Leading with our genuine self

As we go about our day-to-day interactions, different aspects of ourselves show up. Sometimes we’re happy and loving and pleasant; sometimes we’re cranky and closed off, a bit unreachable.

We’re not ever just one thing - and neither is anyone else. By day’s end, all the interactions and pings and requests in our life can leave us feeling tired and depleted.

But there is a simple way to shift that: by showing up in the world as your most genuine, honest self.

Despite our fluctuations of personality and mood, how can we bring more simplicity and honesty to our everyday relationships? This piece introduces the pathway of relating firstly from the soul, bringing the gift of our most genuine self to the world.

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THE CONTEXT: PERSONALITY VS SOUL

We interact and show up in the world from different parts of ourselves - as Jung explained, our personality and egoic layers, as well as the unconscious and shadow selves.

All of these parts play a role and contribute to how we relate and interact with the world:

As you see in the image above, the ‘persona’ and ‘ego consciousness’ show up in our outer reality - the "face” we show the world. This is the world of mind, thoughts, and feelings, the fluctuations of self. This is also the version of ourselves trying to be liked, understood, admired, or protected.

But the thing about the personality is that it only goes so far. When we relate to ourselves and others primarily from this place, we are quicker to temper.

We are less grounded, less in touch with ourselves, and easily lose our center. Things start feeling itchy. We get more frustrated, angry, and are less able to navigate conflicts and uncertainties from a cool and collected place. The root cause of this is that we’re relating to the world from an unsteady place. We’re only at the surface of the ocean, privy to bumpy, ever-changing waves.

But underneath it all is something deeper, a steadier home base. At the bottom of the ocean floor1 there is our soul, our truest self. Infinite, unchanging. That which is All.

If you’ve ever tried then you really know - you cannot really eliminate your ego or your shadow or even your thoughts. You’ll probably never find and stay in perfect center. But what you can do is get to know all of these expressions of yourself - your personality, your finicky parts, and choose to on occasion bring something different to the table.

You can firstly drop-in and relate from your soul, to your most genuine self - and then generously extend that same gift to others.

This actually gives you a relating superpower - the ability to see beyond people’s surface personas or fickle personalities, to see them more clearly and form simpler, more honest relationships. People around you will feel more seen, more understood.

You will be able to cross bridges and make strides, all because you dared to be firstly rooted in who you really are, underneath the fluctuations of personality.

THE PRACTICE - SOULFUL RELATING:

A fast shortcut to cut straight through the haze of relating is by relating from the soulful part of you as you go about your day to day interactions.

You can do this by piercing through any kind of complex dynamic with a simple inner question: “Where is my genuine self here, what does it have to say?”, ideally while breathing into your heart and lower parts of your body.

When you feel yourself acting out, or performing, or unsure how to make a relationship better - that question short circuits your usual personality patterns, creating a pause for something different and more honest to come in.

To put it in the simplest way: it just cuts through our bullshit, opening a pathway to the literal base of our being. It allows our entire being to begin to relax into safety, dropping us out of any games of mind and personality and getting us closer to something simpler and more vulnerable. Embodied and rooted, we walk through the world just saying what we really mean.

Instead of acting out to get attention or covering up a pain, we can express our most genuine intentions and interact with others from a place of wholeness.

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🎶 Soul song: This month’s listen - Chiri Hari by Samba Touré.