How to Be Authentic with People Who Love You but Don’t Understand You – Part 3

Oh, you may sometimes think, how wonderful it would be if your family saw you for who you really are. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they believed in you and supported your dreams? But today, in the third part of my little series of posts called How to Be Authentic with People Who Love You but Don’t Understand You, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Do you see yourself for who you really are? Do you believe in yourself? Are you supporting your own dreams?

I’m asking because the third principle in being authentic with family is this:

Stop Asking People to Give You What You Won’t Give Yourself

We often expect too much from the people we love, especially when the things we’re expecting are things we won’t provide for ourselves. We want them to carry images of us that we’ve done little to project, to believe in things for which we have little faith ourselves, and to support dreams for which we’ve provided little effort to make a reality. Obviously, this is unfair and if we want to be authentic when dealing with our friends and family, we need to stop doing it.

Before you ask your family to give you what you need, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I See What I’m Asking Them to See?

It’s hard for people to see who you are when you don’t have your own clear vision. If you haven’t taken the time to explore your interests and discern what makes you tick and what makes you sick, then how can you can expect anyone else to know what would really make you happy?

We can get so desperate for a vision that we might start trying to grab it from everyone around us. Stop. You can’t just pluck a vision from a tree branch. You have to plant a seed and nurture it.

Self discovery takes time and effort. It’s futile to expect others to discover you when you’ve done no searching of your own. If you don’t have a crystal clear vision of who you are and what you’d like to accomplish, cut your family some slack. And give yourself a break too.

I spent many years pretending to be someone I wasn’t. When I finally stopped, I realized I had a lot to learn. I decided to stop doing and start being. I would walk quietly through my day and listen to what was going on inside. I found that I was curious about playing the keyboard, so I bought a little cheap one and played around with it. I’d browse the aisles in bookstores and libraries without an agenda and see what titles called out to me. I’d scribble in my notebooks, listen to music, take walks. Anytime I wasn’t at work or tending to responsibilities at home, I was listening, watching, learning.

And I stopped expecting people to have a clear vision of me because I knew what an absolute blur I’d been through the years. I was starting to see a fuzzy image, an outline, but I knew it was going to take time and I was granting myself all the time I needed. During that time, if someone had said, “You’re really hard to read.” I would have laughed and agreed with them.

I no longer expect people to see what I can’t see, and that’s removed loads of tension from my interactions with my family. It’s almost as if you can read their thoughts. “Oh, thank God. I don’t have to figure him out.”

And all of this applies to any of the projects you’re considering as well. Don’t ask people to see your ideas for a business you want to build or an art project you want to attempt when it’s just a vague notion in your mind. You don’t have to know everything about it to begin, but don’t expect others to know anything at all. It’s only going to be visible to them once you’ve brought it out of your head and heart and into the world.

2. Do I Believe What I’m Asking Them to Believe?

I’ve never had any trouble believing that my friend, Chris Stanfield, is a photographer. From the day I first met him he was snapping pictures. He never went anywhere without a camera in tow and he never missed an opportunity to capture an interesting moment on film. If you know Chris, then you know he’s a photographer, and a damned good one to boot.

In my case, I wanted people to believe I was a writer, but for a long time they never saw me do it. When I was young, I wrote all the time and people knew me for that, but then I went into hiding. I still wanted to be one, but I no longer was one. I was dormant.

When I talked about it, people would ask me what I wrote and I had no answer. Off and on throughout the years, I would put words down in notebooks, but I would hide them or throw them away. When I had an article appear in a newsletter a little over a year-and-a-half ago, Carol said, “Well, thank God. I’m finally going to see your writing somewhere other than in a notebook under the bed.” Only she knew my secret.

It’s only recently that I’ve come out as a writer, and I’ve only been able to do so because I finally developed a habit of actually being one on a daily basis. It took time for me to say the words out loud. I simply didn’t believe it and I could barely mumble the phrase.

“Immawrtr,” I’d say.

“What’s that?” someone would say.

“I said I’m a ruhhh.”

“I’m sorry,” they’d say, “I didn’t catch that.”

Today, I know it. I’m a writer. I believe it and I trust it and I go with it. I’m a writer. I’m a writer. I’m a writer.

I write every day. I carry a notebook and ink pens almost everywhere I go. I created this blog. I publish a newsletter. Last night, I traveled two hundred and forty miles round trip for the chance to be with other writers, to listen to them read their works aloud, and to stand at a microphone and read my poems to them. Yes. I am indeed a writer.

Now that I believe it, others are starting to believe it too. And the more I believe, the more they believe. But I had to make it possible for them to believe.

Whatever it is you’re asking your family to believe, you’ll have to do the work of believing it first.

3. Do I Support What I’m Asking Them to Support?

You want your family to encourage you, to back you up, to invest in your dreams. But what are you doing to support those dreams yourself?

You talk about wanting to be a photographer. Have you bought a camera? Are you taking classes? Are you snapping pictures? Are you sacrificing anything in order to set aside money to invest in equipment? Are you marketing yourself?

Whatever it is you’re asking them to support, you’re first going to have to show them your efforts. Don’t ask anyone to stick their necks out if you’re still in the shell.

And be responsible. It’s hard for anyone to get excited about your plans for world domination if you’re unemployed, living in their basement, and making no effort to chip in for expenses. Take care of the things that need to be taken care of, carve out some time to really work on your dreams, and don’t ask for hand outs and bail outs. Are you listening, General Motors?

Let’s Do Our Part

Let’s make a promise. Let’s promise to do our part to clarify our vision, bolster our faith, and support our dreams before we ask anyone, especially our families, to join us. Anything less just wouldn’t be authentic.

I want to thank everyone who’s been stopping by and especially those of you who have been leaving comments and asking questions and sharing your points of view. You have no idea how much that means to me. I hope you’ll do the same today, and I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to read about the third principle of How to Be Authentic with People Who Love You but Don’t Understand You, which is stop asking people to give you what they don’t have to give.

Until then, I hope you’re enjoying your journey.

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