Honestly, I guess I've never really completely openly admitted to it, but I used to be the most insecure person ever. I'm sure you'd never guess that, especially if you only know me from social media. But it's true. And honestly, I still am somewhat insecure sometimes. I'm in the middle of changing my mindset. It's all about your mindset. If you've read my previous blog posts, you'll know that I dedicated an entire post strictly to just mindset. So this goes along with that I guess.
I never really knew why I was so insecure until I sat down and truly thought about it. Which, mind you, is something that didn't happen for years. I laid in bed, wondering what made me this way. Was it something in my past? Could be. But how could I move past that? I had been doing things throughout my life to fill some type of void and make me feel more confident, but those things were only temporary. They didn't rid me of my insecurities forever. Little things like people giving compliments and Instagram likes only boost confidence for a split second. So I realized that it had to be something that I was doing wrong that made me feel so insecure. And after racking my brain, I figured out the cause: overthinking. I know that sounds stupid. But let me explain it to you.
Your insecurities are literally all in your head. I know this because I used to see a therapist. She prescribed me medication and told me it might help. I took that medication and I can tell you right now it didn't work. Now, it's not that I was taking the wrong medication. It's that I had the wrong mindset. There is no magical pill that magically makes you confident. Although that would be nice. But if you think about your insecurities often, you'll eventually think of them constantly, and those thoughts will eat you alive. An example of that would be the fact that I'm insecure about my smile. Why? Because I hate my teeth. Therefore I almost never smile in photos, and if I do, there's a 90% chance I was forced to. And no one's opinions help whatsoever. "Susan your teeth are fine" "They're not even bad just smile". Nothing anyone says helps because it's all inside my head. It's an internal battle that I need to figure out. Yes, I had braces, yes, they are straight, but a little part that my teeth aren't filed on the bottom makes me so insecure at times. The fact that I'm so insecure about that one feature; I literally think about it more often than I should. I overthink. Therefore I need to change the way I think. My mindset. How? Well, the things I'm insecure about are all fixable things. On top of that, the things I'm insecure about could be WAY worse. I would rather have teeth that aren't filed on the bottom than no teeth! I should be blessed that I got a chance to have braces when I was younger and to have them straight now. So it could be way worse. That's something else to think about. Lastly, another way to think (and the hardest way to train your mind to think) is that it's not as bad as you think it is. So if you're insecure about your weight, or your skin, or anything of that nature, 9 times out of 10, no one actually thinks it's as bad as you do. Half the time people aren't even paying enough attention to you to notice. Seriously. it's hard to train yourself to actually believe that. But it's true. You see all of your flaws every single day 24/7. Therefore those flaws are more noticeable to you as opposed to someone else. And hey, one day, you'll meet someone who will notice your flaws but loves every single one of them. There is genuinely no reason for you to stress over flaws that you may or may not have. It's a waste of time. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Stop wishing you looked like airbrushed, photoshopped celebrities who've undergone thousands of dollars of plastic surgery. You're YOU for a reason. I know that trying not to feel insecure is tough. Trust me. I've been there. But that's why I'm in the process of training my mind to think differently. And I'm telling you, it's really working. The only thing holding you back is you.
