Photo by Hannah Wei on Unsplash
Do you worry a lot? Procrastinate? Have trust issues, or struggle with hypervigilance?
If this feels familiar, then it’s likely that you are being led by insecurity, anxiety and fear.
This means that your emotional needs for safety are probably going unmet.
The need for safety is about feeling secure within ourselves, our social circles and close relationships.
At its core, it’s deeply rooted in our primal instincts for survival, belonging and acceptance.
The emotional need for safety
This is the need to feel safe within yourself and your relationships, and it’s the first and most important emotional need according to our emotional needs framework.
Unmet needs for safety can profoundly influence all our other needs, because our brains will always intuitively — and unconsciously — prioritise safety over anything else.
In a way, I would even say that most of us will be actually seeking safety, even when we are trying to fulfil our other needs, like connection and appreciation.
When unmet, the need for emotional security can really get in the way of living an authentic and fulfilling life, because it overloads your system with fear.
Our internal sense of security plays a significant role in how we perceive safety in our day-to-day experiences, even more than external factors such as the situation and people involved.
When our emotional needs for safety are met, we can more easily navigate challenging situations with confidence.
When they’re not, even seemingly neutral events can be perceived as a threat, triggering strong emotional reactions.
How to overcome insecurities
This might seem counterintuitive, but to get your needs for emotional security met, you don’t have to get rid of insecurity and the other uncomfortable feelings that come with it.
It’s actually the opposite.
In order to conquer your insecurities, you first need to create a safe space for them to come to the surface.
You need to develop the vulnerability to learn to listen to them. You need to be the one to give them the safety they need.
Ultimately, creating emotional safety is about learning to be comfortable with your insecurities.
Think of them as a younger, more vulnerable part of yourself that needs reassurance from someone older and wiser, which is also a part of yourself, even though you might not feel this way.
Your goal should not be to find immediate answers as to how to overcome your fears, but to let them come to the surface without any judgements, feelings of inadequacy or shame that might be attached to them.
By learning to become comfortable with your fears and insecurities, you are sending to yourself the message that it’s safe to be in the present moment.
And, believe it or not, this is what paves the way for you to create enough emotional safety within yourself to actually find ways to overcome your insecurities.
With the jornee app, we’ve designed a safe space for you to practise overcoming your insecurities by learning to be comfortable with them.
We approach emotions and feelings through the lens of emotional needs, which help you develop a self-compassionate way to look at yourself and your emotional landscape.
The app features unique tests that help you assess whether or not your emotional needs are being met, and offers therapeutic writing prompts that help you express yourself and move towards healing.
If you’re interested, consider signing up for the waitlist and be the first to download when it launches.
Hi! I’m Daniela, founder of jornee.
Over the past 20 years I went through a journey of self-discovery, radical self-acceptance and emotional freedom through the study and practice of Yoga, Vedanta, and experimenting with many other schools of thought.
Now I’m using the personal learnings from this journey to create products that help people reconnect with themselves through their feelings and emotional needs.
The jornee app will launch sometime in October, and you can sign up for the waitlist here.
I also wrote a book about my journey, which you can purchase here, or download a free sample here.
We are on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
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The Secret to Overcoming Your Insecurities Might Surprise You was originally published in Mindful Mental Health on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.