The best experiences of life happen when we forget about ourselves. Immerse yourself in the work at hand. Give your complete attention to the person you’re with. Allow yourself to relax and fully enjoy a time of play. Slip into the flow of life. Self-consciousness is a distraction from the joy of immediate experience.
For our own sake, we need to forget about ourselves. The self should be like the ring on our finger. It is always there, but we forget about it. When we lose our self, it’s not that we no longer have a self-identity. What we lose is our self-consciousness. The more we forget about ourselves, the more genuinely real we become.
The less self-conscious we are, the less concerned we’ll be about protecting ourselves from failure or from what others might say. It becomes so much easier to make good decisions when we are not trying to embellish or protect the self. Decreasing self-consciousness reduces our vulnerability to fear and its debilitating effects. The less importance we place upon ourselves, the more we are able to make significant contributions through our work. It is wonderful to be freed from the constraints of self-consciousness and self-importance.
When we are God-conscious, that overwhelming sense of self begins to disappear. The self and temptation go hand in hand. It is the self that clamors for the objects of temptation. As the self recedes into the background within the presence of God, temptations recede as well.
But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice:
let them ever shout for joy
Psalm 5:11a (KJV)
