Hello

When I wrote about this topic before, I suggested that insecurity:

interferes with our growth, happiness, connection to self, success, and mindfulness.  And what seems to enhance our growth, happiness, connection to self – others, success, and mindfulness – (is) Self-confidence.  Insecurity is like an unwanted weed in our garden of life.  It blows into our consciousness and then it starts to take over – it sucks up the nutrients and sustenance of our self.   We spend all this effort trying to rid ourselves of it and yet it seems so deeply rooted.  self-confidence and insecurity blog posted June 23, 2010

I also suggested insecurity can be a cue that something is askew and you need to get into your center and then evaluate the situation about which you feel insecure.  Evaluating your expectation, and the expectations of others to determine if they are reasonable.

View insecurity, anxiety as you do anger, as a message from your emotional guidance system – your built-in awareness system – (that there is an attachment or linking) that you have to review or evaluate a situation to get yourself on track.

This is what I want to focus on here.

Much like fear and love cannot exist together, because the former contracts your energy and the latter expands it, insecurity and self-confidence are incompatible.

The idea is to use feelings of insecurity as cues that you need to shift your perspective, your energy, your focus, your paradigm, or all four.

If you allow yourself to respond to the feeling as a cue it immediately diminishes its power over you and your reactions, and allows you to engage in a mindful focus.  It allows for you to discover a set of response-able actions and to choose the best way to respond to the situation that is bringing up the insecurity (or fear).

What is important is to unlink the negative or unrealistic expectation from the event or action.

This is especially true when the insecurity is a result of past behavior or past action that was unsuccessful, or had a negative outcome.

When you make a mistake, either by action or non-action, and it  results in a negative outcome, there can be a linking of insecurity with that action or inaction; so when presented with a similar situation then you are less able to act from your center.  You develop a set of reactions; this is like a habit reaction pattern.

The insecurity triggers a habit reaction pattern that continues to skew out, in an off-center spiral, specific perceptions of yourself, others, and/or your competence and power.

The more negative the outcome, or the more internal shame attached to the outcome, the more that linking of insecurity to the action or non-action is solidified.  And in turn the more intensity and fear, as well as insecurity is connected to or linked with the habit reaction pattern.  This can develop into this skewed spiral in a way that is unconscious.

The only way to slow it down is through mindfulness.  Mindfulness shifts and slows through paying attention, focusing intention, allowing figure/ground and paradigm shifting to increase your capacity to respond rather than react to the habit reaction pattern driven by fear and insecurity.

Using the concept of cues to focus your attention and mindfulness onto the problem while applying compassion, and understanding to the situation you will begin the slowing process so that you can shift insecurity and fear to self-confidence and love.  In counseling we use the term triggers but it has such a negative connotation I prefer the concept of cues.  It provides a more centered and empowered spin on the process.

If it is a strong linking then it will take a number of attempts to unlink the inner feelings of fear, insecurity or anxiety and the event.

This type of linking of internal-feeling-awareness and action also works to create and build self-confidence.  Utilizing this process to make connections of how we do/did things in a useful, growth promoting way – linking action and feeling –  will strengthen an internal sense of self-confidence and love.

Using mindfulness, compassion, and understanding pay attention to your internal-feeling-awareness-guidance-system:

use the cue of insecurity, anxiety, or fear to focus on how you can dis-integrate habit reaction patterns that are skewing your perspective and pulling you out of your center;

use the cue of self-confidence and/or love to create a linking of health promoting actions and successful responses which bring you to your center.

See you tomorrow.

Beth