Our current culture breeds insecurity in us.
The reality is, most of us walk around feeling that there’s something wrong with us.
We feel like we’re too loud, too quiet, not sociable enough. We don’t have enough friends or the right friends. We analyze our behavior constantly wondering if what we just said or did was offensive or might make people not like us.
We feel like we’re being judged based on our clothing, our hairstyles, our way of walking or speaking.
We feel like we have to change our weight, we feel badly about our height, about our facial structure, about how our bodies move or look.
We feel like we’re not smart enough, not informed enough, not eloquent or expressive enough.
We feel like we don’t have the right career, like we’re not worthy due to our relationship status, like we should have children or like people judge us for having kids.
We feel like we’re failing if our health isn’t ideal, if we are struggling with mental health issues, if we’re not able to be ‘successful’ in the way culture defines success at the moment.
Everywhere we turn in life, there seems to be someone who has more than us, who’s more attractive than us, who’s doing better than us who then makes us feel less than by comparison.
Along with this, many of us have been directly told or taught in some way that who and what we are isn’t good enough/is the reason people don’t like us.
Many of us have been picked on as both children and adults - told that we were too this or that or not enough of something - leading us to develop deep-seated self hate around certain aspects of who we are and how we express ourselves.
Many of us were raised in households where our fundamental nature wasn’t loved or accepted by our caregivers - leading again to what is essentially an existential fear of parts of ourselves that we were told made us unworthy of love or safety.
Many of us experienced not feeling or not being safe when we were growing up, and with this we associated parts of self with being the REASON we weren’t safe - believing if we could just change our bodies, personalities, likes and dislikes, ways of expressing ourselves and so on - that this would lead to us being accepted and approved of and would then create a feeling of safety that we so deeply wanted and needed.
These childhood insecurities likely grew with us into our adulthood where we have taken on the task of trying to ‘fix’ ourselves in an attempt to get rid of these parts of self that we feel insecure about - and oftentimes we start to associate these ‘bad’ parts of self with MOST of the pain we’re feeling in life.
They also became the evidence that we point to whenever we are feeling like life is going wrong and that it’s going wrong BECAUSE of what we’re insecure about. We aren’t insecure simply because of some sort of belief system - rather we have real life experiences with being rejected, bullied, left out, harmed or otherwise abandoned BECAUSE of these parts of self - and thus we feel totally justified in believing that they are the cause of our pain when we suffer in life and like if we could fix these parts we would feel better.
Then again, we look out into the world and these insecurities are validated. Culture tells us that we’re not enough. Culture tells us that we’re too much. Culture has a million and a half solutions for us to help us ‘fix’ ourselves so that we can ‘improve’ and then experience the lives we’ve always wanted to experience - or so they promise.
Which means we then go into ‘fixing ourselves’ mode, attempting to get RID of these ‘bad parts of self’ in the hopes that we will feel better in life once we do.
With this, many of us tend to find that no matter how hard we try, no matter how much effort we put into fixing ourselves, no matter the lengths we go to to ‘get rid of’ what we think is ‘wrong’ with us and no matter how much we end up ‘improving’ ourselves - we still feel like we’re not good enough. We still feel unworthy of love. We still feel unsafe in relationships. We still feel like no matter what we do, there’s always something we could/should be working on.
This is because most of us don’t actually realize what we’re feeling when we feel insecure, we don’t know WHY we are feeling that way, and we don’t know what it is we actually WANT when we say we want to ‘fix’ ourselves.
This is because the true root of insecurity is something we’re not looking at - but rather we are living on the surface of our pain and thus we aren’t able to actually address or heal that pain.
Below we are going to talk about what’s REALLY happening when we feel insecure and what we can do to actually soothe ourselves - because I promise you that working to ‘fix’ what you think is broken about you right now is likely NOT going to get you where you want to go.
Insecurity isn’t REALLY about what we think it’s about - and if we don’t see this, we are likely going to get stuck in these loops of self improvement that go nowhere for the rest of our lives.
What We’re REALLY Feeling When We Feel Insecure
The reality is, none of us ACTUALLY hate who we are, how we look or how we express because there is something actually fundamentally ‘wrong’.
The reality is, none of us developed insecurity in a vacuum - deciding for ourselves that there were things ‘wrong’ with us that we need to fix, change or hide purely because WE feel that way internally and naturally.
Rather, we LEARN to hate parts of ourselves, to blame parts of ourselves and to scapegoat parts of ourselves via conditioning and experiences with the outside world.
We develop habits and patterns that may have negative consequences not because we are actually bad, wrong, shameful or lacking in some way, but rather because these are the tools we started using to cope with whatever pain or suffering we were going through that we had no other way to manage.
We LEARN to be insecure - this is something we must deeply understand if we’re going to address insecurity in any real way.
Insecurity is learned, it’s not something inherent to us, nor is it something that we MUST carry due to having something ACTUALLY be wrong with us.
Next, we must understand WHY we develop insecurity in the first place.
Generally speaking, we develop these feelings of self doubt, self hate, self rejection and the feeling that who and what we are isn’t right/good enough because somewhere along the line in life we have experiences where we are rejected, abandoned, shamed, guilted or otherwise harmed or left out - and in this we either identify certain parts of self as being the ‘reason’ these painful experiences are happening OR we develop coping strategies BECAUSE of these experiences that we then become insecure about.
For example, if we were told by our caregivers over and over again that we were too loud, too needy, to dramatic or not outgoing enough - this alone can be enough to drive us into a deep state of insecurity about these parts of ourselves. Because to us, our caregivers are our source of all things - including our source of INFORMATION about what is and isn’t right/good. Their opinions become deeply imprinted ‘truths’ in our brains and bodies because again, living up to their expectations of us IS akin to being SAFE - we are going to talk more about this below.
If we experienced a lot of neglect in our childhoods or a sense that our caregivers were constantly unavailable or unable to help us solve our problems, we again were going to start looking for any perceived ‘patterns’ that we felt were the ‘thread’ between the times when our caregivers were there for us and the times when they weren’t. We were going to start to develop associations of certain aspects of ourselves and being abandoned, shamed, neglected or left to fend for ourselves as being the CAUSE, because to us there was no other way to perceive the situation. Even if our caregivers were doing what they were for reasons that had nothing to do with us, or if our behavior WASN’T the TRUE cause of their actions, to US we were going to perceive that it WAS because of us, and again we were going to develop deep insecurity.
If we experienced a feeling of never being safe in our homes, never feeling loved, never feeling like we were free to be ourselves and still get our needs met, again we were going to develop patterns of self suppression or trying to figure out who/what we needed to be to try to GET that safety. We may have learned to deeply abandon ourselves and to become people-pleasers - never really getting to learn who WE are and what WE feel - in order to try to get love and safety. We may have become hypervigilance and anxiety ridden, leading to all sorts of patterns of coping and numbing to try to get RID of those feelings.
If we were bullied, picked on, excluded or otherwise ostracized in school again, we were of COURSE going to associate any aspect of self we thought was the cause of this with being horribly wrong - because at this time in our lives fitting in and finding social connection was a MAJOR part of our development. When we felt cut off from that, we again were going to learn to blame and shame ourselves vs ever being able to see that OTHERS may be mean, rude or WRONG about their rejection of us, or being able to see that just because *some* people don’t like us, doesn’t mean that ALL people won’t. It would likely have felt to US like the end of the world, and thus driven us into a pattern of trying to fix ourselves so that that isolation would stop happening.
We have to really ground into the reality that when we perceive we are losing love, connection and the ability to be embraced by others, especially when we’re young, this is going to DEEPLY affect us. This is where our insecurities take root.
This is because to us, connection = safety. We have to recognize and really ground into the reality that it’s a deeply instinctual NEED that we have to feel that we are loved, supported and connected to a community of people who are going to care for and love us.
This is even MORE true when we are children. You see, when we are young, we are fully dependent upon our caregivers and those around us to love us and provide for us. The rejection, abandonment, harm and perceived lack of connection we can experience with our caregivers, if prolonged and if done in a way that makes us feel like we’re not going to be able to re-establish that connection is going to mean that deep in our bodies we learn that we are fundamentally unsafe. We are going to learn deep in our bodies that the WORST thing has happened and that we aren’t going to be ok. If this happens repeatedly, we are going to develop a deep, guttural feeling of being insecure in life in general because we feel that we are being continually cut off from our source of care and nourishment.
Then as children, we are going to start to look for what WE are doing to CAUSE this insecurity - because that is our one point of power. We don’t have the capacity to be resourceful on our own. We don’t have the capacity to understand that even if caregivers are upset with us that we can still be ok. We don’t know that we are going to grow up and be able to start meeting our own needs and being ok even if others don’t like us. Instead we just know that love and connection = survival, and the one thing we have control over in terms of trying to establish this love and connection is our own behavior.
This is where we learn to hate parts of ourselves, and to feel like if we could just ‘fix’ what’s ‘wrong’ with us, that ALL of our pain would go away.
We aren’t able to see that what we want is food, shelter, stimulation, education, support in being ourselves, love for the sake of love and connection for the sake of connection. Rather we just feel pain and automatically go looking for what’s wrong with US that is causing this pain.
We then grow into adults who carry forward with us this exact same pattern - usually without seeing it.
We grow into adults who are deeply insecure and feel like we need to fix ourselves every time we experience any kind of pain we don’t immediately understand and can’t immediately remedy - because the childhood coping mechanism of ‘pain = I am doing something wrong’ is so deeply ingrained in us.
THIS is where insecurity comes from.
The idea that we aren’t going to be SAFE if we aren’t LOVED.
The idea that all pain is sourced from not being loved, understood or valued by others.
So as adults, rather than being able to take a step back and feel what we are ACTUALLY feeling when we are hurting, to be able to process what’s actually happening and what we need - we just feel the pain of not having our needs met, not being liked, not feeling safe for any reason and our bodies and brains automatically go to that ‘thing’ we think is ‘wrong with us’ - and all the evidence we have that this thing REALLY IS the source of all of our pain - and we fully convinced that if we could just change this thing about ourselves, that everything would be better in our lives.
Over and over again.
So What Do We Do When We Are Feeling Insecure?
Meaning, the BEST way to deal with insecurity when we feel it, is to slow down and ask ourselves what we’re REALLY feeling.
When we have our insecurities triggered - this means that on some level we are feeling pain. We are feeling unsafe, unloved, like we aren’t going to get our needs met and like we aren’t going to be ok.
We are experiencing something that doesn’t feel good to us - and rather than being able to slow down and identify that - we are having an experience of our nervous systems kicking in and drawing us into those PATTERNS of self fixing before our minds even have a chance to figure out what’s going on. The survival instinct to fix ourselves when we are hurting is a DEEP PROGRAM for most of us, and it takes a lot of consciousness and discipline to be able to see this and to start to shift it.
Meaning the most important first step we need to take when we are feeling insecure, is to shift into compassion for ourselves.
We need to recognize that on some level we’re HURTING. We’re scared. We’re feeling like we aren’t going to be ok. THAT’S what’s coming up.
Thus, we need a moment of validation and safety with ourselves.
“I see you. I love you. I am so sorry you’re hurting. I am not going to abandon you.”
That’s the first thing we need when we are feeling insecure.
Next, we want to try to challenge the idea that it is really this ‘thing’ about us (our appearance, our tax bracket, our job, our personality) that is the CAUSE of the issue.
This can be REALLY hard to do because again, the mind is going to come up with all the examples it has for how this thing we are feeling insecure about really IS the cause of all of our issues. We are going to look at our past and all the times it DID lead to others not liking us, it did lead to us sabotaging or hurting ourselves, it did lead to some loss on some level - and I want you to know that this is normal. This is likely what’s going to happen. Those stories are going to seem totally legitimate to you not because they ARE but because your mind has been building a ‘case’ for them for what’s likely a very, very long time.
So with this, we again want to see if we can witness those stories, and just shift into a little bit of curiosity instead.
- Can you start to ask yourself what triggered this feeling of insecurity? What happened leading up to this moment?
- Where are you feeling unsafe in your life?
- Where are you experiencing something that you don’t want to experience but you don’t know how to get rid of?
- Where are you NOT getting something that you want?
- Where are you feeling unloved, unseen, unsupported or like you don’t matter?
- Where are you feeling like your needs aren’t getting met?
- Where are you feeling that you OWE others instead of being free to say a genuine yes or no?
- Where are you feeling that others are asking too much from you?
- Where are you feeling that you aren’t going to be safe in the future?
- Where are you feeling insecure in your FUTURE/circumstances?
- Can you start to inquire into what you are ACTUALLY going through?
Finally, you can help yourself figure out what you are ACTUALLY feeling by asking yourself a few of the following questions:
- What do you think is going to happen to you if you DON’T ‘fix’ this thing about yourself? What are you afraid you will then experience or not be able to experience?
- What do you think you are going to get if you were to fix this things about yourself? How would fixing this aspect of yourself change your experience?
- In the past, what led you to believe that this part of yourself was bad/wrong/shameful? What was happening to you at that time? What were you going through? What did you NEED in that moment that you weren’t getting? What did you get that you didn’t need/want? What was actually hurting you?
- If you knew that you would be loved forever and fully accepted even if this aspect were to never change - would you be able to be ok with it? Would it actually be something you needed to change? If so, can you start to lean into what you need to feel SUPPORTED in shifting this thing in your life, vs. feeling like you HAVE to change it otherwise you are unworthy of support?
- Can you ask yourself what you need to feel SAFE right now? What do you need to feel that life is ok?
- If you are dealing with a coping mechanism, can you ask yourself what this coping mechanism does for you in terms of positive outcome? What does it help you feel? What does it help you not feel? What does it help you avoid? What needs does it meet for you that you know no other way of getting met? How does this behavior serve you?
Then with all of this - how can you SUPPORT yourself?
Can you shift from trying to FIX yourself, to trying to figure out what you actually need to feel safe, loved and supported and start working from THAT place?
Can you grieve the times in your life where we weren’t loved, supported or safe instead of blaming yourself for them?
Can you allow yourself to be upset about what happened to you, instead of telling yourself it was your fault?
Can you start to get curious about where you might currently be hurting and needing life to change - instead of blaming it all on yourself?
How can you shift into a state of self SUPPORT vs. a state of self improvement?
This is how we work through this.
When we are feeling insecure, what we really need is love, support, validation and understanding.
We don’t need to be fixed. We need to feel loved, and we need to feel empowered to look for what’s actually hurting us, and what we need in order to feel better.
We need to be brave enough to look PAST the surface insecurity into what may be going on for us on these deeper levels.
Hopefully this article will help you start this new process.
Don’t worry if answers to the above questions don’t feel obvious or come quickly. Take your time with this. This is going to be a PRACTICE you must do over TIME - as questioning these instinctual patterns is NOT an easy task at ALL. It takes commitment and repetition.
Keep challenging the idea that you are broken and that life will be fixed when you fix yourself, so you can figure out what’s REALLY going on with you.
One step at a time.
<3
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