Based on a lecture by Professor Kim Joo-Hwan on September 12, 2026
The six self–other affirmation practices introduced in Chapter 10 of Inner Communication form a coherent system because they reflect a central idea: our sense of self develops through relationships with others.
Professor Kim illustrates this through the Korean word for “human,” ingan (人間), which combines the characters for “person” and “between.” He describes a human being as an interhuman being—someone whose existence takes shape in the space between people. From this perspective, how we relate to ourselves is closely connected to how we relate to others.
Professor Kim also explains this connection from a neuroscientific perspective. Processing information about ourselves and other people involves overlapping brain networks, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and the precuneus. The central point is that understanding ourselves and understanding others are closely related processes. This helps explain why self-directed and other-directed affirmation belong within a shared system of practice.
Finally, Professor Kim places the capacities for love and respect in a broader historical context, tracing their discussion back to Roman teachings on rhetoric and persuasion. His account connects the six practices with a longstanding concern: how we understand ourselves, relate to others, and communicate with them.
Rhetoric, the study of persuasion, is one of the oldest fields of inquiry. Professor Kim explains that Roman rhetoric already explored fundamental questions about how people establish and maintain relationships. In his interpretation, love and respect lie at the heart of these ideas.
He connects this tradition with modern social psychology, which also examines how we relate to others through concepts such as liking and trust.
Against this background, he asks us to consider the six practices of self–other affirmation: forgiveness, compassion, love, acceptance, gratitude, and respect. Understanding these practices means recognizing that each may present different challenges for different people.
Forgiveness meditation, for example, may be difficult for someone in a particular situation. Respect meditation may feel more accessible, while gratitude may offer a gentler starting point. These are possibilities to consider, rather than a fixed order that works for everyone.
For those learning to guide others, this judgment is essential: developing a sense of which practice a person may be ready for, and where they might begin.
Professor Kim describes the six practices as forming two theoretical axes: forgiveness makes compassion possible, and compassion leads to love; acceptance makes gratitude possible, and gratitude leads to respect.
The order within this framework, however, does not necessarily reflect how easy the practices are to begin. In his explanation, gratitude offers the easiest entry point, and respect is relatively accessible as well.
Forgiveness comes first in the sequence, which might suggest that we should begin there and work through the practices in order. Yet Professor Kim describes it as the most difficult practice, both to understand and to undertake.
One challenge is clarifying what forgiveness means. Forgiveness is often confused with condoning harmful behavior, tolerating it, or reconciling with the person who caused the harm. These distinctions need careful explanation.
Timing matters, too. Asking someone who is still filled with anger to forgive may leave them feeling that their pain has been dismissed. Guiding forgiveness meditation therefore requires sensitivity to the person and their circumstances.
Within this training framework, forgiveness provides the theoretical foundation for compassion and love. Its place at the beginning expresses that relationship; it does not mean that everyone needs to start there.
How, then, might we approach these practices?
Professor Kim suggests beginning gently with forgiveness. If it feels too difficult or does not seem appropriate, we can move directly to compassion and return to forgiveness later.
A fuller version of forgiveness practice may include someone we intensely dislike, but we do not have to begin with that person or extend the practice that far. We might instead spend more time on forgiving ourselves. There are several ways to approach the practice, and one goal of the course is to develop a feel for these possibilities.
This brings us to a broader question: Why do we meditate, and what does meditation help us develop?
Professor Kim encourages us to formulate a clear answer of our own. We might say that meditation strengthens our inner resources. Or, using the neuroscientific language of the course, we might describe its aim as calming the amygdala and activating the prefrontal cortex.
But these brief answers need to be unpacked. What do they mean in terms of our experience? How do they relate to the way we respond to difficulties and relate to ourselves and others?
To understand the purpose of meditation, we need to look more closely at what we are cultivating through practice.
Professor Kim emphasizes that meditation requires a clear understanding of what we are practicing and why. Its purpose goes beyond quieting thoughts or seeking a special experience, and it does not require us to suppress thinking.
In the framework he presents, one aspect of meditation is calming habitual patterns of heightened amygdala activity. He connects this process with relaxing the nervous system and cultivating awareness of breathing and bodily sensations, including interoception, the sense of the body’s internal state, and proprioception, the sense of its position and movement.
Noticing the breath is a basic way to develop this awareness. The aim is to become more attentive to what is happening in the body. Professor Kim describes this cultivation of awareness as one way to help calm the amygdala.
The next part of his explanation concerns the prefrontal cortex. He explains that heightened amygdala activity can interfere with prefrontal functioning. Calming that activity can therefore help create conditions in which the prefrontal cortex functions more effectively.
Within this framework, bodily awareness and emotional regulation are closely connected: learning to notice the breath and the body helps lay the groundwork for the capacities we seek to strengthen through meditation.
In Professor Kim’s framework, the ultimate aim is to support the functioning of the prefrontal cortex. Calming the amygdala helps create the conditions for that next stage of practice.
Yet calming the amygdala is also valuable in its own right. For people who have spent a long time in a heightened state of emotional arousal, becoming calmer may bring considerable relief. Professor Kim suggests that this shift may also help ease physical symptoms, including pain or inflammation.
This has practical implications for those learning to guide meditation. Someone who seeks help may already be struggling. They may arrive thinking, “I really need to meditate,” because they are looking for relief from what they are experiencing.
For that person, the first priority is often to help them settle through gentle awareness of the breath and body. Within this framework, that initial calming is both a meaningful benefit and a foundation for further practice.
Some people may already feel relatively calm and want to deepen their meditation practice. For many of those who seek guidance, however, the first step will be to settle and find some relief.
Professor Kim explains that, within this framework, the broader aim remains to support prefrontal functioning, which he connects with happiness and well-being.
He places this idea in a longer history of research. Earlier studies sometimes emphasized greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex in connection with positive emotions. He notes that contemporary accounts are more nuanced: prefrontal activity is part of a wider picture of how the brain contributes to feeling good.
He also distinguishes this sense of well-being from the excitement and pleasure associated with dopamine-mediated reward. The two are related, but they are not identical. A thrilling or pleasurable experience may also engage the prefrontal cortex, so the distinction is not a strict separation between brain systems.
This raises a useful question for understanding meditation: what kind of happiness are we learning to cultivate through practice?
Professor Kim connects practices such as gratitude journaling, love and respect meditation, loving-kindness (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), self-compassion, and forgiveness with greater engagement of the prefrontal cortex.
The happiness he describes differs from the pleasure of an exciting or rewarding experience. It is the sense of well-being we may feel when we are at peace with ourselves, when we feel love and respect for another person, or when we receive those feelings in return.
This is the experience he has in mind when discussing prefrontal activation. From this perspective, he draws a central conclusion: one way we cultivate our own happiness is by contributing to the happiness of others.
Inner Communication meditation is also a form of inner-strength training. In Professor Kim’s framework, this strength depends largely on brain systems that support attention and self-regulation. He highlights the mid-anterior cingulate cortex (mACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in relation to concentration, willpower, persistence, and perseverance.
He then brings these ideas together: if the systems involved in well-being also support concentration and persistence, cultivating happiness may help us develop our capabilities. This is one of the central messages he emphasizes in Inner Communication.
For children, the implication is that helping them learn includes supporting their happiness. Here, happiness means a fulfilling sense of well-being grounded in a positive relationship with themselves, rather than the brief excitement of a reward.
To illustrate this connection, Professor Kim refers to studies in which gratitude practice was followed by improvements in students’ mathematics performance. His broader message is that well-being and the capacity to learn can develop together.
Professor Kim extends this perspective to children’s learning. He suggests that cultivating forgiveness, compassion, love, acceptance, gratitude, and respect can support both their relationships and their academic development.
This challenges a familiar stereotype: the high-achieving student who is single-minded, prickly, selfish, or arrogant. Such portrayals may be common in fiction, but they offer little basis for understanding how children learn and flourish.
Instead, Professor Kim asks us to look to research. He points to findings linking positive relationships at school and prosocial behavior with better academic outcomes and cognitive performance. In his account, good relationships can also help support concentration.
He draws a similar connection with athletic performance, suggesting that relationship skills can contribute to success in sports such as football and baseball when other conditions are comparable.
The same principle, he argues, applies to our own work. Developing our capabilities includes learning to relate more effectively to those around us—to treat them with greater kindness and consideration.
For parents, this broadens the meaning of helping a child become capable. Alongside academic learning and practical skills, children need opportunities to develop healthy relationships.
Professor Kim connects this educational ideal with Quintilian’s writings on rhetoric nearly two thousand years ago. He also sees a shared emphasis on ethical relationships in the teachings of Confucius, Jesus, the Buddha, and Socrates.
His message brings us back to a simple idea: learning to care for others is part of learning to flourish ourselves.
Practicing benevolence and helping others with compassion are teachings about how we relate to one another. Professor Kim also interprets the Socratic call to “know thyself” as an invitation to examine our relationship with ourselves, including the way we speak to ourselves.
He points to Plato’s Apology and other dialogues as examples of rhetoric as well as philosophical reasoning. In his reading, these works draw on logos, ethos, and pathos: reason, character, and emotion.
These connections bring him back to the purpose of meditation. Within the framework he presents, cultivating healthier relationships with ourselves and others can help us become happier and express our abilities more fully. He also connects these practices with physical health, including immune and mitochondrial functioning.
Why, then, do we meditate? To become healthier and happier, and to realize our potential more fully. This is why he places such emphasis on prefrontal functioning.
Professor Kim argues that some educational practices work against these aims. Threatening children or damaging their relationships can undermine the conditions in which they learn and flourish. He also challenges stories in films and television that repeatedly present revenge as a satisfying response to suffering.
For him, this work includes questioning the assumptions we absorb about strength, success, and human relationships—and recognizing that those assumptions can change.
He places education centered on communication, relationships, love, and respect within a tradition reaching back roughly twenty-four hundred years. In his historical account, the nineteenth century marked a break from that tradition.
To illustrate his point, he refers to records of royal education in Arab societies, Britain, and Joseon Korea. He argues that their priorities differed considerably from today’s emphasis on subjects such as English and mathematics. His broader question is what education places at its center: what qualities are we helping a person develop, and what kind of life are we preparing them to lead?
In Professor Kim’s account, education emphasized building relationships, respecting and loving others, and cultivating the heart. These qualities were central to becoming a leader—or a junzi, an exemplary person in the Confucian tradition.
He describes a connection between these qualities and persuasion: love lays the foundation for liking, while respect lays the foundation for trust. When people like and trust someone, they become more willing to listen and act together.
Leadership, in this sense, means being able to persuade others to pursue a shared purpose. Professor Kim illustrates this with an invitation: “Let us create a country of people who meditate.” If others respond, “Yes, let us do it together,” and then take steps toward that goal, the invitation has become collective action.
The foundation of this process is love and respect. Verbal skill alone is insufficient. People need to feel both “I like this person” and “I trust what this person says.”
Professor Kim sees the same dynamic in the advanced course itself. Participants’ willingness to join and learn from him rests, in part, on their liking and trust.
He then extends this idea to everyday life. Parents guide their children, business owners guide employees, and meditation teachers invite people to practice. Each role involves helping others see value in a proposed course of action.
Someone considering a meditation class, for example, needs to feel comfortable with the teacher and trust their guidance before choosing to enroll. Even a marriage proposal involves these foundations: a decision to share a life calls for substantial liking and trust.
From this perspective, leadership is a capacity we exercise in ordinary relationships. Learning to offer love and respect helps us build the connections through which we can guide, cooperate, and act together.
Smaller decisions may require less liking and trust than major commitments, but Professor Kim argues that everyone needs the ability to inspire both. Persuasion is part of social life: sooner or later, we ask someone to listen, cooperate, or join us in doing something.
Each of us already has some capacity to build these connections. In his account, that capacity helps shape what we can accomplish with others.
He illustrates this with an expansive claim from older teachings on persuasion: someone who could persuade anyone of anything would possess almost limitless power to act. Raising money offers a practical example. An idea alone is rarely enough; persuading someone to invest requires considerable confidence in both the person and the proposal.
This also raises an ethical distinction. A con artist gains confidence through deception, while a responsible entrepreneur earns it through credible commitments and the ability to deliver. Both may draw on persuasion, but the basis of that confidence—and how it is used—matters profoundly.
Professor Kim then brings the discussion to building a brand, using INZEUM as an example.
Professor Kim uses branding to illustrate how liking and trust work together. If seeing a logo evokes warmth and confidence, those feelings can support the growth of a brand and its business. If it evokes dislike or distrust, the business may struggle.
The same principle applies to our names and reputations. Whether among family members, colleagues, or the wider public, the liking and trust we inspire reflect an aspect of our communication ability.
He brings this back to the two axes of self–other affirmation: forgiveness, compassion, and love form one axis; acceptance, gratitude, and respect form the other. If remembering all six practices feels difficult, we can begin with the two central qualities: love and respect.
Together, these qualities express a powerful form of appreciation. In Korean, gyeongae (敬愛) combines respect and love, while gyeongae-haneun means “respected and beloved.”
Although the expression may bring to mind the way leaders are addressed in North Korea, Professor Kim places it within a much older tradition. Whether a particular leader actually receives those feelings is a separate question. The expression itself points to an ideal: a leader who is both respected and loved.
Within his framework, self–other affirmation helps us cultivate the qualities through which such leadership becomes possible. The aim is to become someone others can sincerely respect and love.
Professor Kim then returns to his historical argument. In his account, before the expansion of compulsory schooling, formal education was largely available to royalty, aristocrats, and other privileged groups. It therefore often focused on preparing people for leadership or cultivating exemplary character.
Learning to offer love and respect, he argues, was central to that preparation. This sets the context for his next question: what changed in the nineteenth century?
Professor Kim locates a major shift in education in the nineteenth century, as modern nation-states emerged or consolidated and compulsory schooling expanded.
In his account, one important purpose of schooling was to cultivate a shared national identity. Children were taught to see themselves as citizens of a particular country and to take pride in belonging to it.
He argues that this could also become a form of indoctrination, with each nation presenting itself as exceptional or superior. Education helped shape how people understood their country and their place within it.
Germany and Italy illustrate his point. Before their nineteenth-century unification, both consisted of separate political entities with distinct histories and identities. Although the name “Italy” had existed since antiquity, the modern Italian nation-state did not represent an uninterrupted continuation of ancient Rome.
Cities such as Florence, Venice, Milan, and Naples had their own traditions and loyalties. Likewise, the territories that became Germany had long been politically divided. Developing a shared national identity meant bringing these communities into a new understanding of collective belonging.
Those earlier identities did not simply disappear. Professor Kim suggests that some historical loyalties and rivalries remain visible in the intensity of European football culture. He offers this as an interpretation of how older attachments can persist within modern nations.
His broader argument concerns the changing purpose of education: in his account, cultivating national belonging became a central priority of modern schooling, shifting the emphasis from the earlier ideal of educating people for ethical leadership.
Professor Kim continues his discussion of national identity by returning to football. He suggests that some rivalries carry historical loyalties that make a match feel almost like a continuation of older conflicts.
He then turns to the power of patriotism. As nation-states developed, identification with a country became a powerful force for collective action, including military mobilization. He places the First World War within this broader historical shift and notes that radio later expanded the capacity to reach and mobilize large populations.
To illustrate the strength of national belonging, he asks us to imagine an American soldier whose father had immigrated from Germany. The son might fight against German soldiers because he identifies as American. Shared national identity could unite people from different backgrounds under one flag, even when their family histories connected them to other countries.
In Professor Kim’s account, this helped shape the demand for national education. Industrialization added another priority: preparing people for work.
He describes the resulting emphasis as patriotism alongside the traditional “three Rs”—reading, writing, and arithmetic. Workers needed to understand instructions, communicate in writing, and perform calculations. These skills became central to schooling.
His criticism concerns what was lost in that shift. He argues that education could have combined literacy and mathematics with the cultivation of relationships and ethical leadership. Instead, in his account, preparing people for employment increasingly took priority over helping them develop the capacity to offer love and respect.
He believes these educational aims can be brought together again. Education for everyone can also prepare everyone to exercise leadership in their own lives.
For parents, this means helping children learn how to care for others, earn trust, and build relationships grounded in mutual respect. Professor Kim presents this as part of becoming fully human: learning both to offer love and respect and to receive them.
He sees this work as deeply consequential for our shared future. He worries that education which neglects these capacities can leave people struggling with themselves and harming one another. His invitation is to recover the relational wisdom he finds in earlier educational traditions and communicate it to those around us.
This brings the lecture back to inner-strength training. Its effects, he suggests, should gradually become visible in the way we relate to ourselves and others.
Someone might notice that a person who has been meditating seems warmer, more approachable, or easier to trust. The practitioner may find that others listen more readily and become more willing to cooperate. Within Professor Kim’s framework, these changes reflect a growing capacity to persuade through love and respect.
Such changes may be easier for others to notice than for us to recognize in ourselves. Someone we have not seen for several months may observe a brighter expression or a greater sense of vitality. Professor Kim also speculates about improvements in mitochondrial functioning, connecting this possibility with his broader account of well-being.
He therefore places self–other affirmation at the center of the part of inner-strength training concerned with prefrontal functioning. It complements other practices discussed in Inner Communication, including self-referential processing and observing thoughts.
The aim is for practice to become visible in daily life: in how we meet difficulties, how we treat people, and how we build relationships in which love and respect can grow.
Professor Kim distinguishes self–other affirmation from practices such as observing thoughts. While those practices have their own purposes, he describes forgiveness, compassion, love, acceptance, gratitude, and respect as more direct ways to cultivate relational well-being and happiness.
Forgiving someone may bring a sense of relief. Feeling compassion or caring for another person may also bring warmth and happiness to the person practicing. Within his framework, these experiences connect with prefrontal functioning.
He then turns to a practical question: how do we guide self–other affirmation meditation?
A useful beginning is three to five minutes of breath awareness. Before moving into the affirmation practices, participants can take time to settle and notice their breathing.
One of the most important skills for a meditation guide is learning to leave enough silence.
Professor Kim explains that the five- and ten-second pauses marked in the written guide are there to be practiced deliberately. Beginners often feel uncomfortable when they stop speaking. Even a few seconds can feel surprisingly long when standing in front of a group.
For participants, however, that silence provides time to follow the instruction.
Consider a simple invitation:
“Sit comfortably. Keep your back upright while releasing unnecessary tension, and rest your hands somewhere comfortable.”
The listener needs time to notice their posture, soften unnecessary tension, and find a comfortable position for their hands. If the next instruction arrives immediately, they may feel rushed—even when the guide speaks slowly.
Professor Kim recalls recording his own guidance and then trying to follow it. He often discovered that his words were slow, but the spaces between them were too short. He recommends this as a way to understand the practice from the participant’s perspective.
The same principle applies to breath awareness:
“Simply observe your breathing. There is no need to control it. Notice the breath coming in, and the breath going out.”
After these words, ten seconds or more of silence allows participants to experience several breaths for themselves.
As a rough guideline, Professor Kim suggests allowing approximately as much time for silence as for speaking. Guides can also experiment with longer silent periods.
The pause should fit the invitation. If we ask participants to notice whether they feel more at ease with each out-breath, they need enough time to experience two or three out-breaths. If we invite them to notice a thought and gently return to breathing, a pause of around twenty seconds may give them space to explore that process.
A singing bowl can help mark a period of silence. Participants may listen as its sound gradually fades, while the guide remains quiet. Depending on the bowl, this can provide twenty to fifty seconds—or longer—for listening and awareness.
Whether breath awareness is a practice on its own or a brief introduction to self–other affirmation, the principle remains the same: give people enough time to experience what you have invited them to notice.
Leave a Reply