Attachment and Authenticity
Two Core Needs That Help Us Remember Who We Are
“What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.”
—Frederick Buechner in Telling Secrets
You and I were born with two core and even holy needs—the need for attachment and the need for authenticity.
Attachment is our need to loved, to be held, to belong, to be seen, to be safe in the presence of another. As newborns, we arrive into this world utterly dependent. And yet, we do not survive by being impressive, independent, or productive. We survive because someone sees our face, hears our cries, responds to our body, and says in a thousand enfleshed ways: You are not alone.
Authenticity is our need to be ourselves. It is to know our what we feel, want, love, fear, need, and hope. It is the capacity to live from the inside out rather than the outside in. Authenticity is not merely self-expression, as popular caricatures would have it. It is the deep congruence of a life that can say: This is what is truest in me. Here, we discover not only who we uniquely are, but what we uniquely have to offer the world.
The hope for each precious newborn is that these two needs grow together, that we are loved in such a way that we become more ourselves.
But we know this isn’t a given.
The ancient story reminds us that the serpent’s whisper in the garden lives on in our stories. Maybe I’m not loved. Maybe I’m not enough just as God created me. Maybe I don’t have anything unique to offer the world.
The ancient whisper is echoed early in life. We learn, early on, that certain feelings are too much, that certain questions are unwelcome, that certain needs are inconvenient, that certain desires are dangerous. And we adapt, becoming agreeable or impressive or needless or funny or helpful or successful or smart or invisible.
As I wrote about many years ago in Wholeheartedness, this is where so much of our inner fragmentation begins. Little kids who aren’t sure if they’re secure in love will do everything they can to hold on to that fragile love, exiling parts of themselves unwittingly—their needs, their anger, their intuition, their strength, their tenderness. And in some religious circles, this is called “obedience.”
This is why the first question God asks in the garden is so powerful: “Where are you?” It is a question of location, presence, and return. Where did you go? What happened to your heart? Where are you hiding? How are you self-protecting? What shame story now keeps you from being seen and known?
And when we do return to love, knowing we’re seen and held, authenticity becomes truly possible. When I no longer have to curate myself to stay connected, I can offer my real presence. I can love from a less defended place. I can repent without gaslighting. I can name harm without attacking. I can receive care without suspicion. I can become curious about my protective strategies rather than condemned by them.
Here we discover that the our exiled anger may bear dignity, that our grief may reveal a hidden tenderness, that our disowned desires may carry a deeper vocation. There is so much to discover. We may even learn how to love again.
The 19th c poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins names it as the discovery of our inscape—our unique, God-created selves, that cry out:
Whát I dó is me: for that I came. (Click to read the whole poem)
Attachment and authenticity: two core needs of every human being.
And even in my mid-fifties, I’m still working this out, ever so slowly, recognizing the reality of a love that will never let me go, recognizing an authenticity that doesn’t need to prove or perform, but simply invite, offer, even show up.
Invitations:
How are you being invited to recognize possible wounds or internal stories around attachment and authenticity? How would you name them?
How are you being invited to name possible strategies you’ve employed to secure love or prove yourself?
How are you being invited to a new kind of freedom to fall into the goodness of a love that both sees you and champions your deepest you?
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Really enjoyed this post. It met me exactly where I've been at for the past little while...
Thank you, Chuck.