Getting Out of 'In'security

A friend asked me recently, ‘are you insecure about the way you look?’

This question stopped me for a moment… feeling insecure is something we seem to talk about a lot these days, but whilst there’s a sense of relief in knowing we’re not alone, have we really found the solution? I felt led to explore this a little further.

According to the House of Commons Body Image Survey Results (2020), 61% of adults and 66% of children feel negative or very negative about their body image most of the time.

According to the study, “over 6 in every 10 women feel negatively about their bodies. Diet culture, post-partum pressures, being bombarded with images of photoshopped, edited and sexualised women as well as the aging process and the lack of visual representation of older women, are all things that women told us cause them to suffer with poor body image.”

It’s so heartbreaking that this is absolutely a huge problem affecting hundreds of thousands of people. I was, and still sometimes am, one of them.

The problem with secular statements

According to psychologist Dr. Lauren Hazzouri, feeling insecure and doubting yourself is valid and normal, “What I’ve learned is that to feel like we matter, we must first, treat ourselves like we matter,” she told Teen Vogue.

When we are faced with feeling down about ourselves, you'll find most people will likely tell you to look inwards; we live in a world focused on self-sufficiency, a world that encourages you to ‘love yourself’ and ‘do what makes you happy’. This is what Millennial and Gen Z generations have grown-up with. I think taking care of yourself is important and can provide some temporary relief, however, I don’t believe this is the gateway out of insecurity, nor statements that we should revolve our lives around.

I’m completely supportive of the movement to build and promote positive body image, however, I would challenge, is this really the solution to feeling secure in ourselves?

I think the movement to ensure people are better represented in the media is helpful in solving “triggers”, but not so helpful at getting to the root of the problem.

To explain this a little deeper - the images we see around us are external factors triggering neurotransmitters (signals) in our brains, all that happens is when we see pictures of other people, our brain clicks “go” on the thought pattern that we have connected to them.

Jennie Allen in her book ‘Get Out of Your Head’ said: “I began to see a pattern at work in many of us. Our emotions were leading us to thoughts, and those thoughts were dictating our decisions, and our decisions were determining behaviours, and then the behaviours were shaping our relationships, all of which would take us back to either healthy or unhealthy thoughts.”

There is a cycle that continues within our brains, and no matter what is going on around us on social media etc., only we truly have the power to break it.

“our emotions are a byproduct of the way we think” - Dr Caroline Leaf

The source of negativity

The small whispers of self-doubt, shame, anxiety are not God-given, in fact, we can often neglect to remember the real and genuine source of these lies. When we are tempted to think a certain way, the Devil is interested.

We weren't created to look at flaws, to feel shame, God tells us that we were beautifully and wonderfully made - why don't we believe that?

We were not designed to feel shame, we see at the very beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve giving into the temptation of Satan was the cause of them feeling shame - directly after eating from the tree, they 'realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves' (Genesis 3:7). God created us to only know good, we have a choice whether we let evil thoughts take root.

Ephesians 4:27 tells us not to give the Devil a foothold. Our weaknesses, our temptation to think negatively are footholds. We need to resist giving into this, by guarding ourselves from the wrong whispers.

The bible tells us that if we do resist, the Devil will flee:

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you -James 4:7

How do we find security?

So, I believe we have the power to take control of our thoughts, to resist negative whispers. But how? It’s one thing knowing this truth, and another thing working out how to apply this to our lives.

A friend asked me, ‘are you insecure about the way you look?’ – this question stopped me for a moment. I thought about it, and responded with ‘if I looked at myself in the mirror enough, I’m sure I would find things to be insecure about’.

I realised, I don’t tend to feel insecure anywhere near as much anymore… I used to be so self-conscious about the way I looked, never wanting to leave the house without make up nor take a picture without a filter. What changed?

I hear people talk about ‘learning to love yourself’, but I never really understood that. How can you “love” yourself? It didn’t make sense to me. People I saw talking about it were indulging in whatever they wanted at a given time, but I found that things like watching TV and eating sweets often led to feeling guilty and unproductive. I'm not sure about you but I find that often, doing things that don't fulfill my immediate desires at the time often feel best in the long run.

Whilst I think it’s possible, I still don’t think the process is obvious. Hearing about ‘loving yourself’, to me, always said ‘focus more on yourself’. I actually think the answer lies in the contrary.

A few years ago, in my early 20’s, I was most definitely insecure. I mainly posted selfies on social media and craved affirmation from those around me on my posts, and in real life. Looking beyond the surface, my subconscious theory was that compliments would help me feel better; that if people liked and commented on my posts, it would prove I was attractive, and worthy of love. I leant on that for security, but that solution was so fragile; the more affirmation I got, the less secure I felt.

I find the same with people in my life, I’ll tell them with sheer honesty that I think they look beautiful, or compliment how kind and generous they’ve been, and I can tell they don’t believe it. They don’t believe a truth because somewhere along the way it has lost its meaning. With every post we heighten our tolerance and need more and more compliments, more extravagant statements to build ourselves up.

One of the causes of this lies in self-preoccupation; the level of self-focus that leads to:

‘Assuming that every slight, every rejection and awkward interaction with someone is about you’ -Sharon Hodde Miller.

Trying to treat this with affirmation just makes the problem worse, because we focus further in on ourselves - even thinking about ourselves positively can be unhealthy if we spend too much time on it.

As an artistic person, a good example I can think of is this; the more an artist focuses on their painting, the more faults they find with their work (after all, artists are known to be their own worst critics). In those situations, when an artist is so overwhelmed with dissatisfaction for their work, the advice is to walk away, refocus and come back with “fresh eyes”. More often than not, when people do this, they then start to appreciate their own work and have a better focus on what they need to do next.

I think this is the same with our view about ourselves and the way we look, if we can learn to shift our focus, we can begin to understand what it is to love ourselves. I believe the reason I changed lies within the response I gave my friend; I no longer stared into the mirror long enough, and I begun to understand what I needed to focus on.

Shifting focus

God teaches us to set our eyes on Him, to focus on the things above. In the Bible, before He sent people out, He made sure that their focus was first on Him.

"It's more important to know who God is than who we are" - Dr Mark Baker

God has wonderful plans for our lives, and only lets us move into our calling once we not only have a good relationship with Him, but put Him first. When we are obedient and trust God, he guides us to fulfilling our full kingdom potential.

When God approached Moses to call him to free the Israelites, Moses said to God "Who am I, that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you..." - Exodus 11-12

Moses didn't need confidence in himself, he just needed to trust in God, and he did.

Paul also started carrying out his calling feeling very insecure - "I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." - 1 Cor 2:3-5

The more we steer away from the things of this world and focus on God, the more secure we become in ourselves.

The more we let God take over, the more we truly become ourselves - C.S Lewis

You may be wondering, how do I ‘seek God first’, how do I ‘shift my focus’? Practically, I think this starts with 3 things:

1. Finding “fresh eyes”

Linking back to my artist example, sometimes we need to walk away from our triggers to help us find a fresh perspective. Whilst I don’t think this alone will solve the problem, I believe it’s a great way to begin the journey.

For many, the first trigger that will come to mind is social media; I know for me it was Instagram. I decided to take a break for a while; and I noticed it so little that I didn’t have an account for 2 years.

Dr Caroline Leaf says that social media can "decrease our attention, making us increasingly less able to focus on our thought habits. This opens us up to shallow judgements and decisions…" so taking ourselves away from this can help us focus on recalibrating our thought patterns.

We can get so caught up in feeding our affirmation, that it fogs our view of the truth, and it can lead us to being on social media for that purpose, rather than because we like to see what our friends are up to. In fact, participants in a well-known study demonstrated stronger activity within the brain’s nucleus accumbens when they received positive feedback about themselves than when they saw another person receiving positive feedback.

Another trigger could be our relationships.

Paul tells us not to be misled and that:

bad company corrupts good character - 1 Cor 15:33

Psychologically, we are prone to mirroring the behaviors of those around us, and if that includes talking negatively about our own bodies, our friends can end up doing the same.

If you find that the closest company in your life triggers insecurities, it’s probably worth setting healthy barriers and starting your "mind detox" by spending time with people who focus on other things, and think more positively. If you don't have people like that in your life, I suggest looking at joining an interest group somewhere local, get more involved at church and/or spending some time volunteering.

There could be many triggers, and the most important place to begin is by identifying what feeds into that negative thinking.

2. Start doing good things in secret

If we are to move away from insecurity, we need to consider what we are leaning on for approval, because when we look deep enough, it'll likely be something unfulfilling. When we seek approval, this drives our reasons for doing what we do. For me, this was driving my purpose on social media, the reason for saying negative things about myself, for helping people.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” - Matt 6:2-4

Jesus calls people hypocrites in Matthew 6:2 and again in verse 16, because in their actions they want to appear as though they are pleasing God, when actually they want the praise of men.

So, I pose the question, who are you serving?

For me, it was definitely praise from people, and I knew this because it was the outcome I was craving. However, when we decide to do things in secret, negative things begin to lose their power and purpose. For example, saying negative things about yourself in a room alone, taking selfies without posting them anywhere, loses reason.

If we start to do things secretly, we begin to lose dependency on affirmation from other people and find rest in sharing those moments with God.

3. Identify struggles and take control

We take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ - 2 Cor 10:5

Whilst we’ve taken away the triggers, if we don’t work on re-routing the negative pathways we have fed into our brains, we will find the same problems occurring again when we are faced with those triggers again.

Re-routing your thoughts takes practice and wisdom. When we understand what are healthy emotions and unhealthy emotions, we can consider the circumstances where unhealthy emotions occur and consider why we may be reacting in the way we do. For example, there are two types of guilt - healthy guilt is where we feel bad for hurting someone and want to make it better, unhealthy guilt is where we feel unworthy of love (2 Cor 7:10-11).

When we hear that people "feel negative" about their body, this feeling is actually shame, that is, feeling unworthy of love. When we learn that unhealthy guilt, or shame, is something of this world and not of God, we can take that it's not something we should accept as an emotion that is healthy for us nor our relationships.

Recognition is the first step in rerouting our thoughts, the next step is replacing those negative thoughts that we associate to things we see or what people say, with truths that God teaches us. Our brains are so powerful and God has given us free will over our thoughts and decisions:

As he thinks in his heart, so is he -Prov 23:7

Meditating on God's word and the truth about us being His beautiful creation can physically change the structure of our brains in a positive way.

Neuroscientist Dr Caroline Leaf states: "When you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born while you were sleeping that are there at your disposal to be used in tearing down toxic thoughts and rebuilding healthy thoughts. The birth of these new nerve cells is called 'neurogenesis', which brings to mind "the Lord's mercies are new every morning" (Lam 3:23)."

The more that you choose to think about God's truth, that you were beautifully and wonderfully made, the more it can truly change the way we view ourselves. The more we get to know God and meditate on His word, the more we will truly see the world through His lense.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things - Phil 4:8

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! :)

I hope this was interesting to read, and helpful in some way. I'd love to hear your own thoughts and stories, so connect with me on Instagram @lovegenerouslyblog or email me at lovegenerouslyblog@gmail.com

Lots of love x