It’s Like Playing Hide and Seek: Ready or NOT, Here Insecurities Come

You wake up and confidently walk into the bathroom to get ready for the day. As you’re brushing your teeth, your sleepy morning eyes suddenly pop wide open as you look fully in the mirror realizing that today is the day all of your precious hormones decided to surprise you with a gift… a zit. Immediately, that confident swagger and energy you had  to seize the day transforms into slumped shoulders and worries about how everyone is going to make fun of you for this monstrosity on your face. You can’t help but to try to get rid of it, but the harder you try, the worse it becomes. You give up and feel like hiding, telling yourself you’ll just avoid going out in public.

The inevitable motherly pep talk begins as soon as you walk downstairs, which–if you’re anything like me–leaves you feeling slightly more confident. However, as soon as you take a step outside of the house, the insecurities slowly begin to take over again as you walk by others, noticing their perfect skin. Shame overcomes you, and you spend the rest of your day with your head down. 

I am sure we have all struggled with situations like this, whether it’s a pimple breakout, a bad haircut, a rash, a cold sore, or something else that makes us feel self-conscious. I recently struggled with something that made me feel so self-conscious that it broke me down. This was a problem that I couldn’t fix, but rather something I probably have to live with for the rest of my life. My normal go-to has been to try to hide, but I realized this thing will always come out of hiding whenever it wants and I will never have any control over it. The only thing I can control is how I react. And my reaction of hiding, shed light on a more serious issue, I was afraid to let God and others into this deeper part of me. I want to share the steps I took to bring this soft spot that brought me insecurity and shame into the light.

Step 1: Recognize our response to our insecurities.

Whenever we get pimples or things that make us feel insecure, we naturally begin to feel fear. We fear what others think of us, we fear being judged, we fear rejection, we fear not being wanted. Deep down, we fear that we are not worthy of love or connection with another human being. Due to this fear, our response is to try to eliminate these uncomfortable feelings. We try to remove the pimple, to cover it up, to hide our face to avoid seeing other people. The first step is to identify when we are hiding or trying to numb these uncomfortable feelings, and then to accept that hiding is not the solution but is actually preventing healing from taking place. Hiding covers up deeper issues because we fail to seek truth.

Step 2: Evaluate and seek truth.

In evaluating our insecurities, we might actually discover something deeper. We might find that our insecurities reflect deeper wounds inside of us created by lies we have accepted about ourselves and who we are. How do we face these lies? We must seek the truth of our identity. To do this, we must look to something greater than ourselves; we must look to our Creator. God created us in the image and likeness of Him so He is the only person who truly defines us. In Him we learn that all humans are worthy of love and respect regardless of what people think of us. In praying to God and inviting Him into our hearts and mind, we can feel His love and know that we are worthy. We learn who we are is not defined by any human being. What other people think of us does not define us. If people make fun of us for a pimple, it should not deter us from being ourselves because we should be rooted in the truth. The truth that we are accompanied by someone who is yearning for a deeper connection to us. 

Step 3: Be vulnerable.

In the past, my insecurities led to me hiding and shutting down, but recently I realized there was another option. I could actually see my insecurities as an opportunity for something that is difficult but ultimately leads to the depth of connection we were all made for: vulnerability. Vulnerability with ourselves, God, and others. Within ourselves, vulnerability looks like accepting our wounds instead of running away from them. We cannot numb the negative feelings without also numbing the positives. In our relationship with God, we must accept that we cannot fix it on our own, but rather surrender our control and trust in the grace of God to meet our needs. We don’t have to be afraid to show our places of shame to the Lord, in fact, those are the very places which can bring us closer to Him. Just like a relationship grows with getting to know the other, we too can grow in a similar fashion with God by sharing the deepest parts of ourselves. Finally, God calls us to be in community because being vulnerable with others in a prudent manner helps us to bring our insecurities and shame into the open so others can speak truth into the lies we tell ourselves. Vulnerability is not something we should fear or associate with weakness, but rather a gift that is difficult to accept and makes us stronger. It helps us understand that we are worthy of love and belonging no matter our struggle. We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we react. We must react in a manner that allows us to be fully ourselves and fully alive.

You are not alone.