Habits that feed our insecurity

Greetings friends of this great community. There are some ways of living that are damaging our self-esteem.

There are destructive thought habits that can dominate our mind. Source: image edited by @yusvelasquez, original from pixabay.com

Just as we all have positive attitudes and abilities, we also have weaknesses and imperfections among our virtues, but generally, our defects do not represent any problem since it is something innate in the human being. What is a problem is when our perception of those defects and weaknesses generates insecurity that keeps us in fear, keeping us confined to a very small comfort zone.

Unfortunately, this insecurity is something we unconsciously internalize as we become accustomed to a form of interaction with other people and the environment in which we operate. And the thinking habits that generate this insecurity can come to dominate our mind, telling us lies about our own personality that make us feel foolish, bored or inadequate.

These cracks in our self-esteem do not appear suddenly and just because they do, they depend largely on experiences we go through and sometimes generate ourselves. But don't worry, just as we learn them with certain habits, it is also possible that we can unlearn them until they are small enough not to affect us too much. It will be impossible to eradicate them completely, since our emotional memory can hardly be erased; but that doesn't matter, since our mental health is about being functional, not about being perfect.

You can be your own worst enemy. Source: image edited by @yusvelasquez, original from pxhere.com.

And what habits intensify our insecurity?

These are some of the most common habits that fuel our insecurity:

• Maintaining a relationship of dependence

We all know that there are relationships with other people that can be very harmful during the time we have them, especially when they are very prolonged, and these are not only limited to the romantic realm, many people, faced with the idea of abandonment are willing to endure almost anything. Generally, in these toxic relationships they are associated with couples, where there is one person who dominates and another who is dependent, and many times to maintain the state of dependence, the dominant person uses many formulas to feed the insecurities of the other, for example, not taking their proposals seriously, ridicule their achievements or make them feel incapable of being alone.

It is important to investigate the reasons that drive us to fill that strong need for emotional bonding with another, even if it is not a healthy relationship.

• Idealized comparisons

This is perhaps one of the habits most closely related to insecurity. In this world of appearances, it is difficult not to compare yourself with others. The problem is that many times we compare ourselves with people who really do not exist, for example when we want to reach the standard of beauty imposed by the great figures of the media; these are very "filtered" and "retouched" representations of real characters that are made for a social network and where they only intend to highlight the image they want to sell, and do not show what can be perceived as a personal flaw.
That is why it is very important to be aware of the existence of these filters and fictitious representations created by marketing, in order to avoid our self-concept from being dependent on a mirage.

• Do not confront stressful situations

There are many people who at the slightest sign that a stressful event may occur, try by all possible means to escape that situation. But precisely, facing those situations is something positive, and sometimes necessary, since only by overcoming challenges and adversities is that the opportunities for our situation to improve are produced. Otherwise we run the risk of getting used to a dynamic that generates insecurities, prioritizing the fear of leaving the comfort zone in order to justify passivity, a typical thought: "I don't need to apply for that position, it is very likely that I will be rejected".

Keeping a low profile, without showing any kind of ambition, will only keep us tied to the fear of not being good enough to achieve what we would like to achieve.

• Mind reading

Yes, that habit is exactly what it sounds like: believing that you know what other people are thinking, letting your fears put thoughts of judgment and negative evaluations about you in the heads of others will only intensify your insecurity; we must assume that there is no way to know what others will think about us until we act or talk to them.

• Personalization

This habit of assuming that any behavior of others has something to do with you is a way of feeding your fears. For example, thinking that if our boss is in a bad mood it must be because of something I did wrong, or something very common, if the relationship didn't work out it's because "I'm not good enough for that person". This kind of thinking can only inevitably end up in the dead end of self-blame.

Insecurity is, fundamentally, the doubt about yourself, about your competence, courage and performance. Many insecure people try to deal with their fears by trying to get everyone to like them, acting so well that they can never be criticized, which is certainly an emotional drain.

How we value ourselves depends on how we interact with others; their opinions should not become our reality. Source: pixabay.com.

If you want to inoculate yourself with unsafe thoughts, prepare for the doubts and problems, set realistic expectations and act as you would like to feel, and you will gradually get rid of those thoughts.

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Well friends, as we see, our way of valuing ourselves depends mainly on how we interact with the people around us. It is important to keep this in mind so that we don't assume that insecurities are born from within ourselves in an isolated way, as if they were part of your essence. See you next time!

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