“Why do I have to have to tell you that I love you all the time? Why do you get jealous when I go out with my friends.? Why can’t you do anything properly ? Why do you have to be so insecure?”
Do these phrases seem familiar to you? You might have heard someone say these to you or you might have said these to someone.
We’re talking about insecurity.
It is quite common to feel inadequate, unsure or uncertain at times. We all have our days where we feel slightly low in enthusiasm than the normal days. Where we question our own productivity. It’s completely okay to be unsure at times. It puts us on a road to figure out what pattern works best, to re-evaluate our goals and plans. Sometimes a detour is necessary.
But what about those people who feel insecure on a daily basis?
So much that it has spread its tentacles over them experiencing feelings of jealousy, self doubt, low self worth etc.
Insecurity is a constant nagging feeling which screams into your ears that you are not good enough, you are not sufficient, you are not capable enough, a hopeless place where your entire self worth is measured by the amount of work you perfectly finish at the end of the day. And yet something is left out.
What’s more frustrating is when people look at that one small work which is undone and leave out the entire bucket of work which you have accomplished. And thus you swing back into the same feeling of questioning yourself. “am I good enough?”
Insecurity doesn’t sprout overnight. It is that narrative which has been fed into your mind since your childhood. Family systems, school, friend circle, society, your belief system. Everything plays a very important role in shaping how you see yourself. By belief system I don’t mean religion but your core values, the ethics on which you’ve based your life. Certain patterns of behavior which you have imbibed over the years.
Of all the above, family systems play a very important role in shaping your personality. They determine to a large extent how you value yourself. If you have grown in a family which was critical of you, the very seeds as to why you feel insecure lies there.
Some of the major causes behind insecurity are explained below
Comparing. Constant comparison between the neighbor’s child, school topper or any random supposedly successful child and you. Comparisons between their abilities and yours. Stopping your desire for extra curricular activities and forcing you to take up a certain stream of studies or career just because others are doing it too. Comparisons between siblings and cousins are equally harmful. They create a major rift in relationships which are supposed to be caring and supportive towards each other. Be like your brother, be like your sister, be like xyz, kills your love for yourself. Emulating good and healthy habits is one thing, forcing it on somebody just so that parental peer pressure is met, is an entirely different ball game all together. Slowly you’ll notice that you’ve gotten into the realm of doing things that are done by everyone else. You’ll also notice that you have started to compare yourself with others. Your sense of success is defined by others and not you. Not on the basis of what you want. Fear of missing out (FOMO) starts here.
Verbal abuse. Words hit deeper than a sword. A physical wound can be healed but a mental wound creates a scar in the heart forever. These form the narratives in the mind which I had mentioned above. By narratives I mean, the perception that we have about ourselves. If you have grown up listening to things like “you’re not good enough, you’re a fool, how can you be so dumb?” If your efforts have been made fun off. If you’re used to being called dumb or stupid or unattractive. You’re already insecure. Words have power. Children believe what we speak to them with conviction. If you’re the one who has grown up hearing all this. Chances are that you believe what has been passed down to you. In you subconscious mind you do struggle with accepting yourself as a person who is not stupid or dumb. It’s a vicious circle. What you have seen being imparted to you, you’ll pass on the same things. Those same words will slip out of your tongue when your child makes the same mistake or your colleague makes a silly mistake. You might judge yourself and others based on their outer appearance. This is how it revolves. The good part is,once there is an awareness, you can choose to break the cycle.
Punishing in public. Being yelled at in front of relatives or friends. Being slapped in public or in front of teachers. If your indiscipline at home has been discussed with teachers or friends or relatives in a demeaning manner. Your self confidence is at question here.
Alcoholic parent or parents. This is enough a reason to struggle with fearfulness, helplessness, trust issues etc.
Conditional love. Love makes the world go around. It makes you do things you wouldn’t have dreamt of. It’s the most purest emotion you can receive from someone or give to someone. Not just in a romantic way but through so many other bonds. Love binds all relations. Now imagine putting conditions to it. “I’ll love you if you perform, I’ll love you if you do xyz for me, You should earn my love”. Statements like these may put you in deep sadness, you may wonder why love has to be conditional? Conditions are put on business deals, on partnerships and not on any kind of relationship. Love is supposed to be unconditional and free. If you have been in a relationship where you have to perform to be loved, you already have a wrong idea of love and a twisted sense of relationships. You’ll see that it has become quite normal for you to have and put conditions in love.
Failures. Failures are healthy, it helps you work harder, re-align your goals, evaluate what worked and what didn’t. However, if you’ve been facing failures for quite a long period of time, it might have gotten frustrating by now. Instead of seeing failure in a particular area as an independent part of you, you might go into the mode of calling your entire life a failure. You might struggle with meeting people, discussing their lives, taking part in their success journey while you feel like a loser. It’s a downward spiral. The only formula to success is to keep trying, no matter how many tries it takes. Know that with each failure, you have evolved a bit more.
Break-up. Ending a relationship might make you insecure for a while as you not only deal with a broken heart but also a broken self esteem. It’s completely okay to take time to overcome the loss, grieve the memories, evaluate what things you could have done differently. Acceptance of the wrongs which have been caused by you shows how much you value the relationship though it has ended. But if you’re blaming yourself for the fall out, chances are you are on a guilt trip which is unhealthy.
Knowledge. If you don’t have enough knowledge about the things you are involved with, that might cause you to be insecure. For example, studying sufficiently enough for upcoming exams, product knowledge about the products you’re endorsing or selling, work ethics, subject knowledge about the work you’re involved with at office. Because the amount of knowledge you have and how you use it, will determine how well you perform at work or at school.
What can all of this lead to?
These few causes are mentioned so that you can have an idea about why you feel the way you feel. The effects of being in an environment like the above mentioned is that you grow up to be possessive, people pleasers, workaholics. You might also struggle with superiority and inferiority complexes. You may have a hard time appreciating people and things. You may also be highly critical about yourself and others.
What can we do?
However, know that these experiences have shaped you. We can’t undo any of these things but we can always choose to make our tomorrow better. Now that you have a sense of awareness, the next step is to make it right. To break the cycle and to choose words that bring in life and encouragement into a situation. Please read the next article [Dealing with insecurity] to know about how to overcome insecurities.