The Pandemic Uncovered What Was Already There
Many family issues — mostly about relationships, and really, communication touches everything — became visible during the pandemic. Before that, most of us were simply too busy, each in our own direction, for parents to notice what was really going on with their kids. But when families were suddenly together 24/7, a lot of issues that had been under the surface started to show. We saw an immediate surge in demand for mental health care, and for many of those patients, a lack of communication — or trouble communicating — is one of the core causes.
Chasing Solutions Instead of the Source
There’s no shortage of good advice out there, most of it free: countless YouTube videos on how to speak, write, and express yourself better. At the same time, people are constantly communicating online — social media, blogs, chats — while, ironically, not being very present with their own families. Social media has changed our lives in a lot of good ways, and some not-so-good ones. A happy-looking family online doesn’t necessarily reflect a happy family in real life.
When we run into a problem, we tend to look for a solution before looking for the root of it — and we often turn straight to expert advice. Does that work? Sometimes. When it doesn’t, there’s usually a reason: I’m not ready to accept the solution, meaning I haven’t really recognized or acknowledged the issue (including that I might be the cause of it); or I go looking for the root cause somewhere else, as a kind of defense mechanism; or the solution just isn’t the right fit.
Self-Reflection: The Real Starting Point
Experts say: listen first, then speak. Convey your thoughts clearly. Speak effectively, write clearly. All true, all useful — everyone wants to be a good communicator.
What I think is a little different: self-reflection is probably the one thing you actually need to become a good communicator. Picture someone who revisits his day every day — his emotions, his situations, his actions. He might want to hide certain moments, or speak up loudly about the things he feels he deserves credit for. Do that every day, and eventually he becomes a humble person — because he starts to see he isn’t perfect, and that the things he’s praised for were rarely his doing alone. He starts to see himself as an imperfect person. That’s where humility comes from — the kind that opens your heart to others and makes you willing to accept their voices, too.
In this competitive world, we’re trained to speak in order to win — and if someone wins, someone else has to lose. We learn how to negotiate to win. That habit carries into family life too: I need to control this, I need to command my family members (often a spouse or children)… a mindset like that never welcomes real communication. A person like this may “listen” to family members only to find an angle to win the conversation.
Haru Hana offers a space to revisit and reflect — a walk through your own daily life. Think of it as a kind of meditation time. Find the joy of visiting and facing the true you inside. You don’t have to show off, or show anyone else what you’re doing. This is your own time, for finding what matters most to you.
To be clear, this isn’t simply about reflecting on your faults to become a better, more humble person. It’s about spending time getting to know yourself. This is for people who — because they’re busy, because they’ve never had this kind of experience before, because they’re too focused on how they appear to others, or for any number of other reasons — haven’t been able to face themselves or take care of their inner life. People grow through this kind of inward reflection. Someone who knows himself well, and who listens to his own inner voice, also listens to others. I believe that’s the true beginning of communication — especially within a family.
Communicating to Win vs. Communicating to Understand
If we bring the same “communicate to win” approach from society into the family, someone becomes a winner and someone a loser. Because they’re family, one person might make unconditional concessions — but one-sided understanding, yielding, and consideration have limits, because they break the balance. If the whole family were equally mature, it would be different, but it’s rare for everyone to grow at the same pace.
Still, because we live in groups, we experience something like a ripple effect: when someone close to us changes, we’re affected by it, and without realizing it, we start to change too. So who’s around you matters a great deal — that’s why the saying “you can tell who someone is by their friends” exists. But you can also become that “someone” for others. Show your loved ones a version of yourself that’s genuinely changing, and they change too — and that change shows up directly in the family’s dynamic. Children are too young and inexperienced to lead this, so parents have to change first. That’s part of being a parent.
The Marriage at the Center of the Household
A lot of family communication problems, when there’s a lack of it or a real issue, trace back to conflict between spouses. The causes of that conflict vary widely — money, differing views on raising children, extended family, ways of thinking, and more. But how a couple works through and resolves conflict shapes their relationship, and that, in turn, shapes the whole atmosphere of the household.
In homes where there’s humility and mutual understanding between spouses, disagreements get resolved wisely even when they exist. In homes where each person insists only on their own view and dismisses the other’s, things can turn bad. And unconditionally accepting the other person’s opinion without ever disagreeing doesn’t necessarily mean real communication either — it can actually be a refusal to communicate at all, a sense that talking just won’t get through. From the outside, there’s no visible problem. Internally, there’s no real communication happening.
Talking Isn’t the Same as Communicating
Just because a couple talks often doesn’t mean there’s no communication problem. Even skilled communicators will struggle if the gap in their views is wide. But once you start to understand yourself at a deeper level, things change — your capacity to understand and accept not just yourself, but the other person, widens and deepens. Within that kind of communication, differing positions don’t have to turn into deep emotional rifts, because there’s mutual respect underneath.
In a family where people communicate with mutual respect despite having different views, the parent-child relationship rarely turns sour — because the children grow up watching that. It’s not surprising that children raised in households full of discord often show signs of psychological instability.
What Haru Hana Offers
What Haru Hana pursues is simple: shut out the outside gaze, and look inward. And instead of directing your attention outward, turn it toward the family you love. Don’t stage a life for social media — focus on what’s real. Grow through your own personal journal, and share that good energy with your family, becoming the kind of role model a parent should be for their children. Through a journal you share with your family, create more to talk about — and ultimately, look at each other, and talk. That is the value Haru Hana pursues.