I’ve write about insecurity about 75% of the time my fingers tap on my keyboard. It’s been an ongoing struggle, and while maybe the object of my insecurity has evolved, it always stems from some need of self-validation.
I trick myself too, into thinking I’m over it.
So Christmas 2015 my mother wrapped up this lovely book, you know after I moved back to Alabama, sent home my horse, and had no money, (I still have no money, and I now only live across one state line) called, “So Long, Insecurity.” It was brilliant. I read the book, and I’ve actually sent it to friends to read.
I learned how to trick the system a bit. I did actually feel better, but I also realized people weren’t attracted nor wanted to spend time around someone whose sad and desperate for their attention. So, the best way to make yourself attractive and have friends who want to invite you out on Friday? Become chipper and ‘not desperate for their attention.’ I insert quotations. It’s not that I wasn’t desperate for a guy to take me out, and tell me how smart and funny I was, and then want to spend hours at the barn with me. Because I definitely, definitely, wanted that validation of living the purposeful young adult life with someone re-itterating that I was worth hanging out with. But I became good at not making it so obvious, you know?
And it wasn’t a completely bad route. It semi-worked, I guess, until it didn’t. It only worked when I had someone around to re-iterate that I wasn’t a failure, because alone I’m back at square one.
And that’s where I found myself yesterday as I reopened, “So Long, Insecurity.” I got about five pages in, until I literally forcefully dropped it on the floor so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Because this time, the pages weren’t describing to me the key to get people to like me, so that I would have people to tell me I was doing ok.
No this time around, through a exhausted read, I just saw the words,
“What if no on tells us that? Can we still find a way to be ok?”
and
“Are we honestly going to insist on drawing our security from people-men or women-who are oblivious to the inordinate amount of weight we give to their estimation of us?”
Umm, Miss Beth Moore, No-Kay. Ma’am don’t tell me I have to be ok being alone, I don’t like it, it’s not comfortable, and I do not give myself the good pep talks. Jeez, I practically run myself broke every month pursuing this dream, (yes I adore my horse more than my own happiness) where I derive weekly validation of taking a four-legged animal up the levels. I don’t deny even that habit, is useful when I’m down, to reiterate that I can accomplish something.
But it’s only a temporary high. It’s too much pressure on someone else. It’s too much pressure on the crush I expect to to tell me “XYZ,” It’s too fragile to put on a horse who can fall ill over a tick bite, and it’s too complicated and draining for my friends who can only re-word the same pep talks so many times. It wears thin, I think eventually, or now, I’ve run it all through the washer as many times as I’ve can.
Somehow, I’ve got to be ok with myself. I want to be. better. I do want better relationships where I’m not so reliant on someone to make me ok. I want to have the security and peace to face challenges without worrying that my low-self-worth can’t conquer it.
I’ll remind myself of this verse:
“God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” II Corinthians 4
Because we’re given a treasure inside of us. We have this luminescent flame radiating from us, that I’ve covered so discreetly. No ma’am. I’m going to fight for this. My value can’t come from whether I’m desirable to one or a hundred. It’s gotta be there regardless.