So can you think of a word that rhymes with “Venus” but starts with the letter P? Yeah…that’s a 14-year-old brain talking. When I was 14, I landed my first job in my high school’s library. We kids were told to put the books that had been returned back on the shelves, which we did pretty quickly. Then we’d turn to the busy librarian and ask, “What next?” She’d look up, glasses perched on her nose, “Oh, you finished that? I’ll think of something else for you to do in a little bit.” We stood there awkwardly, wondering what to do.

Now at this point in my life, I didn’t need anything additional to feel awkward about. I was probably 5’11’ and all of a gangly 120 pounds. So when one of the girls suggested we hide in the stacks, I was all in. And since we were there, we might as well head to the P section and see if we could find any books on that word that rhymes with Venus. Or maybe the S section for a word that rhymes with “Tex-Mex”. Course we didn’t find any of these things, it being a high school library and all.

Eventually, I got tired of hiding in the stacks though. The girls were annoying and I was always afraid of getting in trouble. But more than that, it wasn’t who I was.

One day, I decided to find work organizing the stacks, the card catalogues, even the oversized reference books. Suddenly the time went much faster, the librarian smiled more and I was much happier too.

Once I dialed in to who I really was, everything was better. It’s a simple concept, but a life long journey. And listen, now when I download books on my Nook, there are plenty of words that rhyme with Venus, and Tex-Mex and even some that sound like organism. It’s all about finding who you really are.

When we talk about finding our authentic self, it seems like it should be easy, right?  Who could possibly know us better than we know ourselves?  But we tend to put on different masks for the many different roles we play in our lives; one for work, one for home, one for close friends, one for social acquaintances and so on.  Some of our masks serve as armor to protect us from the outside world, while others were created to help us fit in. With all of these different masks, it gets confusing to figure out who we really are.

So how do we uncover our authentic self?  Our authentic self is who we are at our core; the person behind the mask.  Uncovering that person is a process similar to peeling back the layers of an onion.  It involves soul searching and taking a good hard look inside yourself.  

Our authentic self is a culmination of our deepest values and our inner truth.  So in order to find your authentic self, you need to identify your values and ensure that your actions are in alignment with them.  

This is an ongoing process that takes time and attention.  I believe that we are all here on a journey together, and part of that journey includes the process of finding our authentic selves and learning to love them unconditionally.