“Believe something with awareness and you won’t be able to keep doing it if it doesn’t serve you.”
- Bill Harris
Issue #492 – Monday, September 8, 2025
You know that moment where you suddenly become hyper-aware of yourself?
Your hands get clammy. Your mind goes blank. You start overthinking everything… how you sound, what you look like, what people must be thinking…
Yep. That’s self-consciousness.
And we’ve all been there.
But what if that uncomfortable feeling isn’t something to get rid of…
…but something to listen to?
In this week’s Mind Power essay, Director of Product Development and Client Services Marc Gilson offers a powerful new perspective on what self-consciousness is really trying to show you…
…and how it might be the doorway to something much deeper (and more empowering) than you think.
I know you’re going to love this!
Cheers,
MaryEllen Tribby
Centerpointe CEO
P.S.
Want to more easily embrace your shadows?
Scroll down to our Check it Out section below to learn about our suite designed to help you with shadow work.
What Your Self-Consciousness is Trying to Tell You
(If Only You Will Listen)
By Marc Gilson
Sweaty palms, a fluttering sensation in the chest, dry mouth, words not forming in the brain, stammering, fidgeting, perspiration…
These are signs of self-consciousness, and I’m sure most of us are at least a little familiar with it. I’m certainly no exception.
For me, self-consciousness strikes when I’m about to do some public speaking or a live presentation. It happened during my time as a performing musician. It happened in college when I was on the debate team. It’s happened on first dates, during important meetings, on telephone calls, when meeting new people, etc..
Self-consciousness is an anxious feeling that we’re screwing something up, or that we’re being judged harshly by others or ourselves.
At its worst it takes the form of a critical inner voice that tells us things like:
“You’re not good enough. You’ll never measure up. Everyone expects you to fail.”
So we freeze and turn inward, looking for problems and deficiencies to validate our self-conscious criticisms.
Fighting With Your Self-Consciousness
In the personal growth world, self-consciousness is often depicted as something we “battle,” or that we need to “overcome” in order to succeed and be happy.
It’s an obstacle to happiness, and therefore has no place in the self-actualized life. If you google it, you’ll find some quotes from a lot of very smart people who tell us that:
“Self consciousness is a disease…”
“Self consciousness is a form of egotism.”
“Self consciousness poisons communication.”
“Self consciousness is the destroyer of joy.”
“Self consciousness eats away at our freedom and peace.”
You get the idea. Self consciousness = bad! Get rid of it at all costs!
So it’s no surprise that people spend loads of time and money trying to get over, get through, and get rid of their feelings of self-consciousness.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Except one thing…
Our self-consciousness is trying to tell us something important.
The Truth Behind Self-Consciousness
We shouldn’t try to rid ourselves of a negative or troublesome character trait without first learning something from that negative problem.
Why?
Because doing so makes it almost impossible to actually resolve the problem.
These so-called “flaws” in our character tend to persist until they’re acknowledged. Not ignored or hidden away, but truly acknowledged.
You see, what most of the experts neglect to tell us is that challenges like feeling too self-conscious are not problems to attack…
…but are really signals that we’re on the verge of learning something about ourselves.
So just trying to “get over” the issue without first listening to what it’s trying to tell us is counterproductive.
So what kind of lesson would self consciousness be trying to tell us? Is there any value to being self-conscious? What’s it good for, if anything?
In some forms of transpersonal work like Gestalt therapy, Jungian psychology, and Genpo Roshi’s “Big Mind/Big Heart,” there is a special emphasis on integration, shadow-owning, or otherwise identifying and balancing all our inner parts, both the welcome ones and the less desirable ones.
These days many refer to this as “Shadow Work.”
In these kinds of approaches there is the idea that every negative or “disowned” part of ourselves (the parts we don’t like about ourselves or try to ignore), must be allowed to speak and be acknowledged.
In Genpo’s Big Mind process we learn to listen to the internal voices of these shadow parts so that we can integrate them and turn their energy into something productive and helpful.
For example, by acknowledging our anger we can transform it into creative energy to get things done.
By acknowledging a need for control we can reap the benefits of paying attention to the details.
By owning our internal mischievous child, we can take a more playful approach to life.
Awareness in Disguise
Among all the beneficial - and necessary - traits we pursue in our personal development work, at the very pinnacle is one trait in particular:
Awareness.
Late Centerpointe founder Bill Harris spent his life studying personal development. And while he diligently sought out knowledge, peace, wisdom, fulfillment, success, and even enlightenment itself, he ultimately concluded that none of these things were as important as awareness.
Why?
Because all of those wonderful traits we seek depend heavily on a keen, thorough, and uncompromising degree of awareness.
Awareness is the very soil within which we plant our crop of hopes for our success and happiness in life. It doesn’t matter how good our seeds are or how well we irrigate the fields. If the soil is bad, nothing grows.
Awareness is not just important, but vital to a life of authenticity and happiness.
But what does all this have to do with overcoming our troublesome self-consciousness?
Let’s ask the question in another way:
What is our self-consciousness really trying to tell us?
If we listen carefully to that internal critic, let it speak its mind and stop resisting it, fleeing it, or ignoring it, we find that something profound happens.
With acknowledgement of our self-consciousness, and with a mindful acceptance of it, that sweaty-palmed, awkward uneasiness begins to change into awareness itself.
That’s right, the very energy that causes you to feel so self-critical, so painfully inept, and embarrassingly inadequate is really nothing but awareness in disguise!
Listening to Your Self-Consciousness
So the next time you feel self-conscious, try this:
Don’t fight with those feelings. Listen to them. Because hidden inside them is the life-changing power of awareness itself!
Watch them with acceptance and neutral curiosity. Notice them. Observe. And as you do, you’ll detect a phenomenal shift beginning to occur.
Your self-consciousness will become self-awareness.
Your self-doubt will turn to self-confidence.
Your timidity will morph into assertiveness.
You’ll begin to trust yourself more, and learn the art of making your peace with the results of your choices.
With a little time and practice, you can use the energy of your own self-consciousness to revolutionize your life from one of uncertainty and discomfort to one of confidence, certainty, and self-assuredness.
As Bill once said, “Awareness is the most important tool - perhaps the only tool - you need if you’re serious about improving your life.”
Check It Out!
Echoes of the Ancestors
A Meditation Journey for Healing the Lineage
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Your ancestors passed down more than your eye color or your last name. They also passed down patterns — some empowering, others painful.
This is called epigenetics, and it’s one reason patterns like fear, shame or even scarcity can show up in your life without an obvious cause.
Echoes of the Ancestors was designed to help you:
Heal the emotional and energetic patterns inherited from your lineage
Reclaim the wisdom, resilience, and strength of those who came before
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Through grounding ancestral rhythms, harmonic overtone frequencies, and Holosync’s brain-enhancing precision audio, this suite takes you deep into the energetic stream of your bloodline to release what no longer serves you and anchor the strengths you want to carry forward.
Wise Words
“Awareness is not just important, but vital to a life of authenticity and happiness.”
- Marc Gilson
This Really Happened
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MyHolosync App User
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