Gabor Maté defines authenticity as being connected to one's gut feelings, emotions, and present experience — a state we are born into and only lose through early wounding. SAND co-founder Zaya Benazzo facilitates the brief Q&A.
Transcript
foreign [Music] is called reclaiming authenticity so what do you mean by authenticity sure well just by simple definition [Music] authentic comes from the word Auto which means the self so authentic means being ourselves now we're born being ourselves we can't help but to be born being ourselves unless we're severely hurt in uterus and not well you know we're just born ourselves and that means we're connected to our gut feelings to our emotions we're told in the present we're not thinking about the past we're not considering or worried about the future we're just there with ourselves with our bellies and our hearts and our nervous systems in our guts and all the emotions that's what it means to be authentic to be present with ourselves connected to our bodies and to our emotions and not to be afraid to be ourselves that's what it means to be authentic now for many of us authenticity shows up in the lack of it and virtually everyone has had the experience of [Music] saying something to somebody or acting in a certain way or trying to look in a certain way and there's something in you says Ah I'm not being myself I'm not being authentic but that part that notices it that's your authentic self so what I say to people about authenticity is it's an essential part of you in fact you can't help but be there because you're born with it then you can never be without you can never be shorn of it you can never be robbed of it but in order to belong and to fit in to your family and your Society you have to really surrender it and hide it and repress it and push it down and even lose contact with it and there are many people in this Society who are totally lost contact with it and they do all kinds of things that makes them miserable and other people miserable and they don't even realize it they don't realize the source of it so in terms of seeking authenticity don't do that because the party that wants to find authenticity is already not authentic the party that notices that you're not authentic that's the authentic part so pay attention to it and then when you nourish yourself not acting in an authentic way I mean I'm talking about something very simple I come to town and I you know maybe I'm friends with Raul or Isabelle or Don any one of the names that I'm seeing on the screen right now and I come to your town wherever it is whether it's Cape Town or Melbourne or Sydney or Kelowna British Columbia and I call you up and say hey Avril or Isabel or Rawl or Sherry or whoever it is do you want to have coffee with me and you don't feel like it because you don't particularly feel like seeing me or you've been up all night you're tired or you have other things to do that you'd rather do but you don't say no you don't say no because you're trying to please me and be nice and make sure that I'm not disappointed which you think is your job not to disappoint me so you say yes less than authentic the authentic thing is I'm sorry Gabor I'm not up for it right now that's the authentic thing this morning I'm very proud of myself I had three requests for people writing books asked me to read them and write blurbs for them I don't have the time or the energy right now I said no in every case that's authentic so notice when you're not being authentic and then without being critical of yourself or I wasn't being authentic what terrible be curious what was I afraid of so you're going to find your authenticity by noticing where you're not authentic and the party that is noticing it not the party that's judging it but the party they just noticed in it ah I wasn't being authentic I'm wondering why not that's the authentic part so to summarize authenticity is simply a part of our essential nature it's a part of every teacher's every creature is a central nature but pretty much human beings are the only animals who for social reasons give up their authenticity so that's what I want to say about authenticity it's the self now people that go into it deeply will find that the self will have its physical aspects if it is psychological aspects spiritual aspects some people will find out I can't prescribe nor can anybody else prescribe for anyone else what their authenticity should look like but for most people it's going to be shining in a number of different dimensions thank you [Music]