Managing Insecurities: A How-to in Feeling More Secure
By: Rose Mejia
Tags: Self Esteem, Insecure, Confidence, Secure

Insecurities are human-kryptonite. What we value can make us or break us.

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Feeling insecure and having insecurities is a common human experience. Even the most arrogant narcissist has insecurities, they just know how to hide them differently. Insecurities are anxiety-provoking. They make us question our worth, our abilities, our personal value. Insecurities may get in the way of relationships, honesty, and trust. They’re often the reason why bullies hurt others, why cheaters hurt their partner, why we as people hurt each other. In feeling insecure, we fear some kind of loss; loss of power, agency, authority, control, value. Insecurities drive our protective behaviors and onset our defense mechanisms.

Some of the most common insecurities include feeling that we’re not good enough, that we’re not lovable, or that we’re not valuable. In our search to fill these insecurities, we may commit to unimaginable extremes simply to prove ourselves. To prove that we’re worthy of being seen, accepted, and loved. It’s difficult to really stem out why insecurity is a common human driving force. It can be that from a evolutionary standpoint, it is the one thing that could push us more than anything else to survive and later thrive. But what about when our insecurities become so overwhelming that they begin to become a disadvantage? Such as to the extremes where others begin to get hurt along the way? Well, there’s a way to alleviate these insecurities or at least simply change the perspective held on them.

Become Aware

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The first step is becoming aware of the insecurities. Acknowledging what is contained in them; are they about your physical appearance, your personality, your family origin? Are they external or internal?

Along with being aware of the insecurities themselves, it is also helpful to allocate the triggers associated with them. Do you feel triggered during family dinners or get-togethers? When your partner is talking to someone else or taking too long to reply to your message? Or perhaps when a co-worker or boss confronts you about a recent project that you completed?

Try to explore and be aware of all dimensions of your insecurities. Sometimes one set of insecurities may be rooted along with others. Such as your view of yourself as a spouse or parent may be threaded to beliefs about your ability to provide and protect. Therefore, it’s best to try to account for all the different insecurities that you may be experiencing.

Allocate the Origin

Once you’ve become aware of your insecurities, begin to question where they came from. Are they rooted from childhood trauma? Are they voiced by your parents, relatives, or friends? Do they come from yourself and your own beliefs about who you are, are from someone or even something else? Often at times, we’ll see that our insecurities come from an outside source that we later adopted as our own. In adopting these external beliefs, we may mold and shape them into the stories that we tell ourselves of who we are, what we’re worth, and what we’re capable of.

Worst of all, because we’re the person that we spend all of our time with, we are often our worst critics. We may twist and turn our insecurities into our own kryptonite. Not is this only damaging to our self-esteem, it may later be externally expressed within our relationships, interactions with others, and how we live our lives.

Work Through It

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If the origin of your insecurities is rooted in trauma, it would be best to work through the trauma first before working on the insecurities. This is because when trauma is intertwined with our insecurities, negative or overwhelming emotions may be tied with them. In which our triggers not only attack our ego but our emotional and mental well-being as well. Remember, when gardening you cannot mend to the soil until you pick out all the small rocks embedded within.

In talking about and healing the trauma, you may even find it easier to be more aware of the kinds of insecurities you’re holding. Not to mention that you’ll be letting go of extra emotional baggage. Providing you space and energy to then work on the insecurities that you may want to tackle.

Your Value System & Having a Growth Mindset

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So, how can we handle our insecurities? There are two ways. The first is changing our value system. Meaning that we must change the qualities or traits that we once viewed or perceived to be important. For example, many women often value physical appearance to be of high value. But in changing that value to instead praising intelligence or assertiveness over physical appearance, any woman of any age may change their view of themselves. Seeing themselves as attractive or worthy not because of how they look, but because of who they are.

The second way is by having a growth mindset. Often at times, we fear our insecurities because we may see them as fixed traits; parts of ourselves that will always be broken. However, in distinguishing the parts of ourselves that we can change and those that we cannot, we open our minds to seeing that we’re not exactly who we perceive ourselves to be. Some parts of ourselves, sure, we’ll need to accept and live with. But those parts that can be improved, molded, or shaped are where our biggest advantage lies. Because in learning that we can always better ourselves, we begin to give ourselves the power to work on our insecurities. To make them into traits that we value or find worthy.

For example, many people feel insecure about their level of intelligence. This is because traditional educational systems value certain qualities over others. Therefore, not all possible dimensions of intelligence are monetized. Even though our natural intelligence is mostly genetically fixed, we can train ourselves to think differently and to perceive problems as challenges. In doing so, we may begin to feel smarter or more intelligent because in working on what we saw as a weakness and changing how we initially approached things, we began to make it into one of our strengths.

Validate Yourself

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A reason why insecurities often break people is that they may search for validation in others. They want someone else to confirm that they’re worthy and valuable; they give others the power to dictate their importance. This is dangerous for many reasons, but it simply brings up the point of how important it is for us to learn how to validate ourselves. To know how to recognize our efforts, reward our progress, and simply cherish ourselves for who we are and who we are becoming.

If there is a specific insecurity that you’re struggling with, then perhaps taking it from a different perspective would be more productive. Meaning that instead of invalidating yourself for this insecurity, try switching your values so that which makes you insecure carries less weight. Create your own set of values that uphold you. That makes you confident. That brings you closer to the authentic you.