Insecurity breach

The more I get to know people and the more I hear them speak, the more convinced I become that each and every one of us is dealing with a very central and common struggle: our own insecurities. I believe this true especially among the recovery community.

Young or old, rich or poor, intelligent or uneducated, beautiful or homely, each and every one of us struggles with our own self image in some way or another. We are all in different stages of our struggles with insecurity; some of us have learned well how to overcome it while for others it has a constant crippling effect.

Our constant insecurities lead us to seek the approval of others, for if we know that others see us highly than perhaps we just might change our own minds about ourselves. In pursuit of confidence we begin to think and act in ways we hope will impress others. However we are motivated by the perceived benefits for ourselves. When our actions do not bring about the desired results, we retreat in hurt and defeat.

When this pattern occurs over and over again and we find ourselves repeatedly disappointed by the lack of approval of others, we begin to place barricades around our emotions to protect ourselves and our feelings. We talk ourselves into a false sense of not caring what others think but in turn we focus so much on ourselves that we lose all sight of how we treat others. We focus on making ourselves look nice, we buy expensive things merely to be the envy of others, and we eventually convince ourselves that we are better than others. This is called pride.

When the pride of an insecure person is damaged, few if any living creatures on the face of this earth will be spared from the consequences. The prideful person will lash out in fits of anger or sorrow. The conversations of a prideful person will be solely focused on the perceived injustice. Those caught in the aftermath are left hurt and angry themselves, fuelling a chain reaction creating more insecurity and eventually pride.

In that manner pride breeds pride much like I imagine would be the breeding habits of rabbits on Viagra - natural in a way, but with an additive that God never intended. The result is an overpopulation that will consume everything in its path and an organism left completely and utterly alone.

I wish I had a solution that easily broke the cycle. By the time we reach the point of pride our own paradigms are so well developed that we can rarely interrupt them ourselves, if ever it was possible. Perhaps the first step is the simplest in theory though as is often said, simple doesn't necessarily mean easy.

We must acknowledge that we are truly insecure and prideful, for no healing may begin if we don't admit the presence of a wound. Recognize that you are a child of God, created in His image exactly as you are for a specific purpose. Somewhere somehow in our pride, we must learn to trust just one other person. We must wholly trust that person in part based on his or her actions, and in part as a leap of faith on our own. To that person we must tell every detail of our hurts and insecurities. We tell this person all of the injustices we have suffered, and then we admit to all of the injustices we have caused. We admit that we know we aren't perfect and invite God into our lives to do His good work in us. We admit our mistakes and make it right with those who have suffered injustices by our own actions. And we do this over and over again taking notes of our hurts and our fears until we realize that we are no longer motivated by our feelings, but rather by our desire to produce positive results in the lives of ourselves and others.

Simply stated, we take the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and we apply it as if our addiction wasn't alcohol, but rather as if we were addicted to the approval of others.