Dear brothers and sisters,

That is a very common story – people often say and hear: “I’m looking for myself,” or “I have to find myself,” as if the speaker is completely lost from himself, or he has dropped his self somewhere on the long road of life.

Funny as it may sound, the feeling of not knowing who we truly are – “where is the real me?” – is a familiar feeling in many of us.

But why? What generates that feeling?

That feeling of being lost comes from the fact that the person completely loses control of himself. People say some thing ugly, he goes crazy with anger. He loses a nice pen, he’s depressed. Someone threatens to badmouth, he is scared. He has a new motorcycle, and he’s constantly worried about losing it… Speaking shortly, he is always upset, or scared, or depressed, or jumpy, or nervous, or anxious about something or someone. He never feels at peace, he never feels himself, he always feels like a person on the run, trying to avoid all those pressures and heavy feelings day and night weighing down on his heart.

Where am I? Where is the calm and peaceful person that is the real me? Why am I never at ease for a second so that I can feel what the real me is?

That’s the feeling of having lost our true self. We lose the control of our self to too many people and too many things during any living day, and therefore we feel we have lost our self. I have lost my self – the self is gone, it has disappeared a long time ago. I am simply lost.

So, I have to go finding my self.

But your self is still right there, in you. It hasn’t gone anywhere. You haven’t gone anywhere.

You have simply lost control of your self – you let your self be beaten constantly by everything under the sun – criticism, insult, praise, losing, winning, richness, poorness, honor, dishonor, name, no name – everything under the sun makes your self jumpy, up and down like a yoyo. The self doesn’t even know that it exists – it has been too busy yoyoing up and down all its life. It doesn’t realize it truly exists.

So you won’t find your self by going anywhere. Your self is right here, where you are.

You just have to help your self be in control of your self.

Don’t be jumpy, nervous, anxious, scared, upset… Just be calm all the time, everywhere, at any time, in any situation.

Of course, you will need some time to practice calmness. But give yourself some practice time and you will get there.

When you’re upset, say “Don’t be upset, stay calm.”
When you’re scared, say “Don’t be scared, stay calm.”
When you’re jumpy, say “Don’t be jumpy, stay calm.”
…

It may be a little difficult at first, but if you have high discipline and stick with the drill day and night, you probably will become familiar with calmness within a month. It doesn’t take much more than a month. You may not be a master in calmness in a month, but you will start experiencing calmness in a month.

This technique may be called self-hypnosis – putting yourself in a highly focused and suggestible state. It is not much different from meditation, when you sit and breathe and focus on nothing, so that the mind may be calm and not be disturbed by anything.

When you’re calm, you will find you true self sitting there smiling at you.

And you save a chunk of money, not having to travel 10 thousand km to Sahara to look for your self.

Wish you find your self soon.

With compassion,

Hoanh

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