Q7-19840429-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-learning_how_to_live_part_ii-1512 Leandra Tejedor (1)

Talk: 19840429-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-learning_how_to_live_part_ii-1512 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 00:48:32 Display_question: Does learning to be more aware make us more self-conscious? Keyword_search: learning, self-conscious, spontaneity, cultivate, uncomfortable, awareness, freeing ourselves, inner self, Saturday Night Fever Question_content: Questioner: One of the funny things that I thought about is, the aspect of learning to become self-conscious. And at first I thought, oh, that's just going to make me more self-conscious. But I find that somehow, ironically or paradoxically, that's not really the case. I thought it would end up stripping whatever residual spontaneity I have… away, but in fact, it may give me back more than… a lot more than I... Larry: If it doesn't, I would get out of this. I would drop it like a hot potato. You see… Questioner: I've been bringing up kids and things like that… society and families demand a certain self-consciousness, on the part of all of us, as we grow up. But then, ourselves inside also seem to demand at a certain point, throughout many points throughout our lives, a certain self-consciousness, that we need to cultivate. Larry: Okay, let's say you're self-conscious, in the sense, you're uncomfortable. You go into a room of people and oh, hi, how's everything? You're very self-conscious. Awareness can feel that. In other words, again, learning how to live. It's not such a fulfilling way to live, if you're self-conscious a lot, those of us who are shy, et cetera. What… the corrective comes out of really feeling what it's like to be self-conscious, not trying to do an impersonation of a spontaneous person, which doesn't work. Oh, let's dance, put on the music. You know, it's not convincing, it doesn't last. So that the true spontaneity… comes out of the self, out of awareness of self-consciousness, and seeing it, and learning how that's produced in us. In other words, being so concerned about what other people think of us. Am I dressed properly? Am I handsome or beautiful enough? And seeing what we do to ourselves, when we live that way, and freeing ourselves, from inside. Yeah. I see. Questioner: When you become more conscious of yourself and the sort of inner self you get away from that. Larry: That's right. Questioner: Much more spontaneous. Larry: Much of what people call spontaneous… is just that we get ourselves tense in one way, and then we break out of it, you know the compensation. We call that Saturday Night Fever, and then we build up the tension again all week ,and then, oh, how spontaneous I am. Questioner: Being there and being yourself in the moment. Larry: Yeah. And having been pliable enough to be able to take up new options, that you never thought were appropriate, for you. I'm not the kind of person who does that. And seeing that how we limit ourselves. End_time: 00:51:12