The Fluid Mirror: Authenticity and Giftedness
Authenticity has been pulled thin by overuse but that doesn't mean we should overlook this driving force in neurodivergent lives.
If you’re like me – someone wired for depth, intensity, and nuance – authenticity is a driving force, a longing, a calling. But it’s been cheapened, stripped down to scrap metal by lifestyle branding and Insta captions. All that’s left is to give it away to a “good home.”
But let’s not forget that one person’s junk is someone else’s treasure. We can still value something, even if others don’t.
As tortured a concept as authenticity has become, we can’t ignore the important fact that it’s the ongoing alignment between one’s inner truth and outer expression. It’s a question: Am I living in a way that is true to who I am, beneath the masks, beneath the fears, beneath the conditioning?
And perhaps more radically: Can I be true to who I am, even when I don’t fully know who that is yet?
How I wish someone had brought this to my attention much earlier in my life. It would have saved so much blood, sweat and tears. Because I thought that I couldn’t be authentic unless I knew who I was. And I didn’t know who I was for a very, very long time.
So, to hell with the influencers out there who have tarnished authenticity and brought it to its wretched knees. This essay aims to set the record straight, even if it means reconstituting the dried spittle that’s been wasted souring this topic.
Why It Matters So Much for Gifted Adults
For gifted adults, authenticity is often a matter of psychological and even existential survival.
Many gifted people grow up feeling other. Too intense. Too sensitive. Too questioning. Too fast. Too curious. Too much. And so they learn, early and often, to shape-shift. To edit themselves. To perform. Over time, this creates a hazardous split between the inner and outer world. This division may lead to alienation, anxiety, depression, or profound loneliness.
Welcome to my world. Yours, too?
Authenticity, then, becomes a healing act. A reclamation. A remembering. A bridge between fragmented parts. It offers gifted adults a way back to themselves as a dynamic, evolving truth that they get to explore and co-create with life itself.
Exciting, huh?
Is Authenticity a Static State or a Living Process?
I thought authenticity was a fixed place: Be authentic. Live authentically. As though I’d arrive there and unpack for good. “Look,” I’d say, “here’s my perfect, true self. Now I’ve earned the right to live here.”
But these days I understand that authenticity is less like a destination and more like a dance: fluid, changing, even paradoxical. It responds to context, season of life, trauma and healing, joys and griefs.
To be authentic is to remain honest amid change. Well, that’s a bit tougher than I thought. Instead of climbing a mountain to reach my destination, I’m now on a rollercoaster ride with no end in sight.
I might feel most "myself" in solitude one day, and in deep connection with friends the next. I might express my truth through vulnerability at one stage, and through boundaries at another. I might not recognise the “me” of last year or even last week, but that doesn’t mean I was being inauthentic then. It simply means my authenticity is alive.
And being alive is far from simple, you may have noticed. In fact, it’s complex, uncertain and missing an instruction manual.
What About the False Self? Can Inauthenticity Be Authentic?
Here we enter the most nuanced terrain. Can we be authentic when we’re performing? When we’ve built up protective personas? When we’re disconnected from our inner voice?
The liberating answer is this:
Even the false self is an authentic adaptation to a real experience.
The masks I wore were created for a reason, usually for protection. They reflected the environments I grew up in, the traumas I’d endured, the expectations I tried to meet. And while these adaptations may have obscured my core essence, they weren’t lies. They were parts of me that developed in service of survival.
Seen this way, inauthenticity is part of the authenticity arc. The act of hiding is itself an expression of what I needed at the time. And often, authenticity emerged not in spite of the false self, but through it, as I grew courageous enough to explore and experiment.
Life is nothing if not one big experiment.
Even When I’m Not Centered, Can I Still Be Authentic?
Yes. In fact, especially then.
Authenticity doesn’t require anyone to have it all together. It’s not the polished mask of spiritual enlightenment or emotional mastery. It’s the raw honesty of showing up as I am: uncertain, messy, grieving, lost, questing, scared, excited...
When I admit I’m confused, that’s authentic.
When I say, “I don’t know who I am right now,” that’s authentic.
When I feel disoriented by change, but remain willing to feel and learn, that’s deeply authentic.
To be authentic is to remain rooted in self-honesty, even when that honesty reveals a self in flux.
The Gifted Drive Towards Authenticity
I can’t settle for surface living. But this drive for depth and meaning can also burn. It can lead to perpetual identity excavation.
That’s why it’s important to temper authenticity with self-compassion. We’re not meant to expose every truth all the time. Boundaries can be authentic. Silence can be authentic. Discernment can be a tool for navigating authenticity. Intuition, a signal. Even stillness, even pausing the process of growth, can be an expression of inner truth.
Becoming Authentic: Practices and Pathways
So how do we become more authentic, especially if we’ve spent years adapting or suppressing ourselves?
Here are a few reflective practices to take or leave, remembering that these aren’t shortcuts. Ongoing work and play are required:
Self-Inquiry: Regular journaling with prompts like:
What feels true for me right now?
Where am I hiding or performing?
Who am I when no one is watching?
Somatic Listening: Tune into your body. How do different choices or relationships feel in your body? Tension? Ease? Expansion? That wisdom is real.
Creative Expression: Write, paint, sing, dance for release. Creativity often bypasses the inner censor and gets straight to truth.
Find Your People: Authenticity is easier to practice in safe company. Seek spaces where your intensity, depth, or quirks are not only accepted but celebrated.
Therapeutic or Reflective Dialogue: Whether with a gifted-informed therapist or a like-minded soul, sometimes we need to speak to know what we believe.
Final Thought: We Cannot Not Be Authentic
Perhaps this truth can soften our striving:
We’re already authentic. Even in confusion. Even in fear. Even in the act of trying to find our authenticity, we’re expressing a real need, a real value.
While we don’t arrive at some perfected version of ourselves – thank goodness, how boring! – we can cultivate a rich and rewarding relationship with ourselves, with life, with the ever-evolving soul within us.
And during the arid, soulless exploitation of authenticity, perhaps this cultivation of ourselves is needed now more than ever.
Let’s collect that scrap metal, give it a lovely polish and plant it in our metaphorical gardens. Who knows what magical stories will grow there? Maybe they’ll be the medicine we all need to thrive.
📚 Resources for Further Exploration
Books
Susan Cain – Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Reflects deeply on authenticity, sensitivity, and the hidden power of those who live inwardly.Kazimierz Dąbrowski – Personality-Shaping Through Positive Disintegration
Essential for understanding the role of authenticity in inner development.Brené Brown – The Gifts of Imperfection
Accessible, powerful insights on authenticity, vulnerability, and self-worth.Toko-pa Turner – Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home
A lyrical exploration of exile, authenticity, and spiritual return to the self.Michael Piechowski – Mellow Out, They Say. If I Only Could…
For gifted adults exploring intensity and inner authenticity.
Online
InterGifted Articles on Authenticity & Giftedness
Essays on identity, self-expression, and gifted development.intergifted.com
Dabrowski Center Podcast
Insightful interviews on authenticity, inner conflict, and gifted development through Dąbrowski’s lens.dabrowskicenter.org
Journal Prompts for Authentic Living (Therapy Aid)
A collection of practices to deepen self-connection and voice.Paula Prober’s new guided journal: rainforestmind.com
Loved the line: "...temper authenticity with self-compassion." Yes, be gentle to yourself.
Also loved the recommended 'Somatic Listening', how to pay attention to what we feel in our body, nice to get out of my head from time to time. x x
Feeling into my body and trusting it has been key for me.