Speaker 1: If we're struggling with depression or we're struggling with anxiety,
Speaker 1: action is actually one of the ways that we deal
Speaker 1: with those problems, not by trying to figure them out
Speaker 1: in our minds.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: We all know that good habits are ways that we
Speaker 3: bring what we value into the world, and we each
Speaker 3: have our own list of what matters to us. Maybe
Speaker 3: you want to feel more energetic, improve your relationships, have
Speaker 3: a tidy your home, cook more instead of eating out
Speaker 3: for nights a week, whatever habit you want to build.
Speaker 3: It's entirely possible to make it happen. But if you
Speaker 3: feel under equipped and overwhelmed to make real sustainable change,
Speaker 3: you are not alone. And that's why I've made my
Speaker 3: free masterclass open to everyone and available to watch anytime now.
Speaker 3: It's called Habits that Stick. How to be remarkably consistent
Speaker 3: no matter what goal you set. You can grab it
Speaker 3: at oneufeed dot net slash habits. Again. It's free and
Speaker 3: you can watch it whenever it works for you. Go
Speaker 3: to one you feed dot net slash habits.
Speaker 2: We hope you'll enjoy this episode from the archive. Our
Speaker 2: guest on this episode is Greg Creech, an author, poet,
Speaker 2: and one of the leading authorities on Japanese psychology in
Speaker 2: North America. His work has been featured in The Sun, Magazine, Tricycle, Self,
Speaker 2: Utney Reader, Counseling Today, Cosmopolitan, and Experience Life. His newest
Speaker 2: book is the Art of Taking Action Lessons from Japanese Psychology.
Speaker 3: Hi Greg, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi Eric, it's a pleasure to be on their show.
Speaker 3: Your most recent book is called the Art of Taking
Speaker 3: Action Lessons from Japanese Psychology, and I loved it. It's
Speaker 3: very much in line with a lot of the things
Speaker 3: we talk about on the show. A phrase I use
Speaker 3: very often is you can't think your way into right action.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you have to act your way into right thinking.
Speaker 3: And that's pretty much what a lot of the book
Speaker 3: is about. So we'll go into all that in just
Speaker 3: a moment. But let's start like we always do, with
Speaker 3: the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 3: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 3: us that are always at battle. A good wolf which
Speaker 3: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 3: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 3: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
Speaker 3: thinks about it for a second and looks up at
Speaker 3: his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 3: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So i'd
Speaker 3: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 3: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 3: that you do.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Eric, And I like that parable, and
Speaker 1: I think it has a lot to say. And I'd
Speaker 1: like to make just two observations because we could actually
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time talking about it. But the
Speaker 1: first is that in the grandfather's role of teaching the grandchild,
Speaker 1: he mentions that there are two wolves, and so he's
Speaker 1: making it very clear that within us we have the
Speaker 1: capacity to be selfish and greedy and mean and impatient,
Speaker 1: that that's part of our character, and I think that
Speaker 1: it's really important for us to recognize that. I think
Speaker 1: that probably one of the most important steps in terms
Speaker 1: of dealing with that wolf is the recognition that that
Speaker 1: wolf exists. And so if we aren't aware of the
Speaker 1: existence of that wolf, then I think we have very
Speaker 1: little chance of being able to work with that wolf.
Speaker 1: The second thing that I was thinking about is really
Speaker 1: based on the last four words of the grandfather, the
Speaker 1: one you feed. And of course, if these were real wolves,
Speaker 1: we could think of the term food literally, but they're
Speaker 1: not real wolves. They're wolves that are part of our
Speaker 1: character or our spirit. So what does it mean to
Speaker 1: give a wolf food in that type of situation? And
Speaker 1: I would argue that one of the main ways that
Speaker 1: we would feed a wolf is actually by how we
Speaker 1: act in the world, how we engage in the world.
Speaker 1: That if we engage with others in the world with kindness,
Speaker 1: and generosity, and compare that to me is how we
Speaker 1: feed that wolf. And if we engage selfishly or with
Speaker 1: anger or based on greed, then we're feeding that wolf.
Speaker 1: So I think that in many ways, the way we
Speaker 1: feed those wolves is based on our conduct in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. Early in the book, you have a
Speaker 3: line where you're discussing how most of us think of
Speaker 3: the Eastern wisdom as being very contemplative. You know, I
Speaker 3: think meditation is what a lot of us think of,
Speaker 3: or perhaps yoga, but you say there's also a foundation
Speaker 3: of Eastern wisdom that's directed towards action.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that our Western society has really
Speaker 1: gravitated towards Eastern philosophy and Zen and Buddhism in many
Speaker 1: ways because of the meditative and self reflective nature of
Speaker 1: that approach to life. And that was really how I
Speaker 1: started as well, and I think it's very important. But
Speaker 1: there is another approach, and many years ago, I actually
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to work with Tikna Han, the Zen teacher,
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen eighties. In fact, I traveled with
Speaker 1: him as his sound recording person for about six months,
Speaker 1: and he was the person that introduced me to this
Speaker 1: concept of taking your practice off your cushion, because up
Speaker 1: until that point, I think I really saw Buddhism and
Speaker 1: Zen as contemplative practices. And it wasn't. They weren't contemplative practices,
Speaker 1: but he really emphasized the idea that you bring your
Speaker 1: practice into your life when you get off your cushion,
Speaker 1: by the way you answer the phone, or the way
Speaker 1: you wash the dishes, or the way you have dinner
Speaker 1: with your family, and so to me, those are aspects
Speaker 1: of our life that involve action and our conduct and
Speaker 1: not just meditation or contemplation.
Speaker 3: Another thing that you talk about is how the Western
Speaker 3: mental health perspective on the world has largely ignored action
Speaker 3: and really focuses more on talk therapy or self analysis
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing, whereas this Eastern philosophy, again
Speaker 3: is focused on action. You've got a line that says
Speaker 3: taking action is one of the most important skills you
Speaker 3: can master if you wish to maintain good mental health.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that there is a kind of
Speaker 1: underlying assumption in a lot of Western mental health, not all,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it, which is that we have
Speaker 1: to figure out life in our minds before we can act,
Speaker 1: and we have to somehow fix or work through particular
Speaker 1: feelings or problem with thoughts before we can do the
Speaker 1: things we need to do in our life. And I
Speaker 1: think what we see in the kinds of mental health
Speaker 1: processes that come from the East and specifically from Japan,
Speaker 1: is that action is actually a way of dealing with
Speaker 1: those kinds of problems. That if we're struggling with depression
Speaker 1: or we're struggling with anxiety, that action is actually one
Speaker 1: of the ways that we deal with those problems, not
Speaker 1: by trying to figure them out in our mind first
Speaker 1: in this kind of linear way, but that taking action
Speaker 1: itself can actually be the treatment and solution to many
Speaker 1: of those problems.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. I think, you know, the idea
Speaker 3: of thinking your way out of depression or anxiety is
Speaker 3: challenging because the very thing that does the thinking is
Speaker 3: the thing that's in some cases, you know, a little
Speaker 3: bit on the broke side. And I've always found that
Speaker 3: for me, action is so important as a saying I
Speaker 3: use a lot, which is depression hates a moving target.
Speaker 1: I think that's great, and I think part of what
Speaker 1: isn't often recognized is that by continuing to focus, or
Speaker 1: if you're a therapist, by having your client focus on
Speaker 1: what's going on in your mind or your feeling state,
Speaker 1: we're actually taking that energy that we call attention and
Speaker 1: we're turning it inside. And so a lot of what
Speaker 1: you see in Japanese psychology is really seeing our attention
Speaker 1: as needing to engage in the world, whether that be
Speaker 1: doing work in the world, or whether it be simply
Speaker 1: keeping our focus when we're taking walk on our surroundings,
Speaker 1: on the leaves and the grass and the lighting, instead
Speaker 1: of getting caught up in our thoughts and our underlying
Speaker 1: emotional state.
Speaker 3: And in your book, you're really bringing together three different
Speaker 3: Japanese I'll just call them approaches.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: There's the Marita therapy that you've talked about, there's kaizen,
Speaker 3: and then there's also would you say it in nikon,
Speaker 3: that's correct, yes, And so tell me just very briefly
Speaker 3: about what each of those are and then how they
Speaker 3: work together.
Speaker 1: Well, Marita therapy is kind of the action oriented side,
Speaker 1: and it was originally developed as a treatment for kind
Speaker 1: of severe anxiety, and a lot of what we've just
Speaker 1: been talking about in the last few minutes really are
Speaker 1: principles from Rita therapy, and what we've done is almost
Speaker 1: kind of developed that even further into a concept that
Speaker 1: is the name of the journal I edit called thirty
Speaker 1: thousand days, and day is the average amount of days
Speaker 1: that each of us has to live. And so the
Speaker 1: idea is to really make our focus what we want
Speaker 1: to do with our life, what's important, what gives our
Speaker 1: life meaning, and not to let our internal feeling state
Speaker 1: or some type of problems with our thinking or recurring
Speaker 1: thoughts interfere with being able to move forward on the
Speaker 1: things that are important in our life. And so in
Speaker 1: Marita therapy, rather than having to fix our feelings of
Speaker 1: depression or anxiety, we develop the skill of coexisting with
Speaker 1: those feelings. So, for example, if you're, let's say, have
Speaker 1: anxiety about making a public presentation in front of a
Speaker 1: group of people at work, instead of trying to get
Speaker 1: yourself to feel confident and not feel anxious, you accept
Speaker 1: the fact that you're feeling anxious and you take those
Speaker 1: anxious feelings with you while you get up in front
Speaker 1: of the podium and make your presentation. And I know
Speaker 1: that that sounds very simple, and when you're actually in
Speaker 1: that state, doesn't feel very simple. But it actually is
Speaker 1: very doable to be able to coexist with those feelings
Speaker 1: and yet have our action be based on our purpose
Speaker 1: or what is important for us to do. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of in a nutshell of Marita therapy. The second
Speaker 1: thing you mentioned is an approach called Kaizen, which originally
Speaker 1: actually came back in World War Two from an approach
Speaker 1: to rebuilding the Japanese industrial system after it was decimated
Speaker 1: by the war. And again, in simplified terms, it's the
Speaker 1: idea of incremental change incremental improvements. So the way that
Speaker 1: we use this in a therapeutic setting or in a
Speaker 1: personal setting is really the importance of taking small steps.
Speaker 1: In my book, I really emphasize that taking small steps
Speaker 1: gives us momentum. So if I'm trying to write a
Speaker 1: book and I'm hoping to write something that will be
Speaker 1: the equivalent in length of war and peace, I start
Speaker 1: by maybe writing one paragraph a day, or even one
Speaker 1: sentence a day. And obviously that's not going to get
Speaker 1: me very far if I'm trying to write a book
Speaker 1: that's going to be a thousand pages. But what it
Speaker 1: does do is if I can do that every day,
Speaker 1: it starts giving me momentum, and once I'm in a
Speaker 1: flow of writing, even if I've just committed to writing
Speaker 1: one paragraph, I may end up writing two paragraphs or
Speaker 1: two pages or ten pages because I was able to
Speaker 1: sit down and actually start writing. And I think Kaizen
Speaker 1: is all about momentum and taking those small steps. And
Speaker 1: then finally you mentioned Nikon, which is really the other
Speaker 1: side of the coin. It is the quiet reflective approach
Speaker 1: that has to do with going inside and reflecting in
Speaker 1: our life and examining how we've lived and specifically the
Speaker 1: relationships that we have. And it's an amazing method for
Speaker 1: cultivating gratitude and for kind of shifting from what I
Speaker 1: would call a complaint based life to a life based
Speaker 1: on authentic appreciation and gratitude for what we have and
Speaker 1: for just our existence itself.
Speaker 3: Excellent. We'll come back around to Nikon in particular, and
Speaker 3: there's a very structured method that you can use, so
Speaker 3: we'll talk about that in a little bit. I'd like
Speaker 3: to focus right now on kind of what you just
Speaker 3: said about a complaint focused life, and I'm just going
Speaker 3: to read something you said. You said, when we find
Speaker 3: ourselves in situations that stimulate emotional discomfort, we immediately look
Speaker 3: to escape from the discomfort, just as if it was
Speaker 3: summer heat or winter cold. We often use one of
Speaker 3: three strategies, avoidance, resignation, or complaining. I think avoidance a
Speaker 3: lot of us kind of have an idea of what
Speaker 3: that's like, whether we're trying to avoid by watching TV
Speaker 3: or taking drugs or doing different things. But let's talk
Speaker 3: about resignation and complaining.
Speaker 1: In Marito therapy, one of the key principles is this
Speaker 1: Japanese term uru gamama, which means to accept things as
Speaker 1: they are. But accepting things as they are isn't this
Speaker 1: necessarily passive. It doesn't mean, for instance, that if we
Speaker 1: receive a diagnosis of cancer, that we simply say, well,
Speaker 1: I've got cancer. I guess I'm going to die. I'll
Speaker 1: just basically lay around in bed until my life is over.
Speaker 1: That would be how I would characterize resignation, whereas acceptance,
Speaker 1: from the perspective that we have in marit To therapy,
Speaker 1: means that we have to accept things as they are.
Speaker 1: So here I receive this diagnosis of a serious illness,
Speaker 1: and the first thing that I need to do before
Speaker 1: I can take action is to accept the reality of
Speaker 1: my circumstances. Once I've accepted the reality of my circumstances,
Speaker 1: then I can think about, well, is there something I
Speaker 1: can do about this? What's controllable, what isn't controllable in
Speaker 1: the situation. So, in other words, acceptance becomes a way
Speaker 1: a precursor in many cases to taking action, whereas resignation
Speaker 1: is almost always leads to inaction.
Speaker 3: You've got a line where you say that in resid ignation,
Speaker 3: you know, rather than stepping back and observing our feelings,
Speaker 3: we are overcome by them. Right.
Speaker 1: I think it's very easy, particularly when we're faced with
Speaker 1: something really difficult or tragic or crisis, to turn our
Speaker 1: attention and our energy inward. And that means we get
Speaker 1: caught up in our feelings and caught up in our thoughts,
Speaker 1: and we can easily go through long periods of time
Speaker 1: without taking any kind of constructive action in response to
Speaker 1: the situation because all of our energy is going inside.
Speaker 1: And I think part of what we're trying to do,
Speaker 1: and part of the unique character of morito therapy in
Speaker 1: Japanese psychology, is the recognition that that energy that at
Speaker 1: an energy, for example, of anxiety or of neurosis, is
Speaker 1: actually valuable, it's not something we want to get rid of.
Speaker 1: The question becomes can we channel it in a constructive
Speaker 1: way instead of just basically having its cycle inside and
Speaker 1: create more and.
Speaker 3: More suffering for us About complaining.
Speaker 1: Well, complaining is probably something that miss does all the time.
Speaker 1: One of the most common things when I do a
Speaker 1: book signing for my books on Nikon is for someone
Speaker 1: to come up to me at the end and say,
Speaker 1: you know that was that was a great presentation, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to buy your book because my wife or
Speaker 1: my husband really needs this. But I think that again,
Speaker 1: if we think about just even the way we express
Speaker 1: ourselves as energy, complaining really has very little positive results
Speaker 1: to it, right, And what it does is it keeps
Speaker 1: us stuck in looking at the problems or difficulties in
Speaker 1: our life, the things that are causing us trouble. Complaining
Speaker 1: is you know, it's almost if you think, going back
Speaker 1: to your parable about which wolf do you feed when
Speaker 1: we complain? I think what we do is we feed
Speaker 1: the wolf of complaining, because the more we complain, the
Speaker 1: more that wolf is nourished. And so it's it's very high,
Speaker 1: if not impossible, to not complain at all. But I
Speaker 1: think what we can do is focus on what we
Speaker 1: can do instead of complaining, which is to basically be
Speaker 1: able to recognize the things that are supporting us, the
Speaker 1: way that we're cared for, the things that are going
Speaker 1: well in our life, and to express that, whether it
Speaker 1: be to know our wife or a husband or Chris
Speaker 1: who's in there working and for you right now, to
Speaker 1: be able to express those things, which is channeling that
Speaker 1: energy in a different way and taking our attention away
Speaker 1: from complaining about problems.
Speaker 4: In our life.
Speaker 3: We've had several guests on who are proponents of or
Speaker 3: one of the people who sort of invented acceptance and
Speaker 3: commitment therapy, which really has a lot in common with
Speaker 3: what I'm hearing here. It's very much that idea of
Speaker 3: you're going to have certain emotions and feelings, that's okay,
Speaker 3: deal with them, look at the values in your life,
Speaker 3: and then take the actions based on those. So there's
Speaker 3: a lot of similarity there, and so I think listeners
Speaker 3: of the show will find a through line in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think that that, particularly with the Marita
Speaker 1: therapy aspect of Japanese psychology, there is clearly a lot
Speaker 1: of overlap between that and act yep. We've actually trained
Speaker 1: people here who've also trained in act and they see
Speaker 1: that as well.
Speaker 3: So one of the main tenets of Marita therapy, you say,
Speaker 3: is that our internal experience, feelings and thoughts is basically
Speaker 3: uncontrollable by our will.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that it's the recognition, for instance,
Speaker 1: that if I'm feeling upset, if I'm feeling depressed, if
Speaker 1: I'm feeling anxious, I can't really control that feeling. I
Speaker 1: can't simply will myself not to be anxious before I
Speaker 1: stand up in front of a group and make a presentation.
Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of methodology in the West
Speaker 1: which really is about trying to control our internal experience.
Speaker 1: But if you go to the for instance, Zen practice
Speaker 1: of meditation. In Zen, what we're really just trying to
Speaker 1: do is become aware of what's coming up. We're not
Speaker 1: trying to get ourselves to think positive thoughts and to
Speaker 1: not think negative thoughts. We're just trying to be able
Speaker 1: to notice whatever thoughts how they come up during our
Speaker 1: period of meditation, and we watch them arise, and we
Speaker 1: watch the feelings that come with them, and then we
Speaker 1: watch them dissolve. And I think, what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do in Marina therapy is very similar to that, except
Speaker 1: instead of doing it during meditation, we're doing it throughout
Speaker 1: our day, which is to notice our feeling of impatience,
Speaker 1: or our feeling of anger, or our feeling of anxiety
Speaker 1: about something and just allow those feelings to be what
Speaker 1: they are, but not to allow them to keep us
Speaker 1: from moving forward and taking action that's required by the
Speaker 1: situation that we're in. And that's really the key. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that I define realistic action is
Speaker 1: action that is based on the needs of the situation.
Speaker 1: So if your little one year old child is at
Speaker 1: the table and she fills her milk, what are the
Speaker 1: needs of the situation? And that determines what action you take.
Speaker 1: It's not determined by how we feel, even though that
Speaker 1: may play a role in the situation, but many of
Speaker 1: us use our feeling state as the primary criteria for
Speaker 1: what action we take. So you think about what happens
Speaker 1: when you open the refrigerator door. You're thinking, what do
Speaker 1: I feel like eating? Right? But there's other more important
Speaker 1: questions like what needs to be eaten. Maybe there's things
Speaker 1: that are about to spoil or based on my own
Speaker 1: diet and what I feel like is healthy to me
Speaker 1: what should I eat? So it's the question of what
Speaker 1: do I feel like eating may come up almost automatically,
Speaker 1: but that's because many of us are simply tuned in
Speaker 1: to our feeling state in a way that we give
Speaker 1: it that power to assert itself and almost make those
Speaker 1: decisions about how we act.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you say that the preoccupation with our internal experience,
Speaker 3: thought and feelings tends to intensify our suffering while distractingness
Speaker 3: from activity that can give our life meaning and purpose,
Speaker 3: And that rings so true to me. I mean, as
Speaker 3: I've gone on in life, I've found that the big
Speaker 3: thing that has changed for me is the ability to
Speaker 3: take action based on calm values or what the situation
Speaker 3: requires versus my mood. For a large part of my life,
Speaker 3: particularly when I was an addict, I mean, how I
Speaker 3: felt was the primary driver of all my actions and
Speaker 3: it did not turn out well. I think wouldn't be
Speaker 3: one way to look at it.
Speaker 1: If you were able to actually map out your feelings
Speaker 1: over even just let's say the last year, you would
Speaker 1: see that it's a It's a tremendous roller coaster for
Speaker 1: most of us. Right, I mean, think about relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: we could be madly in love with our partner one minute,
Speaker 1: and the next minute we have this tremendous anger about
Speaker 1: something they said or did. One minute, we're thinking, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so lucky to be with this person, and the
Speaker 1: next minute we're thinking, I got to get out of
Speaker 1: this relationship. And so what we see is that our
Speaker 1: thoughts and our feelings are constantly shifting, you know, in
Speaker 1: this roller coaster like way, and if we base our
Speaker 1: actions on that roller coaster, then we end up with
Speaker 1: a pretty chaotic approach to life. But if we can
Speaker 1: learn to recognize those thoughts and feelings, accept them, let
Speaker 1: them essentially be what they are, but respond the way
Speaker 1: you describe towards values or purpose or what the situation needs,
Speaker 1: we can develop a life that is much more likely
Speaker 1: to provide meeting and to provide a contribution to the
Speaker 1: world and our community and our family.
Speaker 3: And in order to do that, one of the challenges,
Speaker 3: right particularly in modern society, is taking the time to
Speaker 3: figure those things out, to stop long enough and think
Speaker 3: about what's important and how do we want to spend
Speaker 3: our time, and how do we want to you know,
Speaker 3: what do we want to foster in our lives, and
Speaker 3: you talk about that in the book, and I think
Speaker 3: it's just sort of a very common thing that we
Speaker 3: all wrestle with, is is taking the time to be
Speaker 3: aware and pay enough attention to think through.
Speaker 1: That absolutely and I think you know, we have a
Speaker 1: little hermitage we call it the Tea House that's about
Speaker 1: four hundred feet up the hill from the main house
Speaker 1: here and people will come and they'll sometimes spend two
Speaker 1: days or three days. I'm just in solitude there and
Speaker 1: it's really a wonderful thing because it allows you to
Speaker 1: step back from your life and really question how you're
Speaker 1: living your life and how you want to move forward.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's absolutely essential, because otherwise we
Speaker 1: just get caught up in the busyness of our day
Speaker 1: to day lives and the next thing we know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the end of the year. We always have that
Speaker 1: response that's right in October and November, we think, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, the year is almost over. Where did it go?
Speaker 1: And where it went is to just living every day.
Speaker 1: And the important thing is to have these periods on
Speaker 1: a regular basis as much as we can. And it's
Speaker 1: not you can't always take two or three days, but
Speaker 1: sometimes you can take an evening or you can take
Speaker 1: a Sunday morning for a few hours where you can
Speaker 1: really step back from your life, reflect on where you've been,
Speaker 1: what's important to you, what are your values, and make
Speaker 1: some choices or decisions about what you need to do
Speaker 1: to move forward, which may involve some significant changes in
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got a part where you talk about asking
Speaker 3: yourself what is my purpose? Is a good way to
Speaker 3: do that, And I've got a similar for me. I
Speaker 3: sort of ask myself, like what am I doing right now?
Speaker 3: And is what I'm doing important to me? And you say,
Speaker 3: be careful if you answer this question. It's dangerous because
Speaker 3: if you ask it while watching TV, surfing the web,
Speaker 3: or reading in a romance novel, you may be hard
Speaker 3: pressed to come up with a justification for what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't always like to be confronted with the
Speaker 1: reality of how we're living or how we're using our time,
Speaker 1: but I think that that's particularly important. You know, I
Speaker 1: had met with somebody the other day who was an
Speaker 1: old student of mine that I had worked with many
Speaker 1: decades ago, actually, and we kind of reconnected and he
Speaker 1: was saying that, you know, I'm really going to take
Speaker 1: some time at this point to figure out what I
Speaker 1: want to do with my life. And I said that's great,
Speaker 1: and he said, but I'm not going to rush through this.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to take my time. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're seventy seven years old and so, which
Speaker 1: is true. And I said, you have to really think
Speaker 1: about whether you really want to take your time doing
Speaker 1: this or not. But I don't want to give people
Speaker 1: the impression that if you're sixty seven or forty seven
Speaker 1: or thirty, that there's less of an urgency, because to me,
Speaker 1: there's always an urgency to the question of what is
Speaker 1: it that I want to do with my life. We
Speaker 1: should always consider that to be one of the most
Speaker 1: important questions that we can ask, and always devote a
Speaker 1: certain amount of energy and time to answering that question,
Speaker 1: because if we do, we can keep shifting our life,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like a sailboat trying to work
Speaker 1: with the wind or the breeze. But if we don't,
Speaker 1: we easily get caught up in the habit of living
Speaker 1: the way that we've been living last year or the
Speaker 1: year before and before we know it. We are seventy
Speaker 1: seven and we look back and we haven't done the
Speaker 1: things that are important for us to do in our life.
Speaker 3: You say, one of the puzzling lessons I have learned
Speaker 3: is that more often than not, I do not feel
Speaker 3: like doing most of the things that need doing, and
Speaker 3: I puzzle over that all the time. Also, the one
Speaker 3: that I talk about on the show and I talk
Speaker 3: about with friends is exercise. I mean, literally, every time
Speaker 3: I've ever done it, I have been happy. I did
Speaker 3: it without fail It's one hundred percent, and yet still
Speaker 3: it's a it's a challenge, and I am just sort
Speaker 3: of puzzled by that. Do you have any theories on
Speaker 3: why that is or do you just kind of accept
Speaker 3: it as is and work to counter it.
Speaker 1: I think your point is really well taken, and I
Speaker 1: think exercise is really the perfect example of that, because
Speaker 1: I would would also say that, you know, ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the time when I go swimming or go biking,
Speaker 1: or go to the gym to workout, halfway through or
Speaker 1: towards the end of my workout or after the workout,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really feeling great, and I'm thinking I'm so
Speaker 1: glad I did this, and you know, and my blood
Speaker 1: is moving around and my body feels stronger, and my
Speaker 1: respiratory system is stronger. And yet even though I'm getting
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent reinforcement for that, the next day will
Speaker 1: come and I'll think I don't really want to get
Speaker 1: the car right, yeah, right, And so I think, like, like,
Speaker 1: what kind of mind do I have that I can't
Speaker 1: finally learn this lesson by now? But what we can
Speaker 1: do is recognize that that voice that basically says you
Speaker 1: don't really feel like going to the gym, you don't
Speaker 1: really feel like getting on your bike and riding down
Speaker 1: the road right now, that that's just a voice, it's
Speaker 1: just a thought, right, And we can use that wisdom
Speaker 1: that we have learned where we do know that it's
Speaker 1: not just that exercise is good for us, but it
Speaker 1: actually will often shift our feelings, it will often shift
Speaker 1: our thoughts. So we have a maxim and I think
Speaker 1: it's also in the book called Lead with the Body,
Speaker 1: and it's really the solution to the situation that we're
Speaker 1: talking about right now, which is when you don't feel
Speaker 1: like exercising and when you have this voice saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, you didn't sleep last night and you've had
Speaker 1: a long day, just relax and zone out in front
Speaker 1: of HBO or something that you lead with the body.
Speaker 1: In other words, you allow your body to basically get up,
Speaker 1: walk over to the door on your jogging shoes, you
Speaker 1: put on your t shirt, and all the while you
Speaker 1: can go ahead and have the feeling state, the emotional
Speaker 1: state of feeling lazy and tired, have that voice in
Speaker 1: your head, but your body essentially gets you started. And
Speaker 1: we can trust the body in many ways much more
Speaker 1: than we can trust the mind in those situations. And
Speaker 1: we find out, as you just described it, once we
Speaker 1: get out there, once we're exercising, the vast majority of time,
Speaker 1: we feel good about what we did and we're actually
Speaker 1: doing something that's really good for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the other thing you talk about if you say this,
Speaker 3: you say, if you don't feel like doing your taxes now,
Speaker 3: just except that you'll probably never feel like doing them.
Speaker 3: And that's been so helpful for me because I'll procrastinate
Speaker 3: something that I want to do, and then I'll think,
Speaker 3: am I really going to be more ready to do
Speaker 3: it next Wednesday? Am I going to want to do
Speaker 3: it next Wednesday? I'm never going to want to do it,
Speaker 3: and that helps me just to go ahead and then
Speaker 3: do it instead of putting off. That's an under standing
Speaker 3: that has been very helpful.
Speaker 1: To me, and I'm glad about that. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just a it's just a truth, you know, that
Speaker 1: we kid ourselves thinking that because I don't feel like
Speaker 1: washing the dishes now, that I'm going to feel like
Speaker 1: washing the dishes later on tonight or tomorrow. Or exercise
Speaker 1: or taxes Texas is I always used as an example
Speaker 1: because it's one of my things as well, and and
Speaker 1: so and but one of the things that I find
Speaker 1: is that even with taxes, which is high up on
Speaker 1: my list for things that I would really rather not do,
Speaker 1: once I actually am doing them, I will have at
Speaker 1: least little strings of moments where I think this isn't
Speaker 1: so bad, and so I Sometimes we'll use this phrase
Speaker 1: that the anticipation is often worse than the consummation, right,
Speaker 1: so we suffer. We suffer more from that whole process
Speaker 1: of trying to avoid doing what we need to do
Speaker 1: when we get in there and do it. And this
Speaker 1: isn't always true, but it's true in many cases. Once
Speaker 1: we're actually doing it, we often think you know, this
Speaker 1: really wasn't so bad, and so we can learn from that.
Speaker 1: We can recognize that we can save ourselves from suffering
Speaker 1: by doing what we need to do now or in
Speaker 1: a timely way, rather than procrastinating and putting it off
Speaker 1: and adding to essentially all of that time that we
Speaker 1: can suffer before we ultimately have to do the thing.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I agree one hundred percent. All those things are
Speaker 3: things that I learn and continue to learn and have
Speaker 3: made such a difference. You've got another book that is
Speaker 3: coming out, I think you said next month. What's the
Speaker 3: title of that.
Speaker 1: It's called Question Your Life Nikon Self Reflection and the
Speaker 1: Transformation of Our Stories. And this is the other side
Speaker 1: of the work that I had mentioned earlier called Nikon.
Speaker 1: It's really a method of self reflection where we can
Speaker 1: step back from our life and we can reflect on
Speaker 1: our conduct and our behavior and the way we've lived,
Speaker 1: and very speci typically on our relationships with the people
Speaker 1: that really we've had meaningful relationships with over the course
Speaker 1: of our life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that idea of transforming our stories. We're
Speaker 3: near the end of time, but why don't you basically
Speaker 3: tell us the sort of three steps or the three
Speaker 3: questions of Nikon as kind of a way to wrap
Speaker 3: this interview up, and then listeners could be on the
Speaker 3: lookout for your new book and maybe we'll have you
Speaker 3: back to discuss it more detail.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, thanks Eric. I perceive this process as a
Speaker 1: method of research. In other words, you're actually using your
Speaker 1: life as your research project, and the three questions that
Speaker 1: you're using you might think of it as data collection
Speaker 1: if you want to think of it as research. The
Speaker 1: first question is what have I received from others? So
Speaker 1: if you're reflecting on just the less the past day,
Speaker 1: the past twenty four hours, you would just think of everybody.
Speaker 1: If you're reflecting on your best friend or someone at work,
Speaker 1: you would think of them in particularly what have I
Speaker 1: received from them? Second question is what have I given
Speaker 1: to them? So you're looking at the other side, this
Speaker 1: is what I received from them, this is what I
Speaker 1: gave in return. And the third question is really the hardest,
Speaker 1: most difficult question, and that is what troubles and difficulties
Speaker 1: have I caused them? And that's a very difficult question
Speaker 1: for two reasons. One is it's not the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that we generally notice as easily as when other
Speaker 1: people are causing us trouble. And secondly, it basically tends
Speaker 1: to shear away some of our self image that we
Speaker 1: have as a nicer, a good person when we're looking
Speaker 1: at how we did something that was mean or selfish.
Speaker 1: And so we're kind of back to the original parable
Speaker 1: about that wolf. That question is about recognizing the ways
Speaker 1: in which that wolf at that moment has basically come
Speaker 1: to the forefront of the way we're living. It's not
Speaker 1: a pleasant thing to see, but it's a really important
Speaker 1: thing to recognize.
Speaker 3: Well, Greg, thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 3: I loved the book that is out, which is called
Speaker 3: The Art of Taking Actions Lessons from Japanese Psychology. Will
Speaker 3: have links to the book on our website. I've really
Speaker 3: enjoyed the book a lot, and I've had a great
Speaker 3: time talking with you.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Eric, and I've enjoyed being on your
Speaker 1: show and I've enjoyed our conversation, and I wish you
Speaker 1: a great deal of luck in your continued work doing
Speaker 1: this wonderful show, which is really a service to all
Speaker 1: of us out here who get to listen to all
Speaker 1: this wisdom.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, take care, thank you, Okay, bye bye.
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