We all have insecurities that have latched on to our souls since we were young. When triggered, these insecurities may cause highly emotional responses and can cause us to behave irrationally. At first glance, these insecurities may look like our arch-nemesis.

However, insecurities are powerful enough to create havoc in our lives and cause mental anguish. They are rooted deeply into our psyche, which makes us our own worst enemy.

For more than a year, I have been dealing with insecurity, primarily because of my parents. I managed to hold them for as long as I could. However, they have started emerging in the past few months. I was amazed by the fact that how quickly years of optimism and positive thinking can degrade into doubt and fear when your insecurity gets triggered.

What is Insecurity?

Insecurity is the tendency to feel uncertain or lack confidence in oneself. People experience insecurity in some aspects of their lives. For most, however, insecurity is something that can be resolved before they start having a harmful and lasting impact. When a person deals with personal insecurities, the negative feelings and doubts become a significant part of their lives; this is one of the most common causes of insecurities.

An insecure person lacks confidence in several aspects of her life. She may become incapable of forming lasting relationships or get daily tasks done. Why? Because she feels inadequate or helplessness. Insecurities cause negative thoughts to impair her ability to find support or acceptance, reach goals, or fit in with peers.

Often, insecurity is accompanied by anxiety, the feeling of self-doubt, worry, and fear. Because of this, the person is unable even to meet the challenges of regular life. Hence, she may find it easier to resist dealing with stressful situations since they feel inadequate to handle them.

Effects of Insecurities

Scientifically, insecurities can lead to a lot of struggles, both in your personal and professional life. It makes it difficult to relate and share your emotions. If you are anxious to talk about your work abilities, you may never receive any bonus or promotion. Insecurity about job’s stability can take a toll on your mental health, which may eventually lead to somatic symptoms like hypertension, or emotional problems like negative mood, etc.

Dealing with The Causes of Insecurities

If you want to learn how to deal with trust issues and insecurities, you first need to understand your obstacles. These obstacles will be on your path when you learn how to fix insecurities and never let your old wounds heal. Some of these obstacles include:

Past Criticism

If your relative or parent has criticized you while growing or you were bullied, you have probably internalized that. My father was quite supportive of me; however, my mother was not. She used to find all sorts of reasons to criticize me, which eventually manifested in me. She had her insecurities that were projected on me. While they did die down after many years because of work, some of them still remained in my head. I could never let go of them completely.

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” – Steve Furtick

Negative Self-Image

When you have people criticizing you for years together, you will eventually start projecting insecurities and criticism on yourself. When put together with unfavorable comparisons of yourself to others, your self-image will not come out great. It does not matter if the reality does not match up with your self-image – you could be beautiful, brilliant, or competent. However, if you keep saying that you are a failure, dumb, or ugly, you will start acting according to this image. Let’s now see more causes of insecurities.

Needing Approval

When you get approval, you start feeling great. You begin to think that you are beautiful and worthy. However, the problem that arises is when you keep asking for approval to keep up with your self-image. This will be pretty problematic if you are still dealing with your insecurities since you will start looking for approval. This also develops into fearing disapproval. You will start looking at everything a person says in terms of approval or disapproval. Experts call this a fearful cycle of need.

Lack of Trust

As an insecure person, you will not learn how to trust people, especially when seeing your side of things, accepting you, and sticking with you. Over the years, this instinct gets trained into our psyche, and we start looking at something other people do as rejection or abandonment. We stop believing that the moment will turn out to be okay.

“The steps of insecurity: Comparison, Compensation, Competition, Compulsion, Condemnation, Control.” – Unknown

Media and Social Media

With the rise of social media, we have started comparing ourselves with all the good-looking people on Facebook and Instagram platforms. Of course, these images are meant to sell; however, they also sell by making you feel inadequate and insecure about yourself. In turn, you end up buying whatever the celebrity is selling for you to look as good as them.

Non-Acceptance

According to studies done on insecurities psychology, we start rejecting ourselves. We start hating small aspects of our lives like pimples or a bit healthy. Yes, some people have amazing bodies, yet they hate it. Eventually, you will start hating your inner selves and become lazy, fearful, uncaring, and undisciplined. Basically, you begin rejecting parts of yourself that you are insecure about.

How To Get Over Insecurities?

So, there are obstacles you need to clear. However, the fix is simple –  think of these obstacles as a path. Embrace these obstacles and work along with them. To do this, you need to start understanding when and how your insecurities are arising. Once you do, you are ready for the next step.

1.   Make peace with your past

When you have an authority figure, relative or family member criticizing you, the first step towards learning how to handle insecurities is recognizing this. Once you do, all you have to do is forgive them. You also need to understand that their own insecurities drove them. As humans, all of us behave imperfectly. While what they did was not right, you should have the capacity to understand them. Forgiveness is important because holding back anger or resentment will not help you.

2.   Accept yourself

When working on insecurities, you need to take a step back and get some self-assessment done. Take a deep look at yourself, both internally and externally, and start noting things you do not like. Look closely at these parts and check whether they need some love. Look for those imperfections and provide them with love – similar to how you would send love to an imperfect friend. Give yourself compassion and assurance. Love yourself, similar to how you would love others. Every person is unique and wonderful.

“No one is perfect. Even the most confident people have insecurities. At some point in of our lives, we may feel we lack something. That is reality. We must try to live as per our capability.” – Anil Sinha

3.   Practice self-approval

Did you know that you can get rid of the most common insecurities simply by practicing self-approval? Yes, you do not have to rely on the approval of others for validation. When you find yourself looking for attention and praise from others, pause and appreciate yourself. This way, you will take away the power of others to approve you. In simple terms, you do not require others to provide approval to you. However, this does not mean that you get disconnected from love and connection with others. Once you start accepting yourself, you will be able to love your own self.

4.   Embrace non-comparison

One of the best ways of getting over insecurities is to eliminate the habit of comparing yourself with others. This type of comparison is never useful and will harm you actively. Instead of comparing what the other person is doing/looks like, you can see them as oranges to your apples. You should be happy that the person is having fun and/or is successful. You need to understand that your path and the path of the other person are different. Therefore, always wish good for others.

5.   Develop trust

If you have paid heed to the tips mentioned above, you will soon start trusting others as well. Develop trust, and you will see that everything is well. While trust is something that develops over time, you can start making small predictions about the current moment – for instance, you can say that this moment will turn out to be fine, and you can check whether your prediction is true or not.

“Sometimes the hardest battle is against yourself. But believe in yourself, you can win.” – Unknown

Final Thoughts

There are several types of insecurities – some people have dating insecurities because they cannot find dates even. Others have relationship insecurities with their family, friends, or lovers.  Whatever insecurities you may have, you must understand them and start working towards overcoming them. If not, these insecurities will create a lot of problems in your life.

What do you think are the most frequent causes of insecurities? Did you experience some? Share your ideas and lessons with the other readers in the comments!

About Rebecca Shinn
Rebecca Shinn is a freelance writer for the best online dating sites and dating and relationship expert with a psychology degree. Her field of expertise is relationship, dating, and marriage. The important part of Rebecca’s practice is to help couples with communication skills, problem-solving skills, stress management, or financial skills. 

Rebecca started writing 2 years ago to inspire and help people to have a better dating life, healthy relationships, or find a way to keep a marriage strong for long years.

With all said above, Rebecca is proud to be a mother and a wife so she doesn’t only use her knowledge for helping others but keeping her family strong and happy.