Self-Consciousness as a Doorway to Greater Awareness

The Union Path Podcast - Self-Consciousness as a Doorway to Greater Awareness
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Like a lot of words, consciousness can really have a lot of meanings. When we think about consciousness, what comes to mind? Some kind of knowing? A way of being and acting in the world that is somehow, perhaps, more advanced, more evolved?

But there's another way this idea of consciousness is used, and that's in the idea of being self-conscious. That's the idea of being overly aware and usually overly critical of the things we perceive about ourselves, about our behavior, about how other people observe us, and perhaps draw conclusions about us.

Getting lost in this second definition of consciousness can bring with a lot of problems. It can really make life pretty hard. It could be hard to walk around, constantly fretting about ourselves. Constantly fretting about how other people are judging us and even thinking about us. Whether they're even thinking about us at all.

Thinking about the word consciousness, it really means the sum total of what we're aware of, in broad brush terms.

And so we think about consciousness in terms of being self-conscious, it's kind of a funny term to think about. Because on one hand, deeper knowledge of the self actually leads to greater consciousness, greater awareness of not only ourselves, but far more awareness of the world around us.

And obviously it's the most accessible route to greater consciousness. We can't really understand and interact directly with things that are outside of us. The only point of access that we have is what's happening internally. Those are the only things we can know for sure.

Even when we're dealing with another, and that other person is extremely trustworthy and honest, there's still barriers like interpretation, language, manners, perceived expectations,

there's all sorts of filters and translation that gets applied when we try to communicate our consciousness about something, our awareness of something.

And so one of the ways we can get a fuller, purer, more complete view is through trying to break some of these filters, some of this translation by engaging as deeply as we can with our own awareness on an internal level,

seeking to gain deeper and deeper awareness of what's happening inside of us so that we can have greater understanding of the things that are happening all around us.

But walking through the world overly self-conscious can obviously cause a lot of problems. More than that, taken to its extreme, it can feel like walking through a world that's constantly grinding against us, that we're constantly in some sort of opposition to.

Where everything feels so effortful, so confusing, makes life so much harder, where life has transformed into some puzzle with infinite pieces. A puzzle with infinite pieces that when we're trying to put it together, all the pieces just look like clear sky.

So we can experience all sorts of negative consequences of this. We can experience social anxiety, we can experience anxiety, anxiety. We can have the emotional and sensory toll of life ramp up to a level where it really gets excruciating. Where even normal, mundane experiences to someone else can become completely miserable, because it's filtered through our perception, it's filtered through our consciousness and awareness of ourselves.

But there's actually a gift buried in here. That, if we find ourself overly self-conscious, we can actually use that as a gateway to greater awareness.

Because awareness is awareness. And so when that awareness isn't being applied in a particularly helpful way, in fact, I would argue that when we're overly self-conscious that awareness is being applied in a very harmful way,

then obviously our experience is deeply affected by that. Things can be wildly different when our awareness is applied in a helpful way, versus when our awareness is applied in a detrimental way.

But it's like anything, the capability in and of itself doesn't cause the problem. The problem comes in the application, the problem comes in the way we choose to use it.

And so walking through life, being overly self-conscious, overly burdened by our hyperawareness of ourselves and everything around us, that buried in this challenge, buried in this difficulty is a really amazing gift.

That we can use the same awareness to go down deeper within ourselves. We can use this sensitivity to our advantage. We can use it to explore the depths of our own being. We can intentionally look away from the external for a minute and reapply and refocus this awareness into ourselves. Into greater and greater vision and appreciation of the truth.

Because that's the thing about self-consciousness. Being overly aware of our perceptions of ourselves and others perceptions towards us. Is that it's largely made up. Because it only exists in our own head, we don't have the ability to know with any sort of certainty what anyone else is thinking or feeling in any particular moment.

And so we build associations. We use things like body language, word choice, expression, expression, facial expression, tone. We use all of these cues to tell a story, and when that story is filtered through being overly self-conscious to begin with, most likely that's gonna be a story we don't really like. That doesn't really paint us in a very positive light. We're highly unlikely to be the hero in that story.

But again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. This is actually a good thing. This is actually a talent, this is actually a gift. The unfortunate part is that that gift has just been misapplied.

Self consciousness is evidence of sensitivity and the ability to achieve deep awareness.

Again, this really goes sideways when this awareness is based on things that aren't actually true. Things that we assume are happening, but we don't actually know for sure. And we don't actually know for sure because we have no access.

We don't really know what anyone else thinks of us a hundred percent of the time. And we definitely don't know what groups of people think of us even a fraction of percent of the time. It's all too variable, it's all too complicated. The human animal is pretty mystifying. Everyone has their own reasons for what they think. Everyone has their own reasons for what they believe. Everyone has their own reasons for assessments and judgements that they make about everything.

And no two people are the same. No two people have lived the same life experience, and so no two people process and interpret things the same way.

Everything we interpret is interpreted through our consciousness at that time, and our consciousness at that time has been built from our life experience up until then.

It's a really interesting thing to think about that the thing we perceive life through is also being affected by the experience of life. It's a constant synergy.

It's a constant dance of new information coming in, being processed and interpreted by our consciousness, and there are consciousness changing, by virtue of this new perception. And we can use these perceptions to expand our consciousness. We can use these understandings to gain greater understanding. We can use our awareness to sharpen the tool that all of our awareness is processed through.

We get to choose how we use these capabilities. We get to choose how we experience life, how we make sense of it, how life changes us and how we change it.

We have agency over all of this. We have oversight over all of this, if we have awareness. Because obviously we can't change something we're not aware of.

The first step in making any kind of change is to first be aware of the need for change, or the desire for change. The next step is to be aware of what sort of things cause things to be how they are to begin with. And then we think about what sort of things would perhaps create change in the direction that we're trying to create.

But this is all filtered through our own understanding. This is all filtered through our own consciousness.

And so we can't be aware of anything we're not aware of at the time. And so when we're walking around being overly self-conscious, this awareness really feels like a burden. We'd really love to just be not so hyper-aware of everyone and everything all the time. We'd love to not feel so high maintenance, not feel so difficult, not to have these prickly pokey reactions and emotions around things we'd rather not react to.

But it's not really our choice, we don't get to choose our capabilities. The only choice we have is how we actually apply them.

But there's the opportunity. That like anything else, application creates experience. Any talent that we have, if it's misapplied, it's going to create something unwanted.

That's why self-awareness is so important. Because when we do discover these talents, when we do discover these capabilities, these abilities,

then we discover how we've been applying them, and then perhaps make changes to apply them differently, well, that can change everything.

That can really change and affect the direction of our life. And that's the beauty of our agency. That's the beauty of our free will, is that we get to choose.

And if we've been living a life where we feel like we have this burden of sensitivity or self-consciousness, there's too much awareness all the time,

we can choose to direct that awareness elsewhere. We can choose to direct that awareness more in the direction of the truth, more in the direction of what's real.

Because in order for something to be real, it has to be experienced. And something can only be experienced through direct contact. And the only access we have to direct contact is internal, is within ourselves.

Because another thing can happen when we start to direct that awareness inward. Is that when we're really focusing on observing and understanding ourselves at a deep level, that not only takes the focus away from what's going on outside of us,

but more importantly allows us to discover and get acquainted with the part of ourselves that's always calm, that's always peaceful.

When we get deep within ourselves and discover who and what we really are at our core, that in and of itself can create a new ground state for us, it can create a new baseline identity.

It really helps us when we go out into the world, because when we have a tether to this calm, serene, stable, content, peaceful part of us, we're not so anxious anymore. We're not so engaged in problem solving. We're not so engaged with trying to make up for perceived deficits within ourselves.

We're not so caught up in trying to be impressive or important or trying to create anything in particular, because this part of ourselves doesn't really need anything. It isn't broken, it isn't incomplete, it isn't damaged. It's whole. It's complete in and of itself. There's nothing missing.

There's nothing this part of ourself needs to experience fullness. This part of ourselves is fullness. This part of ourselves brings fullness to other aspects of our life.

And another beautiful part of this awareness, when we achieve it, is we realize we're no different from anyone else. Everyone else has this on their insides as well. We are this, and so is everyone else.

And that right there, that commonality can really rectify and reconcile the conflict that we feel in relating and interacting with other people.

Sure, all of us have layers of personality and beliefs and affect and behavior and habits and thoughts and opinions and all sorts of things, but those things are all mostly on the outside. Those things are all mostly superficial. On the inside, we're all the same. We're all made of the same stuff, we're all the same thing.

One way of looking at it, we all come from the same place and we're all returning there again. But in the meantime, the way we express ourselves. It's all filtered through these layers. That even though we're the same golden light on the inside, that light gets refracted in totally unique ways in every individual.

We're all these complex prisms, but we don't have to be. We can express this part of ourselves. We can remove these refractions. We can work to make our expression as pure of a transmission of this light within ourselves as we can.

We don't have to distort, adulterate and modify it. We can let it shine brightly through us. And we can let it shine brightly through us because it's already whole. It's already perfect, it's already complete. It doesn't need anything.

Because a lot of times, at the root of our self consciousness is some sort of need. Some sort of need to be seen a certain way. Some sort of need to be thought of a certain way. Some sort of need to be something that unfortunately we ourselves don't actually believe.

We're going out into the world with a doubt that we're trying to have assuaged through our interactions with other people. But in this light within ourselves, there is no doubt. This light is pure knowing.

But of course that's a lot easier said than done. It's pretty easy to adopt these attitudes when we don't ever interact with anyone. When there are never any stakes, and we have nothing to lose.

It's very easy to have high ideals of living this life where we're not mired in the muck of vanity and self consciousness and insecurity and all those sorts of things, but that's not the human experience. No matter how confident someone is, they lack confidence somewhere. No matter how self-assured someone is, they're insecure somewhere. No one is perfect, at least on the outside.

But that's the beauty of meeting and getting acquainted with this deep part of ourselves, is we drop the burden of needing to be. We can accept the fact that all human beings are imperfect, some radically so.

And that's okay. We're all learning, we're all growing, and we all have access to the truth.

We are where we are. We're learning what we need to learn. We're doing what we need to do. Our life, no matter what it is, is appropriate for us right now.

And sometimes, that life looks like it's gone completely haywire. But I think when we look a little deeper, it's gone haywire because something is demanding our attention. Something is demanding our awareness. We're unconscious of something important. So this conflict in turmoil is leading us towards this awareness. Is leading us towards some sort of new understanding. It's leading us toward some sort of new growth that's vital.

But of course, we get to choose. We get to choose if we listen or not. We get to choose if we ignore. We get to choose how we interpret, how we dismiss or engage. How we accept, how we reject.

We're the ones who choose. We're the ones who have the autonomy and the authority, and so we can choose the perspective we bring to something like self-consciousness.

We can choose to redirect that awareness inwardly. We can choose to redirect that awareness more towards the truth, more towards what really matters, and move forward from there.

Move forward from that place, move forward in a spirit of growing towards truth. Move towards expressing more of our own truth, more of who we really are, deep on the inside at our core.

Move to a level of simplicity and purity, calm and peace. Move to an existence where our insides and our outsides are more closely matched.

Where our expression isn't getting overly modified by our own beliefs, by our own beliefs that aren't really rooted in the truth.

We can use our self consciousness to gain more self-awareness. We can use more self-awareness to expand our consciousness. And when we can expand our consciousness, we can have fuller, richer, deeper, more truthful experiences with the world.

And as we do, our experiences get better. We find more meaning. We find more joy, we find more things to enjoy. We find more things to appreciate. We're more calmer, we're more peaceful.

And we achieve all of this by making contact with this part of us where these qualities are already true. It's not so much about changing ourselves, it's about bringing forth what's already within us, and changing it as little as possible.