I’m learning to be more self-aware and less self-conscious. This is going to take a lot of work on my part, since I come from a home where both are pretty prevalent. I learned to hate my big German butt from the age of 13 when it developed, but at the same time learned to think about my actions before and after committing them.
Now it’s time for me to learn the difference. How do I go about doing this? It’s not a complete overhaul of myself, not a dramatic change of personality. All I’m really trying to do here is to build up one part of myself while even subtly decreasing another, similar, part.
The first step is to learn to tell the difference. I have to learn to know when each part is taking over my thoughts and actions.
Self-consciousness results in an uptight, high-strung person who is no fun to be around, not to mention almost completely unproductive. This person spends a lot of time critiquing and judging herself and everyone and everything around her. She passes judgment, which can be good as an assessment and eventually lead to change, but really doesn’t make it the most productive it can be. She makes everyone feel bad about themselves and what they are doing or have done. She’s worst with herself. If you think she makes you feel bad, try spending a few minutes in the head of someone who just did that to you knowing as little as she does about you. Now imagine er throwing that same amount of judgment at someone she spends all the time with and knows everything about (herself). It’s worse, and it never stops. She can’t go home from work or leave the party or walk away from the conversation to avoid her. She’s always there with herself.
She’s critical. Above all else, she criticizes and doesn’t make anyone or any situation any better with her presence and attitude. All she knows is that she’s very conscious of herself, and this comes out to others as well. Self-consciousness has the inevitable twin of other-consciousness. That’s where everything I’ve just said comes from. She’s just aware of all of other’s negative traits as she is of yours. So there’s judgment and criticism coming. She might justify it in her head as her speaking up to change the world, but really, shes just scared and being a bitch. And she knows it. And that makes her, and her self-consciousness, worse.
Self-aware, on the other hand, comes and goes. It’s the positive side of being in your own head. With self-awareness comes the knowledge of just how bitchy you are. Self-aware searches for things to change, like Self-conscious , but she fights to make it positive.
This girl knows that there are things to change and does her best to make the right ones. She knows how to edit and only give what’s really good and useful.
She is not, however, a doormat. When the shit hits the fan and someone needs to know that they’re not right and good, and there’s a better way to do it and she knows what that way is, this girl is going to tell them.
This girl is going to change things because she will have done the best for herself, learned to love herself, and gotten to know herself before she does anything else. When she knows what’s destructive and doesn’t want to hrt people, and will do her best to be the best.
I can do this. I’ve been working on it for a long time, since I realized I was so self-conscious I was no fun for even me to be around. It’s an uphill fight that won’t be won anytime soon. The best part? I know that I can do it, because it I wasn’t at least a little bit self-aware already, there’s no way I would know to even begin this.
