The best way to get a grip on your insecurities is to loosen it—yes, loosen your grip. Stop fighting your insecurities. Make peace with them. Make friends with them. Understand that everyone’s insecure, although many disguise, or compensate for, their insecurities in ways that make them less visible.
Challenge the archaic notion that insecurity is synonymous with weakness. Nothing could be less true. As human beings, we’re all acutely vulnerable, some of us more in touch with our vulnerability than others. When we accept our insecurities, we can experience them from a non-adversarial place. A non-adversarial relationship with our insecurities lessens their “felt intensity” over time.
Meanwhile, we can mindfully confront the extent to which our insecurities increase our avoidance. A wise goal is to coexist peacefully with our insecurities, without letting them derail us from our constructive agendas. Consider that the healthiest people aren’t the least insecure, but those least ashamed of, and most comfortable with, their insecurities.
Rethink what confidence means. Confidence isn’t always about feeling secure, certain and free of doubt. In its purest form, confidence is often about pushing forward as we feel assailed by high, painful levels of nervousness, anxiety and uncertainty. This is the ultimate “leap of faith,” and when you begin making patterns of such leaps, consider yourself a sixth-degree black belt in true confidence.
To sum up, practice the art and commitment of making true peace with, as I say, even friends with, your insecurities. In so doing, you’ll find yourself less inclined to blame them for hindering you, or holding you back. Your need to scapegoat your insecurities as causes of your struggling will lessen. Your reliance on avoidance to manage your insecurities will decrease significantly. In all respects, you’ll benefit hugely from cultivating a warm, non-hostile relationship to them.
Let’s talk some more about this?