Episode Transcript
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast Spiritual Relationship. My name is Ken Hanuman and this is my wife Dr. Anne O'Hare today the topic is insecurity in relationship. I think it's a very important topic especially in marriage and I would like to ask Anne How she defines insecurity. Well, one thing that I thought of is, to make a distinction between insecurity and jealousy. Because I feel that jealousy is a whole nother level. Like, would you agree with that? Yes. Jealousy is a whole nother level, and we're gonna do a whole nother episode on that. But in insecurity, I feel, you could also call it like a trigger. There's something that happens and somehow it makes me feel like self doubt or I feel concerned or I feel a little worried or I feel unstable in some way. And I was saying to Ken, like, what about the male side? What did he feel like on the male side? Like, if you feel insecure, what do you feel like? Yeah. And I would like to define that in my own way, not the dictionary. Insecurity for a man in a relationship is there is, there's always competition and comparing and a feeling like you're never measuring up. It starts with all the, these, you can say these, justification. You know, I don't have enough money. Um, my, I, I'm not strong. I'm not rich. I am not, as charismatic as somebody else, or I'm not a good player as the other one. You know, there's always this competition and it does result in a lot of insecurity and therefore you're very sensitive to, maybe to insults or you're very sensitive to, someone, pointing out something at you, you know, that internally you might, you, you might believe that about, about, about yourself, but you don't believe, you don't think the other person, Should be pointing that out. Maybe it's a little hard to talk about a little bit this is why we're kind of bringing it up because It has an impact on a relationship so if one or both are insecure It has an impact like for instance and I have a tendency to think like in a male side versus the female side like in the other episode we were talking about money and that I was feeling a little insecure about the money situation because Ken just is retiring now and the situation has changed. And for him in that episode, we talked a lot about different personalities. Like he was like, Oh, don't worry about it. And then, but I still felt like insecure about it. So one principle that we were discussing about insecurity in relationships is that if the relationship is healthy and you have trust, the relationship can actually take care of insecurities. Yes. My relationship with you has been, I mean, growing up and, and with it, with the many things that you had to accomplish, you know, in life, they were, there were a lot of insecurities. I mean, so, so you really didn't feel, even when you had accomplishment, you still felt like you're not doing enough. The great thing in this relationship is that, I knew to myself what was going on within me. I could see my thoughts and my feelings and about myself. But the beautiful thing is when you're willing to, like we all started out with kind of a respect for each other. And, and trust where it, it was, we, we had some situations where we had to talk through things, and I would see how you feel when I behave a certain way. And then gradually we're able to work through that. I don't know if you want to Give an example? Yeah. Well Um, I think that we, one thing I want to share too is that we both are on the spiritual path. So we both, we meditate every day, we study spiritual, literature every day. We do service like this. This is service. So we're committed to doing service. So the context of our life is really good in that sense. Like in that sense, but also something that you said just now is very important. You are already aware of your own thoughts and feelings. And I think one of the main tips that maybe we can give about healing insecurities or working with insecurities in relationship is to understand that I am responsible for my own feelings. And my own thoughts and the way that the relationship can help that is that the other one, number one does not belittle, ignore, or in any way negate or put down the other person when they're expressing insecurity, whether they're expressing it directly or indirectly through behavior. Sometimes you can't always verbalize it, let's say, but if the other person is like sensitive and say, like, we had a situation where you were feeling insecure. This is when we first got into the relationship and, you were feeling insecure about something and it was pretty intense, but you were able to express it. And I, at first it was a little shocking because we hadn't really. We've not really gotten fully together yet. So I thought, wow, this is it. Like this is the relationships over because for you it was a very painful moment. So even in those experiences, if it's a very painful moment, if the other person takes the step towards the other person, I feel that really can make a difference. And it can help heal the problem because what happened was I kind of stepped towards you in that moment. I said, if I would have known that you felt that way, I would have done this. And in that moment, you shared with me that that made you feel like, wow, She does care and so I mean i'm putting him on the spot Normally, you wouldn't want to put the man in the vulnerable spot You know, the women are the ones that are supposed to be, you know, whatever vulnerable and whatever but men have insecurity, too And there's two people in the relationship. It's not only the woman that has the feelings, you know Everybody, you know, like oh the man is like whatever and the woman has all the feelings and The woman's one with all the problems. It's not true That, that's not true, that's not true. And I think one of the beautiful thing about marriage is that you would like to be, I like this word, self actualized. You want to grow, you want to feel better about yourself. Your self esteem should be enhanced, not diminished. And, if your partner can, listen to you or somehow Read into why I might say certain things or, react a certain way that you can see beyond that and, and maybe make some adjustment with that. Right. And that was both ways. Because spiritually, the, we always feel that family is where the greatest, Or the heaviest or the most powerful karma can be experienced and And if you are enhancing each other's happiness or self esteem Then what happened is that insecurity can go because you're not alone fighting with it. And you're not trying to put a face on you're not trying to be one person inside and then you have a facade. You have, um, what you just said is so important because can't we all kind of relate to that? Like I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to be a good husband. I'm trying to be a good wife. I'm trying to be, but inside I don't feel happy. I feel upset. I feel afraid. I feel not listened to. Yeah. Not seen sometime. Yeah, this is, this is a very. Powerful thing I was just thinking of a of an example Where we're going to have another episode on independence, which will probably bring up the same example But this was a really good example where as a woman Sometimes insecurity shows up as irritability Or maybe what we would call nagging or controlling or something like that, but that is insecurity because for some reason, we feel unstable. There's a, there's an instability feeling and then I'm reaching out to control to feel more stable or I'm irritable because I don't feel stable. So one time I'll share an example. I was maybe expressing that because. When we talk about the independence, we're gonna get more into this, but this was a really powerful example of how your partner can help you get over something, even if you're not like perfectly self aware in the moment. Okay, I was irritable because I had to cook or something and, have to cook for the family and whatever it was. And. I guess a complaining or something like my energy was not good. And Ken said to me, you know what, why don't you take the weekend off? Just cook for yourself this weekend. Just cook for yourself. I'll we'll take care of my son is 17. So, you know, whatever he's old enough, he'll be fine. I'll cook for myself. So you just take care of yourself and he didn't do it nasty or anything It was like real it was like, but what did he do? This was very powerful. What did he do? He basically he was saying so he was saying Just take care of yourself, right? But what was the context the underlying like if he could have a subtitle under that it was like I love you You're not going to blame me or Joey for your irritability. So, I am going to take away the thing that you are using right now to be irritable so that you can take care of yourself. And it totally worked. But I have to share this, what happened, because when he said that, it was so unexpected that it was almost like my, my brain was like short circuiting because it never occurred to me to just take care of myself. This is a very powerful theme that you're going to hear in a lot of the episodes is that we have to be on one hand you have to be sensitive to each other and it's easy to be sensitive when the person's vulnerable and sharing, but it's maybe not so easy to be sensitive when they're not fully aware Yeah. Maybe not abusive. Again, we're not going to the extreme here. Not abuse. But if they're maybe not fully aware and they're kind of acting a little weird, there are things that we can do to give that signal to the partner. Hey, I, I love you and I'm going to take this away so that you can take care of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, what I find too from what a man can do and also what a woman can do in a relationship is that if you bare your soul or, let's say for instance Culturally, I might have had certain values. And then, based on the way you grew up, maybe how your father behaved, how, people around you in that culture behaved. And you might be using certain language. And, the, the thing is that if you take a, if you step back and you, and you really examine, That tone of voice, or that language, or the feeling, I'm a man, what, what happened is that you realize that words have, it's an energy. It, makes an impact. And hurting, saying hurtful things is not a joke. And I find that I changed a lot of that. And the other thing is that, Anne it works full time. So I should realize that if I make someone's, if I take something off the plate, then it will be more, comfortable. It would be, it's like you're show her you care by actually doing something, not just saying, I love you, or not just take somebody out for a dinner alone sometimes, or go on a vacation sometimes, when the day to day life, you are saying things that are demeaning, once you to take that out, and that's what I, I really focus on, and because you're helping me so much, I don't think even spiritually, I mean, I do yoga every day and you're trying to increase and improve, make the mind so calm. But the thing about life and about spiritual growth, it, you can't just have that experience. You have to actually bring it out in practical life and it has to bear out. It has to have some impact for it to form or become part of your nature, part of your personality. So I could say you're my greatest, help if I'm seeking this, this higher Consciousness without you, I wouldn't have been able to do it. Look how beautiful that is too, because that is, that is the ultimate thing that a relationship can give a marriage in particular. I would say that's the ultimate, you can use the marriage as a support for spiritual goals. And with insecurity back to this insecurity thing is that why not heal it? You Why not fix it? Why not deal with it? Because it's not gonna help and I'm here's the thing It's okay. If it's there like the relationship can handle it Yeah, like the love of a relationship and the respect of a relationship and the willingness to shift your own Position Like he did not force me to cook or something. I don't know. It's like You don't take advantage. You're using the word take advantage. Women can take advantage of men too, by the way. Okay. If you are constantly, if I, as a woman, if the female, if I'm constantly, emotional or negative or unhappy or whatever, that's also a drain. I'm bringing up, from the past or holding up, you know, but that, like you were saying, you came in like maybe joking around and you stopped doing that. Right. I learned to not be critical. I had to learn to not be critical and I grew up in a very critical household With a very critical household in a very critical situation. So I had to get over that so you see being with each other actually helped heal those things also. So how does this go back to insecurity? So we'll kind of wrap this up. I think that insecurity if we could say is kind of an uncomfortable moment in the relationship one way or the other whether it's one person Usually it's one at a time that feels that I don't usually think we feel it the same way Because we have different triggers or different situations but I think that If the relationship is healthy and strong and you're willing to step towards the other person Each of us have to be responsible for ourselves always, but there's a way to maybe take the burden off or maybe look at my own self care. Why am I upset all the time? Why do I feel overwhelmed? Maybe I need to take care of myself Yes, you know like you I can't expect you to make me happy all the time Right. I mean that that's not reasonable You know, and at the same time, you can't expect me to take care of your every physical need forever and ever and never You never do it And no matter how unhappy I am, that's my job. I gotta do it. No I don't know how you're hearing this those of you who are listening. I know there are cultural norms So what we're doing in this spiritual context is we're kind of challenging the norms and saying listen if it hurts you You I don't want you to feel hurt. So let's take a look at this. Can I adjust? Can I make a little adjustment? Do I care? Yes, I do care. I don't want you to feel bad. I don't want you to feel insecure. I want you to feel happy in the relationship. When you said to me, cook for yourself, that was you saying, I don't want you to feel overwhelmed. I don't want you to feel bad. I want you to take care of yourself. So I'm going to remove myself out of the equation. So you can take care of yourself. Yeah, I mean cooking is just one example, right? Yeah. But you know one thing, there's always this complaint. Women always say men don't listen. And I think sometimes we don't understand what is listening. What I find is listening is not just listening to the conversation or what they want. Because sometimes the needs are actually deeper than that. Because if you're coming into a marriage and you're trying so hard, you're working hard to make it work. But you need to be, you need to be, maybe you need some approval or you need some assurance that what you're contributing is very important. And that you really, I really appreciate that. And not just in words, but also in actually doing something to make the person feel appreciated and, to celebrate that in the relationship. So in a way you're building up each other. One mistake I think we make is that we tend to praise the neighbor or somebody else in front of each, you know. When you do that, it's comparing, and you don't, you know, I'm, praising some other woman, or some other, at workplace, or something like that. These are little things, but I feel that if you take care of the little things, Yeah. You begin to understand that, you didn't really, you didn't realize how powerful your words are and that there are options. You can, you can broaden your understanding of relationship and you can find the right kind of language to communicate. Your heart, your feelings that you have for the person. So love is not I love you alone. Love is how you make someone feel. And I think that is listening. Listening is try to choose the right environment and the words and the way how you interact to touch the other person. And that really helps in security. Because many of us are coming from background where we're starting out life very insecure. Yes. And therefore we need that kind of assurance and help. You know, I just had one last thought. If you're watching this, you may be able to pick out the main insecurity of both of us as we're sharing. You know, you may be able to hear it, right? But in a relationship, we know what it is. You know what the other one is. And I feel so grateful That he knows what mine is and he never, ever, ever in 13 years of being in relationship and seven years of marriage, never has taken advantage of that vulnerability. And so I don't believe I have ever taken advantage of that either. So and that makes you feel safe and that makes you feel secure and that helps create a foundation whereby Anything can be handled really, I think. Yes. So, all right. So let's finish there and we will see you next time. Thank you for listening. Okay. Bye bye. Bye bye.
