Inner peace

I enjoy listening to padres’ sermons, priests’ preaching and monks’ teachings although I have little religious orientation. Today’s good phrase “The things you can see only when you slow down” the title of Korean monk Haemin Sunim’s book, which provides readers with abundant wisdom of life and knowledge of science, philosophy and practicality.

As a psychology major at college, I studied various theories about peoples’ minds and behaviors, which taught me how much inner peace matters. It is natural that people feel furious and bad about things in relationships. However, it often turns out later that those things do not deserve any emotional swings nor explosions.

Bad feelings and hurtfulness result from the fact that you do not realize that we all are different beings. Conflict springs off when you consider yourself always right while different opinions than yours are wrong. It is hard to find that you may be right but at the same time others may not be wrong unless you take a moment to slow down and look back. It all applies to conflicts in politics, diplomacy and labor-management relationship.

Domestic disputes between marital partners are not an exception here. How could two different people think and behave all the same as each of them grew up and learned other values for many decades. A book’s title, “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,” implies this truth. My wife sometimes complains in a grumpy voice about my carelessness and indifference. My strategy here is to accept her criticism and say sorry right away. Then, I explain why I did so to her, stressing that I did not intend to. I make it clear that a behavior of mine that could make her feel bad, in fact, was a result of my attentiveness and care for her.

Hold your breath for 10 seconds when you let your anger explode, and then you will find other choices you may be able to make.