Focus on yourself

Hello Andy,

It came to my mind today that Jojo mentioned you want to focus more on yourself. This has been something that I see myself doing the most for the past 9 months. So perhaps I can share a bit of my journey of it as an inspiration for you.

We all have different definitions of what it means by 'focusing on myself'. To me, that is not entirely the same as thinking for myself. In fact, I did try that route but it didn't really work out — because I am someone who naturally thinks for others. But does that mean I am not focusing on myself? I don't really think so.

I think my journey of focusing on myself started when I began to hear my heart and mind. That sounds pretty straightforward, but it really isn't when you truly do it, because you'll find that you hear MANY voices. The truth is most of the time, especially when we live from day to day, we subconsciously choose the one or two loudest voices to hear. But in fact, there are perhaps at least 4-5 voices within you, telling you slightly or totally different things. For me, there are little Hannah, 'smart' Hannah, 'do what's right' Hannah, cynical Hannah, loving Hannah, cheeky Hannah are more... (These categories seem about right, haha) Recognizing their existence was my first step and space was essential for that to happen.

Having space for yourself can (again) mean different for each person. But no matter what requirements there are to create space for yourself, it should be a 'quiet' enough place where you feel mentally safe to hear yourself out. Bad for me — I needed to be physically thousands miles away from anyone I know to be in that place of absolute silence because I cared too much about the world.

Then there comes the harder part — accepting those big and small voices. They sometimes sound ridiculous. They sometimes sound too wrong you reject them before you even hear what they try to say. This stage frustrated me the most because I felt like I don't even know who I am anymore. I didn't know Hannah would want to send an apology message to make up with her dad on his birthday. I didn't know Hannah would want to end her life. I didn't know Hannah would want to give a random stranger a hug at church just because she looked really sad. But they are all the same Hannah, just some of them are more dominant, some are shyer, but they are all impactful.

Now the last part of the journey, which I guess is also the ongoing part of life, is feeding all these voices. Let's admit that, by this time we are pretty annoyed by ourselves. Whenever I reach here, I often ask myself: 'so wtf do you want???' This is where we make choices. When I said this is ongoing, I mean you just have to keep exploring with lots of trial and error. One of them for me is realizing it is our nature to go for instant gratification. At the start whenever I felt sad I'd often tell myself 'let's go have sourdough and a nice cup of coffee.' or 'let's go do some shopping.' I guess these things did bring me satisfaction for like half a day, but when I got home that voice would just immediately ask: 'okay, so now what?'

I remember there was a period when I felt really sorry to myself because I was no longer able to answer that 'Now what?'. All I could say to myself is, sorry I can't give you what you want, because I don't even know what you want. I know that I've been feeding that little Hannah the wrong food for so so long (years), I've already forgotten what could truly satisfy her. In my case, she went out of control to make sure she was heard at one point, I couldn't even escape from her. I guess this is the last place you want yourself to end up being. But you know what, even then there's always somewhere you can start with to deal with yourself. I remember I wrote a letter to little Hannah to make up with her, even though all I could write was I am really sorry. I have nothing to give you, but I promise I will accept you as part of me from now on. Can we try again?

I am still learning about this every single day. The truth is, only YOU know what food to feed yourself because only YOU can hear those voices. Search deep within your heart, you'll find the answers. For me, it is my faith. Within that, it's a mix of mercy, compassion, grace, and love. For others, it might be the right relationships, environment, or passion? I don't know. But the answers are likely beyond what is visible in front of you.

The key is, you will never know that you need to feed yourself different types of food if you don't even have the space to hear the different voices without distractions. You will also never know what is the right food to feed yourself if you don't even acknowledge those voices and keep digging deep. In fact, you'll probably be very surprised along this journey as you rediscover yourself bit by bit.

So this is what I do every day essentially, what I do to 'focus on myself'. I am still learning, but I am confident to say I know myself much much better than a year ago, and I am a liiiiiitle less 'mean' to myself now. But still, you know I can be very mean, so still learning.

Wish I can share more on things like this with you. Hope this is worth your read.