What Authenticity Means to Julia Bedell

On being a native New Yorker in Alaska, showing yourself compassion when you’re feeling messy, and getting to know yourself more deeply.

Two announcement before diving into this fantastic conversation with Julia:

1. I’’m so excited to announce the launch of my new coaching packages! Check them out below. They’re featured on my website.

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.

2. A HUGE thank you to everyone who has grabbed a copy of my guide, Authentic by Alexa. For my new readers, I created a downloadable guided journal full of the prompts and visualizations that I wish I’d had, while navigating the winding roads that got me here. I set a goal to sell 50 copies by the end of January, and now we’re steadily nearing 100 - I can’t believe I’m typing that!

And if you already have a copy, it would go such a long way if you’d consider leaving a review! They really make such a huge difference for small business owners.

Now - onto this week’s interview with Julia Bedell!

Julia Bedell is a writer and lawyer based in Anchorage, Alaska.

She writes a blog here on substack called vessels, which she describes as “emotional and literal landscapes.” 

Julia is one of the very first writers I subscribed to here. I’m a huge fan of her work, and yet I don’t quite have the precise words for my admiration (a frustrating dilemma, as a fellow writer.) 

Here’s one of our earliest exchanges - from when I recommended Julia’s work on a Substack Office Hours thread. 

ALEXA

I’d love to start by talking about reflections on your time in New York,  and your thoughts on authenticity as a fellow native New Yorker, as we start to get into what authenticity means to you. 

I’m specifically thinking about these two pieces of yours.

Is it still possible to 'stay and complicate' after choosing to leave?

All my New York Apartments

JULIA

I think I’m an atypical New Yorker in some ways. I’ve always been drawn to nature, and I learned how to drive. My lifestyle has changed a lot but it also hasn’t. My favorite thing to do in NY was to go on what I call urban hikes and get lost in new neighborhoods and observe my thoughts and find new places. Sometimes stressful, sometimes calming. 

Brooklyn, Queens, Upper Manhattan. I love the less dense parts of the city.

I would definitely get overwhelmed in the more congested parts.

I love exploring and New York is a place - similar to Alaska!  - where you can explore. Nature vs. dense urbanity. 

Finding solitude was always so special in New York. It’s necessary for my nervous system, and I get that more here.

I took for granted how I was exposed to everything as a kid. I would complain about taking the subway from Brooklyn to the UES, but I do miss public transit. 

I also feel like I’m open to a lot of different types of people from a lot of different walks of life. We would all just be in the same physical place together. There are so many different types of NY and different worlds you can find there. 

And then, I landed in Anchorage and just felt, there’s something here for me. 

Anchorage has the most racially diverse public schools in the country. A lot of immigrant communities. 

I do definitely miss cultural enrichment, and am tapping into that in all the ways that I can. This is not a city. New York is the city, and will always be the city to me. 

Here, instead of skyscrapers, there are mountains. 

It’s so different, but I’m still able to live the life I want to live for the most part. And there’s more freedom here for me. There are all these reasons it felt right to live here.

I’m also always going to be so confident in my taste. I’m a bit of a snob, because I know I’m good enough to be in any room because I’ve been through it all. I’ve seen the wealthiest people, I was very well educated. I have confidence in my ability to weather a lot of different walks of life. 

ALEXA

Diving into the word authenticity more specifically, what does this word mean to you?

JULIA

I appreciate your journey through exploring authenticity because I don’t think it’s a word I’ve honestly grappled with much myself.

I thought about the word “integrity” a lot a few years back, and more recently I’ve been thinking about shadow work and embracing sides of me that I often hide because I don’t like them. 

To me, Authenticity encompasses both of those and is in the same realm of knowing yourself. It’s always a process; being aware of what you’re feeling and doing and being considerate to how that affects other people. 

I also don’t know if you can ever fully know yourself. 

Authenticity is about acting in concert with what you feel to be right and not trying to control outcomes –  putting something out there that feels like the right thing to put out, and then letting that go. 

ALEXA

Are there negative connotations of authenticity that you’ve heard, or been wary of? 

JULIA

The fixed identity pigeonhole of “authenticity.” I find value in changing my mind, and in not staying fixed in one particular view. That feels authentic to me. Authenticity feels mutable. 

I have a negative connotation to anything becoming a personal brand. 

And with social media — the work that goes into looking that “natural.” Authenticity is acknowledging the work that goes into the final product of something, not the “I woke up like this” but really, I didn’t wake up like this, phenomenon. 

It’s my second year on substack, and I’m really enjoying writing publicly in the blog/nonfiction style. It’s totally new. And there’s also a lot of comparison envy and self consciousness as I build subscribers. I’m realizing how much work it takes. And knowing how much work it takes somehow comforts me. I am starting to care less about it and feel more at peace. 

I also think about authenticity and marketing; the way that people sell authenticity on substack and other social media platforms especially. I think true authenticity would mean not caring about the followers at a certain point. But at the same time, substack is an addictive platform. 

ALEXA

How do you recognize others’ authenticity? 

JULIA

I don’t care if someone else is being authentic or not. I care about how I feel around them and trusting my intuition about the kinds of people I want to be around. 

I’ll never know if someone’s being authentic. All I can trust is my own senses of other people. 

And I err on the side of being overly trusting sometimes. I’m a very intuitive person, and the more I embrace that, the easier I can make my own life. 

I trust how I feel, and take someone at their word. That’s all I have.

As an introvert, I often need  breaks in an interaction; things like taking a break to go to the bathroom -  so I can check in with how I’m feeling and my body. 

Katherine May talks about life as performance and putting on masks, in a podcast episode that I’m thinking of.  Life does demand a kind of necessary performance — there are expectations. I don’t mind doing that, that feels natural to me. Reading a room is something I immediately learned as a child. 

 

My writing will also tell me how I’m feeling. I journal a lot. The things that come out of my journal often really surprise me. I try not to act on things until I’ve let them sit. 

ALEXA

I’d love to shift to discussing authenticity and messiness. What has helped you, on your path to figuring out who you are, and giving yourself compassion along the way? I feel like people often talk about being your authentic self as if it’s a cure to something, when in reality - it can be really hard to accept who you are authentic self really is, at times. 

I’m thinking about this piece of yours, and this quote.

“To me, the scariest adults are the ones who never let their messy selves emerge. “

JULIA

I’ve put a lot of work into getting to know myself over the last 5 years in particular. I have to give a shout-out to group therapy -  that’s been so useful for me to start getting feedback that I trust. I’ve had a room full of impressions about me that start to validate how I come across and give me more info about myself that I trust. 

The necessary foundation to start feeling safer is trusting myself. I’ve gotten really interested in knowing myself. And it’s fun! 

Last year, I went through a phase where I really went inward and was not feeling very social - I really wanted to spend time with myself. It was scary, because I didn’t know what I was going to find. Having tools and community and friends I trust to spew things at was really important. 

I’m less scared about what I’m going to find in self exploration. It used to scare me more when I was repressing. And those are the people in life who still scare me too — and that’s related to shadow work.

The more I’ve gotten to know myself - the less scary everything feels.

 I have a lot more compassion now, and I’m less reactive. I’m more in control of what I want to do with my life, and how I want my relationships to look.  It’s all been necessary and exciting. 

And there’s still stuff - there’s always going to be patterns and stuff that I’m exploring and trying to sit with.  It does take work and time, and it’s important to have support and tools. 

Reading other people’s newsletters and memoirs from people with similar journeys. Stories are so comforting. You feel less alone in it. It makes you want to go deeper in getting to know yourself, getting to know all these courageous people. There’s comfort in knowing that this is what life is, and it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong or broken. We just get to learn tools that work for us and make them our own. 

ALEXA

How are you hoping to cultivate more authenticity in 2024? What are some ways you already have? 

JULIA

Continuing with what I’m doing. And if anything, trying to be the writer of my own life. Being comfortable with there not being a blueprint. I can make one. I’m the one that knows best for me.

My goal this year is to really pay more attention to kindness and how my actions impact others. In a place where I can let down some of my self protective things that were pretty necessary when I was deeply introspective. And now I really just want to add as much positivity as I can and really own my own stuff, so that it doesn’t go on to other people. Gratitude is going to be a big part of 2024. 

I really like my life right now. There are things I want and I’m working towards. But I also really like life. 

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Once again, I don’t have the words to describe how much this conversation with Julia meant to me, or what a great impact I had on me.

Check out more of Julia’s work here.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite songs, aptly titled Alaska. It has nothing to do with the interview, or Julia, other than the title - but I couldn’t help myself!