Learn the mental fortitude and the art of resilience to rise again when faced with life's challenges.
Moon Yo-han's self-healing project, which fills the emptiness of the heart and provides solutions to life's troubles.

Do you say you're fine on the outside but question whether you're truly okay? Do you find yourself opening and closing the refrigerator door repeatedly even when you're not hungry? Do you find yourself hesitating over even the smallest problems? For those who feel a hunger in their hearts and a thirst for answers to life's unsolvable problems, psychiatrist Moon Yo-han offers encouragement and a prescription for living life to the fullest with "When I Grow, Problems Shrink."
Psychiatrist Moon Yo-han has been studying psychological healing methods that integrate body and mind, focusing on human change and growth.
He has been sharing the wisdom of life he has gained from healing people who have been struggling and frustrated in the face of life's difficulties for about 20 years, and has been sharing it through his blog since 2005 under the name "The Voice that Awakens Life, Energy Plus."


"When I Grow Bigger, Problems Get Smaller" is a revised edition of "Moon Yo-han's Heart Stethoscope" published in 2013. It is a book that collects 94 of the most beloved pieces from "Energy Plus".
In this book, he says that just as trees grow again in mountains and fields swept by fire and seas covered in oil purify themselves, the vitality to live with all our might in any situation lives and breathes within us, and he defines true healing and growth as meeting the vitality within ourselves.
This book is composed of five sessions to help each reader receive a diagnosis of their mental state at a psychological counseling center and move toward healing and growth.
It unfolds with the content of “Look at the mind behind the mind,” which is the stage of knowing your true heart; “All living things live with all their might,” which encourages you to build mental fortitude even in the face of life’s difficulties; “As I grow, problems become smaller” to develop problem-solving skills; “Experiment, life is on your side,” which encourages you to challenge everything; and “Go together anyway,” which emphasizes living together.


Although it is a short and concise text of about seven pages, it is sufficiently supported by psychiatric and psychological explanations, allowing readers to objectively diagnose their own minds.
The author also added a self-healing message that opens the tightly closed door of the heart and allows us to face ourselves through emotional writing.
The title of this book, "As I Grow, Problems Get Smaller," was also inspired by the idea that if you look closely into your own mind, you can discover the healing instinct within you.
When psychological pain is great, you may not be able to feel that healing instinct, but I hope that even in such moments, you will believe that the life force is still alive within you.
Also, illustrator Kim In-ha's 50 sensational drawings shine.


At the end of each chapter, 'Dr.
Through the 'Inquiry Psychological Solution', we also share special mental training secrets that will help you build mental fortitude and confidently solve problems.
Through this, readers will be able to vividly experience the feeling of being in an actual counseling center with their primary care physician and receiving solutions at every moment while reading this book.
The pace of life is getting faster and faster, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain self-centeredness.
Through the 94 stories told by Moon Yo-han, we will once again realize that facing our own hearts and confronting the problems we face is the very thing that fills the emptiness of our hearts and gives us the strength to take a step forward in the face of life's troubles.

You are not the problem, you just have a problem!
There are times when you find yourself opening and closing the refrigerator door repeatedly even though you're not hungry, or when you feel like you have to eat something to feel better.
If you look closely at the hunger you feel at times like this, it often turns out to be a psychological problem rather than a physical one.
In other words, we relieve mental stress by eating.
Because mental hunger and physical hunger are interconnected.
(Omitted) But the problem is that although the feeling of fullness from food may temporarily make you forget your mental hunger, it can never fill it.
Moreover, it prevents you from properly experiencing the mental issues that made you feel hungry in the first place.


As former national soccer coach Guus Hiddink said, “I am still hungry,” hunger is a metaphor.
Hunger represents a variety of emotions and desires within us.
Therefore, we must look into what our hunger is coming from and fill it with what we need.
Rather than just filling it with food, if the problem is loneliness, you should be able to fill it with intimacy, and if the problem is a lack of existence, you should be able to fill it with yourself.

--- From "First Session: See the Mind Behind the Mind∥01 Hunger of the Heart"

Adults, too, can easily fall into addictive behaviors when they're stressed to avoid feeling uncomfortable.
Games? Food? Shopping? TV? Alcohol? Smartphones—these are all pacifiers commonly used by adults.
Anything that keeps you from getting in touch with your mind and reality is a pacifier.
This is not a stress reliever, but rather a false comfort that ultimately ignores and exacerbates the problem.

So what should we do? We need to let go of the pacifier and confront our inner selves.
As difficult as it may be, if we continue to ask ourselves what we need with a caring heart, we can let go of the pacifier and move toward new activities or objects that truly bring us comfort.
Because we have a fundamental desire to improve our lives.

--- From "Session 1: Look at the Mind Behind the Mind∥15 The Pacifier is Just a False Comfort"

If you eat hardtack, the older child will eat the relatively tasteless hardtack first and then eat the tasty candy, but the younger child will eat the candy first and then eat the hardtack.
Eventually, the younger brother ends up looking at the star candies his older brother eats with envious eyes.
However, that doesn't mean that any particular method is necessarily right.
Because everyone has their own way.
You just have to be able to accept that if you eat the delicious stuff first, you'll end up eating the bad stuff later.
Life, like hardtack and candy, has both good and bad things.
Therefore, there is no need to be happy just because there are many good things, and there is no need to be pessimistic and think that things will continue to be that way just because there are many bad things.
Rather, because of such pessimism, there are many unfortunate incidents where we are unable to welcome good things that come later.

--- From "Second Session: All Life Lives to the Fullest∥36 The Pacifier is Just a False Comfort"

If over time your efforts no longer help solve the problem, it is right to stop.
However, it is often because we do not know, but in many cases, we continue to do the behavior even though we know it is not helpful.
It's because I feel sorry for the effort I've put in so far.
It literally reminds me of the principal.
That's why we keep thinking, 'If I do a little more, it'll get better,' and end up going in an even more wrong direction.
Of course there are problems, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make any effort.
However, when you try to solve a problem but it doesn't work out, you shouldn't just approach it by 'trying harder'.
You need to examine whether your efforts are helping to solve the problem.
If you feel like you're digging, don't dig harder; you should stop digging in the first place.
Such an attitude is necessary for problem solving.
Being able to stop when you think of the principal is self-control and wisdom.
Because not all efforts are worthwhile.

--- From "Third Session: When I Grow Bigger, Problems Get Smaller∥Stop Digging 40"

People who perceive a problem as a problem tend to think, "My offer was rejected because of the other person's circumstances," even when their request is rejected. However, people who magnify the problem into an entity tend to feel, "The other person rejected me as a person."
So, what is the mental mechanism that acts as a barrier, separating problems from existence? It's "self-esteem."
Self-esteem serves as a pillar of our psychological immune system.
People with high self-esteem fundamentally believe that they are valuable just because they are people, even when they experience failure or rejection.
We encounter many problems as we live.
But I myself have encountered a problem, and the problem itself doesn't mean "me." Therefore, we must create a barrier between the problem and existence.
Remember, you're the one facing the problem, not the one you're facing.

--- From "Third Session: When I Grow Bigger, Problems Get Smaller∥49 I Just Met Problems"

This means that if you only pursue the freedom you want to escape from, you will likely end up living a life of fighting problems rather than living the life you want.
As we struggle to alleviate pain, fight laziness, break addictions, and overcome obesity, our lives inevitably become filled with struggle rather than passion and meaning.
And it becomes difficult to escape from that struggle.
Therefore, if you want to truly escape from something or live the life you want, you should dream of 'freedom to aim for' rather than 'freedom to escape'.
We must dream of meaning, not suffering, fidelity, not laziness, and immersion, not addiction.
In other words, rather than trying to push out unwanted thoughts, you should continuously allow what you want to flow into the center of your mind, so that unwanted thoughts are naturally pushed out.
What kind of freedom do you seek?
--- From "Session Four: Experiment, Life is on Your Side∥68 Let What You Want Flow to the Center of Your Heart"

When I counsel people, I often meet people who are deeply frustrated because things don't go their way.
People who firmly believe that if they want something badly enough, it will come true are much more likely to feel disappointment and frustration when things don't go their way.
However, a healthy faith isn't about moving forward unwaveringly, believing that things will definitely turn out as planned. It's more about taking each step forward, believing that even if you waver and stall due to confusion and uncertainty, you'll ultimately find the life you want at the end of the road. In the past, there were many tangled ups and things didn't go as planned, making me feel like life was truly unkind.
I've been living my life feeling like life wasn't on my side.
Then, when I turned forty, I began to develop a new faith in life.
I realized that everything comes with a time, and that all the experiences and wanderings I've had so far were just milestones guiding me to where I should ultimately go.

--- From "Session Four: Experiment, Life is on Your Side∥78 Life is Always on My Side"