What Authenticity Means to Donna McArthur
On softening, sobriety, and changing your life without burning your house down.
A few announcements before diving into today’s conversation with Donna.
I handcrafted each of these packages based on my own experiences, and the needs of the clients I've worked with. (ex: I have spent several sessions with my coach talking about the sentence "That sounds ambitious", and those three words were truly the inspiration for the Ready, Set, GOAL! package below.)
These packages range from 3 to 6 sessions in total. I like to think of them as coaching intensives, which are perfect for those who aren't sure if a 3-6 month coaching commitment is right for them at the moment.
Email me at alexajordancoaching@gmail.com to set up a free complimentary session, or to check my schedule and find a time that works for you!
For those of you who are new to Wild Cozy Free, I recently created a downloadable guided journal full of prompts to help you cultivate more authenticity! I launched Authentic by Alexa a little over a month ago, and we’ve already sold over 50 copies! I am so deeply grateful and so excited to hear about what it’s bringing up for people as they reflect on what authenticity means to them. Learn more and download for just $13 below. Your support means so much!
Authenticity Tuesdays are BACK!
In January, I hosted weekly conversations about what authenticity means to us. You can view the prompts we discussed here and read about the initial inspiration for this series here. A few minutes into the first session, I already knew that these conversations would be a highlight of my year.
We’ll be starting up again on March 12th from 8:00 - 9:00PM EST. Totally free, no pressure to come every week. More details to follow. For now, here’s what some of our wonderful participants had to say about it!
Participating in Alexa’s Authenticity Tuesdays was a perfect way to start the year and get clear on how I want to show up for myself this year. I'm looking forward to participating in any future series like this that she hosts!
I attended Alexa's "Authenticity Tuesday" series, and I'm so glad I did. Alexa has a gift for holding space, asking thought provoking questions, and helping you learn more about yourself and how you go through the world. I would highly recommend working with Alexa, whether it's in a group format or if you are lucky enough to have 1 on 1 sessions with her. Your life will change for the better!
Okay, on with the essay!
Donna McArthur has been a healthcare provider in a beautiful mountain town in British Columbia for nearly 30 years. Together with her husband, she tends to a busy, wellness-based chiropractic practice and has raised two sons to adulthood. She’s the first to tell you that she appreciates and uses the tools science offers and also recognizes there are things research cannot yet explain. She explores well-being from both an evidence-based and heart-centered perspective in her newsletter, The Bright Life, where she encourages her readers to heed their inner whisper and have the courage to follow it.
Donna is just the most wonderful human being. Similar to
who I chatted with a few weeks ago, I was instantly drawn to Donna when I first joined Substack. We frequently chat in the comment sections of essays, and it was such a treat to have a deep conversation like this.Here’s a screenshot of our very first interaction. I can’t tell you how much these words meant to me, and still do.
I’m mixing things up again by sharing the audio instead of a written transcript! Click below to listen, and scroll down to learn about a few of the topics we chatted about, and to find the link for one of Donna’s essays that we discussed.
We start by diving into what authenticity means to Donna. She talks about the “deep inner knowing of what is important” to her, and Donna notes that it has taken most of her adult life to peel back the layers and figure that out. She notes that “It’s not a quick discovery” and it requires a lot of introspection to get clear on who we are - which I could not agree with more!
At the moment, what’s most important to Donna is continuing her inner journey and continuing to open up spiritually so that she can continue to show up fully.
We also discuss how our most important priorities can become clear during seasons of grief, and how the simple things often rise to the surface. I mention an essay by
, which I also linked in an essay of my own.
I love what Donna says about the softening that happens as we’re grieving, and find ourselves wishing that everyone knew just how vulenerable we were feeling. She notes that authenticity is allowing for that inner softening and knowing, and holding space for it within ourselves and other people.
We go on to talk about my favorite essay of Donna’s, starting with the quote “Reconciliation of one’s whole self is a lifetime of work.” To me, this sentiment has so much to do with becoming more and more yourself, and accepting your whole authentic self. I ask Donna what she would say to someone who finds the idea of authenticity daunting. (You’ll have to listen to hear Donna’s answer, around 7:00!)
And here’s that essay we’re talking about —
“The knowing that I can be a wild child of the 80’s (big hair anyone?) and an upstanding community member at the same time. I can feel broken yet be truly whole at the same time. I can be in deep grief and find myself enjoying the sun on my back at the same time. Acceptance of the whole. This entire lesson did not come from that church, but the seed was planted there.”
-Donna
One of my favorite parts of this conversation was talking about the fact that you don’t have to burn your house down in the name of authenticity. There’s this very common misconception that to be authentic, you have to throw everything else away.
Donna notes, “I’ve changed 100% from the inside, and on the outside, everything else looks the same.”
When I talk about bridging the gap between your inner and outer worlds, it really can look exactly like this. You don’t have to blow up your entire life and redesign it brick by brick to cultivate more authenticity, I promise!
“Burning your house down is not gentle. You’re going to get burned. I think that people see other people running out of burning houses and see their lives rebuilt and think ‘Oh, to get what they have, I should burn my house down.’ But that person didn’t electively do it! Their circumstances were theirs, and mine are mine. And that turn inwards towards figuring out what’s right for you and your community, and not modeling in on someone else’s end result, feels like a very big part of the journey for me.”
-Alexa
We continue to talk about the concept of shifting your outer world, rather than completely changing it. (For example, we discuss moving through triggers that make us feel reactive and defensive.)
“If you can go through your life not reacting to every little thing, that’s super valuable work.”
-Donna
Another amazing quote —
“We can be as authentic as we want to be, and as spirtual or intropsective, but if we can’t take that into the outer world, if that doesn’t translate off the meditation mat, or out of the church sanctuary…if we can’t take it out of there into our real life expriences, it’s not super effective. It has to shift our outer world.”
-Donna
Later, we discuss how the word authenticity has become “a cultural meme” (so well said, Donna!) like so many other words that we’ve lost the meaning and importance of, thanks to the “artificial production of it.”
Donna also vulnerably talks about her sobriety journey with us, which she has talked about more on her own blog.
We end by talking about ways that Donna hopes to cultivate authenticity in the near future. The word that came to her this year was “expand”; she’s chosen to nurture her inner growth through expansion going forward as she continues to figure out how she wants to show up in the world - which I absolutely love.
Learn more about Donna here and stay tuned for another authenticity conversation next week! Can you believe next week will be March?!
 | A guest post by
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Thank you so much Alexa, I enjoyed every bit of our enriching conversation and look forward to doing it again! We did more than simply touch on some important issues, I feel like we did a deep dive into what was most important to each of us. The mutual support and sharing of ideas was one more demonstration of what I love about being here on Substack💕
💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻🙏🙏🙏