I was today years old when I learned a majority of the negative thoughts are my insecurities conveniently disguised as pragmatic cynicism. I.E. why is that person looking at me, that’s weird, then, insert reminder that others peoples thoughts, opinions, and now glances are not of consequence. When deep down I’m worried about some aspect of my appearance, I tend to internalize and deflect by devaluing the opinion of others, but still I find it difficult to shake the perceived judgement.
The problem, this is negative, difficult to wrangle, and isolating, viewing the slightest infraction as a threat on my ego discourages any impromptu social encounters or just meeting new people. And only when I compared my ego defense system up against a friend of mine who is my opposite, did I realize my negative ego defense system was just me being insecure.
Won’t name names, but for now his name is Braxton. And Braxton when he enters a room, he takes any attention in full glory, absolutely loves it. Braxton in his mind can’t do wrong, in fact if there’s a problem it’s likely you’re the one at fault. To his credit it’s incredibly difficult to shake him with a chirp, it’s as if he went deaf for a second and now has replugged back in. For example, this Braxton on a Bach trip with close friends went to Vegas, and Braxton made quite the stir with the bachelor. Literally minutes before our limo arrived to take us to a sold out event, which was sorta a blend between Cirque Du Soleil and a comedy show, he began to shower and change to remove his day drinking gown and musk. Which is fine being a couple minutes late, no big deal, except for there were 10-12 of us, each seat was $500 dollars a pop and oh yeah, they close the doors not to let anyone in come show time. This way the performers retain concentration as they spin faster than anything you imagined was possible while balancing their partner, who is also spinning in a perpendicular plain, so yeah preventing the performers from basically sending each other hurtling into the crowd like a spinning bullet due to Braxton entering late and causing a moments lap of focus. But back to the task at hand, meanwhile we are rushing the driver to get us to the venue Braxton is being chewed out by the host, not an ounce of remorse in this guy, we get to the venue barely make it and afterwards I come to find Braxton has taken no responsibility, it’s the rest of the group that are actually a bunch of idiots and he is not at fault. All that to say, I would think a person in this situation would feel terrible, but no, and everyone else is to blame. Maybe there’s a character flaw in there and as a reader you may think this Braxton is an asshole, and yes maybe right, but he’s also the type that you can’t help but love even though you also want to slap some sense into him.
So why is Braxton’s response actually a good thing, imagine rather than entering a bar full of people and thinking about all of the negative possibilities that you phantomly animated as if whoever is judging you is some spiritual purist, instead you walk in there analyzing others. Evaluating who you might like to talk to, exploring possibilities of conversations that ultimately lead to it, and meeting new friends, or maybe talk to no one fine, do whatever you like, but most importantly you don’t feed your negative thoughts.
So bringing this back, in the height of what might drive someone to the height of negative affect, (me), Braxton reflected the negativity back to others. Which is that such a bad thing? For the sake of feeling bad about yourself, feeling inadequate, and certainly for the sake of standing up in the face of judgement, that’s a damn super power. He’s not someone who gets judged, he’s the judger. And maybe if I was talking to a therapist or counselor they’d say, oh that’s some negative behavioral label, honestly fuck off. We have come to over label the shit out of everything and its annoying, more than annoying, its damning. Just live your life, and if someone is actually negatively impacting your life, just remove them from your time of day.
The first step to no longer being insecure is to recognize you are, not just blanket label oh I’m insecure, take it seriously, be more specific and catch the thought when it happens like some pest you want to exterminate from your house. I.E. when I’m in the gym and someone is looking at me and I think they are judging me and oh I’m doing something wrong, that is insecurity. Replace that with, ultimately only God can judge me, and hey maybe they want to talk, don’t feed the negative neuron activation because if you keep feeding the negatively, it will become a pattern. Create positive patterns. It’s a battle that eventually gets easier.
It’s like our evolutionary instinct for keeping our own hides alive no longer has actual life threatening threats to focus on, and now this instinct has a hyperfixation on protecting the ego. It’s your job to recalibrate and not be so damn trigger happy. And at least I can tell Braxton my survival instinct is better than his, and he’d be one of the first to go in our tribe.
Get out there, get off your phone, mix it up and good luck.
“Show up to every moment like you’re meant to be here, your energy proceeds your action” – Marc Benioff