Self–Other Affirmation: A Path to Inner Freedom — Part 1 of 5
Based on a lecture by Professor Kim Joo-Hwan
The prerequisite: being able to notice ourselves
Professor Kim begins by explaining a prerequisite for self–other affirmation: the capacity for self-reference.
Self-reference means being able to direct our attention toward ourselves and process information about ourselves. Before we can affirm ourselves or others, we need to be able to notice ourselves.
He explains that self-affirmation and affirmation of others involve largely overlapping brain regions. More fundamentally, the self develops through interactions with other people. Our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with others are therefore closely connected.
In his account, self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others develop together. The same applies to self-compassion and compassion for others, and to self-love and love for others. These capacities belong to a connected process.
Six practices within one underlying orientation
The six practices of self–other affirmation are forgiveness, compassion, love, acceptance, gratitude, and respect.
Professor Kim emphasizes that these are closely connected expressions of one underlying orientation of mind. They can be understood as different frameworks for the stories we tell ourselves.
Self–other affirmation meditation involves noticing the storytelling already taking place within us and changing the habits through which those stories are produced.
Love and respect illustrate this connection. Although Professor Kim says that they can be distinguished neuroscientifically, they are intimately related. It is difficult to genuinely love someone while feeling no respect for them at all. As our capacity for love develops, our capacity for respect can develop alongside it.
Forgiveness, compassion, and love also flow into one another.
When we thoroughly forgive ourselves and others, compassion can arise. Compassion wishes for freedom from suffering. As that wish develops into the wish that someone might be happy, it becomes love.
These are, in Professor Kim’s explanation, different kinds of storytelling arising from the same underlying mind.
For this reason, concentrating strongly on one practice can help develop the others. Someone who practices gratitude meditation intensively may also experience improvement in the other capacities.
Recognizing the frameworks already operating within us
Training involves recognizing the storytelling habits that may already be embedded in our minds.
Some of these habits take the form of absolute refusals:
“I cannot tolerate that.”
“That is unacceptable.”
“I could never forgive that.”
“Not even if it costs me my life.”
Professor Kim describes these as frameworks of unforgiving storytelling. When a particular event or person activates them, we draw upon a familiar script.
The practice therefore requires us to notice the script itself: the habitual way our inner conversation organizes an experience.
Why the practice begins with the self
Professor Kim connects this relationship between self and other to the medial prefrontal cortex, or mPFC.
He refers to a meta-analysis describing substantial overlap between processing information about ourselves and processing information about others. Rather than occupying entirely separate regions, he describes these processes as extending along a continuous gradient.
His illustration is of a spectrum: one area is more concerned with the self, and the processing gradually shifts toward others along a connected continuum.
This explanation has a practical consequence for teaching meditation.
Before asking a learner to love others, he recommends beginning with practices directed toward the self: self-forgiveness, self-compassion, and self-love.
He says that self-forgiveness is easier to begin with and can produce effects more quickly. He also refers to the use of forgiveness training in contexts such as trauma treatment and treatment for anxiety disorders.
The reason for beginning with ourselves, he explains, lies in the structure of the neural networks and the automatic nature of self-referential processing. Beginning with self-forgiveness allows the practice to extend more readily toward others.
How negative storytelling becomes familiar
Professor Kim points out that we have also received extensive training in withholding forgiveness from ourselves.
From childhood, people may hear demands such as:
“Push yourself harder.”
“You must not behave like that.”
“Did you do something wrong or not?”
“Say what you did wrong.”
Repeated demands to identify and confess wrongdoing can become an internal voice. Eventually, the person continues the process alone:
“I did this wrong.”
“I did that wrong.”
“I cannot forgive myself for this.”
The habits of parents, teachers, friends, television dramas, and films can all become part of our inner conversation. Their assumptions and judgments enter our minds and continue operating there.
Because these stories have always seemed present, we may not recognize them as learned frameworks that can change.
Awareness as the beginning of release
Professor Kim asks the participants to prepare themselves to become genuinely free.
That preparation involves facing ourselves and clearly recognizing the negative storytelling that runs automatically within us.
He emphasizes that once we truly recognize a habit of storytelling, it begins to dissolve. In his description, we do not necessarily need to follow awareness with an elaborate mental operation to cut the habit out.
The habit continues partly because we do not know that we are engaging in it. When we recognize what we are doing, its hold can begin to loosen.
This experience may feel like discovering a new aspect of ourselves, becoming more comfortable in our minds, or becoming freer.
Learning through shared practice
Professor Kim explains that this process cannot be adequately conveyed simply by teaching people a technique for producing positive self-talk.
His approach combines what he calls amygdala stabilization, self-awareness, examples of positive storytelling, and continued practice together.
He then refers directly to the INZEUM participants’ experience in Sokcho.
He says that he felt they had already made considerable progress in amygdala stabilization. They had also spent several days interacting with people who shared the same intention to practice.
The people around us can become important mirrors. Through our conversations and interactions with them, we can become more aware of our own self-talk and storytelling habits.
For the INZEUM group, Professor Kim sees these shared conditions as an opportunity. With further training in inner conversation, he expects substantial change.
He says that at the following Saturday’s session, he wants to ask each participant whether they have become free.
The purpose of the practices is therefore concrete: to recognize the stories that bind us and develop a way of relating to ourselves and others that allows us to become free.
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