Social Anxiety and Self-consciousness

The Wikipedia article says about self-consciousness that it is "...a heightened sense of self-awareness... An unpleasant feeling of self-consciousness may occur when one realizes that one is being watched or observed, the feeling that "everyone is looking" at oneself. Some people are habitually more self-conscious than others. Unpleasant feelings of self-consciousness are sometimes associated with shyness or paranoia."

"Private self-consciousness is a tendency to introspect and examine one's inner self and feelings. Public self-consciousness is an awareness of the self as it is viewed by others. This kind of self-consciousness can result in self-monitoring and social anxiety. "

Self-conscious emotions include shame, guilt, pride, envy and embarassment.


When I read about that, it was a major "a-ha!" moment for me, because it really allowed me to understand my social anxiety better. It also showed me that many other problematic aspects of my personality, such as paranoia and those other self-conscious emotions (with the exception of envy, I believe) were all part of the same psychic complex.

So I thought I would share that. Does it help you understand yourself? Do you also have problems with other related things like pride?