In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, the Bestower of Mercy
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all creation, and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family and all his Companions.
Dear brothers and sisters! Abdullah Ibn Umar (RA) narrated that the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) never failed to make this Du’a/supplication in the evening (after Asr) and in the morning (after Fajr), for his security and wellbeing:
“اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ الْعَافِيَةَ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالآخِرَةِ اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ الْعَفْوَ وَالْعَافِيَةَ فِي دِينِي وَدُنْيَاىَ وَأَهْلِي وَمَالِي اللَّهُمَّ اسْتُرْ عَوْرَاتِي وَآمِنْ رَوْعَاتِي اللَّهُمَّ احْفَظْنِي مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَىَّ وَمِنْ خَلْفِي وَعَنْ يَمِينِي وَعَنْ شِمَالِي وَمِنْ فَوْقِي وَأَعُوذُ بِعَظَمَتِكَ أَنْ أُغْتَالَ مِنْ تَحْتِي.”
Meaning:
“O Allah, I ask You for security and wellbeing in this world and in the Hereafter. O Allah, I ask You for forgiveness, security and wellbeing in my religion and my worldly affairs, in my family and my property. O Allah, conceal my faults and keep me safe from the things which I fear. O Allah, guard me, in front of me and behind me, on my right hand and on my left and from above me. I seek in Your Greatness from receiving unexpected harm from beneath me.” [ Reported by Abu Dawud and declared Sahih by Al-Albani]
Respected brothers and sisters! What is insecurity? Insecurity is a feeling of inadequacy (not being good enough) and uncertainty. It produces anxiety about your goals, relationships, and ability to handle certain situations.
Everybody deals with insecurity from time to time. It can appear in all areas of life and come from a variety of causes. It might stem from a traumatic event, patterns of previous experience, social conditioning (learning rules by observing others), or local environments such as school, work, or home.
It can also stem from general instability. People who experience unpredictable upsets in their daily life are more likely to feel insecure about ordinary resources and routines.
On the other hand, insecurity can have no definite, external cause. Instead, it can appear as a quirk of personality or brain chemistry.
My Dear people! Understanding the nature of insecurities can help you manage your own and offer others the support they need.
There are almost limitless areas of potential insecurity. Moreover, insecurity often bleeds over from one area of life into another. However, there are some types of insecurity that appear frequently.
Dear servants of Allah! Every individual in this world has potential to do what they desire for but very few people are able to achieve what they always wanted, why? Because they have proper trust and believe in them. They never underestimate their potential. They never allow their insecurities to influence them. They know that they have potential and by taking proper actions towards their potential they can achieve what they want. We all have insecurities in us, even after knowing our potential still we stay behind and never try to move towards the journey of success. Our insecurities stop us, never allow us to move towards the successful journey. Insecurities not only spoil our professional life but it also spoils our personal life. Insecurities influence us in a wrong way. We feel insecure because we make irrational interpretations about ourselves or about our abilities to get something done.
We feel insecure when we start comparing our life and ourselves with others. Because of insecurity, we become less confident, our self esteem goes down. We started feeling less than others. We started feeling shy. We go through anxiety, suffocation and stress. Insecurity gives us bad feelings and these kinds of bad feelings never allow us to move ahead in life. Hence we must stop feeling insecure. When you stop feeling insecure only then your confidence will improve and your life will become happy and peaceful. Your insecurity makes you less confident, your insecurities generates self-doubt, your insecurity stops you and never allows you to see or appreciate your potential, your insecurity always makes you feel jealous and gives you negative feelings, hence say a big NO to insecurity, always have self-believe, always believe that you have potential to achieve what you always desired. Believe that you are unique creature, Allah Almighty has given you free will, you have capability of achieving what you always dreamt about, hence insecurity is nothing just a negative energy which you can avoid by being positive and by understanding your self-worth. Always appreciate your good habits and never try to hide your flaws, because when you try to hide flaws it means you don’t want to improve and when you run away from improvement you generate insecurity, hence to avoid insecurities always walk towards self-improvement, because self-improvement will give you wisdom and confidence.
Confidence gives you positive attitude and attitude is something which really matters in every aspect of your life, everything is somewhat connected to each other, hence if you want to make your life happy and successful you must overcome insecurities, when you overcome insecurities only then you’ll able to overcome low self esteem, and when you overcome low esteem and insecurities you increase your chances of success. Always have positive mental attitude, this positive mental attitude will help you to overcome negative insecurity and also make you a confident person. Here are the few tips to overcome insecurity:
1. Knowing the reasons behind insecurity: Before overcoming anything, first you need to know the reason like what makes you feel insecure, when you feel insecure for example do you have insecurity related to money, when you see others have more money than you, are you insecure for your married partner, what’s the reason do you feel others are more talented than you, you must know the reason of your insecurity and when you feel insecure, by doing this you will uncover your irrational beliefs and unhelpful thoughts that are there in core of your insecurities.
To understand the reason you need to go deeper in your thoughts, the deeper you go the better you will understand that how insecurities have developed in you, and this understanding will help you to take a step ahead towards overcoming insecurity.
2. Challenging it: After knowing the reason behind your insecurities then comes the second step where you need to challenge your irrational belief, here you need to challenge your insecurity, here you need to understand that is your insecurity true or they are just your wrong belief or wrong perspective, here you need to tell yourself that how things will change if I overcome my insecurity and how things will change if I see things the way it is not the way I was interpreting and assuming earlier. Insecurity is your wrong perspective and in order to change perspective you need to challenge them, hence try to see things in a more positive way this positive perspective and attitude will help you to overcome your insecurity and make you more confident about your self-worth.
3. Always appreciate your success and accomplishment: Through sub-point, you can understand what this point is trying to explain, after understanding the reason for your insecurity and after challenging it. You need to take a moment to reflect on your success and accomplishments, you need to think about what all achievements you have seen so far, you need to think what all obstacles you have faced but still you achieved that thing successfully, you need to think about days when you didn’t give up and tried until and unless you didn’t achieve it. You need to think about challenges you have faced and also overcome them.
Doing this will make you realise your potential, will make you realise that yes you can overcome any problem, make you realise that yes you have the capability of achieving what you desire and dream about, doing this will give you motivation and positive attitude and believe and this positive attitude and believe will help you to overcome your low self esteem and insecurities.
4. Handle it with ease: Nothing comes easy, no one will say that life is really very easy for them, life will give you obstacles and problems but your way of handling them will make your life easy and happy, hence instead of getting worried about obstacles you need to be level-headed and should handle that problem or obstacle properly. Your self-believe will give you confidence and that confidence will make you handle any situation properly.
In order to handle any problematic situation, you can do two things: first you can give up and can live your life with stress, anxiety and with low self esteem, or second you can handle it with positive mindset and attitude, you can think about the worst outcome of that situation and after imagining the worst scenario of that problem you can finally concentrate towards its solution.
We have the capability to handle any problem we face in life, we just need to stay calm and positive, we shouldn’t allow negative energy such as insecurities to influence us. Usually things are not as bad as we make them, hence we need to assess our circumstances and then need to come up with solution. Negative energy will add to it will not give solution, hence stay positive level-headed, your right attitude will give you right solution. As it says:
“Problem is not the problem, Problem is your attitude towards the problem.” – Jack Sparrow
Hence in order to overcome insecurity and low self-esteem handle your problem with proper attitude because right attitude gives right solution.
5. Have positive energy around you: Positivity really matters and it really help us. It helps our body and our mind hence in order to overcome negative energy such as insecurity and low esteem you need to replace it with positive energy. If you want to overcome insecurity and low self esteem you need to take action, you need to surround yourself with positive people, you need to spend some positive self-talk time, you need to take action in order to get positive outcome, believing that everything will fall into place by doing nothing, then this is nothing but your wrong believe, in order to get something you need to work hard, you need to put efforts. As it says:
“Talk doesn’t cook rice.” – Chinese proverb
Hence to overcome insecurity and low self esteem take action towards it.
6. Be regular: Thinking to change life and actually doing something to change your life has a huge difference, just by saying you want change, change won’t come, in order to bring change you must make commitment to yourself. Making a commitment has nothing to do with head, means you don’t only need to keep it in your head instead you need to take actions so that you can adopt into your life. For example you want to overcome low self esteem then you need to take actions, means you need to do things about which you have fear, if you have fear of talking in front of strangers, then you need to participate in events which involves huge number of crowd, and you need to face your fear so that you can become confident.
Practice is must, you should practice so hard that it becomes your daily habit and habit is something which always stays in you and in your routine, hence make good habit because good habits make a good life.
• Dealing with insecurities
Insecurity – uncertainty or anxiety about oneself, lack of confidence, the state of being open to danger or threat or lack of protection. Do you ever feel that you have the potential to achieve what you desire, but still there’s something which is holding you back? Do you feel jealous in your relationship? Do you feel insecure in your personal and professional life, do you feel threatened and inadequate in some way.
To be very frank, feeling insecure at some point in our lives, is very-very normal and we all feel insecure at a certain point of our lives, but Chronic Insecurity becomes the biggest obstacle in your life, it becomes the biggest reason to ruin your personal and professional life. Chronic insecurity Moves you away from your happy and peaceful life. The actions which you take in chronic insecurity can put your relationships and work life on stake. Hence understand that anything extra can ruin the taste. In chronic insecurity the biggest mistake which we do is we assume a lot, we start assuming unnecessary stuff which has nothing to do with reality. For example, we ask too many questions to our partner on the basis of assumptions, and even if our partner says the truth, still we assume that they are not saying the complete truth. Insecurity in relationships slowly and gradually harms the truth which eventually becomes the biggest reason for the sour relationship.
Sometimes the reason for insecurity in a relationship occurs, if at some point the opposite partner must have hidden about something, or must have lied about something. Hence to deal with such insecurities, then this insecurity occurs due to some reasons, hence it won’t be considered as chronic insecurity, here couple should sort it out by talking to each other, like why he/she lied, will that relationship work or not this way etc. and to make that relationship work again opposite partner who lied or hidden something must regain that trust, by always being truthful to his or her partner. And this can be done through genuine actions and continuous communication. Most of the insecurities can be dealt through talking. We usually assume more than talking, but the actual thing we should do in order to deal with insecurities is we should talk to one another.
One of the biggest reasons for the sour relationships is insecurity and in order to deal with it and in order to overcome it you should cross the biggest obstacle and that is Lack of communication and Assumption. Hence instead of assuming go and talk to your partner, tell them how you feel and what makes you insecure and then notice their gesture, if your partner is true to you he/she will stick and if he/she is not then you will eventually come to know. Just don’t assume talk and sort.
Chronic insecurity makes relationship poisonous, because Over-insecure person always asks for reassurance, always stay jealous, an over-insecure person is always accusing and snooping. As insecurity grows- the relationship falls. Hence if you want to protect your relationship, then instead of assuming start talking, instead of expecting your partner to be truthful, first you become the role model, you stay honest to your partner.
Many people believe that insecurity usually comes from something their partner did or said, but actually, insecurity comes from inside us. The majority of insecurity in a relationship is based on irrational thoughts and fears- the insecure partner feels that he/she is not good enough, he/she may lose his/her partner if they don’t keep an eye, they are nothing without their partner, he/she can get better than me or that they are not truly lovable etc.
• How to deal with insecurities
1. Identify: What makes you insecure? What are the reasons you feel insecure? Is that has anything to do with your past experiences? Ask yourself questions, like, is your insecurity has anything to do with reality for example: your partner is really very good to you, he always care for you, supports you, always keep you informed about his daily routine, still you feel insecure, then that insecurity has nothing to do with reality. You must know the reason for your insecurity, You must know on which level your insecurity is going. Because little-bit of insecurity can be dealt with easily, but if it becomes chronic then it will ruin, you’re everything, hence understand the level of insecurity you face and why you feel insecure. Answer these questions genuinely and be truthful.
2. Be independent: A healthy relationship is made of two healthy-people, Becoming too dependent on each other can cause a very serious problem, hence be independent, have some sense of freedom in your relationship, talk and come to one common ground, because healthy relationship needs freedom and space. Because after all, every person has an individual life too, hence have some sense of freedom.
3. Talk don’t assume: The biggest reason for the failure of any relationship, whether the relationship of leader and led, father and son or mother and daughter, or husband and wife – The reason most of the relationship fails is that the lack of communication. Humans expects other people to understand without explaining to them. Human has a bad habit of assumption and the worst thing is they believe that whatever they assume is true. if you want to protect your relationships then talk what you feel, only then you will get to know the truth, assuming and forming your own answers will only make things worse, hence in order to know the reality, you are supposed to talk.
4. Have self-esteem: Most of the insecurities are formed because people don’t think well about themselves, they don’t realise their self-worth. They believe that they are not good enough hence their partner can be attracted to someone else. This lower self-worth is what makes you unattractive. Hence have self-confidence. Believe in yourself and always stay around positive people. Always have a positive talk, always believe that you are a unique creature of Allah just like everybody.
Being jealous, being insecure, feeling unstable, feeling frustrated etc, all negative things happens in every individual’s life at some point of time, but it should be for some time, if these negative energies stay in you for a longer time then you should start dealing with it, because as I always say, “ANYTHING EXTRA RUINS THE TASTE.” And these negative energies have the capability to ruin every aspect of your life. Hence understand the importance of talking and being positive – these two things have the capability of solving many issues.
And Allah knows best.
All praises and thanks are due to Allah alone, Lord of the worlds. May the peace, blessings and salutations of Allah be upon our noble Messenger, Muhammad, and upon his family, his Companions and his true and sincere followers.
Murtadha Muhammad Gusau is the Chief Imam of Nagazi-Uvete Jumu’ah and the late Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Okene’s Mosques, Okene, Kogi State, Nigeria. He can be reached via: [email protected] or +2348038289761.
This Jumu’ah Khutbah (Friday sermon) was prepared for delivery today, Friday, Rabi’uth-Thani 07, 1443 A.H. (November 12, 2021).
