Stop Being Self-Conscious
Most people are or have been self-conscious about something in their life. But this isn't something that you have to accept.
Self-consciousness is something that develops over time. You may remember being insecure about something in your youth that now you don't give much thought to. There may also be things that you are insecure about now that you had never anticipated. But like most of the things that steal joy in your life, this is something that you can overcome and even prevent in the future.
Self consiousness starts with a suggestion, thought, or idea that something about you is wrong, inferior, or shameful. You may hear something once or twice from a parent, friend, stranger, or even your own self. Then the idea continues to repeat in your mind, and things happen around you that seem to reinforce your insecurity. Soon enough you start to believe it, and this insecurity becomes a cripping feeling of inferiority and shame. It can snowball and become worse and worse if not dealt with. So I suggest you deal with self-consciousness at the root.
Like most people who are extremely self-conscious, I have lived with a very critical family. Every single one of my insecurities is something that I can trace back to my mother or father or sister. But the thing that surprises me most is that even my most crippling insecurities are things that could have been launched by a few or even one simple comment. Even a thoughtless remark can blow out of proportion and snowball into a huge insecurity. We take an idea or thought that somebody else has and if you believe in it, it will grow and solidify in your mind. Positive beliefs can also grow in this way, but it is the negative ones that we want to focus on. For this reason, although we know where our insecurity may have started, we have only ourselves to blame (and take responsibility for) our problems. They develop and grow in our minds. Perhaps as children and youth we don't have much choice about what we believe because it's in our nature to believe and trust our parents and families. But as adults, we have to start taking responsibilities for our beliefs, feelings, and insecurities.
I can't even begin to list all the things that I have been insecure about in my life. One of them was weight. This became a pretty big problem for a year in my life but in the article How to Be Thin you can learn how I overcame this insecurity and gained control of my eating habits. The reason I want to use this example is that it started with such a small and quiet comment that my mother once made to me. She came to visit me in college during my freshman year, and I had gained the "freshman 15". She said to me "you should start working out more" and I said "what's that supposed to mean, I need to lose weight?" and her silence confirmed my assumption. It was just one comment, most of which was silence, that sent me into obsession about my weight. I had never been insecure about my weight before then, and the "freshman 15" weight was temporary and unnatural for me, but these circumstances didn't matter. It was the fact that I believed my mother's criticism and took it to hear that kick-started my insecurity. Also the expectations and standards of beauty in the media and in the magazines helped reinforce this image. Many people blame the media alone for many girls who have eating disorders and a distorted self-image, but these things didn't have any impact on me until my own mother made this one very small and insiduous remark. The point here isn't to blame our parents, but rather to stress the fact of how one small suggestion or statement can snowball into something much larger. For those of you who are curious, when I was a freshman in college, I weighed 125 lbs at 5'2", and my regular weight before that had been about 110-115 lbs.
to be continued....
note: As you can see, this site is lightly supported by banner advertisements and internal links to affiliate websites. However, if you have enjoyed or benefited from my work, please help support my time and effort directly by clicking on the secure PayPal link below and donating to the site. Although I write this contect out of the goodness of my heart as well as to improve myself (see "About Me" page), it takes much valuable time, thought, and sacrifice to do so. Thank you in advance for your support! Self-Help Coach