Susan Pomfret
Belleville Speakeasy Toastmasters
Forte Blogs Originally published in 2018-2019
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There’s a lot of talk about authenticity these days. There always has been, really. The ancient Greeks inscribed “Know Thyself” over the door to the Temple of Delphi. One of Shakespeare’s characters in Hamlet proclaimed, “To Thine Own Self Be True”. Playwright Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself. Everybody else is taken.” In a more contemporary take, the Urban Dictionary defines authenticity as “being who you are, listening to yourself and making your own decisions, rather than buying all the crap society foists on you.” What does it really mean to be authentic? To be true to yourself, certainly, and not to pretend to be someone or something you are not. To accept your strengths and weaknesses, and value yourself for what you are rather than belittling yourself for failure to be something you were not destined to be. To stand up for your rights, most definitely, and not be persuaded by subservience to suffer abuse or undertake things that are not right for you.
If you are by nature a compassionate, responsible, law-abiding individual, your authenticity is not likely to harm society or wound others. Authenticity is not and should never be an excuse for cruel or inappropriate behavior. It’s important to recognize the ways in which authenticity sometimes has to be trumped to serve your own best interests or the well-being of others. If, however, you consistently find yourself in situations where you are subjugating yourself to the wants, needs or dictates of someone other than yourself, you may want to think about a change to your environment that will allow you to be more truthful more often in your daily life.
The late Steve Jobs, the American entrepreneur who brought the personal computer to the forefront of society and co-founded Apple Inc., is quoted as saying: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
We needn’t aspire to look like the 20-year-old photoshopped models we see on the covers of magazines, nor should we beat ourselves up for our failure to do so. The unrealistic images of womanly perfection are, thankfully, changing. France, the long-time industry leader in the fashion world, passed new laws in 2017 regulating the weight of runway models to ensure that the bodies presenting the high fashion looks of the season to the world are not, in fact, anorexics who starve themselves to maintain the otherworldly long-limbed elegance previously thought to be the height of female chic. The fitness industry has been a major player in this revolution as well. It’s no longer considered unfeminine for women to flaunt some muscle.
The bottom line is that both of these social initiatives, authenticity and body positivity, are hugely important in defining the female role in modern society. We should embrace them with joy. At the same time, we need to recognize that moderation and balance are the keys to owning them.
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Back in the 1960’s, a couple of psychiatrists put together a scale rating the impact of various stressors in life. The Holmes Rahe Stress Scale rates 41 life events, giving them each a number of points. The highest stresses have the largest numbers, called “life change units” (LCU).
Quite a few of the stressors on the scale are actually positive. Pregnancy. Outstanding personal achievement. Change of responsibilities at work. Vacation and Christmas even made the list, although they’re in the bottom three. It’s important to remember that all life changing events cause some stress, even though they may be the very thing that you’ve been working to achieve. The upshot is that a score of 300 or higher in any given year is considered to be sufficient stress to make you sick. The stress response is a biological inheritance from our earliest ancestors. They needed the surge of adrenalin from a “fight or flight” hormonal burst when faced with a potentially life-threatening situation. Maybe they needed the courage to face an unexpected encounter with an enemy from another tribe or run from a predator to avoid becoming dinner.
The burst of adrenalin we receive from the command centre in the brain increases our heart rate which, in turn, elevates pulse and blood pressure to fuel the muscles and organs with as much blood as possible. Breath rate increases and the airways in the lungs open, allowing us to draw in more oxygen. Oxygen also infuses the brain, increasing mental alertness and sharpening the senses. Adrenaline triggers the release of glucose and fats from storage within the body, supplying energy to all body systems in preparation to fight or flee. This is a brilliantly designed biological system. We’ve all heard the stories of incredible strength created by the stress response, like a petite woman who was suddenly imbued with the superhuman ability to lift a car to save her child. Endorphins contribute to this phenomena as well. Those endorphins we love so much after a great workout also kick in during a stress reaction, suppressing pain and giving us the will and stamina to act without stopping to consider that there’s just absolutely no way we can do that.
We, however, do have all that going on and it can be pretty intense when combined with the personal situations we may be dealing with in our lives and, possibly, the internal demons like self-doubt that we need to face every day. One important operative concept here is that the stress response is triggered not only by “real” stresses, but by “perceived” ones as well. In other words, we have to beware of an overactive imagination, particularly when it comes to negative self talk. Chronic bombardment with stress can have long-term impact, leading to high blood pressure and clogged arties as well as psychological changes that contribute to anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, digestive problems, depression and addiction. It can also contribute to weight gain and obesity in that elevated cortisol levels lead to increased appetite and fat storage. It goes without saying that many of these outcomes exacerbate the problem by increasing stress levels even more.
Try to compartmentalize your stressors into separate entities that can be challenged individually. This is where the Holmes Rahe scale comes into play. Remember that every one of these entities contributes to your total number on the stress chart. We all have unavoidable stresses to deal with. The goal is to remove the stressors that are unimportant and learn to readily recognize what we need to give to ourselves at any given moment to manage the rest. You can find the Holmes Rahe stress scale here.
https://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory It’s a tale as old as time. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is only skin-deep. Don’t judge a book by its cover. On some level, we all know that the most beautiful people are not necessarily the ones we love the most. Nor are they necessarily the most intelligent, the kindest or the most socially aware. Beautiful people are good to look at. As human beings intellectually programmed to appreciate art, we can’t help but admire beauty in a purely aesthetic sense.
There are physical manifestations of aging that can’t be avoided, although some blessed women have seemingly ageless genes. Most of us? Not so much. We lose collagen and elasticity. Facial muscles droop. Permanent wrinkles develop. Let’s be honest. Compared to the way we’ve always regarded ourselves in the mirror, this is not feelin’ pretty time. I think most women address this uncomfortable process at some point. The least possible amount of time worrying about it is the goal here.
Humility is a wonderful thing. I’m not talking about the grovelling, ass-kissing, Uriah Heep kind of humility. I’m talking about the kind of humility that comes from confidence in yourself and the understanding of your own strengths, the kind of humility that isn’t afraid to admit that you can’t possibly know everything. Humility opens your mind to the wisdom of others. The Cambridge English dictionary defines humility as the “quality of not being proud because you are aware of your bad qualities”. Nope, that's not quite it. Google defines it as, “a modest or low view of one’s own importance.” Uh-uh. The Urban Dictionary says, “True humility is to recognize your value and others’ value while looking up. It is to see there is far greater than ourself into who we can become, who others can become, and how much more we can do and be.” The verbiage is a little convoluted, but definitely more on point.
Anyone who has spent time in a hierarchy has probably encountered the type of person who is intoxicated by their own power when granted the role of managing others. This person revels in being “the boss”. They may feel a strong need to control and might micro-manage ad nauseam. In an effort to portray confident and capable leadership, they may not be willing to admit to shortfalls, and worse, they may make decisions without consulting their team. There are also those despicable sorts who do listen to the team and incorporate their ideas, but then take all the credit for the initiative. All of these behaviours are anathema to building a loyal and successful team. An article penned by Bill Taylor in the Harvard Business Review in 2018 offered up this insight: “Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management, and an expert on leadership and culture, once asked a group of his students what it means to be promoted to the rank of manager. They said without hesitation, 'It means I can now tell others what to do.' Those are the roots of the know-it-all style of leadership. “Deep down, many of us believe that if you are not winning, you are losing,” Schein warns. The “tacit assumption” among executives “is that life is fundamentally and always a competition”, not just between companies, but also between individuals within companies. That’s not exactly a mindset that recognizes the virtues of humility.”
Ridding society of these unproductive interactions is what the empowerment movement is all about. It’s a mind-shift that requires self confidence at its very core, and it’s an essential element of a mutually supportive community. We all have different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. We need the confidence to share the wisdom we’ve gained and embrace the wisdom of those who have walked a different path. The really cool thing about it is that striving towards and practicing confident interactions will empower you in ways you never imagined.  Have you ever read the story of Candide? Published by Voltaire in 1759, the satire spins the tale of an optimistic young man who embarks on his life’s journey believing his teacher’s philosophy that everything in life happens for the best. His faith gradually erodes as he and his companions endure an endless wave of horrendous catastrophes until he finally decides that he can no longer rationalize the tenets of his learning with the realities of life. Today, when we’re steadily besieged with social media messages to think positive, we can still find some truth in the tale of Candide. Not to say that there isn’t great merit in positive thinking. We should definitely try to find joy in the small things, be grateful for what we have and share our positivity with others whenever possible. To be stoic in the face of adversity is no small achievement.
How often have you seen one of those memes that says, “I don’t want much. I just want to be happy.” Being happy isn’t “much”? What nonsense. Being happy is huge. Enormous.
Aristotle used the term “eudemonia” to signify the contented state of being healthy and happy. Other readings indicate that “flourishing and prosperous” may be a better translation of the Greek word than “healthy and happy”. Either way, yes please. We want that. We’re not greedy, you understand. We don’t want it ALL THE TIME, just most of the time, so our sum total of positivity puts us comfortably on the “satisfied” rather than the “miserable” scale. Putting aside the fact that “eudemonia” rather sounds like a disease, how do we achieve it? Science says that genetics play a huge part in our happiness quotient. We are by nature either optimists or pessimists, and that raw material is responsible for 50% of our emotional state. Within that basic infrastructure, we are all subject to varying degrees of what is called “trait neuroticism”. Those with high TN are more sensitive to stress, experience it more often and more intensely, and take longer to recover than their low TN counterparts. What all that means is that we’re not on a level playing field. Some of us have a significant head start when it comes to chasing that bluebird of happiness.
Let’s revisit Aristotle for a moment. Eudemonia is “healthy and happy” or “flourishing and prosperous”. Is Healthy an attitude? Flourishing? Prosperous? Nope. Those are in the 10% circumstances category. Aristotle lived a long time ago in a different world, but he was all about goals and his wisdom is still relevant today. He offered that the purpose of human life is to achieve the end goal, namely living a good life. One does that by acquiring all the things one needs to flourish and prosper on the physical, intellectual and moral planes. One needs luck to pull that off, and health. In Aristotle’s world, one also needed to be a male of a certain social class to live a good life. Women, children, persons of low standing, servants and slaves were property and therefore unable to acquire the necessary virtues. Thankfully that part is no longer relevant. Let's throw all these wise words from scientists and psychologists and philosophers into a blender, and give it a whirl. This is what they’re telling us.
What, you may ask, became of Candide?
He and a tribe of friends withdrew from society and moved to the country, turning away from the “all is for the best” philosophy of the time. They cultivated gardens and busied themselves with work to build a community. They were happy. |
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