Sections
Authentic relationships begin when we present our true selves in connection with others.
It involves being sincere and vulnerable with one another while feeling safe. It’s about not pretending to be happy when you’re sad to meet others' expectations. It means sharing your experiences openly without fear of judgment.
To make space for another person’s experience — equally unique and valuable as our own. To create an environment for interaction where there is room for everyone’s feelings, emotions, and desires, without shifting the focus disproportionately to one side.
To make space for another person’s experience — equally unique and valuable as our own. To create an environment for interaction where there is room for everyone’s feelings, emotions, and desires, without shifting the focus disproportionately to one side.
To be authentic means not hiding behind a mask and embracing all aspects of who we are.
- A new language and communication skills for clearly and accurately expressing your true experience in the "here and now," while inviting others to do the same.
- Awareness to identify your genuine desires and the ability to communicate them to others.
- Dignity and courage to express your authentic voice, paired with humility to learn from people and the world around you.
- The ability to recognize the essence of another person and create a space for connection.
- A powerful set of tools for de-escalating conflict and using it as a means to foster genuine closeness in relationships.
- The restoration of a childlike, sincere curiosity.
- The ability to cultivate an environment that fosters open and honest dialogue in close relationships and within teams.
- The skill to recognize context and its influence on our feelings and actions.
- Experience in building deep, trusting relationships with others.
What does Authentic Relating (AR) offer?
What does Authentic Relating (AR) offer?
In childhood, we often choose attachment over authenticity to gain our parents' approval. As a result, our consciousness fragments, and we hide pieces of our soul like Horcruxes from the Harry Potter books, as a defense against vulnerability. We exert effort to ensure no one discovers who we truly are. Depression, personality disorders, and anxiety often stem from this fragmentation of the self.
Canadian psychiatrist and trauma expert Gabor Maté identifies two essential needs in children: reliable attachment and authentic self-expression.
AR helps achieve a sense of wholeness
We reclaim our wholeness, alongside the ability to form deep and close relationships with others. In doing so, we find strength where we once saw only weaknesses.
Practicing Authentic Relating
Two worlds that beautifully complement each other
However, this transformation is often disrupted by rules and expectations about how things "should" be. Over years of technological, urban, and medical advancement, we have lost the authenticity of many processes in life. Others dictate how we should grieve, where and how we should die, and what is "appropriate" to do after the death of a loved one.
Authentic relating practice helps us reconnect with ourselves and feel what is true for us in the present moment.
Authentic relating practice helps us reconnect with ourselves and feel what is true for us in the present moment.
Death is an event that belongs to each of us. Encountering death is a deeply transformative experience.
Death doula work
Authentic relating
- Supporting others without the need to fix them or solve their situation.
- Bearing another person’s pain and fear, allowing us to witness the extraordinary transformations of the human body and spirit.
- Accompanying someone in their moments of greatest vulnerability, with genuine curiosity and kindness.
- Creating a space where closeness and sincerity can emerge between people.
- Maintaining connection with yourself to discern what feels true in the present moment.
- The capacity to empathize with another person, even when overwhelmed by despair, pain, anger, or grief.
We combine death doula work and Authentic Relating
We train professionals to accompany others through dying and grieving, while fostering meaningful, profound, and sincere connections. In this space, it becomes possible to safely express authenticity and reclaim not just life, but also death.
Submit your application to participate