I Battle Insecurity

[big]Greetings from the land of insecurity[/big]


Even when I recognize I am making personal development progress, I allow self-doubt and lingering self-hatred to infiltrate my state of mind. It is easy enough to tell myself, "you are over-reacting," yet that does not diminish the feelings I have. Many people will casually tell me, you are in control. "Don't feel that way." Or, "don't let those feelings control you." Of course, it is always easy to tell someone how irrelevant their "little" problems are and to just overcome them. It is just as easy to feel disdain for those of us who express what we are feeling with the sage advice from someone who acts as though he/she has life all figured out... for other people. After all, they HAVE to say something and truth be told telling people how easy it is to overcome their problem is something we all engage in from time to time. We do... I do. But, for me, insecurity comes upon me with the persistence of a nosey neighbor who insists on knowing what you are doing tonight, or why you haven't been around, or why you seem to always be around, and why what you are doing when you are not around or are around needs correcting.

I have been making progress in my personal development of interacting and connecting with others. A year ago, I described myself as a "visible ghost" that people noticed, but avoided. Today, I regularly make contact with a small group of "friends." A year ago, I meticulously calculated how long my limited conversations lasted in contrast with conversations I observed others having. Today, I simply engage in conversations effortlessly, no longer concerned with keeping score and worrying I will run out of things to say or concerned the other person is thinking I am a douchebag while she/he is thinking how to extract themselves from a conversation they didn't want to have with me in the first place. That is REAL (not imagined) progress. But... I don't have the confidence that should come from my progress and growing social skills. Instead, I feel intently aware of how childish I must come across with my shyness being seen as inexperience, lack of interest, or adolescent arrogance that is inappropriate for someone past his teens. I FEEL I am not on the same playing field as the others and so I get their sympathy, maybe their pity, maybe their empathy, but never their equal treatment.

I am insecure with who I am, what I am, how I am, and mostly what I can become. I already know that kind of self-limiting self-loathing is the only thing that is holding me hostage in my psychological prison. I already know, I am the only one that can release me from my cell with ironclad locks I have mentally installed myself. I already know the reasons for my insecurity are not what is really holding me back. It's my decision not to let go of those reasons that is. Insecurity is funny in that it doesn't bend to reason; it won't break or crack with awareness, and it does not shrink by ignoring it. It's not stopping me from advancing - I AM making advancements on my personal development journey - but it is regulating how good it should feel to see the progress I have made. You see, I am insecure.