Questioner: How do I overcome my insecurity issues with my dear ones?
Acharya Prashant: You don't need to overcome the insecurity. You need to overcome that which causes the insecurity.
Indeed, the relationship is not very solid. Surely there is something in the relationship that you have to worry about because you are talking of your dear ones, and you are insecure with respect to them. Why must that be the case? So there's a near, dear, and intimate person, and you are saying that you are insecure. But why? What is the foundation of the relationship? Why do you think that your so-called near ones can drift away or that the relationship can be strained?
Surely the relationship is founded on some conditions. Why must those conditions be there? Why must there be demands and expectations?
Insecurity is there only when you want to clutch something, hold it very tightly. Insecurity is only there when there is a desire in the relationship, and desire, as you know, is self-centered. So are you relating with the other for your personal gain, pleasure, or happiness? Then does the relationship have much substance at all? And if it does not have much substance, what is it that you are trying to secure?
Your mental model is: I have an important and worthy relationship; therefore, I feel insecure and threatened. It's a tempting model. "I have something that is valuable. As it is valuable, I feel afraid that it might be lost or taken away, or broken. After all, it's valuable, so it deserves some security."
But if you look closely at your model, then there are problems. If the thing is really valuable, then it has strength. What else is anyway valuable in a relationship? On the one hand, you are saying the relationship is valuable. On the other hand, you are saying it is fragile and vulnerable. These two don't go together. If it is valuable, then it can't be vulnerable. And if it is vulnerable, it is prone to influences, to conditions, to the changing weather, to mood swings, then what value is there in it anyway?
Bring real values to the relationship.
See whether you can relate to the other, not for personal benefits, not because you are used to some other person, not because there is a relationship of blood, and name, and body. See whether it is possible to relate to the other in a very free, open, and healthy way.
The more freedom and health there would be in the relationship, the less would be the insecurity in it. Conversely, the presence of insecurity in a relationship doesn't tell about its value or worth. Instead, it tells only of lack of health.
If there is fear or possessiveness, greed, expectation, attachment, or jealousy in a relationship, all this doesn't mean that the other means a lot to you. Therefore, you are possessive or worried, or envious. It merely means that you are probably just using the other to satiate your personal instinct or desires, whether consciously or subconsciously. It merely means that you are using the other as an object to consume. And it merely means that you will not be willing to give freedom to the other.
You depend on the other for your material welfare. How can you let the other go?
And, since your material welfare is at stake, you are insecure. Try questioning the very basis of the relationship. Probably you will find that your insecurity is reducing.
