Sometimes certain themes come up in my life, one that has recently repeated is the theme of the relationship between 'who I am and who others think I am.' In particular, how other peoples' behaviour influences the receiving person's identity.

When we think about the type of person we are, we often use our name, our gender, our age, our profession, who our family is, and we name our geographical location. We say if we're partnered or not, parenting or not, where we went to school (or dropped out), how we relax and recreate, maybe the purpose we've identified for our life. Our greatest challenge. We talk about values, dreams, longings, nightmares. Identity is dynamic, layered and rich. Totally subjective, which is part of the intensity of the human experience.

I encounter wonderful people. Each one of my clients is a unique treasure, a being whose world I get to enter for a time. I have noticed that some of my clients experience a low-level suffering in their daily lives, which undermines their decision-making, their empowerment, their self-love, and their identity. I want to name this as 'taking how you're treated as a reflection of who you are.'

A fictional vignette: A young woman, widely skilled and educated, cannot find full-time work. She goes to WorkBC religiously for employment counselling, she wakes up every morning at 6 am to exercise and go online to apply for jobs. This goes on for six months, and she is called for interviews, but is not offered a position. The woman is frustrated, impatient, and frankly feels like she is going crazy. She has no savings, and is living in credit. She's afraid she won't make ends meet ever again.

After the sixth month of this hamster-wheel she starts to believe she isn't hirable. No one is hiring her. Other people have jobs. There is something wrong with her approach, and it is all she can do to continue applying for jobs. She walks around her community feeling vulnerable, as if people can tell her bad she is inside.

The world can be hard as hell. We have experiences which are very challenging to survive. And often there is an emotional impact when we're pushed to our edges. The woman above started feeling bad about who she is as a person, because the mirror the world seems to be showing her is that she is incompetent. But the truth is, she's not.

In this woman's case, she is living in an area where the labour economy is insufficient ot meet her needs.

Has this happened in your lifetime? Whether it is your sense of the world, or how people close to you behave towards you, has your identity been impacted by how you're treated?

What profound challenges you have with decision-making, empowerment, self-love and identity, and how have those challenges been informed by what's going on around you

What qualities about you can you identify that come from inside you instead?

I cannot remember a time in my life when feelings of insecurity have not come up in conversation.

As a young woman, my peers would often talk openly about things they badly wanted: a slender body, even skin, smaller nose, and on. This expression of insecurity about one's own appearance is so normal.

Other topics reveal one's insecurities: "If I speak up will the person I care about dismiss me? Will I lose their esteem?" This could be termed insecurity of connection/relationship.

More recent conversations may sound familiar:

"She said she wanted to hang out this weekend and I haven't heard from her. Should I send another text? She didn't respond to the last one for two days. Why do I feel so crazy? She's probably thinking I'm an idiot." Feeling insecure in a relationship, and of one's self-worth.

And a final example: "I want to spend time with this person I know who is brilliantly smart, will they notice I am less brilliant? Can I hide the dull parts of myself?" This could be termed insecurity in one's wisdom and again self-worth.

Insecurity is painful. Many people feel pain or muscle tension physically when they have feelings of insecurity. Additional feelings of self-loathing, sadness, loneliness, fear, anxiety, grief, anger, and low self-worth, as seen above, can accompany insecurity.

Learning about the challenge and the solution can clarify the path to feeling secure, and be motivating.

Here is an approach I like:

When you feel insecure, still yourself, and tune into that feeling.
Give yourself a quiet moment to do a history-taking of this feeling.

• Investigate the context: When do you first remember this type of insecure feeling? What was going on at that time? How did you cope? Were there accompanying feelings?
• Think about other, subsequent experiences with this insecurity. What was happening for you then? How did you cope then? Were there accompanying feelings?
• Are there other insecure feelings connected to the particular one you're investigating?
• Who has known about your feelings? What was their reaction to you?
• How did significant people in your life deal (or not deal) with their own insecurity?

Once you've done your history-taking, consider the times in your life where you did not feel this type of insecurity.

• What was going on at the time? Where were you? Who were you with? Did anyone witness this? What would they say about you in these moments? Really investigate the context
  
• What have the times when you felt secure shown you about your strengths? Your coping? And about your capacity to feel this way again?
  
• What would you tell yourself now, if you were closer to feeling secure?
  
• How can you feel a bit more secure, based on your life experience?
  

Accessing your wisdom about the challenges and solutions can be empowering. Having reflected in this way, what do you want to do to feel secure today?