How to Overcome Insecurity and Manage Your Identity Attachments
What’s something you need in order to feel OK? What keeps you balanced?
Is it approval from others? Your health? Productivity? Being organized? Being right? Winning? Financial security? All of these can be good things. But because you need that thing to stay balanced, you’ll run into a problem when someone starts to pull it away. And it’s in these moments that you most risk doing unwanted damage to a relationship.
You can usually tell what you’re holding on to too tightly. Just think back to your most clumsy, awkward, or ugly interactions with others. Likely, it was then that this thing you need to feel OK, which we’ll call your identity attachment, was under siege.
One vivid example for me occurred earlier in my career when a leader in my company wanted me fired. When I heard about it through office gossip, it took my breath away, like a punch to the stomach. This leader and I had strong rapport. Moreover, I was working long and hard hours at work. I’d never failed at work to this point, and I prided myself on my ability to contribute. It rocked two identity attachments for me at the time: approval from others, and career ambition.
This awareness of having a target on my back for what he perceived as poor performance sent me into a tailspin. Tapes of self-doubt repeated constantly in my mind. I was protective and defensive. I became anxious in meetings, stumbling over my words and hesitating to share my ideas as I over-analyzed everything. It had near complete power over my psyche. As a result, I was drawn inward, making it harder to connect with others.
What has power over you? Or what would have power if it were threatened? The more power these identity attachments have over your psyche, the more you will likely self-protect, making it harder to connect with others. Humility and service to others require a lessening of these identity attachments.
Your insecurities grow when you don’t think you have enough to be OK. Your confidence grows when you think you do. Authentic confidence breeds connection.
In Difficult Conversations, How to Discuss What Matters Most, authors from the Harvard Negotiation Project suggest that identity attachments can typically be categorized into one of the following: I am competent, I am good, or I am worthy of love. When someone does or says something that we perceive to threaten these identity categories, we get clumsy, ugly, or awkward. The authors write:
Getting knocked off balance can even cause you to react physically in ways that make the conversation go from difficult to impossible. Images of yourself are hardwired into your adrenal response and shaking them up can cause an unmanageable rush of anxiety or anger, or an intense desire to get away. Well-being is replaced with depression, hope with hopelessness, efficacy with fear. And all the while you’re trying to engage in the extremely delicate task of communicating clearly and effectively.
The good news is that you and I can learn to navigate through these identity attachments so that we avoid being clumsy, awkward, or ugly. Here are six ideas based on the lessons of Difficult Conversations.
Six Steps to Managing Identity Attachments
- Understand where you are vulnerable. Where are you at risk of being knocked off balance. Continuously search your heart to uncover the things that you think you need most. Say to yourself or someone you trust, “I am deeply programmed to desire …[fill in the blank, e.g., the approval of others, to be in control, etc.]”
- Avoid “all-or-nothing” thinking. The primary forms of never or always thinking are denial and exaggeration. It’s tempting to say or think, “I never would say that,” or “I’m always doing my best.” The reality is, no one is always or never. Going to extremes only amplifies the identity attachment, because it frames it as truer than what is actually true about you.
- Acknowledge the complexities. Here’s the thing about being human: It’s more complicated and messy than we’d like it to be. To make sense of the world, we use heuristics (mental shortcuts) and narratives to simplify our circumstances. The reality is that people make mistakes, people’s intentions are complex, and everyone contributes to the problem. That goes for you and the person knocking you off balance.
- Regain your balance. You can physically rebalance by breathing, taking a break, or doing something that you enjoy. And you can mentally rebalance by moving from blame and catastrophic thinking to remembering what’s true and good about you and others.
- Resist the desire for control. The only things you can control are your own thoughts and actions. Trying to control your circumstances or the people around you will likely leave you frustrated and skeptical. Release your attempts to power over others and it will lessen the power your identity attachments have over you.
- Verbalize the identity quake, when appropriate. Talking openly about how and why you got clumsy, awkward, or ugly helps you grow through the way you react to your identity attachments. It can also be helpful for spouses, colleagues, and friends to know your identity attachments. That way, when they see you clumsy, awkward, or ugly, they can respond with sensitivity.
Remember, everyone has identity attachments. They probably come from your family of origin or traumatic events of your life. But following these six steps will help you improve your relationships.
What are your identity attachments?
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