Are you an insecure person? How to overcome emotional insecurity

Emotional insecurity is something that affects almost all of us throughout our lives (and not just children ). We must find ways to recognize our own insecurities to overcome them and have a happier life.

What do we understand by insecure person?

The insecure people are those who have difficulty with the decision where they have to choose between several options, feel uncertainty and constant question whether what they have said or done at a certain time is successful or not.

These people are never sure or confident of themselves, they feel inferior to the rest and they radically doubt their word.

There are two types of insecure people: there are those who try to show exaggeratedly the false security they have about themselves, boasting about everything they have and how well they are doing in life, and there are those who, given the degree of insecurity they present they close and hide from reality. The latter become practically antisocial , refusing to contact other people.

The lack of self-confidence that insecure people feel does not allow them to achieve certain desired goals and prevents them from generating nurturing relationships, either due to their superb expression or their fear of expressing themselves and maintaining an active social life.

From the technical point of view we can affirm that generally insecure people suffer from what was called by the psychoanalyst Alfred Adler as an inferiority complex.

According to Adler, people who feel inferior seek to feel better by implementing what he called a “fight for superiority.” The superiority struggle shows how people with an inferiority complex seek to feel happy by making others feel unhappy. For Adler, this struggle for superiority lies at the core of the neurosis. Such a struggle is a characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder , which is a deviation in normal development, which results in a person’s constant search to increase their self-esteem .

These types of narcissists think they are great; However, we also find the type of vulnerable narcissist (who are below bravado), these in exchange for the rest feel weak and inferior.

It could be argued that both types of narcissists have a weak sense of self-worth , but the great narcissist can only be better off by being undercover and pretending to be who he is not.

In either case, when we talk about someone who wants to make other people feel inferior, narcissism is likely to be the culprit.

What factors affect emotional insecurity?

Emotional insecurity is generally caused by environmental or psychological factors, among the most mentioned we can find:

Rejection

Any event in our life can directly affect our mood, our self-confidence and the way we see and feel about ourselves. Rejection is one of the most common causes that generate insecurity in people.

When a person is rejected they tend to lose self-esteem and self-confidence, which leads them to lack emotional security. Some research on emotions states that rejection inevitably leads the individual to see himself and other people in a more negative way. Failure fulfills the same function as rejection, since when faced with failure, people tend to react in a negative, pessimistic way, and sometimes an unexpected failure can even cause a depressive picture.

Distrust

Distrust plays a fundamental role in emotional insecurity. People who have been victims of betrayals or participants in them generally tend to be suspicious of other people. Distrust leads to people not being able to trust others, keeping their feelings and thoughts for fear that these will come to light in unrequited places and with unrequited people.

Another type of distrust can be manifested in different social situations, for example, in a social event. People with little confidence and lack of self-confidence may feel afraid of being evaluated by others, this fear can lead them to feel anxious and self-conscious. This can have as a result that the person prefers to avoid social situations, experiences anxiety when anticipating social events, creates phobias of public places (agoraphobia) or in more severe cases they can suffer an antisocial personality disorder.

Victims of abuse

Those who have been abused in their childhood, adolescence, or adulthood are likely to be emotionally insecure. Traumatic events such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, or psychological abuse, can lead the people who experienced them to never recover from such situations on their own. People who have experienced abusive situations need to go to therapy. This will help them see what happened from another point of view, be able to understand it and improve emotional security, self-confidence and the level of self-esteem.

How to recognize an insecure person

Here are some guidelines to recognize if you are this type of insecure person or are in contact with one of them, according to psychologist Susan Krauss for Psychology Today:

1. The insecure person drops the “humble bragging” too often.  The humble bragging of an insecure person is often disguised as a self-deprecating statement. Perhaps you have been part of this on Facebook, when an acquaintance complains about all the trips they have to take (due to the importance of their work), or all the time they have to spend watching their children play rugby or hockey.
2.  The insecure person needs to show their accomplishments.  People who are constantly flaunting their great lifestyles, their upbringing, or their great kids may very well be doing it to convince themselves that they really have value.
3. The insecure person tries to make them feel insecure about themselves. People with an inferiority complex feel comfortable when another person begins to question their own worth. If you wonder … Why is that individual always transmitting his strengths? And you don’t feel insecure in general, but around certain people you do, most likely they are projecting their insecurities onto you.
4.  The insecure person complains that things are not good enough. On certain occasions, -when you are faced with people with a high content of inferiority, who try to show off their high standards of living-, you may feel that they really are better than you, because it is in fact what they are trying to do either consciously or unconsciously is to make you feel worthless.

How to overcome insecurity?

There are certain attitudes you can take to improve your situation and slowly overcome emotional insecurity:

Be positive

Having positive thoughts is a good way to start overcoming your insecurities, positive thoughts make you a better person for yourself and for others.

Value yourself

Think about all the good things you have and value them day by day, remember your positive qualities, and that you are a valuable person, that will help you realize that you are not as unhappy as you think.

Ponder

Do not hesitate to introspect daily, as it will help you reflect on certain aspects that perhaps you did not see and maintain a constructive self-criticism towards yourself.

Express yourself

Share your thoughts with people you trust, since if you repress them you will not improve and you will feel worse and keep in mind that all repressed thoughts are never good, they do not nourish or build anything in life.

Surround yourself with nurturing people who fill you with energy, positivity, and bring nurturing things into your life.