I think I feel insecure

how i am learning to build confidence in my late twenties.

It took me until my late twenties to finally admit that I feel insecure. 

Before my divorce, I thought of  myself as one of the most confident people I knew. The others being my sisters. I often, shamefully, looked down on people with insecurities and in my pride, felt like I couldn’t relate. 

Following toxicity and abuse and life breaking in ways I would’ve never imagined, I found myself feeling insecure. Not about things I could change. Not about my clothes, or my hair, or even my body. But about myself. How I related to others, what they thought of me.

This insecurity didn’t direct itself to strangers and acquaintances, but to those closest to me. Like a parasite, it attached itself to our relational dynamic unknowingly, and I felt like a constant bug under the microscope of their (supposed) scrutiny–who I imagined myself to be in their inner worlds. I write in the past tense, but truthfully, I am still slowly detangling myself from this web of insecure overthinking. 

So, in this clumsy dance out of the thick of it, I have learned and am learning what it means to build lasting confidence in the face of insecurity. 

The first step is accepting the truth – I feel insecure, sometimes. Pride often kept me from even seeing that before. I saw insecurities as weaknesses, and I wanted to be strong. Now, I see insecurity as part of being human, and I can’t run from that. 

Two. I don’t cover the insecurity because of shame. Oftentimes, shame floods in at the recognition of insecurity, and we do whatever we can to hide. To hide the insecurity, hide the shame, and inevitably, hide ourselves. So, I’ve learned…I am learning…to sit with it. I ask it questions, I see where it takes me. How deep does it go? Where is it from? What is it telling me about myself and others?

 

When I’ve found what the insecurity is telling me, I ask myself if it’s true. Step three is recognizing the lies. Especially the ones that are covered in normalcy—a lot of our insecurities run our lives because they are the societal norm, such as aging, beauty standards, standards of knowledge and relevancy. I explore the lies—what do they tell me? What areas of my life do they dictate? How do they affect how I see myself and others. Then.

Four. I tell myself truth. It sounds simple, but it is powerful and underrated. We passively take in and listen to lies all day with rare moments of intentionally, actively telling ourselves the truth. Without this active reframing, lies go undetected, attaching strings to our mindsets, subtly pulling on them and dictating our actions. 

Lastly, I take conscious steps to push through the insecurity and embrace the discomfort of disobeying its demands. If I am insecure about a part of my body, while I do the mental work of recognizing it and telling myself truth, I also take action by disobeying the demand to cover up that part of my body. If I’m insecure about the strength of my personality, I try not to listen to the urges to quiet myself or keep parts of myself hidden.

It is an exercise and requires the consistent work of the steps beforehand, but these exercises have been my practice to not allow trauma (or any source) to create lifelong patterns of insecurity within. 

Through the process, however, I have had to give myself much grace. I am learning to be content with the time it takes to heal, to relearn, to build a foundation on top of truth. I must also reject perfectionism and allow some areas to remain a little more insecure than others because of how deeply they’re rooted. 

But in this process, I have felt so tenderly cared for by my loving God. In admitting my insecurities and diving into them and the lies they tell, I have had to rely on His perspective, His Word, and a surrender to His love and His design for healing. 

His Word is the truth upon which my healing is anchored. 

This dependence has brought the very freedom my insecurities longed for. In surrendering my ideals and the world’s standards to His perspective, a childlike freedom has returned, healing my inner child beyond what any person could offer. 

I have realized that this is an act of renewing my mind, rather than being conformed to what’s natural in myself and in the world. 

Renewing our minds, even in these small (yet difficult and nuanced, and sometimes tedious) ways, is important for discerning, for seeing clearly, with wisdom. In trading the world’s perspective for His, our own perspective for His, we build confidence upon what actually lasts. Upon the Everlasting Himself.