Consciousness is defined simply as being aware of ourselves, what we are doing, why we are doing it, what impact what we choose to do has on ourselves and on others. It also means being aware of our own existence, that we are in relationship, that we won’t live for ever etc. In respect of our emotions, it means that we feel emotions such as shame, embarrassment and guilt. And to the best of our – human – knowledge, non-humans are not conscious-of-self as such, though non-human primates may have some limited self-consciousness.
Pierre Janet the French philosopher who did a lot of work in this field (as well as in the area of dissociation) used the analogy of our field of vision that, unless we are blind, we are all familiar with. When we see something out of the corner of our eye it is unclear and vague until we move our head to focus on it. Similarly with consciousness. We are only dimly aware of something until we focus on it, or are not consciously aware of it at all until we bring to our attention.
So, when we do something unconsciously we do it in a state of lack of conscious awareness. This is because we cannot be aware of all our perceptions, memories, thoughts, feelings, expectations, imaginations etc. at once. So as we go about our day-to-day lives we attend, consciously, on what is important i.e. what, at that time, we need to be aware of.
Consciousness maintains contact with the reality of our experiences.
In saying this, most of what we do in our lives we do unconsciously. Bringing the unconscious into conscious awareness is important in growth, relationships and in making decisions that are beneficial for us.
Because we grow and learn through consciousness, and we couldn’t grow without it, it is a root foundation of growth. As we become conscious of self, so do we grow.
However, being too self-conscious is not good for us either. We might not be congruent, or true to ourselves, because we are thinking too much of what others think of us.