The derision and drama on blogs, news and broadcast nowadays is entertaining, like a domino of tabloids back-to-back. And while we instinctively know that insistent self-actualization is an incredibly banal form of entertainment, it remains so vast in its infectiousness, and so strong in its self-referential feeding, that navel-gazing is now suffocating in its empire.

Let’s poke some holes for air.

You are not genuine because you told me of your heartbreak, or your success or your disease or your strengths or your weaknesses or miscarriage or move or relationship or promotion or demotion or disability or conflict or how your cat peed outside of its litter box.

Gross over-sharing is not encouraging or revolutionary or innovative. You are not absolved because you made what was once private now public.

Enough of the cultish drippy-rainbowed sentences: “What’s holding you back? Yourself;” “Motivation is first about taking that first step;” “Do whatever you want, your intuition will guide you;” “Force yourself to look inward;” “Start telling yourself positive things instead of negative things.”

Enough crowdsourcing your life’s misdeeds, your life’s lessons, your life’s minutiae. Enough with bogus empowerment, dramatics, and inflated realities in the name of support, transparency, attention, acceptance. That is not authenticity. That is allegiance to a culture of nineties motivational speeches.

“For me, the demand that everything be paraded in the public space and that there be no internal forum is a glaring sign of the totalitarianization of democracy,” philosopher Jacques Derrida maintains. “If a right to a secret is not maintained then we are in a totalitarian space.”

“Which is to say,” author Zadie Smith argues in Changing My Mind, “enough of human dissection, of entering the brains of characters, cracking them open, rooting every secret out!”

Authenticity is not about revealing it all, nor complete transparency, nor opening the door and shining a very bright light on every raised goosebump. Authenticity is not about blurring public with private. Authenticity is not about the flailing and flapping of our entire hearts and minds to an audience of mirrored hosts.

We have a right to our private lives. Dear God, we have a right to keep the corners of our lives to ourselves. And it is delicious to do so.

Gulp of Air.

Are you grieving over the loss of a loved one?  If you are grieving and are having trouble being with others, here are a few ways to better deal with your loss.

1. Grieving is a natural part of life – we grieve when we lose something we love.

• For some reason, in the West, we deal with grieving, death and dying, as unspeakable subjects.
• It is as though we think if we don’t talk about them, they will go away.
• But they don’t go away because they are inherent in life; the cycle of birth and death rages on.

1. There is no “normal” timeframe to stop grieving – the grieving stops when you are done mourning.

• If you surrender to the natural process of grieving, you will move through grieving and be done when you are done.
• Everything is moving and changing all the time.
• When you feel the passing of something, you need to allow yourself to grieve and give yourself permission to feel your sadness.

1. Do not pretend to be “happy” if you are not.

• Pretending is the opposite of authenticity.  To feel is to be authentic.
• Every death – the death of a loved one, the losing of a job, the ending of a relationship, even though it might have been dysfunctional, – summons up every other death. Judith Rossner says in her book August, “After the first death, there is no other.”
• Whether you are around friends, family, acquaintances, or strangers, understand that grieving is a natural and normal part of life. and you will feel sad when you lose someone you love.

1. Talk about the person you loved and lost … even if it makes others feel uncomfortable.

• You have a right to talk about things you want to talk about as much as the next person.
• It is not your job to make someone else feel comfortable.
• If you need professional help, get it.

1. You cannot think your way through grief – you must feel.

• I often say the only way to HEAL is to FEEL.
• Thinking keeps the “feelings” in the head, in a very intellectual way, never allowing them to come down and rest in the heart
• Until you are willing to feel your feelings of sadness, you can never move through the natural process of grieving.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

How many times have you said or heard, “I will never change.  I like myself exactly as I am.” The willingness to change is essential to love and happiness and without it, we stop growing.

1.  Change is always about you, not the other person. When you do it for someone else it never works.

• So often we “change” to please another person not understanding that the change will be short-lived at best.
• The only time change works is if it is really what we want to do.
• It has to come from very deep inside and there needs to be a firm resolve. That resolve is what keeps you going during the hard times and doesn’t allow you to give up.

2.  Unless you are willing to change what doesn’t work you will keep getting the same results. All behavior has critical mass and momentum.

• Remember, time does nothing but pass.
• Things that are bad get worse over time, so anyone who says, “Let some time pass and things will get better”, didn’t know what they were talking about.
• The longer you behave in a particular way, the more energy is behind that way of being. Dysfunction stuff becomes automatic as time goes on.

3.  Change needs to resonate as true for you.

• You know you need to change regardless of what anyone else says. 
• Ask yourself the question: If I was all alone on this universe would my behavior be attractive to ME? Be honest. Are you attractive to your Self?
• If the answer is “No”, then you need to change.

4.  Change is an opportunity to grow and stretch and makes you feel good about yourself.

• If you don’t change and grow, what are you doing on this planet?
• If you think it is to keep making more and money, you are mistaken.
• Remember, an authentic life is different than a successful one.

5.  You can decide whether you want to be around someone who refuses to make changes.

• I had a client tell me that her husband said he would never change and that he liked himself just the way he was (with bad behavior and all). I told her that just like he had the right to decide so did she, and that she could decide whether or not she wanted to be around someone who didn’t want to change.

 In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

Is anger ruining your life and your relationship? The truth about uncontrollable anger is that it is really a cover-up for deeper feelings.

1.  Anger is not a “real” emotion. It is what results when we refuse to feel what we are really feeling.

• Anger is a reaction, it is what happens when we don’t deal with the real feeling, whatever those might be.
•  It is a defense against feeling.
• The moment you FEEL, the anger stops.

2.  Anger is sadness flipped upside down. It is always about a loss, an unfulfilled expectation.

• If I ask someone who is angry, “What are you really feeling?’ – the person usually starts to cry.
• Feeling the sadness makes us feel soft and eliminates the hardness of being angry.
• The minute you feel, you stop being angry.

3.  Anger wrecks havoc on your body and weakens your immune system.

• Anger and stress break down the immune system.
• We come apart from the inside out; the body being the last place we display the dysfunction.
• So many diseases of the body are really diseases of the heart.

4.  Anger destroys self-esteem, self-respect and relationships.

• Being angry all the time makes you feel bad about yourself.
• Anger is by definition “holding on”; you are stuck.
• Being stuck makes you immobilized, unable to get out of your own way so that you can move on.

5.  Only through feeling – what we are afraid to feel – can we move through anger.

• Unless you are willing to feel, to be real, you can never move through anger
• This means having to face your fears and being brutally honest with yourself.
• You need to stop projecting your stuff on to others and step up and take responsibility for your feelings.

 In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

Are you killing your relationship by constantly talking about it?  If you’re talking your relationship to death, learn how to stop talking about your life and start living it.

1. Constant discussion is an addiction.  This has nothing to do with the relationship.
   • Constantly talking about the relationship becomes a substitute for actually living one. 
   • Constant discussion is an addiction and keeps you anesthetized.  When you stay focused in your head, rather than your heart, you are always one step away from connecting. 

     2. Stop calling family and friends to gain consensus for your point of view.

• Are you doing this?  Be really honest with yourself.  When you are always giving your point of view and have the need for someone to agree with you, this has nothing to do with feeling right and all to do with wanting to be right.
• Gaining consensus for your point of view is all about the ego.  The truth is you feel bad and are looking for the person on the other end of the phone to make you feel good.  This is simply a momentary high and will not last very long before you have to pick up the phone and call someone else.

     3. Do you feel rejected if you do not get the answer you want from   your    partner?

• Is it okay to discuss differing points of view and not be invested in getting the other person to see it your way?  Can you be with someone who sees it differently than you do?
• This does not mean you put up with behavior that is disrespectful or objectionable, but rather that you do not “try” and change someone else.
• People change because they want to change.  Simple express how you feel and see what the other person does.

      4. Do you need to know where your partner is all the time?

• Constant “relationship” talk is always about insecurity and often results in having to know where your partner is at every minute. This behavior is very unattractive and ultimately will destroy the relationship.

      5. Do you get anxious when you think of being alone?

• If you cannot be alone, cannot enjoy your own company, you can never have a healthy relationship. 

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

How many times have you said or heard, “I will never change.  I like myself exactly as I am.” The willingness to change is essential to love and happiness and without it, we stop growing.

1.  Change is always about you, not the other person. When you do it for someone else it never works.

• So often we “change” to please another person not understanding that the change will be short-lived at best.
• The only time change works is if it is really what we want to do.
• It has to come from very deep inside and there needs to be a firm resolve. That resolve is what keeps you going during the hard times and doesn’t allow you to give up.

2.  Unless you are willing to change what doesn’t work you will keep getting the same results. All behavior has critical mass and momentum.

• Remember, time does nothing but pass.
• Things that are bad get worse over time, so anyone who says, “Let some time pass and things will get better”, didn’t know what they were talking about.
• The longer you behave in a particular way, the more energy is behind that way of being. Dysfunction stuff becomes automatic as time goes on.

3.  Change needs to resonate as true for you.

• You know you need to change regardless of what anyone else says. 
• Ask yourself the question: If I was all alone on this universe would my behavior be attractive to ME? Be honest. Are you attractive to your Self?
• If the answer is “No”, then you need to change.

4.  Change is an opportunity to grow and stretch and makes you feel good about yourself.

• If you don’t change and grow, what are you doing on this planet?
• If you think it is to keep making more and money, you are mistaken.
• Remember, an authentic life is different than a successful one.

5.  You can decide whether you want to be around someone who refuses to make changes.

• I had a client tell me that her husband said he would never change and that he liked himself just the way he was (with bad behavior and all). I told her that just like he had the right to decide so did she, and that she could decide whether or not she wanted to be around someone who didn’t want to change.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are

Do you have a spouse and children, a job you go to everyday and a life that appears busy and full, and yet on the inside you feel numb?   If you are simply going through the motions of a life but feel nothing, learn why feeling something, anything, is better than feeling nothing at all.

1. Ask yourself: Are you flat-lined? 
   • Feeling something, anything, is better than feeling nothing at all.
   • Being “flat-lined” means we do not react appropriately.  Everything seems the “same”.
   • You also lose your sense of humor.

1. When the mind is on overload, the heart closes.
   • You have to feel to have a good life.
   • If all your energy is above the neck, the mind is racing and the heart stays closed.
   • Quieting the mind the mind is the key to moving the energy from above the neck to below it, into the heart area.  This is where you feel things.

1. Alcohol, drugs and medication make you more numb.   Stop these.
   • Sometimes we just need a break from the frantic-ness and don’t know the right way to slow it down.  We take medication to better deal but then end up not dealing at all. 
   • If you don not feel “at home” in your own body, you are most probably over-medicated.
   • Alcohol and drugs are band-aids that will eventually be ripped off to expose the wound below.

1. Be brave and stop making excuses.  Be brutally honest with yourself.
   • You did not get here overnight and you will not be “cured” tomorrow. 
   • Along the way you made lots of decisions that were not in your best interest and now you are living the results of those decisions.  It will take time to chart a new course and feel the result of these new decisions.
   • Unless you are willing to do the work, nothing will ever change.

1. Feeling is our natural state – feel just one thing to begin the process.
   • Sometimes when we have been shut down for a long time, beginning to feel is an arduous process.  We have to re-train ourselves to not retreat emotionally, to not abuse drugs and alcohol, and to not over-medicate. 
   • Stepping into life takes bravery and requires stick-to-it-ness. 
   • When you are willing to what it takes to change old ways that no longer work, you are rewarded with feeling.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

1. You stop partitioning your life. Life is whole and it is all connected.

2. You ask for what you need; you do not make the other person guess.

3. You take responsibility for all of your life – If it happened to you, it belongs to you.

4. You are brave. You do not run from things that scare you and you know what you are most afraid of will set you free.

5. You listen to your own inner voice rather than listening to others.

6. You live in the present moment – rather than in the past or in the future.

7. You stop telling everyone your story. No one cares, and besides, it keeps you a victim.

8. You change what doesn’t work. No whining, complaining or excuses.

9. You have generosity of spirit. You want the same things for others that you want for yourself.

10. You have a quiet mind. The dog needs to be wagging the tail, rather than the tail (the mind) wagging the dog.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

Do you say how you feel and often end up making your partner defensive? If you have trouble being real because you do not know how to properly communicate your feelings, it is important to learn how to be both tactful and authentic.  

1. Always talk about yourself – not the other person. This is about how YOU feel.

· ONLY talk about yourself and your feelings.

· Connect to your feelings and how they make you feel. Communicate how you feel without blaming anyone else for those feelings.

2. Start each sentence with “I”, not “You”. (“I felt bad”, not “You made me feel bad.”)

· This is a discipline that you learn and the more you do it the more you feel comfortable talking about yourself.

· When you take responsibility for your own feelings, you open the lines of communication with another.

· Not making the other person guess is the kindest thing you can do.

3. Deliver your message in a statement form and do not wait or press for an answer.

· If you have an agenda, i.e., you need the person to agree with you, this is manipulation.

· Everyone knows when they are being manipulated and set-up. The normal reaction to manipulation is to buck it!

· If you need your partner to agree with you in order for you to feel good, you are not coming from a clear place and this communication will back-fire.

4. If you are either withdrawing or confronting, you do not know how to properly communicate.

· State what you have to say with no agenda whatsoever.

· You need to be real, at the same time as you are being respectful.

5. Authenticity is the key to real communication.

· Being tactful without being real always will make you resentful.

· Saying what you feel without being conscious of someone else’s feeling never works.

· Being real always takes into account the connection. Practice being real and connecting at the same time.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

Welcome to the 3rd edition of A for Authenticity Blog Carnival.  This edition explores self- awareness, self-esteem, grooving for gratitude, earning, saving and investing money for the long haul, coming to terms with our own appetities and desires, improving relationships by becoming more accountable and present, learning how not to be defined by what other people think, and developing patience. Enjoy the following articles:

Peter presents Why Self Awareness is Fundamental to Personal Growth (& How to Cultivate It) posted at The Change Blog. “The more doors we open the more doors we discover there are to be opened. Self awareness is the very beginning of personal development. It may very well be the ultimate end.”

Stephen says, “Hi Chandra, There are many tools out there that will help you get the most out of the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is always working and running in the background – whether you use the tools or not. The fastest way that I know to manifest with the Law of Attraction is to use the ‘Appreciation Sob’. It has produced miracles for me out of thin air and it puts the Law of Attraction into over drive. See the article to learn more.”

Stephen Martile presents Accelerating the Law of Attraction (Appreciation Sob) posted at FreedomEducation.ca by Stephen Martile.

Surfer Sam says, “Do you truly know yourself? Do you like the person you see? Would you like to become a better person? Self-esteem is the value you place on yourself. It is your sense of personal worth, along with your confidence and your respect for yourself. You have hopes and dreams for yourself, but you don’t know how to reach them. There is a gap between wanting and having, a gap between desiring and realizing your desires. Take heart. You can make changes in your own life, real and lasting changes.”

Surfer Sam presents Building Self Esteem. Skills for Self Improvement and Self Help ! Surfer Sam posted at Surfer Sam and Friends.

MBB presents How To Become A Self Made Millionaire posted at Money Blue Book.   The Process Of Becoming A Millionaire Is Not A Get Rich Quick Scheme, But A Patient and Systematic Approach To Earning, Saving, and Investing Money.

Zhenren presents What is your motivation? posted at Seeing. Knowing. Doing.  He says, ” When your motives first formed, you were a different person, in different circumstances. Recognise this, and you may find that your motive evaporates in the light of your awareness.”

Kelly Turner presents Appetites: Why We Supress Them and Why We Should Stop posted at Grounded Fitness.  Kelly says,  “Women have so many more opportunites than we did 100 years ago. We can vote, go to college, hold jobs- more doors are open to us than ever before. We are equal; we are entitled; we are human. Why do we continue to be ashamed of and supress our most human desires?”

Jeff presents Core advice lasting you a lifetime posted at Gobs Health.     “Here is an article on a book I have high esteem for. It’s a summary of core principles created by Dale Carnegie and my reaction on how they can improve relationships with almost anyone.”  

Chris Edgar says, “Many of us, rationally or otherwise, get nervous in social situations because we worry that others are going to verbally attack us and we’ll be unable to “defend” ourselves.   How do we overcome this fear and regain a sense of composure in our interactions? In this article, I describe three approaches I’ve used myself and in working with others.” 

Chris Edgar presents Calling A Truce In The “War Of Words” posted at Purpose Power Coaching.

Mike Salara presents HOW TO MAKE PATIENCE WORK FOR YOU posted at Mike Salara.

Pearl mattenson presents What do you think of me? chameleon qualities – strengths – handwriting | Carrie and Danielle posted at Carrie and Danielle.     Pearl says, “I believe we are infinitely complex and there is no end to the ways in which we can surprise ourselves.”

Louis Burns presents Crafting Mental Movies For Others posted at NLP Marketing Blog.  This article is about not only visualizing your own goals but the experience you want other people to have as well.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.