29. Is Your Authenticity More Than Surface Deep?

Welcome back to 3D Authenticity! Today's episode dives into one of the most foundational questions in all of my work as an authenticity coach. We're talking about what authenticity actually is, and the answer might be more layered, more challenging, and more liberating than you expect.

In this episode, Jennifer explores: 

✅ The most intuitive definition of authenticity and why it matters, even if it's just the beginning 

✅ The difference knowing yourself from a place of Being as opposed to Doing, and why high achievers are especially vulnerable to confusing the two 

✅ How comparison keeps your sense of self anchored outside of yourself, and what shifts when you release it 

✅ The grounded middle between apology and aggression, and what authentic presence actually feels like 

✅ The fullest, most challenging definition of authenticity and two examples of people who have embodied it fully

Ways to Connect 

💜 Join the Waitlist for Jennifer's 3D Authenticity Group Coaching Program (Next cohort begins May 2026) 

💜 Email: 3dauthenticity@gmail.com 

💜 Download Jennifer's free guide: The High-Achiever's Identity Crisis: 10 Questions That Reveal Who You Actually Are Beneath the Achievements

Join the Journey 

If you love these kinds of deep explorations on the big topics that speak to a life well lived, hit subscribe and share this episode with someone who is ready to go deeper. We are so happy to have you as part of the 3DA community!

Know who you are.  Love who you are.  Live who you are.

Transcript

Jennifer 0:08

Hello and welcome. My name is Jennifer Wade, and this is 3D Authenticity, where we talk about all things related to building a life in the real world that authentically reflects your core being. No matter if you're a chronic people pleaser or you're knee-deep in a major identity crisis, or especially if you've given up believing you can have a deeply fulfilling life, it's time to learn how to love who you are and unapologetically live your one-of-a-kind life. Join me for a deep dive in how to do exactly that. Hello, my friends, and welcome to the 3D Authenticity Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Wade, and as always, I am delighted that you have joined me here today. Thank you. Now, before we get too deep into today's episode, I want to acknowledge that our topic today was inspired by a conversation I had with a new friend I made at the All Women in Business Summit this past week. I was sitting next to her at lunch and we were sharing about our work. And when I mentioned that I'm an authenticity coach, her eyes got big and she enthusiastically followed up with this question. She asked, She said, I think authenticity is so hard. How do you define authenticity? And I genuinely might have shrieked a little bit with joy when she asked that. What a great question. And actually, it is one that I have given a lot of thought to. But up until now, what I'm sharing with you today, my answers to that question, and yes, there is more than one answer. Up until now, I have usually just shared that inside my small group coaching program. But there's absolutely no reason to hold it back. I mean, this is foundational and it's important, and these are challenging ideas. And I live for this. So let's talk about it. And P.S. shout out to my new friend Chelsea for the inspiration. So thank you. Okay, let's start with a question. I want you to really sit with us for a moment before we dive in. How would you define authenticity? I'm serious, take a moment. How would you define it? And feel free to hit pause if you need to. I want you to come up with an answer that you like before you continue. Okay, in my experience, most people land somewhere around this kind of idea. Authenticity is being yourself and not pretending to be someone you're not. Authenticity is effectively not wearing a mask. And that is a great place to start. It's not wrong. It's a real and legitimate starting point. But after years of doing deep dives in the literature on authenticity and on all of its components, and after years of doing really deep work on this for myself and guiding others in this work, I have come to believe that most of us are working with an incomplete picture of what authenticity actually is. It's like we've got the first chapter, but not the whole book. And I think that really matters. It matters because how you define something shapes and informs how you pursue it. So if your definition of authenticity stops at just me not wearing a mask, you're leaving some of the most important and the most liberating layers of what is possible for you completely unexplored. So today I want to take you on a little journey. We'll go layer by layer into the heart of authenticity. And each layer can stand on its own. It can be an arrival in and of itself. But it's also true that each layer builds on the previous one and goes even further. Now I will give you a definition of authenticity at each stage. And as we keep going, I think these definitions will challenge you. They challenge me. They're meant to. I am not here to keep you in your comfort zone. I am here to show you what's possible and give you the tools and the support to help you go wherever you want to go on your authentic journey. So as we explore the deeper layers of what authenticity is, my invitation to you is to notice where you are, where you fit in here. Where do you feel comfortable right now? Think of this as like a map. It's like a tool for better understanding where you are in your journey and how the path moves forward from that point. My genuine hope is that by the time you've worked through these layers to that deepest, most challenging definition of authenticity that I could offer anyone, I hope you will find yourself thinking differently about what authenticity means for you. Maybe you'll be thinking a little differently about how you want to show up in the world. And maybe you'll even be thinking a little differently about what you want for yourself authentically in this life. So let's start at the beginning. The natural, intuitive place most of us land when we think about authenticity is simply that state of being yourself and not trying to be anyone else. Authenticity in its most basic sense is the opposite of wearing a mask. It's the difference between showing up as yourself versus performing a version of yourself that you think others want to see. So, in practical terms, that's the difference between speaking your actual thoughts versus saying what you think will land well in the room. It's choosing to honor your real experience over choosing to be palatable. This is classic people pleaser mode, and absolutely, this was me for years. Now, because this was my MO for so long, I want to say loud and clear that this level of authenticity of removing the mask matters so much. It's a layer of liberation, but it's hard to recognize until you've lived it. But once you've lived it, once you've felt that new level of freedom, I promise you you never want to go back. Getting to the point where you can stop performing and start showing up more honestly is genuinely hard won. And trust me, I am saying that from keenly felt personal experience. Now, if you've reached this place in your life, I want you celebrating it every day. In many ways, honestly, this is the most important accomplishment when it comes to authenticity. This is you ultimately setting yourself free. This is you taking your life in your own hands. So everything that we're going to talk about after this first level is really just a more refined and deeper experience of that same liberation. So, as you know though, this whole episode is about challenging you to go deeper if you want to and if you're ready. I will say though, from where I'm standing, there's so much more along the path that's worth celebrating. So keep going. Okay, but in order to take the next step, I want you to consider the truth of this. You can stop wearing a mask and still not fully know the you underneath the mask. It is absolutely possible to commit to being real and still orient your sense of self entirely around what you do or what you've achieved, or the role that you play in other people's lives. So the next definition of authenticity takes us somewhere a little more challenging. This level challenges you to know yourself as the being version of you, not the doing version of you. And I actually want to invite you to go back and listen to the last episode if you haven't already, because I go much deeper into this in that episode. But let me just give you the essence of it here. I will never tire of saying this. You are not your job. You are not your title, you are not the role that you play in your family. I'm talking about the version of you in your most natural state, like sitting completely still, not achieving, not even being particularly useful to anyone. So for so many of us, high achievers especially, that exploration produces an unmistakable discomfort. While we might have removed the mask, and can, yes, genuinely show up with authentic goals that we've set for ourselves, and we can show up completely owning our authentic strengths and our hard-won skills, that doesn't mean we are free from having attached our sense of self almost entirely to what we do. The more enduring, more nuanced understanding of authenticity is grounded in your being. It's the version of you that doesn't need doing to be authentic. In fact, all the doing is merely a byproduct of an authentic being who knows itself through values, through your way of seeing the world, your belief system. Those are the things that remain constant about you, regardless of what you're doing or not doing on any given day. So, how does that strike you? Do you feel some resistance to that? And if it resonates with you, are you wanting to go deeper? Well, there are two more layers to go, so let's keep moving. The third layer, the third stage of authenticity, is where things get really interesting. At this level, authenticity is the version of you without a mask, who knows the authentic being from which all of your doing arises, and now is also immune to comparison with others. Yep, it's time to talk about that comparison piece. Surely you knew it was going to come up, right? Comparison is deeply human and teaches us about our social environment. It's a powerful learning tool. And in the context of learning through noticing and replicating, I am all about it. In the context of authenticity, it's a signal pointing to something important about where your identity is still anchored. Think about it. When you find yourself measuring your life against someone else's, whether that be their career or their relationship or their physical appearance or their financial success, when you use that measurement to edit something about yourself just to be more like what you perceive in them, what's actually happening is that your sense of self still has an external reference point. You are still, on some level, looking outside of yourself to know how you are doing on the inside. You're looking at their progress along their path and measuring yourself on your path as if it's oranges to oranges. And listen, that's understandable. I get it. We live in a world that is essentially one constant opportunity for comparison. You know this. There's social media, there's performance reviews, there's professional competition in your business. And competition even shows up in supposedly safe zones, like even just at a well-meaning conversation at a dinner party. The comparison, the measuring, is constant and it is relentless. If we look at this question of comparison head-on, what emerges at this layer of authenticity is a deeply embodied understanding that there is no comparison between your path and anyone else's. When you release your dependency on comparison, measuring yourself with someone else's yardstick stops being the primary way to know yourself. You begin to move from this posture of how do I measure up to something so much more settled. Something that sounds and feels like acceptance. The ability to say and feel okay with this is simply who I am. I'm not better than, I'm not worse than, I'm not ahead or behind. I am just my own being. This is who I am. Something really powerful happens when you get to that place. When you stop needing an external anchor, you stop needing to manage how you show up. What remains is authentic presence without apology and without aggression. You don't need to justify yourself and you don't need to make demands either. You simply are you. Now, in case this thought has come up for you, I want to be clear that this is not indifference to others. I don't want you to misunderstand this as I don't care what anyone thinks, because that's just another kind of armor or protective wall, right? That's actually just aggression wearing a confidence costume. This is something much, much more generous. Being deeply grounded in yourself actually frees you to be more present with others, not less. Because you're not spending all of your energy managing their perception of you anymore. Which does bring us to the deepest, most profound, and most challenging version of authenticity I know. I'll be honest, this last definition of authenticity is in many ways more aspirational than fully achievable for many of us. And I include myself in that. But it is a powerful North Star. It assumes everything we've talked about so far and keeps on going. So here it is. My best, my most complete definition of authenticity. Authenticity is the most essential version of you, free from filters, free from social conditioning, free from limiting beliefs, and free from feelings of unworthiness. Gosh, I would give anything to see how this lands with each of you. Let me say it one more time. Authenticity is the version of you that is free from filters, free from social conditioning, free from limiting beliefs, and free from feelings of unworthiness. So let me touch on each of those briefly. I think they deserve a little explanation. Let's start with filters. We all have them. They're the edits we make in real time before we speak or before we act, and we employ them before we even let ourselves be seen. And to be fair, yes, some filters actually are appropriate and wise. I am not suggesting that you say every thought that crosses your mind, but the filters I'm talking about here are the ones driven by fear. The ones that are asking, is this too much? Am I too much? Will this be well received? Am I allowed to want this? What will they think of me? Those filters are not protecting you, they are obscuring you. And then there's social conditioning. This one runs deep. From the time we are very little, we absorb countless messages about who we are supposed to be. And most of it happens so early and so organically that there's so much we don't even recognize in our conditioning unless we really start challenging our assumptions. We just think it's the truth about who we are. And part of the work of authenticity is learning to distinguish between what is genuinely ours and what was simply handed to us. And then deciding consciously, with intention, what it is we want to keep and what it is we want to let go. And next, there are the limiting beliefs. Those are the stories we tell ourselves about what we're capable of and what we deserve and what's possible for us. We lock ourselves into characters. We say, I'm not someone who does that, or I'm not the kind of person who gets to have this. That's not realistic for someone like me. These beliefs feel like facts, but they are not facts. They're conclusions you drew often a very long time ago from experiences that no longer define you unless you let them. Authenticity doesn't need to be told its limits ahead of time. It discovers them, if indeed they exist at all, and then decides how to proceed. And finally, that last piece, the version of you, which is free from feelings of unworthiness. I save this one for last because I believe it is fundamentally at the core of everything else. Unworthiness is the corrosive conviction that you are somehow not enough. Not enough to be fully seen. You're not enough to take up space. You're not enough to want what you want, or to be who you actually are without apology. And when unworthiness is running in the background, all the other filters and conditioning and limiting beliefs have a power source. Address the unworthiness, and everything else becomes more workable. Now, I want to try to give you a felt sense of what it actually looks like when someone is living from this deepest layer. And for me, when I reach for an example, because let me be very clear, I'm still very much a work in progress here myself. There are two extraordinary people who come to mind immediately as examples of truly authentic beings. One is Maya Angelou, and the other is poet Andrea Gibson. And it's interesting to me that both of them are poets. And maybe that's just a coincidence, but maybe not. Maybe a poet's willingness to go to the most essential truths of human experience is a sort of direct path to the heart of authenticity. Now, obviously, I never knew either of them personally, so I can't really speak to their inner lives, but what they gave to the world, both of them, the absolute lack of apology in their presence, their rootedness, and the way they seem to occupy space and occupy themselves so completely. It's like there was just no room for pretense. That quality both of them has is the closest thing I have ever witnessed to what I'm trying to describe to you. When Maya Angelo spoke, she wasn't managing your perception of her. She was simply there, fully there, rooted in something so deep and so certain that I imagine it was almost impossible not to feel it in the room with her. I mean, I sensed it even just through recordings. And Andrea Gibson, if you don't know their work, please go find their book. I'd recommend starting with You Better Be Lightning. Andrea's work brings that same quality to every word. There's a willingness to be completely, vulnerably, unapologetically. themselves, which feels legitimately radical in a world that asks us to be constantly more manageable, more predictable, more palatable, that quality, that presence that is what I mean by the most essential authentic version of you. So there's one last thing I want you to take on board here. Neither of them was born that way. That kind of presence is earned layer by layer through exactly the kind of work we've been talking about today. What they found underneath all of it was a wildly free, true version of themselves that we all instinctively understand as wisdom. And for those of us who are doing the work, well, okay, speaking for myself, I don't know that I'll ever reach the fullest embodiment of that. But every movement in the direction of authenticity translates to more ease and more joy and more fulfillment in my life. And I deeply believe that that holds equally true for you. So where does that leave us today? I want to come back to what I asked you to keep track of at the beginning of this episode, which was where are you? Which version of authenticity feels most like you right now? Which one feels like home, and which one feels like it's the next horizon? It would delight me to hear from you. So please don't hesitate to let me know. Just send me an email at 3dauthenticity at gmail.com and I will write back. My hope is that you leave today's episode with a deeper, maybe more expansive sense of what authenticity actually is and what it might be asking of you. Because it is asking something of us. It always does, and it rewards us for our efforts. And each one of you each one of you is worth that effort. So with that, my friends, it is time to wrap this up. I thank you so much for being here today. And as always, if this episode resonated with you, would you please consider rating or reviewing the show or sharing this episode with a friend? And if you want to go deeper on any of this work, that's why I'm here. Get your name on the 3D authenticity program wait list. I promise you won't regret it. So, until the next time, my friends, please take care of yourselves, be well, and bye for now.