Life is Not Good or Bad, It Depends on the Frame With Which You View It

Doubting your partner may be the deepest form of insecurity, especially if these doubts are eventually proven false. Partnership in business or in any legal relationship is both delicate and volatile. On my journey with my partner, I have learnt to listen and not always base my decisions on advice from voices in my head.

As humans, we all value transparency, but transparency is difficult when one or both parties are not listening, or there’s not enough time to share. Intimacy is then affected by the lack of or not enough transparency. Intimacy and communion are more like salt and pepper in the bowl of partnership.

No relationship survives without honest conversations. I know that popular culture would say, don’t tell your partner everything about you. This may sound like good advice on the surface, but antecedents also matter. Antecedents create context, and context is the pillar that justifies truth. Opening up completely to your partner requires trust, and trust is built over time, through honest conversations and the confidence that you won’t be let down.

But trust may not be the only reason people don’t open up. It may also be caused by insecurities or fear of vulnerability.

In the second module of the WaveMakers Program, we shared diverse experiences on our insecurities, both in our personal and work lives. The closed groups we often break into during our virtual sessions usually pair all participants in twos or threes. This makes the conversation more narrowed down and intense.

It was in one of these sessions that I shared with Georgia how I often feel insecure when my partner offers innocent corrections, especially when he comments on my cooking, not in the affirmative. Arrh! I may not want to explode, but I had already spent 30 minutes in the kitchen before cooking, wondering what could go wrong, or how to even start the process.

So, if a comment is made in this area that is slightly not in the affirmative, it might tip me off, and my heart will silently whisper, “He doesn’t love you anymore, you are a bad cook, he will dump you and find himself a woman who prepares better afang (our cultural dish — from Ibibio).

These and more, are examples of the insecurities we explored in the sessions. But the good news is that insecurities can be handled by these techniques:

Inner Critic Vs Inner Mentor

This exercise is intense and requires you to always be present and mindful. You need to be mindful enough to identify the voices in your head that put you down. This voice is called the Inner critic. It sometimes sounds like an older person or a voice of reason. But you can identify it because this voice is often harsh, condemning or critical. It can tell you that you’re not good enough, that you will never make it, or that you’re not yet ready for a positive change.

When you identify this voice, you need to learn how to turn it into the Inner Mentor voice by being more kind and merciful with yourself. You can replace these voices by acknowledging that you are good enough, that you can make it if you keep trying, and that you can set up a plan that will get you ready for that positive change.

Failure is Feedback

We learnt a new way to look at failure. It’s fantastic and eye-opening to know that everything you view as failure is just feedback. The feedback could be, “Keep trying”, “There’s something better ahead”, “Try it another way”, or “Change your plan”. But eventually, the feedback that failure offers often leads us to future success. Don’t be afraid of failure, be more focused on being 1% better every day.

Reframing

This is the tool that allows us to choose how we want to view every situation we find ourselves in. You can always reframe a negative voice into a positive one. In every situation, you can always choose to be kinder, softer and more loving with yourself.

Don’t be afraid to embrace your insecurities because everyone has got a good dose of them, rather, remember to speak kindly to yourself. Like a mentor would, like a friend would. Be kind to yourself. You’re doing much more than you think you are.

I hope you would be open to sharing with me some of your insecurities, and how you learnt to reframe them.