Authenticity As a Wellness Practice

Learn more about the The Emotional Freedom Framework™ Guided Journal and authentic living at mixedgreensforthesoul.com.

You're not burned out because you're doing too much — you're burned out because you're pretending too much.

I recently joined a conversation on P.O.D Season 2 Ep 52 about being makeup-free and being yourself. While the topic may sound surface-level, what we really explored was the emotional and systemic cost of constant performance. 

When people feel pressure to present instead of be present, their nervous systems stay in a state of vigilance. Over time, this doesn't just lead to fatigue — it leads to full-blown burnout.

And here's what the research tells us: it's not because people are weak. It's because inauthenticity is physiologically unsustainable.

A 2020 meta-analysis published in Personality and Individual Differences analyzed 75 studies with over 36,000 participants and found that authenticity has a correlation of 0.40 with overall well-being, a relationship strong enough that researchers now consider it a fundamental predictor of psychological health. The same research shows that authenticity is negatively correlated with both emotional exhaustion and cynicism, the core components of burnout.

In other words, authenticity is not a personality trait or a personal preference. It's a wellness condition.

Consider the workplace data: a 2021 survey by the Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership found that when employees can be authentic at work, 71% feel more confident, 60% feel more engaged, and 46% report feeling happier. Yet when organizational cultures demand performance over presence, research shows that relational authenticity accounts for only 8% of employee well-being. The remaining 92% depends on systemic factors: leadership, psychological safety, and whether vulnerability is met with support or punishment.

Wellness cannot be reduced to individual effort alone. Self-care strategies fail when environments do not support psychological safety, reflection, and emotional honesty.

This is why I focus on emotional freedom and wellness ecosystems in my work. Emotional freedom isn't about fixing yourself — it's about building awareness, skills, and structures that allow people to respond instead of react.

If authenticity feels risky, it's often because the environment doesn't support it. And that's a design flaw, not a personal failing.

I unpack these ideas further in my recent interview and in my book, The Emotional Freedom Framework™ Guided Journal, which is designed to move people from insight to intentional practice.

👉 Watch the conversation here: https://youtu.be/e8CFIuNV-Pc

👉 Learn more about my guided journal here: https://a.co/d/0WUaLb6

Resources:

Sutton, A. (2020). Living the good life: A meta-analysis of authenticity, well-being and engagement. Personality and Individual Differences, 153, 109645.

Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership (2021). The Importance of Authenticity in the Workplace: 2021 Leadership Development Survey.

Vīra et al. (2024). Correlation Between Personnel' Authenticity in the Workplace, Burnout, and Well-Being. Society, Integration, Education, Volume II.