During our 21 day spiritual journey on Whatsapp, one participant faced a particularly tough challenge with one question and asked for some help and clarification. The conversation that followed helped many other participants, who said they could relate very much and found the conversation very insightful. Hence I share it here in case anyone else finds it helpful too.

Participant: What I am missing out is being truly me. Authenticity is freedom because there is no pretense. When there is nothing to pretend there is only truth left. Which is a relief. But not knowing my true self and not being grounded I am pretending to myself too. In such a situation we only look at others and try and fix ourselves. Feels like if this worked for them, it will work for me too. So we hop from one person’s choices and decisions to others .. pretending it’s ours. And always something pinches from within ‘this doesn’t feel quite mine what I don’t really know what would I pick to be mine’.

Ashwita: Do you want to actually go towards being more authentic though, or are you satisfied with this idea?

Ashwita: Yes this is normal. When the questions are too overwhelming,  goes into shut down. Just relax with the question , hold it in your heart and you go deeper anyway even if nothing comes up

Participant: I have been trying from many  to be authentic. Because that’s  for me.  I am tired of pretending and tired of  choosing words to suit situations i face.

I believe when you are authentic you don’t have to try. Please help me achieve that 🙏

Somehow the feeling of defeat is coming very strongly for me .. as I have tried multiple times to pick good habits and practice what I preach , but all gone to thrash.

Like I know I am going to fail  and again again.

Ashwita: so if you don’t  choose words, then you have nothing to say?

Participant: Yea .. often i find myself with no opinion because it’s easy for me to accept ‘they ‘ know better

Every .. at home, financial, what to order, what to cook. At work .. team decisions .. everywhere.

I feel the worst when someone presents their opinion and ask me what do you think .. and I am like blank.. so i choose  what’s popular abs . So that everyone agrees.

Participant: It’s like I have accepted the  that I do not have opinions and like to say I just go with the flow. But that a LIE

Ashwita: Interesting…. how do you know that this is a lie?

Participant: Because before I speak i know I am choosing what’s going to get an agreement. I know I am not coming from my core. Agree when all agrees and disagree when someone else does it too. You will  see my hand raise with an objection or question

I can see my layers .. I don’t know how to remove them. Or shed them rather

Ashwita: But how do you know that you actually have an opinion if you have  encountered them?

Participant: I see that as a shortcoming

Ashwita: so you have assumed that you have opinions and decided that it is a shortcoming?

Participant: I am too scared .. I feel when I open my mouth it will add no value

Participant: Kind of shut my self

Participant: I see having opinion is a strong way to come from your authentic self… This is honestly my biggest suffering

Ashwita: No, that is an assumption. And a very wrong one at that… forming an opinion is a thing to do – you are confusing doing with being.

Forming an opinion takes time and effort. If you had the energy to sustain any practice, you could have had energy to educate yourself and put in enough thought into everything and have an opinion about everything. Not like you have absolutely no opinions, you do have an opinion that you have nothing to add to any conversation. That’s a very big opinion to have.

Participant: As I am linking it to authenticity. I just don’t want to pretend.

Ashwita: It has nothing to do with authenticity. Pretending will stop if you simply say – I have nothing to add to that, I don’t have thoughts in the matter. That is authenticty

Participant: May be I see it as being seen by others .. an acknowledgement that i exist

Some people always have a lot of value to add in a conversation. Almost everyone around me. And I don’t see that coming from me .. so almost feel like I do not exist.

I see myself as a blurred background .. just there. No value addition.

I am starting to see a connection.  That I am very scarred to take responsibilities for the fear of failing. May be my choices or my decision will make the finances, or dinner, or the team fail.

Ashwita: Yeah so basically you are comparing yourself with others and want to have what they have. Without that you see no worth in yourself. And that obviously makes you devalue yourself, so then investing in yourself will become a redundant exercise because nobody invests in a worthless thing. You want to be seen by others. Have you seen you?

Participant: I see it now.. Where you are coming from

Ashwita: People around you value people with ideas and things to say, and have no value for those who don’t (or so you have perceived) and you have believed that narrative and refused to place any value on who you are – someone with nothing much to add

Participant: Yes that’s hard to accept. How can someone never have anything to say. Was the person even involved? Was the person even present or paying attention

Ashwita: Having something to say takes work and thinking. It is something you learn, not someone you are. If it is a behaviour that served you as a child, you develop it. If it was snubbed then you don’t, and then you have to put in the effort to learn to develop it. There are people who never have anything to say.

Ashwita: And…. you don’t have nothing to say. Scroll up and see. There’s plenty you have to say. You just don’t have much to say in certain matters

Participant: Does that mean i am in the wrong place?

Ashwita: It mean you haven’t spent enough time looking at yourself without expectation. You’re again going back to trying to fix things rather than trying to see who you are.

Participant: How can I begin the work?

I got this undevided attentive from you and i can’t belive. I think I didn’t deserve it.

Gosh I am so broken

Ashwita: Accept that you have nothing to say, that maybe sometimes it is simply easier to agree than express that you have nothing to say so you take the easy path sometimes. And practice deep listening and witness your disgust at yourself when you have nothing to say. You DO have a lot to say, most of it is usually shit about yourself.

When someone asks you for your opinion, your opinion is merely ‘I am an idiot because I have nothing to contribute, and I am going to try to say something in order for you not to find out’ – that is an opinion followed by an action plan.

Change that action plan to realising that you are repeating a very longstanding, erroneous opinion of yourself and to go deeper and see what you’re really feeling in that moment, instead.

Participant: You bang on .. you found my plan for survival 😂

Thank you so much for this 😍

Ashwita: 🤗

Another Participant: It was an eye opening . Thank you both.  I see I also feel worthy only when I am useful , I make people laugh ,or I pacify arguments or take  for others emotions . Otherwise standalone I feel unworthy. There is no me without being useful. And then i get angry when they use me which is the picture I only gave them in  place. I feel worthless. Will eft it .. Do you see more here Ashwita ?

Ashwita: ah…. the standard need versus love dilemma

You see, if people need you, you have the illusion that they’ll be with you. If on the other hand they are with you merely because they love you, you cannot control them, and there’s a fear of loss. So we prefer being useful to simply being loved… we feel there’s a bit of a guarantee there. It is a funny thing really, because in fact it is the opposite. When people are with us because we are useful, they’ll leave us once they find a better replacement, AND we’ll never feel loved because we were never loved, we were only valued for our usefulness. If someone is with us because they love us, they aren’t leaving anyway because well, they love us!

Another Participant: So basically being useful  is manipulation to get love … I see that .. rather than just see that maybe I feel unlovable just as I am.