The Differences Between Being Self Aware and Self Conscious
The official definition of self awareness is the experience of your own personality or individuality. To be self conscious is to have a heightened sense of awareness of yourself, in other words, being aware that you exist and that you are conscious. We’re going to explore these ideas a little bit and get a little more detailed into what they actually mean to us as individuals.
Both of these concepts are considered signs of emotional maturity. As a child, we do not think in terms of self, or worry about how others view us. Many children start to experience this as early as six or seven years of age; for instance, my son who is now almost nine is showing signs about worrying about what others think of him.
Self awareness, in my opinion is the more healthy of the two. To me, this means you understand yourself and are at a point in your life where you have acquired enough wisdom to know your likes, dislikes and passions. In my personal experience, I’ve become more self aware as I entered my late 30’s, and it mostly came about since I had my kids. Journaling is one of the main things that really opened my eyes to who I am as a person. Mainly, it was my exploration in my healing journey that really brought this about. Exploring all the emotions and ways of dealing with situations that happened to me as I’ve aged has really brought me more awareness of self. It is through experience that we begin to know ourselves; I mean to truly understand your purpose in life and what kind of legacy you want to leave when you leave this world.
To me, being self conscious is not so much understanding your existence, but more of being aware of others reactions to you. As a child, you are completely innocent and don’t have the notion of what it means to worry about what others think. Your brain is too busy making other connections. When you begin to see that your actions provoke reactions in other people is when you begin to get anxious. You realize that you have thoughts about other people, so they must think in much the same way.
You begin to worry about how you look, what you sound like and what people think about the things you say. Again, as you get older, you tend to worry less about what people think because you place less value on other people’s judgements.
Are both of these concepts similar? Yes, they are. Being self conscious is being aware that you exist as a person, and leads to thinking that other people are potentially thinking about you too. Self awareness means that you are thinking about your own personal self, and past experiences. Both mean that you are thinking at a higher level of awareness, and this is part of the learning and growing process of being human.
Thank you for tuning in to this week’s blog!
Sandra
