We can't run from the feelings we don't want to feel

​Back in January, I said this was going to be my year of living authentically. Halfway through the year, I think I've come a long way.

'Authentic' has become a trendy word. It means different things to different people. For me, when I said it, it meant I'm done trying to separate the feelings and emotions I share with the world, and the ones I feel like I need to hide from the world.

Here's the thing about hiding emotions from the world. Before you get good at hiding them from the world, you have to get good at hiding them from yourself. And that's impossible.

It's impossible and unhealthy.

Because the emotions we're trying to hide, they have voices louder and more vicious than any voice we're afraid of on the other side of expressing them. There's no basement deep enough to bury them. No basement where the voices just one day say, I guess Keith isn't going to listen to us anymore. We give up.

Quite the opposite. They get angry that the 'good' emotions are getting all the attention. And in a way, they are screaming, 'this isn't even the real you - just wait until we tell the world how lousy you really feel.'

Our 'negative emotions' actually become a daily and living threat to us.

So many of the things we see in this world in terms of the habits and addictions we are quick to judge - they are really people's attempts at dealing with those internal threats. They are people's attempts at drowning out the voices rising from their basements.

Here's the thing I've discovered in the year of authentic. Not everyone is comfortable hanging out in our basement, and we're not comfortable inviting just anyone there. I get that. Basements are creepier than a living room with it's big soft sofa and beautiful artwork and the bigscreen TV.

There are some people who are simply living room people in your life.

But we all have to have some basement people. We have to have people who will climb down those creeky dark steps, people who will say, I was getting kind of tired of all those 'good emotions' anyways.

Because likely, they've been trying to drown out some basement voices themselves.

It's an odd place to find authentic - in the basement. But it's also peaceful. And freeing - this place where the voices aren't threatening, but accepting and consoling and encouraging.

More of our living room relationships are built on hiding emotions than sharing them than we realize. So many of our exchanges with one another are built far more on hiding than they are on sharing. That, more than anything else in this world, has made us exhausted and depressed and lost.

Maybe living in the basement doesn't sound appealing, but I assure you it can feel it.

It might be the perfect place to start building some new living rooms.