05/30/2026
The Power of Authenticity
To be at peace within oneself and with others, a person must be authentic. And to be authentic, your thoughts, feelings, and spirit must be in alignment. It is sort of like stacking building blocks. The bottom block is a feeling that supports the next block, which is what you think about the feeling. At the top is your spirit’s offering, which acts as a stabilizer.
The spirit offers you a quality of love from your spirit’s storehouse. It is this addition that has the power to align your feelings and thoughts with the truth of who you are. By aligning before you share, you will be able to offer the real you. On the other hand, if you offer just your feelings or thoughts, the sharing will be inauthentic, and clutter will be added to your relationship.
For example, if one person in a family is in a lot of emotional trauma, their sharing will either tug on the quality of love you have in your spirit’s storehouse, or it will pull you into a mental fixing or emotional empathy. And even though a fix of empathy might be appreciated, it will not strengthen your relationship.
I have a friend who is frequently upset by her daughter’s relationship pattern of giving away her power. This, of course, makes my friend feel powerless. If I am not careful, she will pull me into the fray, and I will forget that my spirit holds power. But on a good day when my authentic self is in alignment, I can silently resonate my spirit’s power with that of hers. This united power can then be relayed through resonance with her daughter’s power.
In college, I had a European history teacher who was authentic in certain qualities. One of those qualities was connection. This quality allowed him to take a happening in one part of Europe and show how it affected another part with such clarity that history became alive to me. My dread of remembering dates left, and was replaced by my empowered quality of connection.
So, just look beyond your feelings and thoughts to allow your spirit’s subject to align with your sharing. Once your words and feelings receive a spiritual quality as their subject, they will no longer wander around trying to figure out what words will fix the feelings. You will feel clear and whole. Plus, your authenticity will not only add a needed dimension to your sharing, but it will add a needed dimension to your life, your friends, and the world.
Jackie Woods is the founder and director of the Adawehi Community located in Columbus, N.C. Subscribe here to stay connected with Jackie and stay informed about weekly meditations, retreats, and more: https://www.jackiewoods.org/subscribe/
