Guilt and Its Two Best Friends: Doubt and Insecurity

Guilt and Its Two Best Friends: Doubt and Insecurity

Last update: 15 March, 2018

Guilt never comes alone, and it may show up in our lives for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes it tortures us for what we did if the outcome wasn’t what we expected. Other times, it follows us for not having had the courage to do or say something that now eats us away inside. It is in this second case that guilt makes an appearance in our lives accompanied by its two best friends, doubt and insecurity.

Never stop doing something out of fear. It’s better to be sorry after doing something than to blame yourself for what could have been.

That’s when doubt takes over our decisions, and our insecurity decides that it’s better not to do anything. After all, what if you lose what you have? So guilt settles in. It makes us sad and paralyzed, wondering what could’ve happened instead of accepting the reality of our inability to move.

 

Two Medusas looking at each other confrontationally.

Doubt, the captain of our army of fears

Fear happens, but if you give something up because of fear it may not come back.

Doubt watches us and reminds us, at very strategic moments, of times when we did something that went wrong. Situations when we hurt someone unintentionally or made a fool of ourselves. In short, doubt is responsible for multiplying our problems, until it makes us question everything we are or have done.

But that’s not all. When our discomfort increases, doubt calls in its army made up of all our fears and they march. And that’s when the images of all the bad things that could happen cloud our mind and keep us from making the decision we really want to make.

We just want to be happy and healthy and live without suffering, but here is where doubt takes advantage and attacks again. We fall back into fear and guilt, and insecurity joins with doubt and ties us up when we try to feel better, though we know it’s a part of life.

 

Doubt as pictured by a girl and birds.

Insecurity, the chains holding us back

Then insecurity shows its face, making us doubt ourselves and our actions. It chains us down, because we’re afraid of failing down again if we try again. When we’re insecure, we lose our foothold, our self-confidence. We lose our emotional balance and let a hostile environment grow inside. This is where our self-image gets blurry in a whole mess of fears that reflect not what we are, but rather what we fear to be.

Thus we root ourselves in the possibility of a gloomy future that is not real, despite how we act. And so we prove that our self-confidence can take us far, but that a lack of it anchors us to constant negative self-evaluation, directed at the things we could do.

That’s why when guilt appears in your life along with doubt and insecurity, focusing on the present, on what is real, will help you beat it. Besides, it will also make you turn into the best version of yourself. You’ll finally reach your potential because the limits you put on yourself in your mind get washed away by reality.

 


This text is provided for informational purposes only and does not replace consultation with a professional. If in doubt, consult your specialist.