
Episode Summary: Accessing the Desire to Care for Your Insecurity
In our second meditation on dealing with feelings of insecurity, Robert encourages us to learn the value of our responses to this uncomfortable emotion. Insecurity feelings and the way we respond to them can cause deep divisions in our relationships to ourselves and to others. Yet at the same time, these emotions hold within them the capacity for greater intimacy in these very same relationships as well. Can you see the value of becoming aware of these feelings and learning how to first cope with them, and finally welcome them as stepping stones to emotional growth?
Upcoming Episodes: Stay tuned for future meditations in this series that will dive deeper into processing feelings of inadequacy, offering step-by-step guidance on nurturing a healthy, compassionate relationship with yourself. Explore more episodes of Awareness That Heals to deepen your self-understanding and grow your emotional wellness.
Resources related to this episode
• Robert Strock Website
• Podcast Episode Video (YouTube)
• Robert’s Book, “Awareness that Heals”
• The Introspective Guides (Free Download)
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Transcript
Awareness that heals episode 133.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
A very warm welcome to season three of awareness that heals where we have progressed to be able to focus on one challenging emotion at a time. This will allow you to choose a specific emotion that you’ve had challenges with, and each one will have a progressive series of guided meditations that will allow you to go deeper and deeper into self-compassion. For me, it’s truly inspiring because each emotion has unique nuances for both self care and responding to your environment at the same time. This is subtle and a rare skill as all too often we don’t stay aware of how we can care for ourselves as we are. I hope that you’ll not only find it helpful, but also give you deep resources that you can internalize when the emotion is most emerging.
(01:07)
Welcome back to our second video on dealing with insecurity. I want to strongly encourage you to never, ever undervalue the importance of how we respond to our insecurity. It’s one of those feelings that has the capacity to bring you into hell or heaven or to a lack of intimacy or intimacy. And just take a look and see if you really understand that from your own experience when you are insecure, whether you really are found a way to bring it into your life and have it be a benefit, or whether it’s something that you keep so close to the vest, that it has a chance to act out in ways that will create distance for you from yourself and those you love. So we’re going to start a meditation. So let yourself be in a comfortable place where you’re confident you’re not going to be interrupted. And just start off by looking at where your awareness is without trying to alter it in any way. Notice whether you’re aware of just my voice, certain thoughts, whether you’re distracted with sounds, body sensations, and just don’t try to manipulate it in any way, but notice that it’s your awareness that brings you there, or else you’ll be unaware of your awareness. And we want to be aware of our awareness,
(02:55)
And that leads us to a very subtle point, which is the capacity that you have to be aware of your awareness. Now, what does that mean? What that means is you aren’t focused on a thought or a feeling or an environment or a sound or a smell. You just have a situation where it’s like two mirrors looking at each other. Each of them have awareness and you’re in an empty space, and that awareness is so potent that it actually can guide you to a direction that you want to go. Whereas normally the awareness is unaware of itself and it takes you away from where you want to go. So just pause for a moment and see if you can get a glimpse of being aware of your awareness without it being attached to any particular thought or feeling.
(04:03)
Now, I hope at this stage that you can see the closer you can come to being aware of your awareness, the more it empowers you to be able to guide yourself in the direction that you want to go. As you’re aware of your awareness, let it focus on your insecurity and really drop in and allow yourself to see where your insecurity lies in your life. It may be right now that you’re in a state of insecurity and you’re just seeing how does it feel and what are your tendencies? Is it your tendency to just see it neutrally, to dislike it, to withdraw, to hide it, to feel shame, to get a little bit irritated because you’re tired of it. And so you try to change the subject and become more superficial. Just see what normally happens and allow yourself to just see it without any particular affect at first.
(05:19)
And then as you see it with some stability, look inside and ask yourself a silly question. Would you rather care for your insecurity or would you rather not care for your insecurity? I hope you get the joke. Of course, you want to care for your insecurity, but when it’s live and hot, how many times do you pause, ah, I see my insecurity, and of course I want to care for it. Can you see the magic of being aware enough of your insecurity and as close as possible at the same time having a tendency to move toward your caring insecurity? I know you’re not there to hurt me. I want to care for you and see where you are in your real life. Now go back to your insecurity and see is this something that you normally have in your repertoire? And if not, embrace it and encourage yourself to remember that, yes, of course, I want to have this increasing capacity to see my insecurity with my awareness and at the same time, or as close to the same time to care for it.
(06:53)
Now, in my experience, this is really like an act of magic because it allows you to see the insecurity as an ally, as a potential pregnancy towards self-trust, towards security, towards confidence. And at the very least, you’re going to find that your insecurity no longer has the danger of being rejected, being banished to the basement, acting out because you’re intolerant with it, and then getting into a struggle. You find a way for at least for it to be harmless. It’s not going to create harm. And in fact, as you start to see you are wanting to care for it, there’s a sweetener. You actually start to have like a Pavlovian response where I feel insecure, and of course I know I want to find a way to bring my heart and my caring to it.

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