The summary definition of the word 'self', derived from the Oxford English Dictionary, widely regarded as the highest authority on the English language, is as follows:
Self is all that we are.
The word ‘all’ means all, everything, without exception.
This is why the word self must include all we are consciously aware of about our self - and everything we are not.
We are consciously aware of body and our conscious mind - but there is so much more about us that is beyond our perception or 'out of sight' of our conscious awareness, hidden from our conscious mind - in our unconscious.
It is for this reason that when we use the word ‘I’, we mean the totality of our self, but we do not know our self.
So, all we are ever pointing to is the surface of our self – and we do so using the faculty of mind.
Our conscious awareness of self - our ‘sense of self’ is know through our mind.