Staying together, revealing our vulnerabilities to one another,
I was able to truly love myself,
To finally face the day when we can truly communicate with others!

When relationships with people are difficult, love is difficult, and my heart is even more difficult, when I don't know where I'm going, and when I always feel inadequate, open this book!
The author says in this book that when I finally face and love myself, I can accept others, understand the world, and gain the strength to live.

The purpose of communication is to connect deeply with you and me.
We have been taught this since we were young.
When greeting, we must bow our heads to appear humble; when we see a friend in need, we must go and help them; when we hear others speak, we must listen until the end and express our opinions to be a leader; when we have something to say, we must hold back to be mature; when we are always grateful for small things, we must work harder to be successful; from a young age, we are taught that we can only be recognized, loved, and successful when we do something, and when that action is better than others'.
But I didn't learn about the value, happiness, and joy of the act itself.
It was difficult to experience the joy and happiness that came from helping others, greeting others, and appreciating the little things in life.
Because before you feel that joy, you have already received some reward.
The moment I got my hands on the reward, the joy of the act itself flew away.
So I never experienced that my existence was beautiful and worthy of love without doing anything.
That's how we grew up.
We, like that, make up this society.
We are being told to respect without experiencing the true power of respect, to love without receiving love, and to insist that helping others will help us in times of need, all while using this as a means to success.
If we communicate in a world where people are seen as mere means, the process and the result can only be tragic.

Everyone became lonely.
Our precious children are taking their own lives, our beloved husbands are dying from overwork due to stress, our beautiful wives are losing their smiles due to depression, in organizations, people are only focused on stepping on each other to survive, and in society, more and more people are slowly dying from injustice.

If we take our focus away from the criticism directed at the other person and observe our inner consciousness, we will come to know two things.
One of the two reasons why conversations with others go in an undesirable direction and end up hurting everyone is because of our own unintentionally formed egos (thoughts).
Because that power was downloaded through learning from a very young age without us even realizing it, even as adults, we habitually and unconsciously follow it, and we live our lives pointing out as "wrong" and being hostile to those who speak or act in a way that contradicts our thoughts.
And we have seen that we all have a knack for hurting others.

In fact, the power of our own values ​​and desires never clashes with that of the other person.
In the process of choosing the means and methods we use to satisfy our values ​​and desires, 'right and wrong judgment' comes into play, and this is manifested in very violent and hurtful words and actions.
But the ironic yet hopeful truth is that the important intentions hidden within hurtful words and actions are always beautiful.

It was because I desperately wanted to be understood, because I desperately loved, or because I truly needed respect.
But the words are, “You are wrong.
You need to fix it.
It was expressed as something like, “You are selfish!”
When we hear this kind of talk, we fail to recognize the speaker's beautiful intentions, and we have become accustomed to expressing these beautiful intentions in such accusatory terms. Our mindset of trying to manipulate others by any means necessary, even thinking that evaluating, manipulating, and persuading in this way constitutes excellent communication skills—this is what has disconnected us from others.
Our consciousness is always directed outward and focused on others.
Also, as the desire to confirm one's existence through the judgment of others or society spreads, one tends to consider oneself lovable only when the other person acknowledges one.
Even when people come to learn conversation, many are interested in how to present themselves well to others by learning to speak nicely.
When we constantly blame and criticize ourselves and fail to love ourselves, we end up making extreme choices: either we unconditionally try to please the other person and make sacrifices, or we avoid the other person by cutting ties with them.
Sometimes I express extreme anger and try to place all responsibility for my feelings on the other person.
There can be no interactive communication during that process.

Loving yourself is not about overcompensating or being narcissistic, but rather about accepting yourself as you are with deep acceptance and compassion.
This process can be very painful, scary, and certainly not always pleasant, but through this experience, we learn to love ourselves, understand others, and gain the strength to face them with understanding and respect, rather than condemning them to meet our own needs.

The ability to communicate is not a skill.
This is true.
Our ability to communicate is entirely based on our inner energy: acceptance and love.

Now I want to learn again.
The true value of life, the joy of giving and receiving, the beauty that comes from each being itself, and the respect and love that naturally arise when such beings encounter each other, the power of communication and human connection based on respect and love.

Communication is connection.
I hope that the purpose of communication is to create a 'deep, qualitative connection.'

--- From the text