire, his accent, his little details and then draw up a picture in your mind about what you think he is about. You have been with him, but not present with of him as your mind was wandering and perhaps trying to measure him up. Our mind begins to get conditioned over the years to analyse and judge anyone we come across. Judgmental behaviour is harmless on the surface but it indicates a great deal of inner turmoil, insecurity, dissatisfaction and other unfulfilled experiences. Giving feedback to someone who can gain from your perspective is a good practice. However, a continuous negative evaluation of people and matters around you could actually mean you need to `cleanse` your perspective. The critical part of the matter is that judgmental behaviour depletes your intellectual and creative energy. If every time you are tempted to ask, `Why does this person behave like this`` or say, `Why is this person so weird in his ways`` but instead you were to ask yourself, `What can I do to become a better person`` and better still, `What can I learn from this person``. You will gradually transform yourself, and people will respond unconsciously to this new you and it would surprise you. It is like a burden being taken off you. To have a mind which is free from opinions but full of ideas ` what an enormously empowering and liberating experience it truly would be! To further illustrate the idea of liberating your inner judgmental voice, here is an example from the work of a very famous actor. Robert de Niro is famous for his method acting. He has never just played a role, but become the role that he played. He had a long professional association with his friend acclaimed director, filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The lead characters of Scorsese`s films often have a blurred or deformed sense of morality, and are prone to violence, while seeking acceptance in the society they live in. Few of his characters were even to the extreme of being sociopaths. Robert de Niro convincingly portrayed these characters of various shades in eight of Scorsese`s films with immense artistic finesse. While presenting the AFI Life Achievement Award to Robert de Niro, here is what Martin Scorsese said: `To be certain, he has an extra ordinary genius to transform himself, to undergo a metamorphosis, to simply be, just be the person he is playing, not act, but become, command and inhabit the character.`So many of those characters who refuse to forgive themselves, I never knew where he pulled it from, I guess I still don`t , of course it has to be from his intelligence, his bravery and analysis of those characters, how he throws himself into the deepest and the darkest chasms, and always comes out as a human being. That`s the trick. At times working with him I thought we had a unique understanding of each other and I hope the audience would sense it and relate to that connection. I think that is what kept on pushing us. He never looks down on the character he plays, he never judges them. And this is the way he is out of character. As a man and a friend he is compassionate and trustworthy. He is a good man.` (Please watch the clip below the article) If we practice being our hundred percent at work, at home, or wherever we are meant to be, we would live an amazing life! Being authentic is an inner strength which helps you to feel powerful even when odds are against you. It makes you trustworthy and respected. It creates opportunities for you where others would least expect. People around you may not be able to describe in words, but they will respond to you in a similar sincere and authentic manner. As always, the change that you desire around you, must begin with you. Let us live with more fulfillment, by being authentic:
`Listen without Defending, Speak without Offending. Love without Depending, And Live without Pretending.`
*Photo Courtesy - Getty Images