Everybody is insecure. Trust us. We see many beautiful and successful people as clients, and guess what? They’re ALL insecure. As far as we can tell, being insecure is part of the human condition.

Life itself is insecure—anything can happen at any moment. This fundamental insecurity seeps into our individual lives in a number of ways—as low self-esteem, as the feeling that you’re not part of the “in” group, or as freezing up in the face of anyone whose opinion is important to you.

When you are beset with insecurity, you lose an accurate sense of yourself as well as the ability to connect with others. Over time, insecurity makes you stiff and uninteresting to other people, and, paradoxically, it also makes you ungiving. Insecure people are so obsessed with how others perceive them that they give almost nothing of themselves. As a result, they feel even more alienated.

Most of us try to deal with insecurity through external validation. But no amount of external approval can solve this. The true source of insecurity is your inability to have a relationship with your Shadow (the parts of you that you’ve kept hidden out of fear or shame).

Connecting with your Shadow will not only give you the validation you’ve been seeking—it will also give you the confidence to take risks to reveal yourself in a truthful, genuine way without worrying how others will react. It will also help you tap into the force of self-expression, giving you the ability to speak with unusual intensity and clarity.

The following tools, articles, videos, and programs can help you reclaim your sense of self so you can confidently connect with others again.