Be Your Most Authentic Self
I changed my name to Beau.
As I share this with you in my newsletter, it feels both deeply personal and universally human, because at its core, this is a story about authenticity.
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from masking. It is the tiredness that sleep does not fix, the heaviness that sits beneath your ribs when you are constantly editing yourself to be more acceptable, more palatable, more in line with what the world expects. Many of us have become experts at this performance. We learn early on which parts of us are praised and which parts are questioned, and we begin to curate ourselves accordingly. Over time, this curation becomes so habitual that we forget we are doing it at all.
But the body remembers, the mind remembers. There is always a quiet voice beneath the noise, reminding you that something is not aligned. That voice can be easy to ignore in the busyness of life, but it never truly goes away. It waits patiently for you to listen.
To be seen correctly by the world is about truth.
When we are misseen, whether through a name, a role, or an identity that no longer fits, there is a subtle but persistent dissonance. It is like speaking a language that is not quite your own. You can get by, you can even become fluent, but it never feels entirely natural. Choosing authenticity is choosing to speak in your own voice, even if your hands shake the first time you do it.
The truth is that we are not static beings, we change, we grow, we unravel and rebuild ourselves over and over again. What felt true at one stage of life may feel completely foreign at another, this is evidence of growth. Yet society often rewards stability over evolution, encouraging us to pick a version of ourselves and remain there indefinitely. When we step outside of that expectation, it can feel unsettling, both for us and for those around us.
As children, we do not struggle with this in the same way. There is an innate knowing that exists before the world teaches us who we should be. Children express themselves freely, without the weight of judgement. They do not question whether they are too much or not enough, they simply are. Somewhere along the way, many of us lose that connection. We begin to adapt, to conform, to shape ourselves into something more acceptable. Over time, the distance between who we are and who we present can become so vast that our true selves feel almost unrecognisable.
The journey back is not always straightforward. It often requires a process of deconstruction, of peeling back layers that have been built over years, sometimes decades, which can be disorienting. It can feel like losing parts of yourself, even when those parts were never truly yours to begin with, there is still a grief in that, but also courage.
For people who come out later in life, or anyone who has had to question everything they thought they knew about themselves, this journey can be particularly intense.
There is often a sense of time lost, of wondering what might have been if you had known sooner, or felt safe enough to express it. There can be fear about how others will respond, about what relationships might change or fall away. Most painfully, there can be resistance from the very people you hoped would understand.
It hurts to not be met in your truth, to have your authenticity questioned or dismissed. But there is a deeper hurt in abandoning yourself to maintain the comfort of others. Staying true to who you are is not the easier path, but it is the one that leads to peace.
Authenticity does not guarantee acceptance from everyone, but it does offer something far more valuable, it offers alignment. It offers the quiet, steady relief of no longer pretending and it allows you to build a life that reflects who you truly are, rather than who you thought you needed to be.
Changing my name to Beau is one expression of that alignment. It is not the entirety of my journey, but it is a significant marker along the way. It is a reminder that I am allowed to choose myself, even when it feels uncomfortable, even when it challenges the expectations of others.
If you are reading this and recognising parts of your own story, know that you are not alone. The process of coming home to yourself is rarely linear, and it is never too late. You are allowed to change, allowed to question, allowed to become someone new, or perhaps more accurately, someone more true.