[Haruchunja] From Today, I Decided to Cry for Myself <3>

Editor's Note"I feel distressed because my children don't understand me. They only focus on their own desires and show little interest in the tender heart of their mother who is approaching her sixtieth birthday." The book ＜From Today, I Decided to Cry for Myself＞ by psychologist Park Seongman confronts these questions and enlightens us on what changes are needed within ourselves, as well as how to build mature relationships and communicate with family. Through stories of overly close mother-daughter relationships and mothers who cannot forget their departed sons, it discusses the process of letting go of obsession with children and separating from them. It also reveals that one might unconsciously seek compensation from their children for deficiencies in their relationship with their own parents or during their growth. Word count: 794.

Turning sixty holds significance beyond biological changes. The sexagenary cycle (Yukship Gapja, 六十甲子) has completed one full rotation. This physical change also affects the mind. It marks the point of completing a cycle and starting anew. Starting anew means becoming a child again. It is time for you to begin again as an ‘adult child.’ The newly welcomed child holds a very special meaning. This child is no longer the biological child who depended on the mother sixty years ago, but a child who relies on the greater mother?the principle of nature (or the deity one believes in). To do this, you must let go of the child who was the object of your obsession. As long as parents cling to their children, the principles of a new life remain unseen. Children who show indifference to their mothers help their mothers’ new birth.

If a person grows old without discovering the principle of nature, the greater mother, they regress to the mindset of a biological child. Without finding the principle of life, they seek someone to depend on, but only disappointment follows. They become more talkative and develop increased appetite. If they have a lot of money, they try to control their children with money, returning to the compensatory psychology of a child. If they once held a high status, they may still believe they hold that status and fall into the illusion of “Back in my day.” If they obsess over grandchildren, they see them as successors of their lineage and cannot escape the reproductive and selfish instincts that are humanity’s survival mechanisms. On the other hand, if they become a child who starts anew as themselves, they expand new horizons of life with the curiosity of a child. In analytical psychology, the child symbolizes the mature self with creative potential. Turning sixty is the beginning of the mature child.

- Park Seongman, ＜From Today, I Decided to Cry for Myself＞, Chusubat, 17,000 KRW