When Lack Of Confidence Invades Us: Emotional Insecurity

Navigating through life accompanied by emotional insecurity means doing it with a great burden. Doubting everything, and especially ourselves, is one of the great impediments to our personal fulfillment. Walking fearful, lacking confidence and indecisive is similar to trying to balance on a tightrope, the one in which to juggle a thousand and one to try not to fall.

Perhaps this insecurity has always been with us, the fruit of an unhappy childhood marked by the absence of a feeling of protection and security. Or, perhaps, it has arisen precisely because of the opposite, that is, due to an excessive overprotection that has made us feel inferior and unworthy. Even, perhaps, this insecurity has emerged after a too traumatic situation that has hit us very hard.

Emotional insecurity is the great enemy of advancement, the great boycott of self-esteem, and the greatest obstacle to building strong bonds. If we let it invade us, it will take hold of us and end up overriding our will through criticism and continuous questioning. However, we can always protect ourselves so that this does not happen and, in the worst case, begin to rebuild the lost feeling of security. Let’s go deeper.

What is emotional insecurity?

Emotional insecurity arises from constant doubt towards oneself, towards one’s capacities, feelings and way of acting. It is a constant state of doubt that paralyzes and that also awaits validation by other people, most of the time, as a currency to achieve a false tranquility.

Now, we cannot forget that life in essence is insecurity and uncertainty, in fact the Spanish philosopher and essayist Ortega y Gasset would say that it is radical insecurity, since it can cease to exist at any moment. The problem is that we are not aware of it. We spend the day planning and organizing, creating illusions for the future with the certainty that everything will happen as we expect. And suddenly, everything is broken into a thousand pieces, we get off the road or simply, it ends and we have to start a new one.

Knowing that everything can change in a matter of seconds can help us to live in other ways, for example, more intensely. However, this does not mean that we adopt insecurity as a companion to our routine, simply that we take it into account. Because later than soon, it will make its appearance on the scene. And the best thing is to be prepared to face it.

Does this mean that it is better to be insecure and not take anything for granted? No, just that from time to time we have to remember it to avoid living in imaginary worlds. Now, excess emotional insecurity also hurts us because in addition to invalidating any feeling of self-confidence, it can expand to any area of ​​our life. Because how to move forward when we are not sure of anything?

The important thing is to know how to differentiate between insecurity at a general level as an external indicator and emotional insecurity, a much more specific internal state that has to do with us and how we value ourselves. In this way, taking into account that change is permanent, just as uncertainty is normal and can even help us to see life differently; But it is also important to trust ourselves and not expect others to express what we have to do or how well we do things in order to feel good.

What characterizes an insecure person?

To better understand the universe of emotional insecurity and how it affects us, it is important to know what it means to be an insecure person. Here are some of the most common characteristics that people who have adopted this state as part of themselves present. They are as follows:

• Fear of criticism, judgments and evaluations of others.
• Constant need to show your achievements and receive praise and attention to feel valid and capable.
• Tendency to perfectionism and competitiveness.
• They are usually on the defensive. 
• Low self-esteem.
• Attempts to spread doubt and insecurity to others.
• Frequent use of false modesty.
• Presence of a great feeling of mistrust towards themselves.

Insecure people tend to act and think highly conditioned by a constant inner war, a struggle between their need to stand out and show others that they are valid and a deep sense of invalidity and incapacity. In fact, in the most serious cases these types of people are nobody if others do not value them, that is, they become invisible towards themselves.

The Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler proposed the concept of inferiority complex  as an identifier of this type of person. He affirmed that insecure people had a constant struggle for superiority that could even have a negative impact on their relationships, because they could become happy if they made others feel unhappy. In addition, he classified this type of behavior as typical of neuroses.

Now, not all insecure people are characterized by being like this. It all depends on the degree of distrust they have about your abilities or past achievements. 

Keys to managing emotional insecurity

It is possible to reduce the constant doubt towards ourselves and thus banish that negative insecurity that governs us. The important thing is to know that the effort must be ours and that if we are used to underestimating ourselves, this process will take time.

Believing in ourselves is one of the strongest pillars we can build to avoid falling down and letting ourselves be invaded by discomfort, but it involves constant daily work. To do this, we have to take into account a series of aspects: