Overcoming Insecurity: What Is Insecurity?
WHO FACES INSECURITY?
We have the most amazing youth meeting at our church. (I can freely say that because I have nothing to do with its success. I just attend and learn like everyone else.) Once we had a lesson on anxiety, and I nearly flipped out. Talking about anxiety made me so anxious!! I am having the same trouble with this series on overcoming insecurity. Talking about insecurity is making me feel inadequate!My birthday is coming up. I'm turning 32, and I still get insecure. It drives me completely bonkers! I would have thought by now--with so many positive life experiences behind me--that insecurity would be an old, stale memory. Teenage Laura would be so disappointed!I'm learning though that we all deal with self-doubt. Age really is just a number when it comes to things like this.Just as Baby Basil and his sweetheart mom taught us, when we can't tell where our source of security is, we become insecure. When we think God's not there, we panic.This is the fundamental concept behind this series. This is the deep secret conclusion (shh...) that we're going to come to. Feelings of insecurity come directly from feeling disconnected with God--and feeling disconnected with God comes directly from the spiritual warfare we face.That's why we ALL face insecurity at some point or another. It is the number one tool of the devil to wrestle us away from our Creator.
INSECURITY = FEAR
I heard this amazing concept on a podcast once. A guy was explaining that his therapist holds him responsible for his emotions--and he doesn't let him sidestep them. When he says he's "frustrated," the therapist insists he use the real word--and not the frou-frou modernist/postmodernist term: "You're angry. Just say it."I sat and wondered what real emotion hides behind the frou-frou "insecurity."Fear. Insecurity is just fear, dressed for a society dinner party.Thinking of insecurity in terms of fear really explains all the irrational behavior that we engage in when we're feeling it.
Paranoid thoughts: We assume the worst about ourselves and others.Judgmental eyes: We are cruel in our assessment of others.Harsh words: We say hurtful things that are hard to take back.Aching heart: We feel ever more isolated and alone.Harmful actions: We behave in ways that hurt us and others.Unwise decisions: We make choices we know we should not.The decisions and actions we regret most in life are usually borne out of fear--out of insecurity. They are the natural product of listening to paranoid thoughts and assuming the worst about ourselves and those around us.
INSECURITY LEFT UNTREATED
What are the consequences of dealing with our insecurity (our fear) in the wrong way and leaving it unexamined and untreated?--We live hiding behind a facade--We lack real connections with others--We hurt the most important relationships in our lives--We feel disconnected from God--We walk a path that's hard to unravelNext week we'll examine the symptoms and consequences of wallowing in insecurity in more detail (and figure out how to counteract them). For now, let's define and understand them.The more insecure we feel, the more we hide behind a facade.Do you know what a facade is? I have an architect for a mother (and a sister), so this concept is especially vivid for me. It's the face of a building. And a false facade, specifically, is one of those old west style building fronts that's all beautiful and jazzed up and hides a very plain building behind it.In our insecurity, we put on our best faces (the face that we keep in a jar by the door). Because we're always so occupied with putting on our best faces, the rest of us--the core--just starts to rot away from neglect. We forget how to be ourselves because we're so busy projecting perfection. We forget to take care of ourselves, to water the flower within, because we're so busy finding shiny baubles to distract others from our pain and vulnerability.
Our insecurity prevents us from making real connections with others.No one wants to befriend a facade. In fact, when we're around people with facades, we tend to, instinctively, put one up ourselves. People don't make friends with perfection; they make friends with sincerity, with vulnerability, with the side of you they can relate to because they acknowledge it in themselves. When we are too fearful to open our hearts, we can't connect with the hearts of others.As we feel less and less secure, we often hurt the most important relationships in our lives.I'm going to take this one way back to our teen years. Do you remember all the resentment and fighting and bitterness we had in our relationships with our parents in the toughest years? Those link directly to insecurity, to fear. We (the teens) were insecure of who we were and what we wanted out of life. We (the parents) were terrified of messing up the most important people in our lives or of letting them mess their lives up.In insecurity, we tend to lash out at those we trust most: our parents, our children, our spouses. Some of those scars can be healed. Others linger on. And sometimes we let our insecurity destroy our families and our marriages.We feel disconnected from God.When we feel disconnected from God, we get insecure. And when we're insecure, we disconnect from God. It's a Catch-22. It's a cycle of lies that the devil entraps us in. The deceiver tells us we're alone, so we act out of our fear (and often sin). Then when we have sinned, we believe we're not worthy of His love or any love. We hide (Adam and Eve style) from God and from our closest allies and from the world. We feel even more isolated and insecure and are trapped in a path to self-destruct.We make decisions that separate us from God and others.As we push God away and we push away people that care about us, as we build up false facades and pretend to be okay, we slowly poison our lives with bitterness. The deceiver whispers over and over that it's too late to go back.Even if we've spent all our inheritance. Even if we've frequented every brothel. Even if we've roared in drunken laughter till we found ourselves in the mud of swine. The Father always welcomes us back with the biggest grin and the most wide open arms--but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?Tune in next week for part 3. [thrive_2step id='2137']Subscribe[/thrive_2step] to our e-mail list to get it sent right to your inbox, along with fun behind-the-scenes videos!
Your Turn
Do you ever feel insecure? Does it lead you to make decisions you later regret? Let us know in the comments or e-mail me directly at laura AT copticdadandmom.com
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