Contents
Step 17: This is what insecurities do to your happiness
The 88 rungs of happy people
In this chapter of “The 88 steps of happy people” I explain why “you should not stop dancing even if you feel insecure with your rhythm”
Do you know someone full of insecurities? Read this Step to him.
Half the world thinks the rest have more friends, more money, and more success than they do.
Do you know what the other half thinks? Exactly the same.
The problem with insecurities is that they are terrible, harmful and abominable monsters…, but only in the head of those who create them. They do not exist. Never. They do not have a single gram of validity. On what do I base myself to make this statement? In that for every adolescent tormented by the size of your breasts, there are millions of exactly the same size who are perfectly happy. For every boy who’s embarrassed to show up with acne in public, there are millions who do it so quietly every day, and their happiness does not decrease. Insecurities create a problem for you at the cost of your happiness, making the problem bigger, and your happiness, smaller. Therefore, if someone defines their insecurity as a problem and suffers from it, and yet millions of people with exactly the same alleged problem are happy, the only problem that exists is not the problem itself, but what you tell them. your brain about your “problem.” Wait, this must be repeated: the damage does not come from the alleged problem, but from your convincing your brain that it is. There is an inner language that is what convinces the brain that you have a problem. This language is pure poison.
How can I eliminate the problem?
Eliminating the poison.
This is what you have to do. First, identify the poison. You cannot eliminate something you are not aware of. Stop to reflect and count the times you detect your inner voice feeding your brain with poison:
— If I were as tall as Marta …
– If I had Sergio’s intelligence …
– How bad I am in the photos …
– They sure hate my voice timbre...
Then work to train that voice to go from poisoning to appeasing. How? A) Yes:
If you don’t like your height, drill into the brain with this other phrase:
– For every person dissatisfied with this same height there are millions perfectly happy with it.
If you don’t like your Gray hairs, say this to your mind:
– Of the whole room there is only one person who pays attention to each one of them: me.
If you think so and so is better than you at everything, force yourself to think of this:
– For every thing that I do wrong and he does well, there is at least one other that I do well and he does not (although my happiness should not depend on it).
Reflect on this question, you will see how interesting: how can it be that there are two completely bald people and yet one is happy with it and the other is not?
Answer: because happiness is not about hair, but about attitude.
And that is the crux of this Step. We create a correlation between baldness and unhappiness, but that correlation does not exist. What affects happiness is not baldness, but what you tell your brain about it. (Substitute the word “baldness” for any insecurity.)
I have always admired my mother for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that, without being the greatest international top model, she has never had any insecurity. He is happy with what life has given him. And I have tried to learn from her (surely with less success).
At no point am I saying that if you don’t like your weight, you don’t lose weight. Everything that you can change for the better, you should change it, but with what you cannot, work your acceptance. And yes, it is a job (but one that is really worth it).
Here three tips closing to put all this into practice.
First. When faced with insecurity, take it as an inviting bath in a beautiful ocean, but with very cold water (the Atlantic of Fisterra, for example). Understand that insecurities are not overcome at once, but entering little by little, and that, the more you immerse yourself, the more your body adapts.
Once inside, the cold no longer affects you, but the wonderful thing about this is that the water temperature has not changed.
Second. Repeat incessantly this powerful phrase to your brain: “NOTHING HAPPENS.” If you can enter the ocean without dying in the attempt, it is because your brain knows that by entering the ocean one does not die, that is, because NOTHING HAPPENS. The same goes for insecurities. Don’t cover your bald spot, don’t hide your wart, don’t hide your limp. Why? Because even if your inner voice wants to sabotage your brain, it now knows the truth. And what does the truth say? That if you think about it, really … NOTHING HAPPENS. Expose yourself and you will see.
And third. In the twentieth edition of The 88 Steps of Success we made an expanded version that not many have in their possession and that included 88 mini-steps (you can find them already incorporated in all successive editions). Of all, I am going to rescue one that is the perfect culmination for this Step. You will like.
Are you ready?
Are you worried about what others think of you?
Recognize that if each person who knows you knows a thousand more, you would not touch even 1% of their thoughts.
So breathe (you), love (you) and enjoy (you).
# 88StepsPeopleHappy
Don’t stop dancing because you feel insecure with your rhythm. Learn from birds. Not even one stops singing because she feels insecure with her voice.
@Angel