HOW TO DEVELOP MENTAL RESILIENCE

5 Ways to Differentiate Between Insecure and Strong Personalities

Seeing behind the mask

So you want adaptable people, who can be fluid, who aren’t weak…who have an inner strength and a core to them, but they can bend. They can learn. They can adapt. They can change. You want to see empathetic people… — Robert Greene

We all wear masks when we interact with people. These masks are there to show us in the best possible light. We exaggerate the features that present us as what we wish we were while concealing socially unacceptable or weaker personality traits such as envy, aggression, and insecurities.

We also tend to take others’ appearances for reality, believing people are as confident, strong, independent, or as nice and friendly as they present themselves. This causes us to misjudge their true character and end up forming relationships with the wrong people.

There are, however, ways to see behind the mask and spot the disguised personality traits. The biggest indicator of insecurity in someone is black-and-white thinking.

Black-and-white thinking is essentially how someone relates to the world and at its extreme, a very primitive way of seeing things. Everyone has black and white thinking to some degree but this will vary in severity from person to person. The more black and white someone is, the more insecurities they will have.

People who are strong and confident have a much more complex way of perceiving situations. They realize things are not as simple as being one extreme or the other and they are capable of recognizing the subtleties and the nuances in-between.

Here are the 5 traits that might indicate excessive black-and-white thinking:

1- Perfectionism

While it’s okay to have some level of perfectionistic tendencies, high levels of perfectionism indicate high levels of insecurity. Perfectionism can take many forms such as eating disorders, body dysmorphia, workaholism, and excessive achievement orientation. These are often developed to cope with feelings of low self-esteem.

The more black and white someone is, the less capacity they will have for tolerating failures and mistakes. This is because they can only see things as ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’, which means if they are not perfect, they perceive themselves as all bad. In other words, there is no room for anything in-between perfect and terrible as their thinking is inflexible.

Since it’s impossible to be 100% perfect, regardless of whether their perfectionistic tendencies lead them to work excessively or procrastinate, they will be riddled with feelings of insecurity most of the time. In comparison, people who are less black and white don’t need to be perfect to feel good about themselves. They can make mistakes and fail at something without affecting their self-esteem in a significant way.

2- Aggression

Aggression arises from fear — it’s a defence. While we all have aggressive tendencies, overly and unnecessarily aggressive behaviours such as bullying, torturing animals, murder, and such are probably the biggest indicators of fear and insecurities. Outwardly people who engage in these behaviours may look fearless, but appearances are often misleading.

Having a threatening presence is a control behavior and the need for control results from anxiety. The aggressive façade is subconsciously created by these people to serve as protection and deter others from attacking. The more exaggerated the aggressive and intimidating façade someone presents, the more insecurities they are concealing.

People who have especially high levels of insecurities and low self-esteem have a strong need for control and if they experience enough lack of control over their lives, sooner or later this will translate into predatory aggression, as they will need to get that sense of power from somewhere.

In comparison, people who are strong and resilient do not need to appear or be aggressive unless they are being threatened in some way and there is a need for it. This is because they are much more capable of defending themselves if attacked, which means there is less of a need for preventative measures.

3- Narcissism

Narcissism consists of several personality traits, such as envy, entitlement, desire to be special, and grandiosity. While we all have these traits to varying degrees, excessive narcissism is also a defence against underlying low self-esteem and insecurities.

The key to spotting black-and-white thinking is to focus on exaggerated traits. To hide their insecurities or unacceptable qualities, people often present the extreme opposite trait as their façade. For instance, in the case of narcissism, endless talk about one’s success and achievements or overemphasizing their intellectual capacities indicate that this person is insecure about whether their achievements are good enough or whether they are intelligent enough. To make up for the sense of being lacking in these areas, they will feel the need to overstate and exaggerate their accomplishments.

4- People-Pleasing Tendencies

People who are dependent on others to regulate their self-esteem become people-pleasing because being liked and perceived as ‘good’ is a necessity for them. We all have a desire to be liked so having some people-pleasing behaviours is completely normal. However, the more dependent someone’s self-esteem is on others’ perception of them, the more people-pleasing they will become and at the extreme, bend over backwards to gain others’ approval.

Once again, you can determine how black and white someone is by looking at any exaggerated traits they present. Being too nice (especially superficially nice) or too polite to the point it feels faked and unnatural is a sign of people-pleasing tendencies. This façade is often used to cover up the underlying traits that are not socially acceptable, such as too much ambition, envy, and self-centeredness.

Those who make a show or display of innocence are the least innocent of all. — Robert Greene

5- Lack of Empathy

Lack of empathy doesn’t indicate extreme black-and-white thinking on its own but it makes it easier for someone to develop insecurities. The ability to feel empathy helps people understand and relate to someone else’s pain, which is why the less capacity someone has for empathy, the more black and white they will gradually become throughout their lives, as they are more likely to consider people who hurt them as ‘all bad’.

The human brain is plastic and just as how we can train ourselves to be less black and white and start seeing the nuances, our thinking can also become more black and white over time. Lacking empathy renders someone highly sensitive to trauma as when they experience relational difficulties they will struggle to see things from the other person’s point of view.

Healthy people are capable of feeling empathy and therefore can be understanding even when they are disappointed by others’ behaviors. On the contrary, people who lack empathy are prone to taking things personally. Over time, this will lead them to interpret things in an increasingly hostile way and feel resentful in the aftermath of their conflicts with other people.

How to recognize resilient people:

Look for people who are nuanced and capable of recognizing complexities in every situation.

Look for people who don’t simply blame others or themselves when there is a problem, but can recognize that it takes two people to argue.

Also, look for people who don’t present themselves in exaggerated ways. Admission of imperfections, faults, and weaknesses can be a sign of resilience but overdoing these things also indicates a lack of confidence.

In general, someone who is resilient would not go to the extreme in any way. While they can accept their weaknesses, they would not play the victim. Similarly, while they can admit when they are at fault, they would not take on the blame simply because they are afraid to disappoint the other person. They can stand up for themselves when necessary.

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