I'm going to interrupt the flow I had planned to bring you this. It's a situation I'm dealing with now, and I figured I'd seize the opportunity while the emotions and thoughts are still so surface.
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I was in my early 20s when I ran into my first very intense emotional relationship. Boy was I ill-equipped to handle that level of emotion. While I knew even entering it that it wouldn't last for a host of reasons, the emotions quickly overwhelmed any sense of reason or perspective. I ran smack into the wall of Insecurity. It was the very first time for me, and it completely knocked me off balance. Considering how off-balance I was from the extremity of the feelings already, this additional knock sent me careening off the edge and into a personal abyss.
Because of my own wake-up call with this aspect of myself, I started to look around and became very aware of how it manifested in me and those I've known. I have to say that, in my experience, Insecurity is perhaps the single most destructive force that people wrestle with - men and women, but mostly women seem to express it in this way. The horrible irony is that most often those who are feeling insecure turn to someone else for reassurance, and nothing our partners can say or do will ever fix this problem.
Why?
Insecurity means that one feels ... without foundations. In-Secure. Cast adrift. Without an anchor. Having nothing or little upon which to find stability. Like they are standing up in a canoe.
Given this, no matter what anyone in our lives may tell us -- from parents and siblings to friends and partners -- that lack of feeling secure is untouched, unaltered. It took me a long time and a lot of pain to figure this one out: No one can GIVE another person security. Personal security is born from the realization of our own strength and capacity to handle ... life. To go back to the canoe -- no else can stabilize the canoe, we have to sit down on our own and take control of the craft.
No matter how times we ask "does this make my butt look big?", we're not going to like or accept the answer if insecurity run riot. No amount of reassurances will touch this insecurity, because it's an internal state which has nothing to do with someone else. Not really.
I have a friend who, right now, is paddling around within so much insecurity she's nearly drowning herself. I've thrown her lifelines, I've talked until I'm blue in the face, I've consoled, I've hugged. Nothing really helps. She has to find her own strength, and I can't help her find that. I can only encourage. It's like I'm standing on the shore shouting "you have to sit down and pick up the oar! stop flailing like that! you'll knock yourself in!" but she's too far away. She can't hear me.
What does this have to do with being the Lioness? With being an Empowered Feminine?
Empowerment is incompatible with Insecure. I cannot be full of my power when I refuse (or fail) to recognize that I have that power. I cannot be empowered when I'm blaming someone else for my problem, or berating them for not knowing how to fix something they cannot fix.
A great many strongly negative emotions are rooted in Insecurity. Everything from jealousy to the need to control everything around us, all of that stems from Insecurity. The men in our lives will move mountains for us if we have the faith in them, but they can't do a damn thing to help with Insecurity. All the platitudes, assurances, promises and actions will fall on deaf ears because the Insecure cannot accept them. Cannot. Flat CAN NOT.
And when he moves on, trying to find someone who will actually believe how sincere he is, guess who gets the blame? Guess who's Insecurity seizes on this, entrenching itself even further now that it's found the validation sought?
I wish I could shake some sense in people sometimes. But I can't. I have only my words.
- the Lioness (in training)
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