How to help an insecure person? 6 keys to give support

Several key tips and ideas on how to help an insecure person.

As a state, insecurity is something we all feel from time to time and it is totally normal. Life is not a bed of roses and on many occasions obstacles appear on that path that make us feel unsafe. The problem comes when this is a trait, a defined character of the person.

We all know someone who deep down is extremely insecure. She may hide it by being very critical of others or, it can also happen that she is so afraid of what people will say that she is constantly avoiding other human beings for fear of what they will think of her.

Whether we are friends, family or even their partner, it hurts us to see how the insecure person suffers and, on many occasions, makes others suffer. For this reason we are going to find out how to help an insecure person from the context of a friendship or a family or couple relationship, understanding their suffering and also putting ourselves in their shoes.understanding their suffering and putting ourselves also in their same skin.

Tips for knowing how to help and support an insecure person.

Everyone, at some point in their lives, has felt insecure. This is something totally normal since on more than one occasion it can happen that we live through an experience that makes us question our capabilities.

Whether it is a disappointment, a failure or a failure that has happened, it is normal that we doubt our worth. However, it is also normal for us to overcome it, it is also normal for us to overcome it, learn from it and understand that in this life you cannot be perfect and sometimes things don't turn out the way we wanted them to. That's okay.

The problem is that there are people who live constantly thinking that way. They have a very negative perception of themselves and the world. They do not see themselves as capable people and fear that others will judge them or discover all the weaknesses they believe they have. Their insecurity is not a passing thing, but a personality trait or a state that has settled for too long in their way of being, completely destroying their self-esteem.

Whether it is our partner, our friend or a family member, it hurts us to see how their insecurity prevents them from enjoying life, questioning everything that they undoubtedly possess but cannot see. However, it often happens that we do not know how to help them, it often happens that we do not know how to help this type of person because their own insecurity acts as a barrier or even as a repellent. or even as a repellent, since some insecure people choose to avoid social contact, fearing that they will be harmed.

Other insecure people are not docile, quite the contrary. They are very critical of what we do and don't do, they make fun of us, they make jocular comments... It seems that they are trying to destroy our self-esteem, to turn us into insecure people. As they do not know how to manage their insecurity, they choose to look for the complexes of others, those little defects that everyone has to try to raise their own self-esteem a little. The problem is that this doesn't work and, in reality, it becomes just another dysfunctional way of managing their self-doubt.

Whether she behaves by withdrawing from people or with toxic behavior, it is possible to help overcome a loved one's insecurities. In the following lines we will see how to help an insecure person, especially by putting into practice our empathy, patience and ability to identify and manage the strengths and weaknesses of the person we are trying to help..

1. Practice empathy

Each person has his good and bad things and his behavior can be explained to a great extent by his experiences. Not all of us have been raised in the same environment nor have our parents had the same type of upbringing. The type of environment in which we are raised during the first years of life shapes a great deal of our personality and it is in this period that the trait of insecurity can emerge.

If we want to help an insecure person to become more self-confident the first thing we need to do is to understand where that personality comes from.. We should not constantly remind her of the problems she may have because of her insecurity, since she already knows them first hand, but understand what has caused it.

We must take into account that insecure people are very aware of what others tell them. Depending on how we say it, he or she may get the wrong idea of what we think of him or her. For this reason, we must be careful how we say things to them. We must be empathetic, trying to understand what it must be like to be in his or her shoes.

2. Highlight their qualities

Insecure people are very critical of themselves and, blinded by a brutal negativity bias, are unable to see all the strengths they possess on their own. For this reason our task will be to highlight their qualities. By making him or her aware of all the good things he or she possesses, we can help to build up some self-confidence and self-assurance..

This task is really easy if the person we are helping is our friend or partner, since it would not make much sense to stay by their side if we were unable to find anything good in them.

In fact, it is even possible that we know talents and skills of that person that we have never told him or her about because they are so seemingly obvious that we trusted that he or she already knew them, something that if we tell him or her is perhaps even a pleasant surprise for him or her.

3. Make him or her see that no one is perfect

Perfectionism is a common trait in these people, i.e., obsessing about doing everything as well as possible thinking that, if they don't get it, they are not worth it. The problem is that they never succeed and become frustrated, and their self-esteem sinks even lower than it already was. It is normal that they do not achieve it, not because they are not worth it, but because perfection does not exist.

We must make them understand that neither we nor they nor anyone else is perfect, and nothing happens. The ideal is to get them to see the balance between their strengths, which they undoubtedly possess, and their strengths. which they undoubtedly possess, and their weaknesses, weaknesses that are not unchangeable.

By seeing the good things you have, you will be able to build a self-esteem based on real things, strengths that you have. On the other hand, knowing what weaknesses you have and what things you can improve and what you can't will give you a lot of mental health, since you will not spend unnecessary strength on changing what can't be changed.

4. Motivate her

Motivating insecure people is one of the best ways to increase their self-esteem and give them confidence and security. Encouraging words are good medicine for those people who have had very unpleasant experiences which have caused them to question their own worth. In addition to telling them about their strengths, we can motivate them to accomplish what they set out to do, making them see that we trust them to achieve their goals.

5. Know their insecurities

By knowing their insecurities we do not mean having to put up with complaints about their complexes and problems, but asking them to tell us honestly what it is that worries them, what their feelings are and which people they think are criticizing them or do not look favorably on them.

The idea is to find out what exactly it is that worries them and to make them understand, analyzing what they tell us, what is real in their worries. Many times they will tell us that they think that others are talking about them, but what is really happening is that they have created this idea in their mind, which they believe without proof. It is, in fact, a paranoid idea a paranoid idea which they will only be able to understand that it is not true if someone else makes them see it..

6. Be patient

Patience is the mother of science, and also of a good friend. Sometimes the insecure person we are trying to help will start complaining about what he thinks is going on, spouting a whole list of conspiratorial thoughts about what is going on around him or what others think. It may happen that this person defends himself by criticizing us, since that is his defense mechanism.

However the person we are trying to help may act, we must be patient.. He may make hurtful comments to us, or he may even start to say that he is really not worth it, that he is useless and that there is no point in us trying to make him see the good things because he does not believe he has them. True, all this is very tiring, but sooner or later we will manage to get into her mind and stop this whole cycle of distrust, fears and insecurities.

Bibliographical references:

• Simpson, J. A., & Steven Rholes, W. (2017). Adult Attachment, Stress, and Romantic Relationships. Current opinion in psychology, 13, 19-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006
• Goleman, D. (1996). emotional intelligence. Anales de Psicología / Annals of Psychology.
• Eduardo Bericat. (2012). Emociones. Sociopedia.Isi. https://doi.org/10.1177/205684601261.
• Margot, J.-P. (2007). La felicidad. Philosophical Praxis. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.RES.72.5.1082.