Welcome to the simple Sophisticate Podcast, where intelligent living is paired with signature style.

I'm your host, Shannon Ables.

And whether you're listening on your commute, exercising, working in the garden, or sitting down with a hot cup of tea or a

cafe ole, thank you for tuning in. Let's get started. The In today's podcast, we're going to talk about authenticity. It is a lofty aspiration to seek

authenticity or to be authentic.

Initially we think yes, authenticity, that's easy, just be yourself.

But being ourselves in a world that is used to perfection or demands perfection even though it is an impossible

goal to attain is not that easy.

After all, we live in a world where reality TV is even doctor, plastic surgery is prevalent,

and our social media pages give us the opportunity to present our best selves online every single day.

For example, here just I'm assuming what some of the fears are for you.

I know some of these definitely ring true for me.

When we know we're not perfect and we are still trying to come to terms

or trying to embrace the flaws that we know we have and then we put those out there

it can be a little bit unnerving. It makes us uncomfortable and it puts us back on our heels a bit.

Also when we choose to be our authentic selves, we leave ourselves, we feel we are leaving ourselves open for those

to other people to take advantage of this, to use it against us, to hold it against us to hold it against us now on that note if people are going to do that we

have to keep in mind their behavior says more about them than it could ever say about

us if if we are being honest with ourselves, we understand that no one is

perfect, we are only human, and to judge someone else is to ultimately be judging ourselves.

But in a moment, it's hard to wrap our brains around that because we're simply being

humiliated or teased or we feel we may lose something of value to us. And the third way that the third reason that that being authentic can be

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