If self-consciousness causes us to wriggle, and strain, and stammer, and we do not recognize the root of the trouble and shun it, and learn to yield and quietly relax our nerves and muscles, of course the strain becomes worse.  Then, rather than suffer from it any longer, we keep away from people, just as the blushing man is tempted to do.  In that case, the strain is still in us, in the back of our brains, so to speak—­because we have not faced and overcome it.

Stage fright is an intense form of self-consciousness, but the man who is incapable of stage fright lacks the sensitive temperament required to achieve great power as an artist.  The man who overcomes stage fright by getting out of his own way, and by letting the character he is playing, or the music he is interpreting, work through him as a clear, unselfish channel receives new power for his work in the proportion that he shuns his own interfering selfishness.

But it is with the self-consciousness of everyday life that we have especially to do now, and with the practical wisdom necessary to gain freedom from all its various discomforts; and, even more than that, to gain the new power for useful service which comes from the possession of that freedom.

The remedy is to be found in obedience to the law of unselfishness, carried out into the field of nervous suffering.

Whatever one may think, however one may try to dodge the truth by this excuse or that, the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain freedom from self-consciousness are absolutely within the indidivual who suffers. When we once understand this, and are faced toward the truth, we are sure to find our way out, with more or less rapidity, according to the strength with which we use our wills in true obedience.

First, we must be willing to accept the effects of self-consciousness.  The more we resist these effects the more they force themselves upon us, and the more we suffer from them.  We must be willing to blush, be willing to realize that we have talked too much, and perhaps made ourselves ridiculous.  We must be willing to feel the discomforts of self-consciousness in whatever form they may appear.  Then—­the central point of all—­we must know and understand, and not dodge in the very least the truth that the root of self-consciousness is selfishly caring what other people think of us,—­and wanting to appear well before them.

Many readers of this article who suffer from self-consciousness will want to deny this; others will acknowledge it, but will declare their inability to live according to the truth; some,—­perhaps more than a few,—­will recognize the truth and set to work with a will to obey it, and how happily we may look forward to the freedom which will eventually be theirs!

A wise man has said that when people do not think well of us, the first thing to do is to look and see whether they are right.  In most cases, even though they way have unkind feelings mingled with their criticism, there is an element of truth in it from which we may profit.  In such cases we are much indebted to our critics, for, by taking their suggestions, we are helped toward strength of character and power for use.  If there is no truth in the criticism, we need not think of it at all, but live steadily on, knowing that the truth will take care of itself.