When we sit with fear or insecurity in a healthy way, we liberate ourselves from the discomfort. It is amazing. This does not mean that you’ll never feel the discomfort that comes from the fear, again, but it means it won’t affect you in the same way. It doesn’t have as much power over you. We let go of thinking things such as, “This discomfort means that there’s something wrong with me.” Or “This discomfort means that something bad is going to happen.” Instead, we just sit with the discomfort in a neutral way. This is based on a mindfulness concept that what you resist grows more powerful. When we don’t resist our fear, and we welcome it, and we sit with it. In this way, we develop a new relationship with our fear that feels better.
So the invitation is to sit with your fear or the insecurity. And it’s not easy. It often is better if you go through some type of training or are supported it in some way to know how to sit with your insecurity or fear in a way that is healing.
We’re human beings and we are actually designed to feel fear. So if you believe, “I shouldn’t feel fear because fear is bad,” then you’re denying that you were built to feel fear. And the reason that we are built to feel fear is because it kept our ancestors alive, in centuries past. It’s part of our human existence. When we accept that it’s normal and okay to be afraid, it can really shift our experience with it.
It is shame that makes feeling insecurity unhealthy. The word “shame” can mean a lot of different things to different people. I simply mean any thoughts we have that make us feel not good enough. This might happen when we compare ourselves to others or feel down about something that we did or feel down about something that we didn’t do. What’s more, it’s worry that makes experiencing the emotion of fear unhealthy. But the insecurity and the fear on their own is healthy and is actually healing.
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