2956: What Pushes Your Buttons? How To Manage Your Insecurity by Dr. Margaret Rutherford on Overcoming Your Triggers

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Living Daily, Episode 2956

[00:00:03] What Pushes Your Buttons How To Manage Your Insecurity by Dr. Margaret Rutherford of Dr. Margaret Rutherford.com

[00:00:11] And I'm Justin Malik, your personal narrator, reading to you every day including holidays

[00:00:15] and with that I'm going to continue reading to you as we optimize your life.

[00:00:23] What Pushes Your Buttons How To Manage Your Insecurity by Dr. Margaret Rutherford of Dr. Margaret Rutherford.com

[00:00:32] From the first to about the eighth grade while the other kids were socializing at lunch,

[00:00:38] my mom picked me up so I could go home and rest.

[00:00:42] I had a neurological problem that made it dangerous for me to be too physically active or get too hot.

[00:00:48] I hated it.

[00:00:49] Walking back on a campus was awful.

[00:00:52] I fought tremendous feelings of insecurity as I rejoined whatever was going on.

[00:00:57] In elementary school I'd be tagged it as soon as I reached the playground or told I had cooties, whatever those were.

[00:01:04] Everyone but me seemed thought it was hilarious.

[00:01:08] By the time I reached junior high girls would be huddled together giggling about something that probably had nothing to do with me.

[00:01:15] But my 13 year old brain screamed that it did.

[00:01:18] I grew hypersensitive to whether or not I was accepted and so I did stupid stuff to call attention to myself.

[00:01:25] That wasn't helpful.

[00:01:27] Insecurity lives underneath a lot of rocks.

[00:01:32] All of us had insecurities and over the years I've heard many of its causes.

[00:01:37] Maybe your parents fought all the time, embarrassed you or were mean.

[00:01:42] Maybe you were the tallest one, the shortest one, the one with asthma or the one with big ears.

[00:01:48] You were the one who got picked last, the secretly gay one, the one who couldn't focus,

[00:01:53] the one who was really, really smart, the one who developed early or the one who developed late,

[00:02:00] the one who didn't identify as their gender, the one who wasn't into sports, the one who wasn't a sports but couldn't afford to play,

[00:02:07] the one who had a different color skin, the one who was or wasn't Baptist or Catholic or Jewish, you name it.

[00:02:17] Insecurity can be found under a lot of rocks.

[00:02:20] Often those early feelings seep into your consciousness so that long after you think you've left them behind,

[00:02:27] they can still manage to influence your thoughts and feelings.

[00:02:30] How do you know if this is happening? There's a surefire way to tell.

[00:02:34] How to tell if past insecurities or hurts are governing your reactions.

[00:02:40] The clue is when you overreact or underreact and put another way when your buttons get pushed.

[00:02:46] You're not responding to what's actually happening in the present, you're reacting, a deep-seated part of you that

[00:02:53] uncertain or fearful child is being triggered and your response is changed because of that hurt.

[00:03:00] Here's an example. You see on Instagram that friends got together and you obviously weren't invited.

[00:03:06] If you immediately become angry or obsessed about why no one texted you or jumped to the conclusion that somehow you've done something wrong,

[00:03:14] the intensity of your reaction is the telling clue you're overreacting.

[00:03:20] Or let's say your new boyfriend gets really mad at you for not checking in with him one night,

[00:03:25] tells you you must not care or that you're selfish and threatens to break up with you, what do you do?

[00:03:32] Your gut knows he's out of line yet you say nothing.

[00:03:35] Instead you shove your own feelings under the rug.

[00:03:39] What button is being pushed?

[00:03:40] Your mom always yelled at you, your answer was to go to your room and avoid her wrath so now you're repeating that and you're underreacting.

[00:03:49] In both instances you're not interpreting things with your more mature self.

[00:03:55] Instead the little child in you that dealt with schoolyard bullies or angry parents is governing you.

[00:04:02] You're responding not to the situation at hand but to times when no one sat by you in the cafeteria,

[00:04:07] when what you had to wear was dirty or torn, when some boy or girl told you to take a hike,

[00:04:14] when you didn't catch a pass or make a goal, or when a parent mocked you or called you worthless.

[00:04:20] Three steps to keep your past in the past.

[00:04:24] Number one, recognize when your buttons are being pushed.

[00:04:29] Do your best to pay attention and see when you're overreacting or underreacting.

[00:04:34] When you recognize what's triggering your own vulnerability,

[00:04:37] you give yourself control over your own choices including how you want to respond to the current situation.

[00:04:44] Number two, practice compassion for yourself.

[00:04:48] Confront whatever shameful voice you've discovered lies in your head and heart

[00:04:52] and remember that you've done the best you could given whatever circumstance you were handed.

[00:04:57] Additionally, look back on that child you were and feel compassion for the strengths and resilience they developed.

[00:05:04] Maybe even think about the words you'd use to comfort them if they were someone you encountered today.

[00:05:10] Then turn that comfort inward.

[00:05:13] You deserve that compassion that you didn't receive as a child.

[00:05:17] And number three, adopt a healthy mindset that can accept your vulnerabilities.

[00:05:22] For example, it's time for deep self-acceptance including my vulnerabilities.

[00:05:29] Understand that there can be healing in the present for you in this very moment.

[00:05:34] It can be life altering to accept that you struggle with self-worth and avoid speaking up because you struggled in school

[00:05:41] or that you tend to get mad too fast because you were bullied

[00:05:44] or that you can be judgmental at times because you grew up in a very rigid family that didn't allow for individuality.

[00:05:50] Your childhood doesn't have to define you anymore.

[00:05:54] You can define you.

[00:06:00] You just listened to the post titled, What pushes your buns?

[00:06:03] How to manage your insecurity by Dr. Margaret Rutherford of DrMargaretRutherford.com

[00:06:09] Thank you to Dr. Rutherford.

[00:06:11] For you it may have been decades since an insecurity was formed so this is definitely not easy to manage.

[00:06:18] It's not something that you can simply turn off today.

[00:06:21] It takes a lot of effort to overcome things that I've really become who we are for years.

[00:06:27] Again, even decades.

[00:06:29] And I definitely have some of my own when she was listing different causes near the beginning of the post.

[00:06:35] I can see myself in a few of them.

[00:06:37] For many of my elementary school classes as an example, I was the only one with brown skin.

[00:06:43] At the time I didn't think much of it but it definitely shaped who I am.

[00:06:46] I didn't really think about it much until reading this article.

[00:06:50] I'm sure you have some of your own but again, not an easy task to undo some suboptimal thinking.

[00:06:57] Even just recognizing it is a challenge in itself.

[00:07:01] My go-to exercises here that have been shown to help with recognizing things like this are

[00:07:07] journaling and meditation.

[00:07:09] Both useful tools to recognize patterns and ways of thinking.

[00:07:12] So if this is an area that struck a chord with you, I'd say go slow, maybe try and exercise like meditation or journaling

[00:07:20] or some kind of counseling or therapy.

[00:07:22] And hopefully then integrating compassion and the other advice Dr. Rutherford shared.

[00:07:28] And I say all that not to discourage that it's really difficult to do but to hopefully give you hope that

[00:07:33] these changes can be made even if they don't come quickly or easily.

[00:07:37] Just got to stick with it.

[00:07:38] So do stick with it. I'll do the same. Thank you for being here and listening.

[00:07:43] Have a great rest of your day and I'll be back tomorrow as usual.

[00:07:46] Where your optimal life awaits.