Dating With Insecurities

Battling Insecurities When Dating
By Frank Kermit
 
Insecurities can be an obstacle in your dating life. The special challenge is that even if you find someone that you like, who happens to like you back, your own insecurities will more than likely sabotage every great potential relationship you find.
 
Insecure people usually lack a certain confidence, and can be troubled by self-doubt about their own abilities, skills, and their own self-worth.
 
People can feel insecure about a variety of things such as weight, height, attractiveness, facial features, disabilities, social status and even whether or not they are deserving of being treated well or of experiencing being loved.
 
When your insecurities overwhelm your entire sense of self worth, it may be referred to as an inferiority complex, which can at times drive individuals to overcompensate to achieve extreme related success.
 
For example, a person with an inferiority complex about his or her looks, could potentially go to extreme measures to be considered very attractive, such as people who starve themselves to unhealthy near death limits, or people who train hard to the point of injuring themselves.
 
Insecurities can be rooted both from childhood experiences (for example, growing up with a feeling of unworthiness of love or attention from a parent), as well as, experiences from an adult's life (for example, a failure of some kind that became wrapped up in the adult's self identity).
 
In my practice, what I see most often is that insecure people attempt to solve their insecurities by aiming to be as perfect as possible.
 
This means not taking any action in dating waiting for the perfect time, waiting for the perfect partner, or waiting until he or she achieves some great accolade before being open to dating.
 
Striving for perfection does not seem to alleviate insecurities. It actually exasperates the problem constantly leaving an individual feeling like he or she is not ever perfect enough to be loved.
 
Full on acceptance of self is the best solution for insecurities. It is the complete opposite of the source of being insecure, and when a person fully accepts and loves him or her self, they also accept their insecurities as part of what makes them whole and unique.
 
Once you reach a point where you do not fear abandonment, or fear being unwanted, and accept yourself for all the reason you think people could potentially reject you, that is when you give off the belief in yourself that attracts people.
 
When you are OK with you, you teach others how to be OK with you.
 
This does not mean that EVERYONE is going to flock to you. Fact is, even at your best, there will likely always be a percentage of the population that will not accept you.
 
However, once you fully accept you, you may be surprised to find out that many other people (the majority in fact) will be more accepting of you as well, no matter what it was you originally felt insecure about.
 
The aim is not to ignore the element at the heart of your insecurity, or to try to hide it from others. It means that others may also acknowledge the existence of what you were insecure about, and still accept you with it.
 
One of the behaviors I always encourage in my clients to help them along the path to a stronger self-esteem and to build up self-acceptance is to stop judging other people.
 
Treat people with compassion at all times. It is a learn-able skill just like any other. Avoid gossiping about people, making fun of anyone for any reason whatsoever (in person or online), and be accepting and tolerant of others, even if you do not like them.
 
They do not have to conform to your own sense of appeal for you to accept them. You do not have to like a person, their look, or their lifestyle, in order to accept them and respect their rights as human beings; whatever flaws you may see in them.
 
How openly or harshly you judge others are signs of how little or how much you compassionately accept yourself.
 
Frank Kermit