Dealing With Insecurities

How can you effectively deal with other people’s insecurities?

What if you decide to start a new business, and your business partner becomes very nervous that you might lose all your money? Perhaps they take all the joy out of the business by second-guessing every decision.

What if you pick a university major you like, but your parents seem more interested in talking you out of it, worrying that you won’t make enough money to support yourself and have a good life? What if they even bribe you by offering to shoulder more of the costs if you switch majors?

What’s an intelligent way to handle these situations?

The Borg had it right all along. Resistance is futile. Moreover, it’s even more futile to resist resistance.

If someone in your life is feeling insecure, let them. If you resist their insecurity, then you’ll have problems. If you accept it, then their insecurity will soon become unnecessary.

By not resisting their insecurity or trying to make it go away, they’ll soon realize that if their insecurity won’t scare you away, then perhaps they no longer need it. Maybe they can simply welcome the connection with you without worrying so much. And this actually helps them feel more secure.

I think this is a nice example of how detachment works better than clinginess, neediness, and attachment. If you resist others’ bouts of insecurity, then you’ll just perpetuate it. Try making someone wrong for acting insecure, and see what that does to their insecurity; it only makes it worse. And wallowing in their insecurities with them is just as ineffective.

Of course other people’s insecurities are just reflections of your own. If someone else is feeling insecure with you, that’s a hint and a half that you aren’t secure in how you’re living or in what you’re getting into. When you get secure, the people around you feel quite secure as well.

When you’re truly secure, then other people’s insecurities won’t bother you, and your not being bothered makes it unnecessary for them to feel insecure. If you can be comfortable with their insecurities, then they know you’re comfortable with all of them, and hence they soon lose interest in being insecure.

How can you feel insecure in a relationship when you see that your insecurities won’t push your partner away? Isn’t it nice to know that when you or your partner chooses to explore the well, the other will patiently hold the rope?

You can experience some tremendous growth by exploring your reactions to others’ reactions. The only insecurities you can effectively resolve are your own, but those are the only ones that really matter. As you learn to accept and allow other people’s insecurities (i.e. your resistance to their resistance), you release incongruent and misaligned thoughts, feelings, and beliefs within yourself. And soon you’ll see the people in your reality feeling increasingly happy and secure in your presence.