'You are the one you've been waiting for' (Schwartz, 2023)

x1 poetic piece and x1 discursive piece on my recent self-developmental journey: love, particularly self-love.

• Inspired by IFS Therapy (Schwartz), Jaymen Chang 'I love this version of myself you have brought out,' and lightly edited by Generative AI.

Taken at Mt Blackheath

君だよ、(poem)

I chased the edge of discipline,

Sharpened mind, and carved the skin—

But in the quiet, I could feel

A wound the body could not heal.

I sought the answer, forged in flame,

Through tears and silence, strength and shame—

Yet all along, it lived in me:

A softer voice, the missing key.

Love, not 'earned', but simply known,

Like light I’d dimmed, yet always shown.

It didn't shout, it didn't fight,

It only whispered: You were once light.

And now I integrate—not just endure—

A truth that’s felt, a love that’s pure.

The mind may lead, the body strive,

But only love can keep me truly alive.

So if you seek, begin within—

Let softness hold the discipline.

Let fire dance, let stillness stay—

And heal the world in your own way.

Mind, body and heart (discursive writing)

From a young age, I used to cringe at love stories of any kind.

In the past few years, fate has strangely pulled me toward becoming a better version of myself. I sought answers in mentorships, father figures, and monk-like solitude. And while I often felt growth—my mind sharpening, my body transforming—deep in my heart, something was missing. Despite the progress, I still played sad songs, cried in solitude, and pushed myself forward with a kind of one-dimensional force.

I write this now as a gentle reminder to myself, and perhaps a healing call to others. Very recently, I identified the missing key that connects the dots in my self-growth journey.

The key was, is, and always will be self-love.

Looking back, there was a paralysing pattern in my approach to growth. I was constantly asking, "What needs to be fixed?" As a man, this overtly logical approach skewed my development toward the mind alone. But as many of us know, the mind can become a trap—breeding overthinking, doubt, and imbalance. True growth must include the body—and more importantly, be rooted in the heart.

Because if the mind and body work without the heart, we become desperate voids, relentlessly seeking something external to fill us. As primitive beings, we need our heart’s language spoken, felt, and understood.

One of the strangest symptoms of this imbalance was what I now call the doppelgänger effect. Around some of my closest people—those I chose to walk through life with—I felt a discomfort. A strange kind of anxiety, like feeling out of place in your own bedroom. I now realise that many of those I was closest to were mirrors of myself. The ones I naturally gravitated toward shared my wounds, especially the wound of childhood emotional neglect.

As we “matured,” we poured our focus into the development of mind and body—neglecting the missing key: love. Self-love.

Emotionally, and somewhat sardonically aligned with my Japanese heritage, I lived within the realms of shame and guilt. These emotions carry low frequencies. They fly unnoticed, subtly eroding one’s sense of self over time. Day to day, I lived with the ‘shackles of the shoulds’—an overwhelming sense of duty to prevent even the faintest whiff of shame or guilt. But the more I resisted, the more they persisted.

Because I hadn’t addressed their root: a deep yearning for sincere love—for myself. And no amount of one-dimensional self-development—mental or physical—could address that void. As the saying goes, “Love builds a bridge so the truth can pass.”

There are a few truths I now understand more clearly—truths I will swear by for the rest of my life.

Love, in its rawest form, is a felt truth—regardless of how twisted, tangled, or misunderstood we may be. Love clears even the deepest misinterpretations, like mist soothing a bloodied, battered body. Love forgives a thousand heartbreaks. It dissolves decades-long illusions in a single moment. When scaled, love becomes the most powerful force: a communion of tranquil stillness and dancing wildfire.

Love, in its truest form, holds no expectations. No fear. Love does not hurt—just as happiness is not synonymous with sadness. I’m not saying love removes all pain from life. But I believe love heals and prioritises the best in us and in others—right here, in this moment. What happens in the longer marathon of life is left to practice, discipline, and chance.

Love, to me, is most visibly captured in sacrificial, selfless action. To paraphrase a truth that resonates deeply: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another.” (John 15:13)

There’s really only one thing that inhibits love: the belief that we are broken. But we were born whole—pure light. Over time, life taught us to see the world not as it is, but as we are… and as we were. Slowly, we dimmed our own light.

Now, our work is to understand why and how we did that. So that our future actions—our practices—can be soulfully aligned and true.

This, I believe, is how we heal the world. Healing is quantum—it ripples. When we heal, we heal our fathers and mothers. Our brothers and sisters. We transcend the past, present, and future.