For the past couple of years I’ve sought out therapy to help me deal with some of my issues. I use the word “issues” lightly as I’ve come to understand that we all have something we have to figure out and work through at some point in our lives.
Carrying around a badge of insecurity is not something I choose to do or get much joy out of, if I could let it go, I would in a heart beat. It’s not that easy, or so I’m told. It’s something I have to get to the bottom of before tackling it and releasing it for good.
Dealing with insecurity isn’t easy and most of the time it’s just something we created in our own minds and has nothing to do with the other party at all. This is something I’ve lived with since I can remember and now I know why. I was told by my therapist that adopted children deal with abandonment from the start, even when they grow up in a loving household. A recent study shows how children and babies, although too young to remember why, are affected by key moments in their lives that trigger this feeling. So for adopted children, even if adopted as infants, have a “memory” of being left. It starts in-vitro and is felt by the unborn child.
It sounds crazy but it makes sense that this feeling could have started at such a young age, as far back as pregnancy.
I believe that this connection, established during the nine months in utero, is
a profound connection, and it is my hypothesis that the severing of that
connection between the child and biological mother causes a primal or
narcissistic wound which often manifests in a sense of loss (depression), basic
mistrust (anxiety), emotional and/or behavioral problems and difficulties in
relationships with significant others. I further believe that the awareness,
whether conscious or unconscious, that the original separation was the result of
relinquishment affects the adoptee’s sense of Self, self-esteem and self-worth. - excerpt from the Primal Wound
As I matured I started to get a handle on my insecurity and realized that it stemmed from somewhere. Finding the answers to where I came from helped me to feel more secure with who I was because suddenly I belonged and I could relate to actual family members.
I bounce back and forth, I’ll feel good for a while and eventually I revert back to those old feelings, even when things seem to be going fine. It’s always in the back of my hear, always waiting to be hurt and pushed away. I feel that if it happened before, before I was old enough to “do” anything wrong, it could happen again. Keeping people at arm’s length with the intent of protecting myself just in case they were to hurt me isn’t the right course to take. We have to open ourselves up to accept love and understand that we deserve to beloved just like anyone else.
I’ve come to the realization that my expectations and assumptions are the true root to my problems. I expect people to act and be a certain way and I assume something is wrong when nothing is, therefore I end up creating a problem when there was none there to begin with.
In my last post, I shared The Four Agreements with you from a book I recently finished. I wrote them down and now carry it around with me in my bag to help remind me when I need it the most. Assumptions is the biggest task to tackle. Now if only everyone else got on board and followed the same lessons.
How many of you make assumptions about people without knowing the facts? We criticize them, gossip about them behind their back all before actually knowing if they are at fault. How many times have we been wrong?
I know it’s happened to me on a number of occasions. I believe someone is acting strange and then my mind plays tricks on me and I start to believe they’re acting that way because of me, I get angry with them and finally I confront them about it only to learn none of it was what I thought!
“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.”
― Andy Warhol,
The biggest issue most of us have is that we condemn someone without even talking to them first, we let it get out of control and don’t even give the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time it’s someone who means a lot to us and we damage the relationship for no reason.
It’s a lot easier to take a step back asses the situation and if we still feel like something is off, the next step to take is to ask them about it and don’t go to someone else to get advice. You’ll be surprised that most of the time it’s not what you thought it was!
Kindness can go along way, kindness to yourself and kindness to others. Give others a chance and let them in, sometimes you might be disappointed but those times when you won’t are worth the chance.
All of these feelings stem from some where, for me at least now I know where some of them originated from. The insecure feeling of being unwanted and unaccepted by anyone and feeling that it can happen with any relationship I hold dear, which is why I retract and distance myself from people I love for fear of not being accepted.
It’s a slow process, and one that I can’t expect others to understand, after all it’s a problem within myself that really has nothing to do with anyone else.
“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”
― Stephanie Perkins
I think we are all battling similar issues, especially in a world where dominance seems to be most people raison d’etre. We either become affable or we defend ourselves. I read recently that we should avoid feeling aversion, that it usually stems from a judgment. Let go of the judgment and maybe the feeling of aversion will slip away. My take on it insecurity is us defending a false position based on our patterns of judgement, we can feel more secure when we let-up on judging situations as either good or bad. Even when i drive now I try to drive with at least one hand palm up, as to indicate a none grasping after attitude, it becalms me. Nice to see your struggle captioned so that we can share viewpoints.
What I liked most about ‘The Four Agreements’ is the statement which I like to put into the form of a question, “Did I do the best that I can under the circumstances?”
Much more often than not the answer is surprisingly ‘yes’ even though I still wish I’d done better, but such is life…and asking this question often can be a pretty good preventative measure against ‘phoniness’…have a wonderful day.
Wise words. I definitely resonate with this. Thank you for sharing. <3
Thank you!! It was a tough one but it was definitely therapeutic!
Nice to see someone identifying the real problem ( shared by millions) and seeking ways to positively deal with it.
Here’s something to help ( i hope)..
Our brain’s connections begin forming from the moment of conception, exactly when consciousness can be said to be achieved and self realisation becomes possible is a little less easily dated but is undoubtedly established long before we can fully appreciate and control it towards the end we would truly desire.
Our brain is very much a pattern oriented organism – the electrical impulses that zap the neurons into their multibillion inter-connection pathways tend to mostly travel along the ‘path of least resistance’ the path most often followed ‘before’. this is the brain’s ‘default state’ doing what it has done most often before.
When the resultant activity is of benefit to us this is a good thing but if the activity produces negative results it can be extremely hard to alter – particularly if we have been behaving that way for a time before we realizsd what the underlying cause was/is.
Just having awareness of negative behaviour is helpful to us but it may require almost superhuman efort and a great deal of time before we imprint a new or ‘beter’ way of behaviour that ‘sticks’ and replaces long held negative patterns.
I’m not saying to give up or that we cannot make new more successful pattterns for our brains to folow – just that we often unconciously make it difficult or have no real idea of exactly how to make those new patterns.
Good Luck in your progress.