Is Inauthentic Living Slowly Harming You?

In a world that values following the herd, it’s never been more important to break free of societal norms and be ourselves.

Carl Jung, the Swiss Psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology believed that humans were at their healthiest and happiest when being rewarded for their innate greatness. In this, he believed that inauthentic living presented itself with unique stress that if left unchecked, preceded mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety as well as physical illnesses.

And this makes sense. When living inauthentically we disregard our own wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings in place of the wants and needs of others. This creates a constant state of internal resistance whether we are aware of it, or not. Resistance, in turn, creates stress as we must constantly override our deeper knowing in order to continue showing up.

With this in mind, Jung proposed a condition coined PASS (perceived acute stress syndrome) as a means to describe the plethora of mental and physical symptoms that arose out of inauthentic living.

Numerous studies have since been conducted investigating these effects and I wanted to highlight these with you in this article with emphasis on why 2022 should be the year you start living for you.

Scientific Studies On Inauthentic Living

Putting Jung’s statements to the test, Dr. Katherine Benziger undertook numerous studies throughout the 1980s-1990s and summarised PASS as presenting itself with the following symptoms,

• The short-term results of falsification tend to be increased irritability, headaches, and difficulty in mastering new tasks. • The long-term results of falsification include exhaustion, depression, lack of joy, a homeostatic imbalance involving oxygen, premature aging of the brain, and a vulnerability to illness. — Dr. Katherine Benziger, Falsification of Type…

Pretty hefty stuff but not illogical as stress is an inflammatory marker and therefore detrimental to health under long-term exposure. Our brain is not unlike a machine that wares and tares with continued stress — and if you’re living a life inauthentic to you, your brain will occupy a constant state of resistance.

The assumption that inauthenticity causes stress is supported by the work of Dr. Richard Hairer and his work on brain metabolism and intelligence. One study in particular concluded that the brain of less intelligent individuals consumed more glucose during a given task than those who were more intelligent.

In other words, the more at ease someone can carry out a given task — the less energy required to do it and less stress exerted on the body. Someone living inauthentically may in theory be able to carry out a task with ease but in practice, when experiencing conflict between what they want and what they are doing, greater energy will be required to push through. This not only taxes the mind but the body, also.

As the philosopher Epictetus said,

“It’s not so much what happens to us as what we think about what happens to us that makes the difference” — Epictetus

Your daily life may appear straightforward and the tasks themselves may be simple but if we’re resisting our reality and disliking our work, the process becomes significantly harder.

But Living Authentically Will Also Bring Stress

Jung concluded that the only way to overcome PASS was to realign the individual’s life to their “natural way”. Easier said than done, right?

If change was easy, I wouldn’t be writing this and Medium wouldn’t have a self-improvement tag. There’s a reason we find ourselves living inauthentically; we feel like we have to. To satisfy societal norms, familial expectations, and other unrealistic standards.

Of course, the route to recovery is found in recognizing that no external judgment is worth compromising our own well-being — but this clarity comes with time and practice.

The route to authenticity moves through discomfort and that in itself brings stress. It’s the challenge of combating old beliefs and a battle with anxiety. To say the least — it can be extremely uncomfortable.

But my point in writing this article is that this stress is WORTHY stress because it brings with it the best thing you can hope to experience:

A life that you want that is aligned to YOU

What Stress Would You Rather?

If stress lies on both sides of our choice; to do what we truly want, or do what we’ve always done then which would you rather? The stress that brings with it satisfaction, happiness, and your authentic expression, or the one which brings constraint, self-abandonment, and self-censorship? In my experience, the former is always better.

It is a challenge and it is a struggle, but overcoming your fears and breaking through your limiting beliefs is a worthy fight — and you don’t have to do this alone. You can seek help from a coach, or a therapist, friends, and family, or seek comfort in the plethora of podcasts, books, and social media “influencers” who publicly share their own trials and tribulations.

Having experienced the tole of living inauthentically, whilst my days are still challenging, there are breaks in the canopy that help me through. It’s the comfort of knowing you’re doing what you want to do. When we live a life in chains we’re inadvertently stripping ourselves of the free will that makes being human so special.

Breaking free is liberating and I encourage anyone reading this to see 2022 as the year you finally start doing stuff for you.

Above The Middle