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Saturday, April 10, 2010

I'm not insecure......I'm just worried no one likes me.

Is insecurity a trait that automatically comes with a vagina or is it learned? The old nature vs. nurture debate. And why is it that men don't seem to struggle with it? Are they that confident or do they simply not care? But, I have yet to meet a woman who doesn't have a raging flow of it running just below the surface of even the most confident personalities. And for some reason, it's taboo to admit it. Well, as I've mentioned before, my blog is going to be a no-holds-barred place to open up in an attempt to be completely transparent with one and all.....a form of therapy, you might say. So here goes.....

Hi, my name is Momma and I'm insecure. You name it and I'm probably insecure about it. When I post a comment on someone's Facebook wall, I immediately worry that it will be taken wrong either by them or by any of their 600 friends. When I post (most) of my status updates, I usually end up deleting and editing it two or three times before I'm finally at peace that the least amount of people will be offended by it.....then I sit and worry that someone got offended by it. Anyone on my friend list might be surprised at such an admission because I post often and comment frequently and I'm apt to say just about anything that pops into my mind and I usually do. But on the inside, I'm in turmoil that I'm one comment away from being defriended. And that's just about Facebook! I won't even get into how I torture myself with a blog!

Granted, I do have some basis for my fears.....one of my best friends defriended me, people have stopped speaking to me, and someone actually tried to report me to the prayer chain at church several years ago, but that's neither here nor there.

But that doesn't explain why women as a whole tend to question their every move yet none of us care to admit that we doubt or (gasp) regret our decisions. I have a theory as to why that might be. No one is more judgmental about women than other women. Who of us hasn't gotten off the phone with another woman and worried that that they disapproved of or was offended by something we'd just said? Then we sit in misery as we ponder whether they'll ever speak to us again and suddenly we're calling or emailing apologies like, "When I said I like brownies better than cookies I totally forgot that you made me cookies last year and they were like my total favorite cookies ever and I just remembered that now I like cookies better and it's all because of you!" Wheeew! Disaster averted. And that's just the baked goods! Heaven help us if we ever touch on topics like breastfeeding, public schools, 'R' rated movies, or drinking an occasional glass of wine with dinner! Because the bottom line is, if someone chooses to do things differently, we're automatically launched into justifying why we've chosen to do things the way we do and we're not happy until we get the other person's approval about the choice we made. BRUTAL! What a miserable way to live!

So what's the solution? Do we deactivate our Facebook accounts? Do we stop answering the phone and pull out of society altogether to protect us from each other but more often from ourselves? I don't think that's the answer. What if we tried not to be so hard on each other? Maybe we could all just admit that we're human and we're all trying to do our best. God doesn't take us all on the same path, so why do we assume that everyone should be making the same choices? And in the meantime, how refreshing would it be to talk to each other about our doubts and fears? What a load off of our shoulders if we felt we could freely admit when we've screwed up or would do things differently if we got the chance. There's no shame in that. There's freedom in that.

I think men have the right idea about certain things. On the rare occasions that they talk on the phone, when they hang up, they can't even remember what they just talked about. In any given situation, they choose what feels right and then don't think twice about it. They get things off their chest and they don't ponder a whole lot about much of anything. And as an added bonus, they openly admit to peeing outside when the need arises.

So in the interest of following the example of men, I have something I'd like to get off my chest......I've been known to pee outside......

3 comments:

  1. I just read your blog from today and I just wanted to say thank you. I am having a VERY insecure day. Even as I type this email I sit here and think, is this the right thing to say? Does she even want to read this email (well too bad cuz I am sending it anyways...lol)? I know that I can fully relate to that blog post. What if I say something wrong or they take it the wrong way? I am getting out of a messed up friendship right now and I am damaged from it, so I constantly second, third and fourth guess everything I do and say.

    I talked to my husband about this this morning and he said something that was so true. The devil has found a foothold in my life and is using it to his advantage. After this realization I felt as if a weight had been lifted off of me.
    So again Shari, THANK YOU, for this post.

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  2. Hi, Alison, welcome to the insecure club! Thanks for sharing your comment. I think your husband is right and the devil LOVES this little hold he has over us! Admitting it is half the battle! :) I'm so thankful for your wonderful friendship!

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  3. ...I hate it when people turn a lot into one word... GET IT TOGETHER PEOPLE!!! I hate it when... Hold on... Wrong blog! LOL! You are so right! When I was in high school I really cared about what everyone thought about me... Then I had a bit of a situation :)... Now I'm just concerned with what a select few think of me, not people that I might run into once a year, if that. I've learned that the people who love me the most are going to love me just as I am... Flaws and all. Don't get me wrong, I still want to look nice and be presentable. I want people to tell me if I have something in my teeth (that also needs to be added to my list up top), but I'm not going to concern myself with someone who judges everything I do or don't do... I will say though, I am more reserved around some more than others. I don't think my mom wants to hear what I really think about Kate Gosslin. ;)

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