Ugh! Insecurity! It feels terrible. How can we make it go away?!
In this episode, I talk about what it’s about, how to loosen it up for you and finally how to work through it. Here are the seven “steps” to work through it.
1. Be aware it’s happening. Be aware that there is a moment where your insecurity comes up and things shift in you. The knee-jerk response is to avoid or get away from it or blame it on something or someone outside of you. Awareness is where we begin. Do you know when it happens for you?
2. Keep the ownership. Insecurity is often triggered by something or someone outside of us and so we want to give them the credit. But if it weren’t that thing outside of us, it would be a different thing. If it wasn’t that dancer, it would be another one. It’s not them. It’s us. It’s our baggage. It’s what we feel or believe about ourselves that is the problem and taking ownership of that fact is the way out. To fix this, you gotta look inside, not outside.
3. Stop running away. Insecurity feels terrible and makes us shy away from the situations that trigger it. But the way over it is through. You gotta look it in the face. What is it about? What are we insecure about? Look deeper. What you’ll probably find is that you don’t feel like you are enough. Now what?
4. Make peace with the fact that you are NOT enough sometimes. You fall short. You don’t prepare. You say the wrong thing. You disappoint people or yourself. and believe it or not, this is good news. Pretending you are perfect and never make mistakes is what makes you feel insecure. When you make peace with the fact that you ARE less than sometimes, and everyone is that way, you won’t mind so much if other people see it too. There will always be someone better, faster, younger, etc. This is FINE.
5. Realize YOU are the one who determines if you are enough anyway. Surely someone has told you that you are enough or that you did a good job and you deflected it. You are not enough but you also ARE enough. Enough is 50/50. It’s good and bad. It’s a work in progress. And you are the one who decides enough is enough. It’s not outside you. It won’t come from anyone else. This is your work to do on yourself and your relationship with yourself.
6. Be willing to run into the storm. Stop shying away from the moments that you feel insecure. Lean in. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Let it come up and then soothe yourself. Pat yourself on the back. Double up on self-compassion and move forward, insecurity and all. Commit to taking care of yourself through it and then tell yourself how proud you are of doing the hard work. Mess up and let people see it so you can see the world doesn’t end. This is desensitization. It’s exposure therapy. Tread carefully, but definitely tread. You can do it.
7. Care what you think more than what other people think. It’s okay that you care what people think and it’s okay that you want their approval. But just care MORE what YOU think than what others think. Practice getting out of their head and tending to what is in your own. If what you think about you isn’t good, that’s where you need to give your attention…not trying to get other people to convince you of it.
This work is tough to do. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s life changing. You’ve got it!
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