Method

The Your Authentic Self Work method is grounded in narrative theory that is the foundational framework of various applied methods such as narrative inquiry and narrative therapy. We have sought to create a hybridized method that pulls from various traditions to yield a diverse set of utilization-focused resources, grounded in creative personal expression, toward a growing awareness of one’s own narrative. An awareness of personal narrative can lead to a growing consciousness of the contexts and frameworks you are living within—and whether or not these are right for you. This new awareness can also empower you to change your narrative toward a path that may be more suited to you—a path that you were meant to be on.

Our method is intended to specifically and practically help you to inquire into how you formed the belief pathways that currently inform your decisions, choices, interpersonal relationships and your intrapersonal methods for interacting with the world around you. A person’s individual belief framework is a unique construct. A person can observe the world through such a lens, which has been formed through years of exposure to a variety of cultural contexts. A person can become so connected to the lens through which he or she sees the world that it becomes that person’s reality. To put it another way, a person who is observing the world can identify more with what he or she observes than his or her own separate existence. That is the crux of the question we are asking—what is a person’s true identity—that of the observer or that of the observed?

The Your Authentic Self Work method includes aspects of narrative inquiry, therapy and counseling that represent meaningful ways of working with people through difficult spaces in their lives. This method can transform the individual, but its application is also mindful of the core sensibilities of the individual engaging in the process.

We seek out the seminal, often hidden, narratives in people’s lives—narratives that are meaningful to us as stories—narratives that can help clarify an individual’s perspective, but also inspire others more broadly. We are trained to deconstruct narratives to their componential aspects—we can help you find the blocks and “problem drivers” in your story and help you to re-author them to tell your story in a different and more empowering way. This approach is about respecting the individual…looking to her perfect knowledge of Self…her intuition about seeing through the walls of her own prisons toward transcendent pathways.

Our method is all about collaboration—building communities of individuals who can relate across one another’s stories—co-creating narratives that can help the community collective elevate beyond its members’ individual problems. Problems are not people, they are simply contexts in which individuals think they are trapped—but we can help people empower each other through peer-led co-construction of powerful narratives that tell a different story—a story in which freedom can be grasped beyond the walls of your captivity.

The process we utilize involves our helping you recognize the context in which your greatest difficulties manifest—specifically, the context that has developed over time as a result of the effects of external social and cultural influences. This is the context of your personal belief—your belief system.

We can examine the themes that frame your life contexts, the patterns of belief that arise as a result and the often unrecognized alternative pathways you may have missed. As your story unfolds, it will become clearer that there are other narratives that you may have neglected—that you can use to re-author your story to build healthier belief contexts that can yield healthier outlooks on life.

The difficulty with many of the stories we live, via narratives we have not consciously developed, is that those stories begin to identify us. We consciously and unconsciously become defined by the beliefs we have let wholly contextualize our lives—when often it is simply a quantum shift in perspective that can help us to see that we are not actually our belief systems. You are an independent consciousness and the way your true self interacts with the world is not the same as the identity that has been constructed through your belief system.

It is on paths of renewed consciousness that we can follow our new narratives to discover that the intentions, hopes, commitments, values, desires and dreams of our true selves, that we may have long subordinated, are actually waiting to be embraced as new realities. Our new narratives enable us to move forward with the curious excitement we had when we told our stories freely as children—fearless in our freedom; that is, not afraid to be free.

Our focus throughout this co-constructivist process is not on our involvement as “experts” helping you to solve your problems. We are here as guides to help you identify your narratives and think about whether or not you are happy with your current story—the belief system that informs your life decisions. If you are not, then we can help you develop the means to re-tell your story. You will meet others through this process who, like you, have found that it is time for them to tell a new story—you can join this community of peers and discover together all the possibilities that lay hidden within these previously unrecognized narratives.

Throughout our process, we view you as the expert in your own life. What we offer you is the opportunity to explore a new culture of curiosity—the knowledge that you are free to ask all the questions you want to better construct a new narrative for your life…a new way to interact with the world around you…a new way to believe. You may not know or find all the answers, but that’s okay—as long as your story continues to unfold along a path of discovery that is ultimately leading you to realities you never thought you could claim for yourself.

Vision

At varying points in our lives we all have experienced what we have chosen to term “prisons” of the mind and of the heart—these are the prisons we create for ourselves or that are created for us as a function of the social contexts in which we have developed. Our perspective begins with the perspective of the captive. Captivity has been our background experience and the path toward freedom our daily practice. It is from this perspective that we are well-situated to relate to your own experiences in captivity—spaces in your life in which specific cultural contexts and their outcomes have kept you from fully realizing your true self. These contexts are the spaces in which we begin to forget our true selves—the spaces in which we take on full identities not quite our own.

The old world French maintained prisons called oubliettes that were essentially spaces for confinement accessible via an opening that was unreachable by the person trapped within. Freedom was within one’s sight, but not reachable by any means. Oublier, meaning “to forget” is the root from which the term oubliette is derived. The person within the oubliette was a person meant to be forgotten. The oubliette is a place of forgetting. The person sent there to be forgotten also lived a life of forgetting. That person, over time, lost any sense of self…any memory of life or reality beyond the threshold of an impossibly distant, but nevertheless present, way out. And this is the core of it—the reason why the prisons in which we often dwell are so effective in keeping us captive: as we forget our “selves”, it becomes easier to identify with the external constructs that have been imposed on us. We may be able to see that life could be different for us, we are just no longer capable of thinking that life should be different from what we know it to be.

What are your prisons? What have you come to believe that has forced you into your personal captivity? In our contexts, we had first been trapped by the expectations of our families…beneath the weight of our cultural contexts. There had been confinements based on gender roles and stifling tradition…religious dogma and the frameworks of class systems that silently sorted us into lifelong obligations–the effects of which resonate even now.

Are you a seeker trapped in a world without curiosity? Are you a dreamer imprisoned in a reality that demands only mundane, repeated effort at the expense of your creative impulses? Do you yearn to explore the bounds of your understanding, but are instead told to ignore the unknown and accept incomplete realities? The acceptance of such life contexts only strengthens the illusion of the lives we live…in which we struggle to breathe…those deadened eyes and tired brows forming the masks we wear to cover the discontentment seething just beneath the surface.

We have traveled these paths time and again; at times feeling that acquiescence was the only way to maintain our balance and peace of mind. That just isn’t the case. We’ve found a beyond just enduring the prisons of our cultural contexts–to remember our real and authentic selves, while working to change the paradigms that inform the very contexts that comprise the prisons in which we have been held captive.

The Your Authentic Self Work method is based on the long-utilized and validated method of the dialectic. Dialectic is a process of reasoned inquiry, argument and discovery people can engage in to explore the validity of theirs or others’ opinions or stances about a variety of subjects including: identity, belief, social roles, familial dynamics, gender disparities or dogma.

Why Belief? A person’s belief framework is the core construct by which he or she relates to the world. A person’s belief framework is the lens through which he or she perceives reality—a reality which maintains a co-dependent relationship with the specific social construct from which it was derived. Reflecting on your own belief system—intended as a constant process—can help you to differentiate from the reality created through the context of that belief system and your own true reality. At the very least, such reflection allows you to see the whole of your life context and be fully deterministic in choosing your identity.

The Your Authentic Self Work method helps us to identify the hidden prisons of which we had previously been unaware…prisons we didn’t even know we were trapped in for the majority of our lives. With reasoned inquiry, we can find our way through clouds of unknowing into a space of awareness…and, most importantly, we can show our work…know how we arrived at new awareness. This is a seminal aspect of our method—show your work so that others can follow your paths. So, your utilization of this method is not only intended for your own benefit, but also to the benefit of others who can relate to your process.

We invite you to share this safe space…apply this method…form a community of release…of therapeutic benefit…a healing space in which we can co-create networks of support based on one central and unifying premise: everybody has a story to tell. It is in these stories that we find the universal struggles and triumphs that we can all relate to and draw from for the strength we need to transcend our own prisons of the mind and heart. Want to give it a try? We can show you the way…