Hello and welcome to Dawnings. I am your host, Dawn Stilwell, and this episode is coming to you from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. My husband and I have come up north to Ottawa for the week to spend some time with family. It was a beautiful drive yesterday, nine degrees Celsius and sunny, and we were bombing through the countryside.

Just enjoying a beautiful spring day, and today we woke up to six inches of snow, high winds and the power out.  Yeah, the weather’s just a little bit different up here in Ottawa than it is in southwestern Ontario where we live. So, um that’s the weather report from Ottawa on April the eighth, 2025.

Right now I’m curled up on the couch in front of the fireplace watching the fluffy snow float by the window. And today I would like to talk about embracing authenticity.

Now, when I say embracing authenticity, what I’m really talking about is you being your true self, your authentic self. There are so many people out there who are not living a life where they are being their authentic self. And I’m going to talk from my own past, to dig up some examples that hopefully you can relate to.

I think one of the first places where we give up our authenticity is at school. You know, we start school and we want nothing more than to be accepted by our friends. In the younger grades, that’s usually not a problem. But we get a little bit older and all of a sudden you don’t wanna stand out as an individual.

You wanna kind of blend in so that, people will accept you. So I think that’s one of the first places we learn. To give up our authenticity to be something other than what we are in order to be accepted. And it doesn’t happen just in school. Sometimes it happens in our homes, depending on what kind of family you live with.

If you live with a dysfunctional family, you might find that you have to hide your true self in order to survive living in that family. And I know that, particular statement is going to resonate with a lot of people. And if that’s the way you grew up, I am so sorry. It’s unfortunate, to grow up in a home where you’re not allowed to be yourself in my home.

I’m not gonna talk about what went on in my home, but, we were sternly, admonished that what went on at home stayed at home. We weren’t allowed to talk about what went on at home and that that was actually a harmful thing because something’s needed to be spoken about. And that’s just another way where authenticity was squashed in my life and really, I came up in a generation where it seemed really important to parents that.

Outside appearances should be that we were a good upstanding family. Not very many of us came from like truly good and upstanding families, where, you know, nothing bad happened and children weren’t traumatized and parents never lost their tempers and things like that. So home is another place where we learn to curb our authenticity.

To hide our true selves. Now I’m going to talk about something that is not normally brought up in a civil conversation. I’m going to talk about a bad experience at church. 20 years ago, I left a particular church that I was in and that came on the heels of my husband and I separating. It turned out it was probably one of the better things that happened in my life, but at the time it was devastating.

But here’s where I was. I had been in the church and I desired to be in ministry, and I was in the music ministry. I was a church librarian, and my husband and I were doing bible studies and cell groups. And this was the thrust of what I thought I wanted and what I thought I should be doing as a good Christian woman.

And the pastor’s wife became my good friend. And her influence I thought in the beginning was good, but later on, I found her judging me. For not being everything that she was. I mean, she was a great cook and she fed her children well, and she read them Bible stories and she had very well-behaved, well-mannered children and her husband was always happy with her.

And that wasn’t necessarily how things were at my house. But really what came with it was a bit of judgment and kind of. Using the Bible to hit me over the head. So I, I heated what she had to say, but what eventually happened is I was twisting myself into somebody else in order to please her.

And at the same time, she’s trying to influence the type of wife I was. So, I was twisting myself to be someone that I wasn’t at home with my husband and children and all of that. Made me feel kind of icky inside. Like, this isn’t right. Well, I think my heart knew, but the brain hadn’t caught up to my heart.

So because I wasn’t being me, I wasn’t being the woman that my then husband married, he decided he had enough and moved on. And during that time, I looked to the church and to the pastor’s wife. For help because I was very devastated. I had been with my first husband, since the age of 13. So like we were high school sweethearts and we married a couple years after I graduated and he was done college.

So, you know, we’d been together a long time. I didn’t know how to live without him, but really, I didn’t even know how to live being myself because I hadn’t been myself, my true, authentic self. For a really long time. All that to say is that, not living a life where you are true to yourself, where you’re living in authenticity, you’re gonna be miserable.

And I have to tell you, I may have acted happy on the outside and showed a shiny, smiley face at church, but inside I was miserable. Because I was trying to be all these things that I truly wasn’t, and the thing is I was good enough just the way I was, but I couldn’t see it and I couldn’t accept it.

That only came with about a decade’s worth of hindsight. And so my encouragement to you today is that. If you are not living an authentic life, like where you are truly being yourself, the person that you truly are or that you truly want to be, maybe it’s time to step back and have a good deep look at a good deep look.

Have a good deep look. Your life and, and see where those areas are, where you’re not living authentically. I used to be a very self-conscious, teen and young adult. If people looked at me, I would be concerned that, oh, do I look right as my hair, right?

Do I look fat in these clothes? And that’s no way to live. Maturity kind of brings you a level of confidence where you don’t care so much about that stuff. I mean, I walk with my head how high everywhere, and I don’t care if people hear me laughing out loud with my goofy laugh. I’m here. I deserve to take up space and I deserve to have a voice.

And so do you. So I think what happened 20 years ago. Was one of the better things that happened to me actually. In hindsight, it’s one of the best things that happened to me because the people who were exerting influences on me that caused me to twist myself and to not trying to please them.

They were removed out of my life, or at least to the fringes of my life. So I had the breathing space to think about. Who I really was and who I wanted to be, and I’ve spent the last 20 years on a path of personal growth and I love who I am today, and that’s not something I could say 20 years ago.

I love me and I would really love it if you could say that about yourself, that you love who you are, and if you don’t. Why is that? Are you not being true to yourself? Are you hanging out with people who are unkind or who are prone to putting you down? Are you working at a job that you absolutely hate that is not something that brings you joy, 

you get up in the morning and you dread going to work, is that being true to who you are? I’m not saying go out and quit your job tomorrow, because unfortunately we all need money, but sometimes we just get into a rut and we do the thing that we’ve always done because we’ve always done it. 

Living authentically means truly honoring yourself and who you are and your desires and those things that make you you. Those quirks, those idiosyncrasies, everybody is different. Everybody brings something to the table that’s worthwhile. And we aren’t often brought up in a way where we’re allowed to celebrate ourselves, where we’re allowed to truly examine who we are and what we wanna be, and then walk out in that.

I think that needs to change because I know a lot of women who are in their middle age or even a little older. They’re making these realizations now after they’ve raised their kids and possibly after they’ve lost a husband or they’ve had the time to be with themselves and work on themselves. And it’s a pity because if we brought our children up, teaching them in the way that they should go, teach ’em to be kind, teach them to be compassionate and empathetic.

Also to be able to turn that back on themselves, to look at themselves compassionately. Oh my goodness. That is just something that some people just are not able to do. I spoke last week about judgment and that’s one of the, Jesus said not to judge others, and there’s a reason for that. I mean, if Jesus isn’t judging you, then what right do you have to judge others?

Just because they chose a path that’s different than yours, why not seek to understand their path instead of just dismissing it? And that’s why we run into so much trouble with others who are different than us. I mean, we have had gay and trans people out there for years. They’ve always been there in our midst, but they were afraid to be their authentic selves.

Now that they are honoring themselves and honoring who they are and using their voices, it’s, it’s been a little uncomfortable for some people who just aren’t used to that. I think we should strive to have a world where people are loved for who they are and accepted for who they are. I’ve had enough of judgment in my life, and if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of any sort of bullying or mistreatment, then you know what it’s like to be judged and f lacking and being made fun for it.

So, I’m done with that and maybe you can decide to be done with it too. Anyway, the main thrust of this podcast today. Is to encourage you to be who you are and to embrace authenticity. If you are someone who is silly at heart, why not share that with people? Lord knows we need more things to laugh with each other about.

But when we’re hanging out with other people, the whole part of bringing your authentic self to the table, it’s easier to do if you know you’re going to be accepted, no matter who you show up as. And we just need so much more of that in life. We really do.

Well, that’s about all I have to say about that today. Just consider. Are you living an authentic life? And if you’re not, why not take some steps to begin to live more authentically? You’ll be much happier when you don’t hide who you are and you embrace your quirks and your idiosyncrasies and flaunt those talents.

I mean, you could be an inspiration to other people being who you truly are. But if you’re never showing that to others, how can they take inspiration from the beautiful person that you truly are within? Well, that’s all for today. I hope that you have maybe found a morsel of Windom in all that I had to say today, and that you’ll tune in next week.

So this is Dawn Stillwell, your host at donning. Telling you to have a great day, and we’ll see you next week. Bye for now.