If you're self-conscious about a physical feature, it's your brain warning you that this feature is not esthetic, or is diseased, and could cause, or aggravate, negative social reactions. This warning mechanism malfunctions only in a very tiny minority (so-called body dysmorphic disorder).
It is noteworthy that self-consciousness almost never occurs on physically pleasant people and almost always occurs on people who have objective reasons to feel bad about an unpleasant appearance.
Some therapists pretend that self-consciousness is irrational and must be mastered. That would be like removing a pain signal and ignoring the underlying problem. Your fake confidence will fool a lot of people, and decrease a little bit the likelihood of negative reactions, but you are still nevertheless sending disagreeable signals to their eyes. Most people will try to ignore them, but they will still be unsettling, and a few people (potential romantic partners, bullies...) will on the contrary focus on them as a legitimate argument against you.
The best way to stop self-consciousness is not trying to suppress it mentally, but removing the root cause. That's why so many women use makeup and are obsessed about having a good haircut, many people with acne are desperate to get Accutane, scrawny and fat men modify their appearance through exercise, etc. Discourses about "you must love yourself as you are!" are not convincing, especially when the person who says this is physically normal.
I do agree that, faced with the impossibility of addressing the root cause, it is better to fake confidence than to appear unconfident. But we all know what the ideal, permanent solution to self-consciousness is: it's called plastic surgery. Denying this possibility to people is morally abhorrent.
It is noteworthy that self-consciousness almost never occurs on physically pleasant people and almost always occurs on people who have objective reasons to feel bad about an unpleasant appearance.
Some therapists pretend that self-consciousness is irrational and must be mastered. That would be like removing a pain signal and ignoring the underlying problem. Your fake confidence will fool a lot of people, and decrease a little bit the likelihood of negative reactions, but you are still nevertheless sending disagreeable signals to their eyes. Most people will try to ignore them, but they will still be unsettling, and a few people (potential romantic partners, bullies...) will on the contrary focus on them as a legitimate argument against you.
The best way to stop self-consciousness is not trying to suppress it mentally, but removing the root cause. That's why so many women use makeup and are obsessed about having a good haircut, many people with acne are desperate to get Accutane, scrawny and fat men modify their appearance through exercise, etc. Discourses about "you must love yourself as you are!" are not convincing, especially when the person who says this is physically normal.
I do agree that, faced with the impossibility of addressing the root cause, it is better to fake confidence than to appear unconfident. But we all know what the ideal, permanent solution to self-consciousness is: it's called plastic surgery. Denying this possibility to people is morally abhorrent.
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