Insecurity

Confidence can often be misleading. People can go on stage, walk in a room and sing in front of thousands and look utterly confident. Yet deep inside they are trembling. They are slowly torturing themselves. Others can actually feel confident in such situations yet feel insecure inwardly. They can feel uncomfortable yet look as if they have simply arrived home. I find myself sometimes in the latter category. I can walk into a meeting with my head up high and not worry about who is there or the crowd I need to entertain about electronic goods and the new software upgrade that makes this new model to die for! I can mingle with figures of high regard and hold up a counter argument as I view them as simply fascinating people who have got to where they are. I don’t believe they are any better than me or that I am better than them. I believe we are equal as people just the achievements and attitudes towards life are different. Yet I can find myself starting to feel incredibly insecure if I feel the need to be accepted. I care far too much for acceptance when in reality this is a mind made up need. An egoic need. Why do we need to feel accepted? Why do we need to go to extremes to change our appearance, our views and mentality to feel accepted? I am starting to learn that this is utter bull! It is causing me far more grief and difficulties than I need to create for myself. It has caused me to hurt people I deeply care for, it has caused me to make issues out of things that really don’t need to be there because I am trying to please other people when deep down it isn’t a situation I want to be in and it feels foreign to me. It has however also helped me see what people are actually made of as when you do apologise you find out if people have the need to be right, only see one side of the coin or can’t accept that we are all human and make mistakes and hold a grudge for yonks.So as much as I detest this need for acceptance, I have come to accept it for what it is. I have however also learnt that now I have no more excuses to hide behind my insecurities. Accepting you have a weakness and talking about it is the first step to tackling your fears. The next step for me was to take healthy actions to ensure I really tackled my issue rather than just touch on it and make it look as if I was working on it. Taking time out to learn about my strengths and weaknesses, to figure out what set it off. I learnt that I feel the need to talk about it. I go into panic mode and because I have learnt that talking is the best remedy for mind made difficulties I needed and still find the need to talk about my insecurities. All logic goes out the window and I don’t consider if the time or place is correct. I just see one way and that is talking. I then often come up against people feeling I am criticising when actually I am just talking about it. I will say I am feeling insecure, or that has really brought out the insecurity within me or I find etc. and etc. really difficult. I will then get a comeback as “I am so bored of this, why are you so intense” Which I then take as a personal attack. I have found it healthier to say the same sentence in a manner as follows “I feel your insecurities come up rather a lot and it frustrates me as I feel you are blaming me etc.” That way everyone is taking responsibility for their counter feelings. Yet because I feel attacked I put a second layer on my insecurities and try and push the people away. I feel as if salt is being rubbed into open wounds. I am aware this is my weakness and at this point I should stop engaging with a conversation that isn’t going to be healthy. I should remove myself and do something about my actions and stop engaging in a conversation that looks to turn into a blame game. Recognise that there are enough dramas in our lives so why fuel a fire that doesn’t need to be there and if the other person still wants to engage learn that in the end my actions and behaviour is what counts at the end of the day as I have to live and want to live with annoying, intense yet sometime loveable self ;)  

 I have to be honest this has been difficult to write as it is really personal but I always feel I learn from my writing’s. I know why I feel the need to be accepted but lately I have really come to understand that once you know you have inappropriate behaviour the next step is to not use the reason as an excuse but to use it as the enlightenment which gives you the platform to work on it. To not surrender through my story but to surrender to the acceptance and do something about it.

So clearly all this need to please just isn’t worth it. Compromise, accepting each other as we are and not feeling a need to be accepted is the way forward. I am not perfect and never will be. I will continue to learn more so that life can become simpler. Fill my life up with pleasantries and the right amount of confidence. Learn to pick a place and time. Learn to not care so much and let other people think what they want. To talk to the people I trust and can be utterly vulnerable with who will help me grow to be a better person and where I can replicate the favour.   Where the want for truth is the essence of that friendship and relationship. Where life is good and bad but it doesn’t matter because you accepted yourself and feel confident enough to have a helping hand to learn to tackle your insecurities and are encouraged to try new methods and learn to be a better person. To say no to such a serious self that needs to be like what other people want you to be like and yes to the parts of life which encourage you to be you. And most of all say yes to what is and not to what I think should be.

I hope I will never be cocky or too confident but I look forward to my blog where I tell you how I overcame my insecurities which cause me more problems than are worth it, but as I stop typing I just want it known for the record that I am getting there. Learning to listen to me and embrace the vulnerability that comes with facing challenging situations and saying no to the need to be accepted and instead spend my energy and enjoy when people actually do accept you; warts and all J