Authenticity is being on the outside what you know of yourself on the inside. It is being true to oneself. It is speaking your truth as you know it. One can be authentic by holding back what one knows, sensing that the situation does not support self-disclosing. In that case one says to oneself, “I could say something here, but I best not”. Only if one tries to act as if the situation is safe, puts a false smile on one's face and tries to deceive others about what is actually going on inside, only then is one inauthentic. A person can even fool him or herself in the process of being inauthentic, losing touch with who one really is and presenting a false self.Often the people I meet in the counselling office have problems even knowing who they are, let alone being real about who they are. That is because for years they have practised not knowing. Not knowing in their circumstances is often safer than knowing. If one knows what he or she has to live with day in and day out, that would be devastating. It is a kind of losing oneself that people experience in dissociation.So, sometimes people who present a false self don't realise they are doing that. They have become so adept at being false that false seems somehow true. It is the only thing they know after awhile, but their knowing of such an existence comes with a haunting whisper inside in which they wonder who they really are, if life is worth much, or why they don't seem to connect well with others and have a more satisfying life. Instead of being spontaneous and freely creative, they lack confidence and must check with others to see if something is okay.When I meet with such a person, I begin with the simple parts of experience that have to do with sensation. This is not becoming hedonistic and sensuous, leaving behind all morality and spiritual commitments in the pursuit of physical pleasure. No. This has to do with the ability to be real about what one experiences living in one's own body.Many people are not comfortable thinking about such things, but there is nothing wrong with it. God made us to be spirited bodies; God formed us from the earth and blew life into us and we became living persons. A whole person is an embodied person. My body is more than the dwelling place of my spirit, as if the real person is something separate inside. My body is part of my personhood. That is the evil in death death that separates the body, which is the material aspect of a person, from the immaterial. As evidence that God never purposed us for death, for such a split between body and spirit, is the resurrection. Paul of Tarsus indicated that while we yearn to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord, we also groan, anticipating the resurrection in which we will put on an immortal embodiment. The ultimate and eternal purpose and design of God is for an embodied person who has fellowship with a resurrected and embodied Jesus.One starting place in learning to be more real is getting in touch with embodied experience. Just as emotional intelligence has to do with identifying a feeling and learning a name for it, physical intelligence, if one could use such a term, has to with being able to identify a sensation and learning a name for it. In order to accomplish this, a person needs to set aside taboos about sensing things, which is nothing more than using one's body to learn about the world in which one lives. This would involve touch, smell, and hearing as well as sight.I think that there is a fear of becoming too emotional or too sensual. Certainly there can be excesses in which one's emotions and sensuality run away with him. We fear becoming a casualty of such a process. We know of people whose wrecked lives stand as warning signs. We perhaps can look back and remember the ashes out of which we have emerged our own selves, and we do not want to return to such a way of living, but I am not talking about losing control. I am talking about using the capacities God has given us to be more whole and to live better in this world.Being comfortable and aware in one's body is the starting place for building intimacy with others. Physical intimacy is not the only kind of intimacy, and there are certainly important aspects of companionate and emotional intimacy that contribute to closeness in a relationship, but being at home in one's body is essential for establishing authentic relationship. There is so much that can be communicated in a simple touch.Sexuality is all about embodiment. It is the creative use of one's bodily senses in order to both enjoy being in one's body and to give such pleasure to another. It is the meeting, the contact between one person and another, that is also one picture of the intimacy between Christ and those for whom He died. Sex is not a bad and dirty thing, and it is not the only thing. In proper perspective, sexual intimacy is one very important aspect of a whole and authentic life of being on the outside what one knows of him or herself on the inside. So, in touching, one is touched and one can say so, verbally and non-verbally, expressing back to one's partner the impact of being together. Sexual intimacy can be about finding a way of touching, smelling, tasting, hearing, and seeing that communicates who one really is. It can be finding words for what one experiences and expressing to the other person what it is like for them to be with the other physically, being on the outside, for the other, what one is on the inside and for oneself.