[One Thousand Characters a Day] The 'Language of Relationships' That Understands the Heart <4>

Editor's NoteDeveloping the ability to understand others' feelings is like expanding the "window of patience." Dr. Moon Yohan, a psychiatrist, recommends using the grounding technique to calm the body and stabilize oneself. He also suggests practicing mindful self-talk by adding "~guna!" to one's automatic judgments or feelings to create some distance from the mind. Through the stance of "the mind observing the mind," one can cultivate meta-awareness and the power of perspective-taking. Along with conversational skills such as active questioning and expressing small interests, self-care techniques like offering self-talk based on self-kindness also serve as exercises in understanding the heart. Word count: 1038 characters.

Human behavior is influenced by culture far more than we think. Consider this: if you were born and raised in a different cultural environment, what thoughts would you have and how would you live now? You might be reciting the Quran or greeting friends with a cheek kiss. Even without citing other cultures, if you were born just a century ago, your thoughts and behaviors would be vastly different from today. If you were born only about 100 years ago, discrimination based on birth status would be taken for granted, and you would believe that the hair given by your parents must never be cut. In this way, even genetically identical people have very different mental structures depending on the culture in which they have lived. We usually think of cultural differences only in large units such as ethnicity, country, or region, and do not pay much attention to differences between families or individuals. However, those differences are quite significant. In some households, it is perfectly natural for parents to enter their children's rooms without knocking, while in others, knocking is mandatory before entering.

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When people do not understand another's words or actions, they often do not wonder "Why is that?" but instead react with disbelief or anger, saying "How could they be like that!" But what if the other person is a foreigner from a different culture? You would think that because the culture is different, their thoughts and behaviors might also differ. Then, rather than judging right or wrong, you would try to understand why they think and act that way. This attitude of not using one's own culture as an absolute standard to judge superiority or inferiority but recognizing diversity is called "cultural relativism." Now it is time to apply this to individuals as well. In the era of individualization, one person is essentially a culture. There are ways of thinking and adapting that have been learned, accumulated, and adapted over many years within families. Before judging another's culture as wrong, it is necessary to understand it contextually. If we can maintain a culturally relativistic attitude even between individuals, how would we perceive each other's differences? At this time, the attitude of "not knowing the other's mind well" is important. Understanding the heart can continue to work when we think we do not know the other's mind well, pay attention to that mind, and allow ourselves the time needed to understand each other.