Welcome
I’m Alex — counsellor-in-training, father, and writer exploring what it means to live gently in a fast world.
Embracing Authenticity started as my own healing project: a place to process childhood wounds, masking, addiction to coping strategies, and the slow work of becoming more secure. Over time, it’s become something bigger: a resource for anyone who is tired of performing and wants to understand themselves more deeply.
This site isn’t about becoming “perfect” or “fixed.” It’s about learning to live in a way that is more honest, more regulated, and more rooted in who you actually are.
If you’d like to understand the heart behind all of this, read The Commitment to Being Authentic.
How to Use This Site
Think of this place as a companion rather than a programme. You don’t have to “do it all.” Just choose what supports you right now.
1. Self-Discovery Path
A gentle, structured path through survival roles, attachment patterns, and slowly becoming more yourself. Written so a younger version of you (or your child) could follow along too.
2. Music & Meaning
A “music therapy” section where songs become mirrors — a way to understand your emotions, history, and inner child through the music you already love.
3. Personal Reflections
Honest entries about parenting, trauma, dating, therapy training, and healing. Not polished advice — real markers of what the work looks like in an actual life.
They’re here to help you feel less alone, not to tell you how you “should” feel.
A Gentle Lens on Difference
Many people who find this site relate to being autistic, ADHD, highly sensitive, or simply “too much” or “too deep” for the environments they grew up in. You don’t need a diagnosis for any of this to apply to you.
Instead of forcing yourself to be “normal,” we look at your nervous system, your history, and your patterns with curiosity. What if there’s nothing wrong with how you’re wired — only with how it’s been responded to?
- Understanding emotional overwhelm and shutdown
- Unmasking safely and at your own pace
- Finding slower, quieter ways of living that still feel meaningful
This Isn’t Therapy. And That Matters.
Therapy isn’t always available. But healing work doesn’t pause just because the system is slow.
Embracing Authenticity is designed as a companion: something you can use between sessions, while you’re on a waiting list, or alongside your own reflective work.
Some pieces go into painful territory — childhood wounds, shame, loneliness, and psychosis. It’s normal for this to stir things up. It can also feel like a lot to hold on your own.
When you can, walk this journey with a qualified therapist or mental health professional. You deserve support. You don’t have to make sense of everything alone.
Pause and Breathe
You don’t have to read everything today. Take a sip of tea. Notice your body. Come back when something in you says yes, not when you feel pressured to keep going.
Why I Built This Site
I didn’t build this to brand myself or prove I have it all figured out. I built it because for most of my life I felt unseen, misunderstood, and alone with feelings that were too big for the rooms I was in.
This site is a record of what healing actually looks like over years: setbacks, strong emotions, good days, difficult boundaries, slow progress, and small moments of real connection.
If anything here helps you feel less alone, gives you language for what you’re feeling, or helps you ask for better support in therapy, then it’s doing what it was meant to do.
Recent Reflections from the Journey
Letting Life Unfold Without Managing It
Learning to loosen my grip on outcomes and trust the parts of life that can't be controlled.
Read More →Being Seen Without Performance
Trying to let myself be seen without shaping myself to be liked.
Read More →These are personal reflections from my own process. Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t, and bring anything important back into your own therapy or journaling.