Why Do I Feel So Insecure And How Can I Overcome It?

There are a lot of factors that could make you feel insecure. We look at these in detail, and how you can deal with insecurity.

Do you feel threatened when your partner compliments another person or gets a lot of attention? Do you feel left out and nervous during social gatherings? Do you feel low on self-confidence and esteem? Are you always second-guessing yourself? Do you feel like you’re going to screw up something even before taking it on? Are you extremely critical of yourself? Do you feel uncomfortable when loved as you feel you don’t deserve it? Do you feel guilty, ugly, and like a failure? These are all signs that you as a person, are insecure.

So the big question is- why do we feel this way?

There are various reasons behind us feeling this way. Psychologists have observed that our childhood has a large role to play in us feeling insecure. It has been seen that children who are constantly yelled at by their parents, grow up with feelings of insecurity. They feel like failures due to the constant verbal bashing they received from their parents during childhood.

The absence of a parent can also make a child feel insecure. Aside from this, an intrusive parent can make a child more introverted, self-reliant. This in turn makes them untrusting of others and therefore, insecure.

Even exaggerated praise can lead to insecurities in children. This is because they wish to be seen for who they are. When praised excessively, they have to live up to their parents’ standards.

In most cases, a person’s tendency to feel insecure is directly linked to his/her childhood experiences. However, in some cases, this feeling arises during adulthood, with rejection in relationships being one of the most common causes. Being rejected in a relationship can lead to feelings of worthlessness in us, which contributes further to one feeling insecure.

Areas in which our insecurities arise the most 

Work 

It often happens that we may be completely secure in one area of our lives but be extremely insecure in the other. For example, you may be perfectly comfortable in a social setting but can be on the edge at your workplace. When it comes to our careers, our insecurities act out the most. We tend to question what we are doing and whether we are doing a good job or not.

You may also end up feeling insecure when your co-worker gets promoted or appreciated by your boss.

Relationships

Romantic equations can stir up our hidden and buried insecurities like no other. When you’re insecure, you tend to have problems with intimacy but not be aware of it. Hence, when you get close to someone, your guard is further up and so are the emotions that you have been suppressing.

As a result, you may subconsciously pushing your partner away by acting out as you feel you are unworthy of love. In other scenarios, you may get jealous or possessive about your partner as you feel ugly and fear that he/she may get attracted to someone else.

How can I overcome my feelings of insecurity? 

The first step is to recognize what really makes you insecure. Then, you can work towards overcoming it. Here are some tips:

Working on the critical inner self: Every time your brain tells you things like “I am not good enough,” or “I can never be successful,” replace the I’s with ‘you.’ That way, you will be able to separate yourself from the inner voice and then these sentences would be about someone else and not you.

Listening to positive affirmations: These will help you overcome the negative thoughts you have about yourself. Positive affirmations such as ‘I am beautiful,’ ‘I am worthy of love,’ etc., can fill you up with the confidence and positivity that you desire.

Brain training: Brain training technology Neurofeedback can not only eliminate your insecurities but also help you get rid of the anxiety and trauma attached to it. This is a US, FDA-approved, and NASA-inspired technology that restores the imbalances in one’s brainwaves.

There could be multiple reasons such as a weak functioning PFC (pre-frontal cortex, a region of the brain that regulates our emotions), and traumatic incidents that could lead to an imbalance in the brainwaves. Therefore Neurofeedback gets rid of old, rigid neural pathways and forms new, desirable ones in order for your brain to function at its optimal level and make you lead a happy and calm life.

To learn more about Neurofeedback in detail, visit here.