The One You Feed - Gregg Krech: Procrastination, Taking Action and Mindfulness

Episode Date: July 26, 2017

This week we talk to Gregg Krech GREGG KRECH is an author, poet, and one of the leading authorities on Japanese Psychology in North America. His work has been featured in THE SUN magazine, Tricycle, SELF, Utne Reader, Counseling Today, Cosmopolitan and Experience Life. His books include Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection, A Natural Approach to Mental Wellness, and  The Art of Taking Action.  His newest book, Question Your Life, will be available soon. Gregg and his wife, Linda, founded the ToDo Institute (http://www.todoinstitute.org), a non-profit center in Vermont that uses Japanese Psychology as an alternative to traditional Western approaches to psychology. Over the past 25 years, Gregg has introduced Japanese Psychology, particularly Naikan Therapy, Morita Therapy and Kaizen, to thousands of people through his workshops and online courses. His work supports a blend of the psychological, the spiritual and the practical, and helps individuals to clarify purpose, cultivate gratitude, develop compassion and engage in meaningful action. He is a member of the North American Naikan Counsel and Editor in Chief for the quarterly journal "Thirty Thousand Days: A Journal for Purposeful Living.   In This Interview, Gregg Krech and I Discuss... The Wolf Parable His book, The Art of Taking Actions: Lessons from Japanese Psychology How Eastern wisdom is directed towards taking action, as well as contemplation Taking your practice off your cushion The misguided premise that we have to figure things out in our life before we can act The power of momentum in action when small steps are taken Cultivating gratitude Avoidance, resignation, complaining How accepting things as they are isn't necessarily passive That complaining keeps us stuck in focusing on the trouble in our lives The overlap between ACT and Japenese Therapy Feelings and thoughts are uncontrollable by our will Allowing feelings to be what they are but not letting them inhibit our ability to move forward and take action Taking action based on the needs of the situation rather than just on the feelings we have  How essential it is to step back from our lives and reflect and then make choices on how you need to move forward How most of the time we do not feel like doing the things that need to be done Exercise being an example! The maxim: Lead with the body How if you don't feel like something now, you're probably never really going to want to do it so get it done now That the anticipation is often worse than the consummation His next book that focuses on self-reflection       Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If we're struggling with depression or we're struggling with anxiety, action is actually one of the ways that we deal with those problems, not by trying to figure them out in our mind. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Greg Creech, an author, poet, and one of the leading authorities on Japanese psychology in North America. His work has been featured in The Sun Magazine, Tricycle, Self, Utney Reader, Counseling Today, Cosmopolitan, and Experience Life. His newest book is The Art of Taking Action, Lessons from Japanese Psychology.

other people who need it. Some other ways that you can support us is if you're interested in the book that we're discussing on today's episode, go to one you feed.net and find the episode that we're talking about. There will be links to all of the author's books. And if you buy them through there, it's the same price to you, but we get a small amount. Also, you can go to one you feed.net slash book. And I have a reading list there. One you feed.net slash shop, and you can buy t-shirts, mugs, and other things. And finally, one you feed.net slash Facebook, which is where our Facebook group is. And you can interact with other listeners of the show and get support in feeding your good wolf. Thanks again for listening. And here's the interview with Greg Creech. Hi, Greg, welcome to the show. Hi, Eric. It's a pleasure to be on your show. Your most recent book is called The Art of Taking

Action, Lessons from Japanese Psychology. And I loved it. It's very much in line with a lot of the things we talk about on the show. A phrase I use very often is you can't think your way into right action. Sometimes you have to act your way into right action. Sometimes you have to act your way into right thinking. And that's pretty much what a lot of the book is about. So we'll go into all that in just a moment. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, thank you, Eric. And I like that parable, and I think it has a lot to say. And I'd like to make just two observations because we could actually spend a lot of time talking about it. But the first is that in the grandfather's role of teaching the grandchild, he mentions that

there are two wolves. And so he's making it very clear that within us, we have the capacity to be selfish and greedy and mean and impatient, that that's part of our character. And I think that it's really important for us to recognize that. I think that probably one of the most important steps in terms of dealing with that wolf is the recognition that that wolf exists. And so if we aren't aware of the existence of that wolf, then I think we have very little chance of being able to work with that wolf. The second thing that I was thinking about is really based on the last four words of the grandfather, the one you feed. And of course, if these were real wolves, we could think of the term food literally, but they're

not real wolves. They're wolves that are part of our character or our spirit. So what does it mean to give a wolf food in that type of situation? And I would argue that one of the main ways that we would feed a wolf is actually by how we act in the world, how we engage in the world. That if we engage with others in the world with kindness and generosity and compassion, that to me is how we feed that wolf. And if we engage selfishly or with anger or based on greed, then we're feeding that wolf. So I think that in many ways, the way we feed those wolves is based on our conduct in the world. Yeah, I agree. Early in the book, you have a line where you're discussing how in many ways because of the meditative and self-reflective nature of that approach to life. And that was really how I started as well. And I think it's very important. But there is another approach. And many years ago,

I actually had an opportunity to work with Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen teacher back in the 1980s. work with Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen teacher back in the 1980s. In fact, I traveled with him as his sound recording person for about six months. And he was the person that introduced me to this concept of taking your practice off your cushion. Because up until that point, I think I really saw Buddhism and Zen as contemplative practices. And it wasn't they weren't contemplative practices, but he really emphasized the idea that you bring your practice into your life when you get off your cushion by the way you answer the phone or the way you wash the dishes or the way you have dinner with your family. And so to me, those are aspects of our life that involve action and our conduct and not just meditation or contemplation.

Another thing that you talk about is how the Western mental health perspective on the world has largely ignored action and really focuses more on talk therapy or self-analysis and that sort of thing, whereas this Eastern philosophy, again, is focused on action. You've got a line that says, taking action is one of the most important skills you can master if you wish to maintain good mental health. Right, and I think that there is a kind of underlying assumption in a lot of Western mental health, not all, but a lot of it, which is that we have to figure out life in our minds before we can act. And we have to somehow fix or work

through particular feelings or problem thoughts before we can do the things we need to do in our life. And I think what we see in the kinds of mental health processes that come from the East, and specifically from Japan, is that action is actually a way of dealing with those kinds of problems. That if we're struggling with depression or we're struggling with anxiety, that action is actually one of the ways that we deal with those problems, not by trying to figure them out in our mind first in this kind of linear way, but that taking action itself can actually be the treatment and solution to many of those problems. I couldn't agree more. I think, you know, the idea of thinking your way out of depression or anxiety is challenging because the

very thing that does the thinking is the thing that's's in some cases, you know, a little bit on the broke side. And I've always found that for me, action is so important. There's a saying I use a lot, which is depression hates a moving target. I think that's great. recognized is that by continuing to focus, or if you're a therapist, by having your client focus on what's going on in your mind or your feeling state, we're actually taking that energy that we call attention, and we're turning it inside. And so a lot of what you see in the Japanese psychology is really seeing our attention as needing to engage in the world, whether that be doing work in the world or whether it be simply keeping our focus when we're taking a walk on our surroundings,

on the leaves and the grass and the lighting, instead of getting caught up in our thoughts and our underlying emotional state. And in your book, you're really bringing together three different Japanese, I'll just call them approaches, right? There's the Marita therapy that you've talked about. There's Kaizen. And then there's also, would you say Nikon? That's correct. Yes. And so tell me just very briefly about what each of those are and then how they work together. Well, Marita therapy is kind of the action-oriented side, and it was originally developed as a treatment for kind of severe anxiety. And a lot of what we've just been talking about in the last few minutes really are principles from Marita therapy. And what we've done is almost kind of developed that even further into a concept that is the name of the journal I edit called 30,000

Days. And 30,000 Days is the average amount of days that each of us has to live. And so the idea is to really make our focus what we want to do with our life, what's important, what gives our life meaning, and not let our internal feeling state or some type of problems with our thinking or recurring thoughts interfere with being able to move forward on the things that are important in our life. And so in marita therapy, rather than having to fix our feelings of depression or anxiety, we develop the skill of coexisting with those feelings. So for example, if you're, let's say, have anxiety about making a public presentation in front of a group of people at work, instead of trying to get yourself to feel confident and not feel anxious, you accept the

fact that you're feeling anxious, and you take those anxious feelings with you while you get up in front of the podium and make your presentation. And I know that that sounds very simple, and when you're actually in that state, it doesn't feel very simple but it actually is very doable to be able to coexist with those feelings and yet have our action be based on our purpose or what is important for us to do so that's kind of a in a nutshell of marita therapy the second thing you mentioned is an approach called kaizen, which originally actually came back in World War II from an approach to rebuilding the Japanese industrial system after it was decimated by the war. And again, in simplified terms, it's the idea of incremental change, incremental improvements.

So the way that we use this in a therapeutic setting or in a personal setting is really the importance of taking small steps. And in my book, I really emphasize that taking small steps gives us momentum. So if I'm trying to write a book and I'm hoping to write something that will be the equivalent in length of war and peace, I start by maybe writing one paragraph a day or even one sentence a day. And obviously, that's not going to get me very far if I'm trying to write a book that's going to be a thousand pages. But what it does do is if I can do that every day, it starts giving me momentum. And once I'm in a flow of writing, even if I've just committed to writing one paragraph, I may end up writing two paragraphs or two pages or 10 pages because I was able to sit down and actually start writing.

And I think Kaizen is all about momentum and taking those small steps. And then finally, you mentioned Nikon, which is really the other side of the coin. coin it is the quiet reflective approach that has to do with going inside and reflecting in our life and examining how we've lived and specifically the relationships that we have and it's an amazing method for cultivating gratitude and for kind of shifting from what i would call a complaint-based life to a life based on authentic appreciation and gratitude for what we have and for just our existence itself. Excellent. We'll come back around to Nikon in particular, and there's a very structured method that you can use. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. I'd like to focus right now on kind of what you just said about a complaint-focused life. And I'm just going to read something you said.

You said, when we find ourselves in situations that stimulate emotional discomfort, we immediately look to escape from the discomfort just as if it was summer heat or winter cold. We often use one of three strategies, avoidance, resignation, or complaining. I think avoidance, a lot of us kind of have an idea of what that's like, whether we're trying to avoid by watching TV or taking drugs or doing different things. But let's talk about resignation and complaining. In Morita therapy, one of the key principles is this Japanese term, which means to accept things as they are. But accepting things as they are isn't necessarily passive. It doesn't mean, for instance,

that if we receive a diagnosis of cancer, that we simply say, well, I've got cancer, I guess I'm going to die. I'll just basically lay around in bed until my life is over. That would be how I would characterize resignation. Whereas acceptance from the perspective that we have in marita therapy means that we have to accept things as they are so here I've received this diagnosis of a serious illness and the first thing that I need to do before I can take action is to accept the reality of my circumstances once I've accepted the reality of micro circumstances then I can think about, well, is there something I can do about this? What's controllable? What isn't controllable in this

situation? So in other words, acceptance becomes a way, a precursor in many cases to taking action, whereas resignation is almost always leads to inaction. You've got a line where you say that in resignation, you know, rather than stepping back and observing our feelings, we are overcome by them. Right. I think it's very easy, particularly when we're faced with something really difficult or tragic or crisis, to turn our attention and our energy inward. And that means we get caught up in our feelings and caught up in our thoughts. And we can easily go through long periods of time without taking any kind of constructive action in response to the situation,

because all of our energy is going inside. And I think part of what we're trying to do, and part of the unique character of Morita therapy in Japanese psychology, character of Morita therapy in Japanese psychology is the recognition that that energy, that energy, for example, of anxiety or of neurosis is actually valuable. It's not something we want to get rid of. The question becomes, can we channel it in a constructive way instead of just basically having it cycle inside and create more and more suffering for us? And what about complaining? Well, complaining is probably something that most of us... Because Chris does it all the time. A lifestyle, that's what I call it.

One of the most common things when I do a book signing for my books on Nikon is for someone to come up to me at the end and say, you know, that was a great presentation and I'm going to buy your book because my wife or my husband really needs this. But I think that, again, if we think about just even the way we express ourselves as energy, complaining really has very little positive results to it, right? And what it does is it keeps us stuck in looking at the problems or difficulties in our life, the things that are causing us trouble. Complaining is, you know, it's almost, if you think, going back to your parable about which

wolf do you feed, when we complain, I think what we do is we feed the wolf of complaining. Because the more we complain, the more that wolf is nourished. And so it's very hard, if not impossible, to not complain at all. But I think what we can do is focus on what we can do instead of complaining, which is to basically be able to recognize the things that are supporting us, the way that we're cared for, the things that are going well in our life, and to express that, whether it be to our know our wife or husband or the work Chris who's in there working and for you right now to be able to express those things which is channeling that energy in a different way and taking our attention away from

complaining about problems in our life Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow.

I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy

for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no, really. Yeah, really. No, really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No, Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've had several guests on who are proponents of, or one of the people who sort of invented acceptance and commitment therapy, which really has a lot in common with, with what I'm hearing here. It's, it's very much that idea of you're going to have certain emotions and

feelings. That's okay. Deal with them, look at the values in your life and then take the actions based on those. So there's a lot of similarity there. And so I think listeners of the show will find a through line in that. Yeah, I do think that that particularly with the Merida therapy aspect of Japanese psychology, there is clearly a lot of overlap between that and ACT. We've actually trained people here who've also trained in ACT and they see that as well. So one of the main tenets of Merida therapy, you say, is that our internal experience, feelings and thoughts is basically uncontrollable by our will.

Right. And I think that it's the recognition, for instance, that if I'm feeling upset, if I'm feeling depressed, if I'm feeling anxious, I can't really control that feeling. I can't simply will myself not to be anxious before I stand up in front of a group and make a presentation. And so there's a lot of methodology in the West, which really is about trying to control our internal experience. But if you go to the, to control our internal experience. But if you go to the, for instance, Zen practice, meditation in Zen, what we're really just trying to do is become aware of what's coming up. We're not trying to get ourselves to think positive thoughts and to not think negative thoughts. We're just trying to be able to notice how those whatever thoughts, how they come up during our period of meditation, and we watch them arise, and we watch the feelings that our period of meditation. And we watch them arise,

and we watch the feelings that come with them. And then we watch them dissolve. And I think what we're trying to do in Merida therapy is very similar to that, except instead of doing it during meditation, we're doing it throughout our day, which is to notice our feeling of impatience, or our feeling of anger, or a feeling of anxiety about something, and just allow those feelings to be what they are, but not to allow them to keep us from moving forward and taking action that's required by the situation that we're in. And that's really the key. In fact, one of the ways that I define realistic action is action that is based on the needs of the situation, right? So if your little one-year-old child is at the table and she spills her milk, what are the needs of the situation? And that

determines what action you take. It's not determined by how we feel, even though that may play a role in the situation. But many of us use our feeling state as the primary criteria for what action we take. So you think about what happens when you open the refrigerator door. You're thinking, what do I feel like eating, right? But there's other more important questions, like what needs to be eaten? Maybe there's things that are about to spoil or based on my own diet and what I feel like is healthy to me. What should I eat? Right. So it's the question of what do I feel like eating may come up almost automatically. But that's because many of us are simply tuned in to our feeling state in a way that we give it that power to assert itself and almost make those decisions about how we act. Yeah, you say that the preoccupation with our internal experience, thought and feelings

tends to intensify our suffering while distracting us from activity that can give our life meaning and purpose. And that rings so true to me. I mean, as I've, as I've gone on in life, I've, I've found that the big thing that has changed for me is the ability to take action based on calm values or what the, what the situation requires versus my mood for a large part of my life, particularly when I was an addict. I mean, how I felt was the primary driver of all my actions and it did not turn out well I think would be one way to look at it if you were able to actually map out your feelings over even just let's say the last year you would see that it's a it's a tremendous rollercoaster for most of us right I mean think about relationships you know

we could be madly in love with our partner one minute and and the next minute we have this tremendous anger about something they said or did one minute we're thinking oh I'm so lucky to be with this person and the next minute we're thinking I got to get out of this relationship and so what we see is that our thoughts and our feelings are constantly shifting you know in this rollercoaster like way and if we base our actions on that rollercoaster then we end up with a pretty chaotic approach to life. But if we can learn to recognize those thoughts and feelings, accept them, let them essentially be what they are, but respond the way you described towards values or purpose or what the situation needs. the way you described, towards values or purpose or what the situation needs, we can develop a life that is much more likely to provide meaning and to provide a contribution to the world and our

community and our family. And in order to do that, one of the challenges, right, particularly in modern society is taking the time to figure those things out, to stop long enough and think about what's important and how do we want to spend our time and how do we want to, you know, what do we want to foster in our lives? And you talk about that in the book. And I think it's just sort of a very common thing that we all wrestle with is taking the time to be aware and pay enough attention to think through that. Absolutely. And I think, you know, we have a little hermitage, we call it the tea house house that's about 400 feet up the hill from the main house here and people will come and they'll sometimes spend two days or three days i'm just

in solitude there and it's really a wonderful thing because it allows you to step back from your life and really question how you're living your life and how you want to move forward and i think that that's absolutely essential because otherwise we just get caught up in the busyness of our day-to-day lives. And the next thing we know, you know, it's the end of the year. We always have that response, right? In October or November, we think, oh my goodness, the year's almost over. Where did it go? And where it went is to just living every day. And the important thing is to have these periods on a regular basis as much as we can. And you can't always take two or three days, but sometimes you can take an evening or you

can take a Sunday morning for a few hours where you can really step back from your life, reflect on where you've been, what's important to you, what are your values, and make some choices or decisions about what you need to do to move forward, which may involve some significant changes in your life. Yeah, you've got a part where you talk about asking yourself, what is my purpose is a good way to do that. And I, you know, I've got a similar for me, I sort of asked myself, like, what am I doing right now? And is is what I'm doing important to me? And you say, be careful if you answer this question. It's dangerous because if you ask it while watching TV, surfing the web, or reading a romance novel, you may be hard-pressed to come up with a justification of how we're living or how we're using our time. But I think that that's particularly important. You know, I had met with somebody the other day who was an old

student of mine that I had worked with many decades ago, actually. And we kind of reconnected and he was saying that, you know, I'm really going to take some time at this point to figure out what I want to do with my life. And I said, that's great. And he said, but I'm not going to rush through this, you know, I'm going to take my time. And I said, well, you know, you're 77 years old. And so, which is true. And I said, you have to really think about whether you really want to take your time doing this or not. But I don't want to give people the impression that if you're 67 or 47 or 37, that there's less of an urgency. Because to me, there's always an urgency to the question of what is it that I want to do with my life. We should always consider that to be one of the most important

questions that we can ask and always devote a certain amount of energy and time to answering that question. Because if we do, we can keep shifting our life, you know, kind of like a sailboat trying to work with the wind or the breeze. But if we don't, we easily get caught up in the habit of living the way that we've been living last year, the year before. And before we know it, we easily get caught up in the habit of living the way that we've been living last year, the year before. And before we know it, we are 77. And we look back and we haven't done the things that are important for us to do in our life. Hey, y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations.

We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present and future all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. You say one of the puzzling lessons I have learned is that more often than not, I do not feel like doing most of the things that need doing. And I puzzle over that all the time. Also, the one that I talk about on the show, and I talk about with friends is exercise. I mean, literally, every time I've ever done it, I have been happy I did it without fail. It's 100%. And yet still, it's a, it's a challenge. And I am just sort of puzzled by that. Do you have any theories on why that is, or do you just kind of accept it as is and work to counter it? I think your point is really well taken. And I think exercise is really the perfect example of that because I would also say that 99% of the time when I go swimming or go biking or go to

the gym to work out, halfway through or towards the end of my workout or after the workout, I'm really feeling great. And I'm thinking, I'm so glad I did this. And you know, my blood is moving around and my body feels stronger and my respiratory system is stronger. And yet, even though I'm getting 99 99 reinforcement for that uh the next day will come and i'll think i don't really want to get in the car right yeah right and and so i think like like what kind of mind do i have that i can't finally learn this lesson i know it but what we can do is recognize that that voice that basically says, you don't really feel like going to the gym, you don't really feel like getting on your bike and riding down the road

right now, that that's just a voice, it's just a thought, right? And we can use that wisdom that we have learned, where we do know that it's not just that exercise is good for us, but that it actually will often shift our feelings. It will often shift our thoughts. We have a maxim, and I think it's also in the book, called Lead with the Body. It's really the solution to the situation that we're talking about right now, which is when you don't feel like exercising and when you have this voice saying, you know

what, you didn't sleep last night and you've have this voice saying you know what you didn't sleep last night and you've had a long day just relax and zone out in front of hbo or something that you lead with the body in other words you allow your body to basically get up walk over to the door put on your jogging shoes you put on your t-shirt and all the while you can go ahead and have that the feeling state the emotional while you can go ahead and have that feeling state, the emotional state of feeling lazy and tired, have that voice in your head, but your body essentially gets you started. We can trust the body in many ways, much more than we can trust the mind in those situations,

and we find out, as you just described it, once we get out there, once we're exercising, the vast majority of time, we feel good about what we did and we're actually doing something that's really good for us. Yeah. The other thing you talk about, you say this, you say, if you don't feel like doing your taxes now, just accept that you'll probably never feel like doing them. And that's been so helpful for me because I'll procrastinate something that I want to do. And then I'll think, am I really going to be more ready to do it next Wednesday? Am I going to want to do it next Wednesday? I'm never going to want to do it. And that helps me just to go ahead and then do it instead of putting it off. That's an understanding that

has been very helpful to me. And I'm glad about that. And I think it's just a, it's just a truth, you know, that we kid ourselves thinking that because I don't feel like washing the dishes now that I'm going to feel like washing the dishes later on tonight or tomorrow or exercise or taxes, taxes, I would use as an example, because it's one of my things as well. And, and so and but one of the things that I find is that even with taxes, which is high up on my list for things that I would really rather not do, once I actually am doing them, I will have at least little strings of moments where I think this isn't so bad. Yeah. And so I sometimes will use this phrase that the anticipation is often worse than the consummation, right? So, we suffer more from that whole process of trying to avoid doing

what we need to do. And when we get in there and do it, and this isn't always true, but it's true in many cases, once we're actually doing it, we often think, you know, this really wasn't so bad. And so we can learn from that. We can recognize that we can save ourselves some suffering by doing what we need to do now or in a timely way, rather than procrastinating and putting it off and adding to essentially all of that time that we can suffer before we ultimately have to do the thing anyway. I agree 100%. All those things are things that I learn and continue to learn and have made such a difference. You've got another book that is coming out, I think you said next month. What's the title of that?

It's called Question Your Life, Nikon Self-Reflection and the Transformation of Our Stories. And this is the other side of the work that I had mentioned earlier called Nikon. It's really a method of self-reflection where we can step back from our life and we can reflect on our conduct and our behavior and the way we've lived and very specifically on our relationships with the people that really we've had meaningful relationships with over the course of our life. Yeah, I love that idea of transforming our stories. We're near the end of time, but why don't you basically tell us the sort of three steps

or the three questions of Nikon as kind of a way to wrap this interview up, and then listeners can be on the lookout for your new book, and maybe we'll have you back to discuss it in more detail. Okay, well, thanks, Eric. I perceive this process as a method of research. In other words, you're actually using your life as your research project. And the three questions that you're using, you might think of it as data collection, if you want to think of it as research. The first question is, what have I received from others? So if you're reflecting on just the past day, the past 24 hours, you would just think of? So if you're reflecting on just the past day, the past 24

hours, you would just think of everybody. If you're reflecting on your best friend or someone at work, you would think of them in particular. What have I received from them? Second question is what have I given to them? So you're looking at the other side. This is what I received from them, this is what I gave in return. And the third question is really the hardest, most difficult question. And that is, what troubles and difficulties have I caused them? And that's a very difficult question for two reasons. One is, it's not the kind of thing that we generally notice as easily as when other people are causing us trouble. And secondly, it basically tends to shear away some of our self-image that we have as a nice or a good person when we're looking at how we did something that was mean or selfish. And so we're kind of

back to the original parable about that wolf. That question is about recognizing the ways in which that wolf at that moment has basically come to the forefront of the way we're living. It's not a pleasant thing to see, but it's a really important thing to recognize. Well, Greg, thank you so much for taking the time. I loved the book that is out, which is called The Art of Taking Actions, Lessons from Japanese Psychology. We'll have links to the book on our website. I really enjoyed the book a lot, and I've had a great time talking with you.

Well, thank you, Eric, and I've enjoyed being on your show, and I've enjoyed our conversation, and I've had a great time talking with you. Well, thank you, Eric. And I've enjoyed being on your show and I've enjoyed our conversation and I wish you a great deal of luck in your continued work doing this wonderful show, which is really a service to all of us out here who get to listen to all this wisdom. Well, thank you. Take care. Thank you. Okay. Bye-bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support.