Overcoming insecurities.
What are insecurities? These are uncertainty or doubts about ourselves and our abilities, anxieties, being nervous or lacking in confidence.
Everyone has insecurities. These insecurities often come from what others have done or said, directly or indirectly to us, around us, about us, or about others. No matter what, it’s a part of life and a part of us all. Some people carry more than others, and some are better at hiding them, some are better at dealing with them, some will never let their pride and ego admit to them. We all, however, have insecurities.
We can worry about how we look if we’re doing all we should, what would happen if we try and fail, what if people will think we are fake, too fat, too thin, do they like me, do they hate me, am I good enough for them, am I good enough for the job, am I enough?
Obstacles to overcome.
- The past.
- Past criticism.
- Negative self-image.
- Lack of trust.
- Needing approval.
- Not accepting things about ourselves.
- Social media.
You might well have been born with lots of confidence or sensitivity. Usually, at some point, you might have stood up for yourself just to get shot down by someone, even a friend saying I’m better than you can hurt young children, or seeing a child do something you couldn’t as a child and questioning yourself, there are those that it will drive them forwards to achieving and those who believe they are not good enough, all helped with the words of those around them.
Those confident childhood bullies that always pick on others. They have their own insecurities, problems and unhappiness deep within themselves, but they place on the confidence mask and go around destroying others’ self-esteem to make themselves feel betters. Most people don’t understand why they bully or that the child bully needs help. They don’t know it’s time to take action and find out what makes those childhood bullies into what they are and get to the root cause of their unhappiness before they grow into adult bullies. (Not all childhood bullies grow into adult bullies.) some bully others throughout the school as they themselves are being bullied.
Those children with, Anxiety, Depression and those who self-harm, to name a few, from eating disorders to cutting, everyone just goes for councillors and pills. Some do need these methods. All need to get to the root cause of why they are so unhappy.
Once you bring up those vulnerabilities and insecurities, when people know they are not alone and work on fixing the root causes, adults become much happier adults, as do children. Children often need help, support and guidance. Adults also need help, guidance and support. Sometimes just getting them out of a toxic environment or away from a toxic or harmful person can do them a world of good.
The reality is when people do speak up for who they are, they will find so many people feel the same, who think alike and do have similar views and experiences to yourself. People have insecurities, vulnerabilities and fears, and these feelings are normal. People understand you, they are feelings that are manageable, and it doesn’t have to take over your day to day life.
There are those narcissistic people and people not on the disorder that if you don’t heal your insecurities within yourself, narcissists will find them and rip them wide open to hurt you, to cut you deep and make you feel worse about yourself to make them feel better about themselves.
We have to get to know ourselves so well so that those around us can no longer use us against us. Words hurt, especially if we allow them to.
We can all get invalidated from a young age, and we never knew there was anything wrong with how we looked until you get called four eyes for those who wore glasses, Tin face for wearing braces, your skin colour, your hair colour, your eyes, your freckles, the fact your short, tall, too fat or to thin. Used against you by someone, or hearing it said about others even if it’s not said directly to you, when you listen to people getting called things for wearing glasses. You also wear glasses, when you see the posters and magazines, the tv shows the movies, and you just don’t look like they do, you don’t then understand you are great for precisely who you are, there are plenty of people who have the same hair colour, underweight, overweight. Super tall, super small, this is what makes us who we are, and it’s only a problem because we allow the cruel words that others say to get into our own minds, when in reality, they have the problem, if they didn’t they wouldn’t feel the need to put others down. When society starts making more significant issues out of things, people’s beliefs and realities change, especially when it’s blasted at you on social media and tv, plus there’s usually only one side of the story told. Hence, people take on those views and perceptions as their own. When you get both sides to a story, you can then form your own opinions, of you, of who you are, being happy in the skin your in with the mind you’ve got to think for yourself.
When you speak out, and negative people use it against you, it chips away at you. You have to understand they are the ones with the problem. Genuine people will help you.
If you take four people that had different views, opinions or perspectives that are individual to themselves, even if they don’t match yours, and they are kind, then they are entitled to do so, most reasonable people will see the viewpoint of each, if they agree or disagree it doesn’t matter, they can see it acknowledge it, understand it, see where they are coming from yet keep true to their own viewpoints.
Problems only occur when you get people or groups of people that a so channelled and tunnel-visioned they only see it their way and their way only, which is fine. They are entitled, but if they then use this to bring others down, it’s no longer ok. If they use this to brainwash people to conform to their demands, it’s no longer ok. If they manipulate to pull people into their thinking by adapting a story to suit them, this is not ok. Just like everyone is entitled to an opinion or perspective, everyone is allowed to be who they want to be.
Far too many people are growing up without self-belief within themselves, without the knowledge and power of who they are, to love and trust within themselves. This is creating a growing epidemic of toxic relationships and narcissistic personality disorder, as well as other disorders.
You might find after a narcissistic relationship, if it was your parents, a long term best friend, your partner, or a boss, you are now afraid to speak up for yourself, full of self-doubt, constantly apologising, and also in fear of judgment from others over anything you say and do, constantly questioning yourself about your own actions and intentions. For fear of reactions, saying the wrong thing, upsetting people and not being liked, which just loses who we are.
When you’ve lived in two different realities, the charming narcissist and the not so nice narcissist, you can have your belief systems saying one thing to you. Still, because you can see one reality at times, the one you want, then at others, not a hurtful painful reality full of fear, your own mind turns against you, and it becomes a very confusing place to live.
When you’ve been gaslighted with phrases like, “that never happened, I told you last week, you need help, your crazy and you are insecure.” When you’ve been told. “You can not do that, and they don’t like you. They talk about you.” The world becomes an extremely confusing and insecure place to live in your own mind, and gaslighting is an insidious form of mental abuse, causing you to lose your own reality.
It is extremely hard to come away from that, especially if you’ve also got reactive abuse when you spend a lot of time around these people. Even genuine people can be poked to react, even in self-defence. That’s not to say either party’s actions are good. That’s to say it is more than understandable why you reacted, and know the relationship is toxic. You need to get out, someone that will prod and poke at you until they grab your attention until they get those tears, that anger or that rage, is not someone who cares for you. Those who genuinely care would not want to see you hurt or in pain. They will blame shift onto you from the reactions you gave to them, leaving you again more insecure afraid to speak up and what full of guilt for you’ve done.
When you genuinely think about it, you might also notice that you played down the things they did to you, “it didn’t happen that often. We were in a relationship anyway.”
Letting insecurities take over who you are, allowing them to grow within your mind is a dangerous habit that needs to be broken. When you’re uncertain or lacking in confidence within your own abilities, full of self-doubt and anxiety, it harms your present and your future. You’ve got to see them, accept them, change them if required.
Many Psychologists believe that insecure attachment develops in early childhood, those first relationships and bonds we create with our primary caregivers, which builds the foundation for the types of relationships we have in adult life.
Unfortunately, many people are then only capable of forming insecure attachments to others. The bond is more through fear, getting into relationships with mixed emotions, feelings and beliefs, either from a childhood of previous negative relationship experience can lead to the fear of rejection, and becoming dependent on those you should really walk away from.
When people have secure attachments, they believe others have a genuine, kind, caring hearts and expect the best from them. Meaning even those who grew up with healthy childhood attachment, as they think others are genuine, can become confused in a narcissistic relationship, as the reality you live when you first meet the narcissist you live with. It’s real. With the gaslighting and projection than the blame-shifting, you often get left full of self-doubts and insecurities. In the next relationship, you carry those insecurities with you.
Happiness can be deeply affected by the ending of a relationship, job loss, death of a loved one, health problems, money problems, being unhappy can affect your self-esteem. Rejection can knock your confidence, and this can lead to the woe is me mindset, then you’re on the lookout for all the negatives in life. Leading to the woe is me mentality.
In some ways, we are being conditioned from early childhood how to think, feel and behave, even down to the areas we are raised, what we call things, “bread roll, bread cake, bap, cop, bun, barm cake, biscuit,” we get our minds programmed where we are, from what we call things to the language we speak, it’s all about learning who we are and who we want to be. When we carry insecurities and fear of getting hurt, this is the thing that leads us to be hurt the most, and we have to be honest with ourselves first. To others, if we get hurt by keeping ourselves hidden, it’s time to open up a relationship to others. There is no wrong with having insecurities and vulnerabilities.
Jealous and envy cause so many insecurities. Years ago, when people lived in the same towns or villages and people owned similar things, there wasn’t as much competition to see. Those from the top 5% would do their best to keep control of that. Now we see from t.v and the media what others have. That quick fix of getting things means some people grow to feel entitled, nothing wrong with this, and they do, however, need to learn that if they want something, they need to be themselves and go all out to earn them without the need to destroy others, those who do well and give back are more fulfilled than those who take and lose out. We are allowed to want the simple things, the big things or the grand things. It’s all personal preference as to who you want to be, your journey in life, where you’d like to go.
Over many years of being hurt by others, we slowly become progressive, not trusting others, as people hurt us and often walk away.
A lack of confidence usually starts from somewhere, either picking up our parents’ lack of confidence (learned behaviour.) or from teachers, friends, other family members.
Overcoming insecurities from past experiences of failure or rejection. Those obstacles are the path to guide our way.
- Take time to heal, to adapt, to learn and to grow, to look at your beliefs, to take the lesson and leave the past.
- Get back up, back out and go again, learn about creating yourself, what you like and don’t like, what you want to say yes to and what you want to say no to.
- Get curious and find new interests for you, things that interest you.
- Get feedback from trusted friends and family lots of online support groups, and you don’t need to join in. Just take it all in. You’ll see that you’re far from alone in how you think and feel, ship out those negative people and listen to the positive that is already doing it.
- Be willing to try a different method. If something isn’t working for you, change it and go again.
- Keep moving forward.
- Talkback to your inner critic, listen to how you talk to yourself, knock off any negativity, and criticise and any self-doubt. “I am worthy, and I am me, I can do this.” Look for the positives in life. Look at those things you have achieved and build on them.
- Set realistic goals, especially to start with, start small with quick wins to build yourself back up slowly. If you’ve had one or two major knockbacks, now is not the time for more.
- Ask who I am?
- Start doing those things you enjoy doing for yourself.
- Stop fearing judgement from others. I know this is hard. Still, honestly, the only opinions that matter about you are yours. If you don’t like something about yourself, then change it for you and you only. Good people will walk with you. Let those negative walk away from you.
Forgiving those who have hurt you in the past, for you to move forward. We all have our insecurities. They Are unable to forgive and heal. We all make our mistakes. Remember, forgiveness is for you. Holding onto hurt, pain, guilt, anger, and resentment will only keep you back. It’s time to let it all go. If it serves you to hate them, hate them. If not, learn to let it go. Use your emotions to propel you forward, not to hold you back.
Self-trust, learning your boundaries, values, standards and your beliefs for you, trusting within your own judgement, if someone doesn’t feel right for you, let them go. Trust at the moment and let the rest unfold, make small predictions for the positive outcomes you want.
Only compare yourself to you, who you are, and who you want to be.
Self-approval, practice this until you get it. You only need your approval, not others. See the beauty in who you are.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
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Video to explain how narcissistic people invalidate you.
Self-esteem.
