Discovering Your Authenticity
Discovering your authenticity is a crucial step in designing your career. You will discover, rediscover and/or reacquaint yourself with your true identity—your passion, your likes, dislikes, values, strengths, challenges and talents. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? There is a lot within you that is probably hidden. You might think that you will uncover the negative instead of the positive attributes about yourself. What if you flipped the negative thoughts and said, “If I look inward, will I discover wonderful things about me and accept the negative challenges that made me who I am today, strong and determined?”
My journey to discovering my authenticity began on a warm, summer night inside Philadelphia’s Freedom Theatre, one of the oldest African-American theaters in the country. I was attending my daughter’s graduation performance entitled “Moments of Sharing.” She was wonderful, and of course, I was a very proud mother. During the performance, one of the adult student actors recited a poem entitled, “Who Am I?” I cried after listening to its powerful words. I felt empty inside, almost as if falling through a deep, dark empty tunnel, unable to save myself. My partner sitting next to me was very perplexed. I could only mumble, “You know, I really don’t know who I am.” Yes, I was a single mother, daughter, teacher and friend, but there must be more to me. I wanted to know why God put me on this earth? What was I to do? What was my purpose in life? I know I am not an accident in the divine planning of life. As a mother, I was grateful to be raising two daughters alone while working successfully in my career. But that night at the theatre, I knew deep inside that I had put my inner life on hold to perform the tasks needed in raising two daughters and surviving in life.
My experience at Freedom Theatre that evening released a huge ?aha’ freeing revelation. I knew probing deeper within was necessary to discovering the real me. Hidden talents accompanying me and nurturing since birth now led me on a different path.
© 2005 Barbara Collins | Site by