There are ways you can change your perception and control of your own insecurity. They may not be instantly easy to master, especially if you have suffered insecurity your whole life, but you will become more able over time to make them part of your new commitment to yourself.
1) Mattering
Make a list of all the people in your life who you believe in your heart care about you. To whom have you truly mattered? Use as your criteria whether they have loved you, known deeply who you are, and have enjoyed your company.
Ask yourself what each would say about you were they asked, and why they felt that way about you. As you let yourself feel that safety and comfort, listen for any voices in your head or heart that have made you doubt those positive feelings. They represent people in your past who took away your sense of personal value or did not make you feel that you had a right to be loved and appreciated.
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2) Agency
Every person needs to feel that what he or she says or does affects the people who are important to them. Think about relationships where you have felt you’ve made a difference, where the person on the other end of you is truly affected by who you are and what you’ve had to say.
Ask yourself why you have stayed in relationships where you’ve not been effective. Those are your attachments, the things people have a hard time letting go of, even if they have negative consequences. If you're afraid that you cannot afford to lose them, you will always be emotionally blackmailable by those who can take them away.
3) Spiritual Connection
The only way any of us can stay truly secure is to know that we are ultimately accountable to something greater than us that gives us meaning and purpose, independently of relationships with others. That connection does not have to be religious and certainly not obligatory. It is a proven fact that when people regularly meditate, pray, or convene with nature, they feel a sense of responsibility to honor what is most sacred in themselves and the world. That commitment creates awareness and appreciation of what each person needs to do to be the best person he or she can be.
4) Fall-Back Networks
No intimate relationship can survive and prosper if it is the only meaningful connection a person has in his or her life. Secure people seem to know that innately and maintain many quality relationships they can fall back on if their primary one is in jeopardy. They continuously keep those networks alive and available. Trusted and committed friends, family members, co-workers, spiritual advisers, communities of like-minds, and sacred causes are all places to regenerate that do not depend on only one person in one relationship.
5) Acknowledgement of One’s Own Marketability
Although it may be a very difficult concept to accept, accurate and honest assessment of our own value is crucial to knowing what we can expect from others. If you are in an intimate relationship with someone you truly believe is “more marketable,” i.e., is worth more on the open market, you will naturally feel more uncertain in that relationship. That “rating” is relative and susceptible to change. You could be on the other end of someone who is, at this moment in time, less valuable.
Perhaps you are choosing to be in your current relationship knowing that you are compromising, but don’t have anyone better at the time. Or, you may be fearful there may not be anyone better out there for you. You are not alone. Value on the open market is a factor that affects everyone. You must believe in your own value, no matter who you are with and be realistic in terms of where that puts you in the current partner-availability process.
6) Not Letting the Past Define Your Future
The past is for lessons. The present is for experiences. The future is for dreams. Insecurity increases when the past continues to become the future when people have not resolved their past fears or failures. Many people enter new relationships with a pre-defeat, cynical, pessimistic expectation of loss. They then, biased by their predictions, see only what they expect to see and react as they have in the past. They may even continue to choose the same kind of partners because of the familiarity those relationships offer.
7) Understand the Difference Between Abandonment and Disappearance
The fear of abandonment is a common driver of insecurity for many people. Everyone wishes they could control fate and fears being alone and unwanted. We are tribal creatures, interdependent on one another for existence and comfort. Most people do not thrive when disconnected from others.
When a romantic partner chooses to leave a relationship, the person left behind often feels forsaken and worthless. Even when people lose someone through the death of a loved one, they still may doubt their own worth, while grieving the sorrow of that loss. Others are left behind by betrayal and are decimated by the unexpected loss. If a partner has focused heavily on only one person, he or she will understandably feel completely unprepared to live life without that other person beside them, even if they have established others who care for them.
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Imagine how you would feel on the other end of someone you deeply care about who is constantly fearful and anxious. You would naturally try as hard as you could to heal those feelings of uncertainty and reassure that special person that everything will be okay.
What if that person’s terror of loss makes them unable to benefit from your genuine and sincere efforts to quell their fears? Or, even worse, what if those feelings get worse even if you’ve done everything you could to help?
No matter how deeply you love, no matter how committed you are to the relationship, no matter how much you want to help, you are human. At some point in time, you will begin to feel helpless and powerless, then insecure in your own ability to make a difference.
Insecurity breeds insecurity. It is truly a formidable saboteur of love’s potential to heal. Whether you are the insecure person in a relationship or the one who is trying to fight that demon, it is imperative that the battle is won.
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