My Top 3 Tools for Life: Part 3 – Rediscovering Yourself Through Inner Focus

Issue 85. July 26, 2024 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨

Photo Credit: Marcus Aurelius

This is the third part of my three-part series on my most important tools for life, which is learning to keep the focus on myself. If you missed the previous two, they’re Mastering the Art of Pausing and Embracing the Power of Reaching Out.

When people hear the phrase “keep the focus on yourself,” they usually think that means being selfish and self-centered. That’s not what it means. It means focusing on what you can control as opposed to what you cannot, which is people, places, things, and situations. 

As a recovered codependent, this has been absolutely key for me. Codependent people focus on that which is outside themselves – other people (what they’re thinking, saying, doing, or not doing), societal systems, social situations, organizations, etc. The reason codependents do that is that we’ve somehow come to believe that if everybody and everything around us is okay, then we will be okay. The problem is that you can’t make other things around you okay, you can only make things within you okay. To do that requires you to focus on yourself. 

I’ll share five ways I’ve learned to keep the focus on myself here. If you have other suggested ways to keep the focus on yourself, please let me know. I’d love to hear them!

1. What do I want or need right now?

The first way is to ask yourself what you want or need in any given situation. Before recovery, I never asked myself this question. It was always, “What does s/he/they need?” or “What does the situation/organization need?” and I never paid any attention to what I might want or need. It was all about those around me.

When I started asking myself this, I often didn’t know what I wanted or needed because I was so used to being a chameleon. Over time, I started to discern what my preferences were and what my needs were. That will never happen if you don’t ask yourself what you want and need.

2. Am I minding my own business?

This is related to respecting other people’s boundaries. I used to dole out unsolicited advice all the time! I foisted my assistance on others without their consent, perhaps in situations where they didn’t even believe they needed assistance. Speaking of consent, I love consensual relationships. It’s fine to help people, it’s actually more than fine, it’s great to be helpful. But only when you get the person’s consent. Or better yet, wait until they’ve asked for your help.

Getting consent means asking questions like, “Are you looking for suggestions or just venting?” or “I have some suggestions for you, would you like to hear them?” If they say no, then you keep your mouth shut. It’s amazing how much more energy I have in my life just from minding my own business. As I got better at this, I came to see that one of my “ways” had been being helpful to be controlling. That is, I would “help” so that things would go in the direction I wanted them to (e.g., “I’ll contact the event space” so I could make sure things were done my way).

3. What’s my part in this?

Another very important aspect of keeping the focus on myself has to do with understanding my part in things. This was my greatest gift of recovery – learning what I was doing to contribute to the chaos and drama of my life. 

If you find yourself in a certain dynamic in various situations that aren’t really working for you, take a look at what you might be doing to contribute to these situations. This is not to beat yourself up, it’s so that you can ask yourself, “What might I do differently next time?” If you never ask this question, you’ll probably be like me and assume it’s the people around you or the situations you’re in. You’ll never seek to change what you can (i.e., you). If you’re experiencing the same recurring pattern, you’re the common denominator. You can’t change others, but you can change yourself. You won’t do that until and unless you ask, “What might I do differently in such situations?”

Realizing that I had a habit of not minding my own business is a perfect example. I stopped offering unsolicited advice, which meant I stopped getting annoyed at people for never following my advice! Before recovery, I honestly didn’t know that I was doing anything to create the discord, lack of peace, anxiety, and tension I frequently had in my life. Much of the dysfunction of my life was cleaned up when I started looking for my part in things! If other people really are the problem, you’re screwed! Finding out what you’re doing so you can stop or change it can make a world of difference in improving your life.

4. Am I taking good care of myself?

I neglected and even abused myself for much of my life (drugs, alcohol, food, toxic situations and relationships, running myself ragged). I just didn’t take good care of myself, so I was always trying to pour from an empty cup. I love what Ashley Kirkwood says, “Don’t pour from your cup, pour from the overflow.” The only way to have overflow is if you fill your cup first. It is not selfish to take good care of yourself, it’s self-preservation. And it’s selfless. 

You have more to give when you pour from an overflowing cup. I honestly give more service to my community now that I have healthy boundaries than I did before when I was a “volunteer-a-holic.” That’s because I do it by choice (not compulsion), strategically (not at the drop of a hat) and I fill my cup first. I try to pour from the saucer, as Shannon Daniels says. That means I’ve got so much overflow that it’s spilling into the saucer.

As I said to one of my clients the other day, “It’s amazing what you can withstand you take good care of yourself.” She’d just made it through the fiasco of getting dozens of kids onto flights back home when there was a huge outage that affected flights across the nation. She said, “Self-care was a major factor” which she never made time for until she started my coaching.

5. Stop feeling and managing other people’s feelings.

Before I had healthy boundaries, I could literally feel others’ feelings. There’s something that happens as you build boundaries that’s almost like an invisible force field that develops around you. Other people’s stuff just doesn’t penetrate you like it does when you don’t have healthy boundaries. I helped this “force field” along by telling myself, “It’s not happening to me” when other people were going through crises around me. It helped me differentiate their feelings from my own.

When it comes to managing other people’s feelings, this was where I lived! It acted like it was my job to take care of other people – to make sure they were happy, content, and had everything they needed. This goes back to the idea that I needed everybody around me to be okay so I could be okay.

The problem is, there are 8 billion people in the world! I can’t make sure everybody is okay. I get to stop managing other people’s feelings and let them manage their own feelings. If someone is upset, they get to be upset. If someone is grieving, they get to grieve. It’s not my job to make them feel better. I can ask open-ended questions like, “Is there anything I can do?” or “What would feel supportive to you right now?” But they get to be in charge of their own feelings, just like I get to be in charge of my own feelings.

I could say so much more about keeping the focus on yourself. This is absolutely paramount for me and my recovery. I have so much more energy than I didn’t have before I learned to keep the focus on myself. That’s because I’m now living just one life: mine. 

In the past, my consciousness was focused on so many people, places, and things around me that I felt like I was being pulled in all different directions. Now I’m so much more effective in the relationships I’m in and the places I go because I’m not scattered. I’m grounded in myself. Try it. You’ll be amazed!