It is not.
When the development of self-concept started, it was almost like a new wave of the self-consciousness.
I know many people with this theory, but let’s go with this one: the self-conceptions of many people are built on the assumption that their lives are in some way separate from their own minds. A good example is the term “self-aware.” It is usually presented in this way: “I am aware of my thoughts and feelings,” “I am aware of my feelings.
A lot of self-image work centers around the assumption that your feelings are your own and that you are not your feelings. They tend to be very clear that there is nothing there to be aware of, which leaves the question of what the hell is a self to think of. The truth is, although we might think we are aware of ourselves, we probably aren’t.
The self comes in two basic forms, the physical self and the psychological self. Each of these forms has its own set of attributes that we choose to use for each one. The physical self is the self your eyes see in the world. The psychological self is the self you think of as you. The difference between the two is that the physical self is external and the psychological self is internal.
There are a lot of different types of self-awareness, but one way to think about it is “what you are thinking about yourself, and what you think you are thinking about other people, is not the real you.” I think this is a very important concept to understand because it is the source of much of what we call self-esteem. For example, the fact that you like a certain type of music or that you are a particular type of person is based on your self-esteem.
Self-esteem is also important to keep in mind because the moment you have to think about how you think about yourself, you are thinking about other people. For example, if you are a girl and your mother says, “You are so pretty”, you aren’t thinking about how pretty you are, you are thinking about how attractive she is.
Many people (especially children) are taught early on that their self-esteem is linked to their appearance, and its natural (and even natural for you, too!) to assume that you are pretty if you look pretty. It is in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because of cultural and historical biases and a myriad of other influences, women are frequently taught not to be proud of who they are, but to be proud of their looks.
It is not a coincidence that this is how we make our self-evaluations, and it is also how we make our self-concepts. Because of this, we tend to think that our body is only important because it is the physical manifestation of our self-image, and that our appearance is important because it is the expression of our self-image.
If you’re like most people, you’re probably thinking that the body is indeed the most important thing in your life, but I’d like to ask you to consider how that could be true. It’s true because you are a person. What is the most important thing about a person? There is much less of a difference between men and women than you may think. It’s possible to be a woman without being feminine. It’s also possible to be a man without being a man.
