How to help an insecure person? 6 keys to give you support

As a state, insecurity is something we all feel from time to time and it's totally normal. Life is not a path of roses and on many occasions obstacles appear on that path that make us not feel safe. The problem comes when this is a trait, a defined character of the person.

We all know someone who is deeply insecure deep down. They may hide it by being very critical of others or, it may also happen, that they are so afraid than they will say that she is constantly avoiding other human beings for fear of what they will think of her.

Whether we are friends, family or even a partner, it hurts us to see how the insecure person suffers and, on many occasions, makes others suffer. For this reason we are going to find out how to help an insecure person from the context of a friendship or a family or partner relationship, understanding their suffering and also putting ourselves in their same skin.

• Related article: "How to help a person with anxiety: 7 tips on what to do"

Tips to know how to help and support an insecure person

Everyone, at some point in their lives, has felt insecure. This is totally normal since on more than one occasion it can happen that we live an experience that makes us question our abilities.

Whether it is a disappointment, a failure or a failure, whatever has happened, it is normal for us to question our worth. However, It is also normal that we get over it, learn from it and understand that in this life you cannot be perfect. And sometimes things don't go the way we wanted. No problem.

The problem is that there are people who live constantly thinking like this. They have a very negative perception of themselves and the world. They do not see themselves as capable people and are afraid that others will judge them or discover all the weaknesses that they think they have. His insecurity is not something temporary, but a trait of his personality or a state that has settled for too long in his way of being, completely destroying his self-esteem.

Whether it is our partner, our friend or a family member, it hurts us to see how her insecurity prevents her from enjoying life, questioning everything that she undoubtedly possesses but cannot see. However, It often happens that we don't know how to help these types of people since their own insecurity acts as a barrier or even as a repellent, since some insecure people choose to avoid social contact, fearing that they will be harmed.

Other insecure people are not docile, quite the contrary. They are supercritical of what we do and stop doing, making jokes, humorous comments... It seems that they are trying to destroy our self-esteem, make us insecure. Since they don't know how to manage their insecurity, they choose to look for the complexes of others, those small defects that everyone has to try to raise their own self-esteem a little. The problem is that this doesn't work and, in reality, it becomes just another dysfunctional way of managing her self-doubt.

Whether you're acting out or engaging in toxic behavior, it's possible to help overcome a loved one's insecurities. In the following lines we will see how to help an insecure person, especially putting into practice our empathy, patience and ability to identify and manage the strengths and weaknesses of the person we are trying to help.

1. practice empathy

Each person has their good and bad things and her behavior can be largely explained by her experiences. Not all of us have grown up in the same environment nor have our parents exercised the same type of upbringing. The type of environment in which we grow up during the first years of life greatly shapes our personality and it is in this period that the trait of insecurity can emerge.

If we want to help an insecure person to have greater self-confidence The first thing we must do is understand where that personality comes from. We must not constantly remind her of the problems she may have because of her insecurity, since she already knows them firsthand, but understand what it is that she has caused it.

It must be borne in mind that insecure people are very aware of what others tell them. Depending on how we tell him, he may get the wrong idea of ​​what we think of him or her. For this reason we must be careful how we say things to them. We must be empathetic, trying to understand what it must be like to be in her skin.

• You may be interested in: ""The 4 types of empathy (and their characteristics)""

2. Highlight your qualities

Insecure people are very critical of themselves and, blinded by a brutal negativity bias, are unable to see all the strengths they possess on their own. For this reason our task will be to highlight its qualities. By making him aware of all the good things he has, we can help build a little security and self-confidence..

This task is really easy if the person we are helping is our friend or partner, since it would not make much sense to continue by his side if we were unable to find anything for him good.

In fact, it is even possible that we know talents and abilities of that person that we have never told him about because they are so apparently obvious that we trusted that he already knew, something that if we tell him it may even be a pleasant surprise for him or she.

3. Show him that no one is perfect

Perfectionism is a common trait in these people, that is, being obsessed with doing everything as well as possible. thinking that, if they don't get it, they're not worth it. The problem is that they never get it and they get frustrated, plus their self-esteem sinks even more than it already was. It is normal that they do not get it, not because they are not worth it, but because perfection does not exist.

We must make them understand that neither we nor they nor anyone else is perfect, and nothing happens. The ideal is to get him to see the balance between his strengths that, without a doubt, it has, and its weaknesses, weak points that are not unchangeable.

Seeing how good you have, you will be able to build self-esteem based on real things, strengths that you have. On the other hand, knowing what weaknesses you have and what things you can improve and what won't give you much mental health, since you won't spend energy unnecessarily changing what cannot be changed.

4. Motivate her

Motivating insecure people is one of the best ways to increase their self-esteem and give them confidence and security. Words of encouragement are good medicine for those people who have had very unpleasant experiences. which have made them question their worth very much. In addition to telling them their strengths, we can motivate them to comply with what they propose, let them see that we trust that they will achieve their goals.

5. Know your insecurities

With knowing your insecurities, we do not mean having to put up with complaints about your complexes and problems, but asking you to, in a way honestly, tell us what worries you, what your feelings are, and which people you think are criticizing you or not looking at you with good eyes.

The idea is to find out what exactly worries them and make them understand, by analyzing what they tell us, what is real about their concerns. Many times they will tell us that they think that others are talking about them, but what actually happens is that they have created that idea in their minds, which they believe without proof. It is, in effect, a paranoid idea which you can only understand is not true if another person makes you see it.

6. Be patient

Patience is the mother of science, and also of a good friend. Sometimes the insecure person we are trying to help will start to complain about what he thinks is going on, releasing us a whole list of conspiracy thoughts about what is happening around them or what they think others. It may happen that that person defends himself by criticizing us, since that is his defense mechanism.

No matter how the person we are trying to help acts, we must be patient. He may make harmful comments to us, or he may even begin to say that it really isn't worth it, that he is useless and that there is no point in trying to make him see the good things because he does not believe that have. It is true that all this is very tiring, but sooner or later we will be able to enter his mind and stop this whole cycle of mistrust, fear and insecurities.