Let the Ink Lead the Way: Pen, Paper, and a Dose of Courage Required
I cannot wait to get authenticity right. Because we’ve mucked it up. So much so that “Authenticity, ironically, has become a performance,” announced Merriam-Webster’s—while pronouncing “authentic” the 2023 Word of the Year.
There’s something better than presentational authenticity, a Broadway show where we try to prove our “realness” to ourselves and others. It’s called healthy authenticity, and I want to show you my process for getting there in hopes it serves you, too.
Here’s the truth: We do not have a “real” or a “true” self. We’re far too complex, and often conflicted, for such an oversimplification.* Besides, chasing it only makes us feel worse.
We can, and should, authenticate “things”—Louis Vuitton bags and Adidas sneakers and news footage. Counterfeits cost us dearly, in our wallets and in our shared humanity.
People? We’re something else altogether.
We have a whole self, an ever-evolving understanding forged from the moments, memories, and emotions of our lived experience. When we pause to go inward, to explore the fullness of our lives, we develop healthy authenticity.
Healthy authenticity is an integration of all that we’ve experienced. It’s an acceptance of the parts of ourselves we try to hide and the parts we proudly display. It’s the route to uncovering our authentic voice, which can never be a performance.
Achieving Healthy Authenticity in 15 Minutes a Day
First, I set myself up with intention by finding a calm, uncluttered, space—perhaps I’ll light a candle on my desk or turn my chair to take in the hummingbirds swooping to and from the feeder in our courtyard.
Next, I still my mind with two to three minutes of deep breathing and guided meditation. I drop out of my conscious self, my troublemaker brain, and drop into my subconscious.
Then I set up my page (I avoid fancy paper and expensive pens; they only intimidate me, but some people prefer them) with the date and this liberating statement: “Let the ink lead the way.” This is the best phrase I’ve found to liberate me from the jail of my inner critic, or KFUCK radio station, as I like to try it. Writing these words at the top of the page is the fastest way for me to change the channel.
I set my timer for seven minutes and begin with a prompt. I find prompts everywhere: in poems, photographs, paintings, songs, quotes, scents, tastes, and beyond). From those opening words, I don’t stop my pen from moving, no matter what. I draw squiggles or repeat a word until something moves me from my quiet, centered self. I might stick closely to the prompt or I might ping-pong away and back: either is fine. All writing is fine—it’s more than fine. I trust that whatever emerges on the page is what needs to be written. There is no right write.
A common question I receive is, what if I’m afraid of what I see on the page? I get it. It’s scary to uncover your authentic voice, even though you crave it. But in twenty-seven years of teaching, I have found that people only reveal on the page what they’re ready to face.
When my timer goes off, I stop while I’m still feeling the juice, the flow.
Next I read the piece back to myself in a whisper breath, highlighter in hand. I mark moments of heightened feelings on the page. I don’t question or judge my words; I just look for places where my gut whispers, “There’s more there, there.” I call this step “mining the gems.”
Finally, I select one of my gems and rewrite it at the top of a new page. I begin again with five minutes on the timer, dropping into my second extreme freewrite. Sights, sounds, images, dialogue, insights—they all tumble out—and I go deeper.
Mining the gems: A page from my notebook.
When I reread my words, I often don’t recognize them. By letting the ink lead the way, I understand things about myself I didn’t know that I knew. It feels like magic. I make sense of my life in ways that thinking or talking or traditional journaling never could.
I experience inner-knowing and clarity, a shaking loose of beliefs that no longer serve me—and likely never did.
Once I’ve met myself on the page, I can meet myself in my life. I begin to fear less. (I might not become fearless, but I’ll take fear less any day.) I begin to comprehend my joyous moments, too, more profoundly. I realize how every part of me is connected, like the crest and the trough of a wave.
So if you find yourself at a transition point, questioning your next chapter, filled with doubt, or running on train tracks laid by others, I understand.
And I hope you’ll give my process a try. Let the ink lead the way in 2025. It’s beautiful out here. And it’s never a show.
*Jongman-Sereno, K. P., & Leary, M. R. (2019). The enigma of being yourself: A critical examination of the concept of authenticity. Review of General Psychology, 23(1).https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr000015
