The Art of Manliness - #425： Action Over Feelings

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now we often

00:00:18.820 associate eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions with meditation and contemplation

00:00:22.960 there's another side of this wisdom that centers on action and how it can help us move through

00:00:26.280 depression anxiety fear and just general malaise like i said is the author of a book about this

00:00:30.720 action-oriented philosophy his name is greg creech he's the co-founder of the toto institute and his

00:00:34.520 book is called the art of taking action lessons from japanese psychology today on the show greg

00:00:38.700 and i discuss a japanese psychological technique called morita therapy which concentrates on

00:00:42.680 accepting instead of fixing one's thoughts and feelings and acting in spite of them we discuss

00:00:47.280 how action can be a powerful enter to depression anxiety and interpersonal conflicts how to act

00:00:51.760 when you don't feel like it how to stay motivated when the initial rush of a new project or relationship

00:00:56.160 has worn off and why it's better to have a purpose-driven life rather than a feelings-driven

00:01:00.640 life we enter conversation unpacking the idea that busyness is not the same as purposeful action

00:01:05.080 and why we need self-reflection to tell the difference between the two after the show's

00:01:09.140 over check out the show notes at aom.is slash art of taking action all right greg creech welcome to the

00:01:18.080 show thank you brett it's a pleasure to be here so you run an institute called the toto institute up

00:01:22.900 there in vermont where you are basically introducing in japanese psychology which i had no idea existed

00:01:31.360 until i read your book japanese psychology to americans so let's start off with talking about

00:01:37.020 one facet of japanese psychology it's morita therapy correct that's correct i pronounced it right yes

00:01:43.480 so what is morita therapy and how does it differ from some you know what we're typically are you know

00:01:49.240 what we know about psychology in the west well morita therapy was developed in japan roughly about

00:01:55.600 a hundred years ago and most western psychology uh is really kind of rooted in european culture and

00:02:03.100 philosophy going back to the days of freud where in in morita therapy you really see a form a model of

00:02:11.780 mental health that's drawing on eastern philosophy on buddhist psychology on zen and so it's really a very

00:02:19.140 different paradigm than you find in most western psychology right i feel like in the west it's all

00:02:24.400 about you know you you know you lay down the metaphorical you know the stereotypical couch talk

00:02:29.880 about the source of your problems and by so doing it's like talk therapy or there's cognitive behavioral

00:02:35.240 therapy you figure out wrong thinking and then you fix that does morita therapy do anything like that or

00:02:41.380 do they go a different route well i would say for the most part they they do go a different route i think

00:02:46.220 that one of the things that characterizes a lot of western therapy and there's so many different

00:02:51.800 models but is a focus primarily on feelings so i think the outcome that a lot of therapy is looking

00:02:59.760 at is the idea of making people feel better or feel more comfortable or somehow be cured by getting rid

00:03:06.680 of unpleasant feelings like depression and anxiety and the way i'm describing it it actually sounds very

00:03:12.200 attractive except that i would argue that it's not an effective and even meaningful outcome and so

00:03:18.860 what marita therapy really does is it looks as the outcome is to really help us live our lives well

00:03:25.120 not by changing our feeling states but by learning to coexist with those feeling states while we do the

00:03:31.140 things that are really important for us to do in our lives and so instead of trying to kind of fix our

00:03:36.160 internal world whether that's through you know talk therapy or dream analysis or getting into our

00:03:42.580 unconscious minds it's really a very practical approach and we think of the east as being mystical

00:03:47.380 but it's really a very practical approach of learning to to cope with the ups and downs of our

00:03:53.160 feeling states and the craziness of our thoughts the chaos in our mind and still be able to not just

00:03:59.700 live functional lives but actually do the things that are really important for us to do in our lives

00:04:03.760 so marita therapy they're going to say you know don't wait until you stop feeling depressed until

00:04:08.860 you take action or do whatever you got to do is like you know you have to accept that you're going

00:04:13.540 to feel depressed but you can still take action on the things you you need to do in life yeah i think

00:04:19.140 with depression as with i think a lot of unpleasant feeling states there's a general sense that there's

00:04:25.000 a sequence to kind of curing ourselves and the sequence is first to move from having an unpleasant

00:04:31.340 feeling state to pleasant feeling state to essentially get rid of those feelings and then

00:04:35.660 we can actually live our lives well and what you see in marita therapy is the idea that we can actually

00:04:42.280 coexist with those unpleasant feeling states even depression while we do things that are important

00:04:48.520 for us to do in our lives and a nice benefit to that is that often by making that shift to actually

00:04:54.840 taking action and beginning to do those things that's part of our cure that the the movement from

00:05:00.780 being inactive and non-purposeful to actually doing things that are very purposeful and important to us

00:05:06.340 actually is part of what makes it possible for us to learn to cope with those difficult and

00:05:11.640 challenging internal states right so you wrote a book kind of summarizing marita therapy and other

00:05:16.820 facets of japanese psychology called the art of taking action and yeah i think for most westerners we

00:05:21.800 when we think of buddhism or sort of eastern philosophy you think of you know someone sitting

00:05:27.100 on a pillow meditating but the way you describe it in the book it's very it's actually very action

00:05:33.640 oriented yes you know there's a there's a place for maybe meditation but no it's all about just getting

00:05:38.160 up and doing things well and and i think that you know we've as we've imported buddhism and meditation

00:05:45.220 and mindfulness which is very popular we've we focused primarily on the contemplative aspect

00:05:50.920 of those approaches which i think are in fact very important and i think they're very

00:05:55.460 helpful to uh to the kind of culture we have in in america right now but i think the other side of

00:06:01.840 that is that there is an action side to those approaches if you look at people who are very

00:06:06.520 spiritual and the way that they live their lives from the east and gandhi is to me the best example

00:06:12.400 of that he was very much a man of action and so he was actually described by people that when he was

00:06:18.080 when he would be walking someplace he walked so fast that even people who were half his age had

00:06:23.140 trouble keeping up with him and if you look at his accomplishments and what he did there's no

00:06:27.760 question that he was a man of action and yet um he came you know from the eastern traditions so i think

00:06:34.660 that there is a side of those traditions that really focused very much on taking action but maybe not in

00:06:41.240 quite the same way as what we would find in traditional western approaches so what is it about

00:06:46.880 taking action well first of all like how do we what is it what is action in maria therapy is it

00:06:51.480 moving your body like you actually have to like do something that has an effect in the world or could

00:06:56.480 it i mean you can define that very broadly but is there a specific thing that they have in mind when

00:07:02.640 they're talking about action well i i think from a practical standpoint i just used to like to use a

00:07:07.820 very functional or operational definition which is action is is what what can be captured on a

00:07:13.940 video camera so you know if you're turning the pages of a book if you're playing the piano if

00:07:19.980 you're taking a walk that's action because you would be able to capture that if you're sitting

00:07:24.660 there kind of contemplating your goals for the year or contemplating suicide those thoughts are

00:07:30.380 really not action they're thoughts and so we tend to kind of label things as either behavior thoughts or

00:07:37.560 feelings and the behavior portion of that is just something that we can kind of capture on film

00:07:42.740 so so what is it about action that it makes such a powerful antidote to say depression or even

00:07:48.460 anxiety or you know interpersonal conflicts that we might have in our life well i think even in

00:07:53.840 western therapy now there's just really an overwhelming number of studies that show that

00:07:58.900 exercise for example is is one of the most powerful forms of treatment for depression and often on a

00:08:05.600 long-term basis more effective than even a lot of medication so we see even in western therapy the

00:08:11.760 recognition that action in the form of moving your body is a wonderful antidote to depression

00:08:18.520 i think when we talk about anxiety what we're really looking at is what i consider to be one of

00:08:26.020 the most powerful elements of japanese psychology which is the the work of our attention you know most of us

00:08:32.300 we go through our day and we're really not aware of how we're paying attention and what we're paying

00:08:37.120 attention to but in japanese psychology we're really taught that attention is a skill how to actually

00:08:42.840 use our attention effectively and so a very radical notion that when i was first studying this material

00:08:48.300 that i learned was that you're only anxious when you're paying attention to your anxiety so in other

00:08:53.960 words something that actually has happened to me in the last six months or that i did was i had the

00:08:59.220 goal of getting up on stage at a nightclub and playing piano during a blues jam and i'm not a great

00:09:06.400 piano player but i had really wanted to do this i hadn't been on stage playing music probably since

00:09:11.920 i was you know in my earlier mid-20s so this was a big thing for me and the night i decided that i

00:09:19.440 would go ahead and go ahead and go up on stage i remember driving in the car with my wife and just

00:09:24.160 just this constant stream of anxious thoughts like what if they play in a key and i don't know how to

00:09:30.180 play that key what if i have to play a lead and i and i mess it up people will think i'm a fool so

00:09:35.520 there's this constant conscious constant stream of anxiety that's going through my mind and uh and

00:09:42.320 it actually manifests in in my body as well right i feel my hands kind of getting sweaty there's a

00:09:47.760 kind of twisted feeling in my stomach and these are all manifestations of anxiety in terms of thoughts

00:09:53.860 feelings body sensations very very uncomfortable so even though i've been practicing this material for

00:09:59.900 30 years i still have that experience when i'm faced with a situation that stimulates a lot of

00:10:05.900 anxiety in me and so we get to the club and we're sitting at the table and about an hour into the

00:10:11.720 music you know there's a person who's kind of facilitating the processes uh greg you want to come

00:10:17.140 up and play some piano and and of course i feel the surge of anxiety and as i feel that surge of anxiety

00:10:23.280 i'm putting one foot in front of the other walking towards the stage and i get up on stage and of

00:10:29.280 course i still have this great feeling of anxiety in my body and i sit down and the way this works in

00:10:34.780 a in a blues jam is that they call out the song they call out the key and you have about four seconds

00:10:38.980 to start playing you have no idea what you're going to be playing so it's a real interesting challenge

00:10:44.180 and so they do this they call out the song we're going to do it in the key of g and the song starts and i just

00:10:50.060 start playing and within less than a minute i'm so immersed in playing that i'm no longer aware

00:10:57.060 that i'm anxious which i would say means i'm no longer anxious so what we see is that that shift of

00:11:02.780 attention from focusing on my thoughts and feelings and what's happening in my body to being immersed

00:11:09.300 in what i'm doing which in this case is playing piano is really the cure for my anxiety it's that

00:11:15.440 shift of attention away from my internal experience to actually what i'm doing in the present moment in

00:11:21.360 the world that basically gets rid of my anxiety but if i was working with an approach to psychology

00:11:28.300 that said well unless i feel confident then there's no possible way i could get up on stage or unless i have

00:11:35.140 a lot of self-esteem there's no possible way i could perform on stage or unless i feel comfortable

00:11:41.200 right so i'll just sit there and kind of do affirmations or breathing all of those approaches

00:11:47.520 which would have basically left me at my table sipping on a glass of beer but it was the idea

00:11:53.300 that i could coexist with that feeling of of anxiety even a very intense feeling and still get my body to

00:12:00.880 function to get me on stage and then in the process of playing and immersing myself in the activity

00:12:06.620 my anxiety just disappears yeah i mean i'm a big believer in that too that the idea if you once

00:12:11.940 you if you quit if you stop thinking about your anxiety or the thing that's making you sad and

00:12:17.020 think outward it can help you alleviate that but like it's one of the i guess insidious things about

00:12:22.180 depression especially is that okay you might know action is the answer right it's going to help you

00:12:28.300 you know resolve some of those feelings those emotions you're having but when you're depressed

00:12:33.760 like you don't feel like doing anything right so how do you bootstrap like how do you how do you

00:12:39.840 get in that place where you're able to coexist with you're feeling like just crap to okay i can still

00:12:47.820 get up and do something well i think i think depression is probably one of the most difficult

00:12:54.060 particularly significant depression something that's been going on for a long time and when i have

00:12:59.740 worked with people then they have to learn particular skills and as you're saying it's there's not a lot

00:13:05.540 of motivation often when we're feeling like that but i think i see the the ability to work with this

00:13:11.400 material in life as a skill in the same way that shooting a free throw in basketball a skill as a skill

00:13:17.160 playing blues in the key of og is a skill and that means that the more you practice the better that

00:13:22.600 you get at those things so part of what happens is that over time if you're practicing working with

00:13:28.700 this material even when you sink into a period of depression you're also aware of the fact that

00:13:34.440 this is a transient experience in other words it will pass it doesn't make you feel good but you're

00:13:40.620 aware that this is just part of the roller coaster that goes on in terms of the internal world of our

00:13:46.180 lives and you're also aware that even though you don't feel like doing something that the best thing

00:13:53.420 you can do as an antidote to to your your painful feeling state is to get out there and be active and

00:14:00.900 i know that i played basketball consistently up until a few years ago where my knees couldn't handle

00:14:06.360 it anymore and that was always the best treatment for me when i felt depressed you know but i didn't

00:14:12.200 feel like going to the gym and playing basketball if i was in a period of depression which which i had been

00:14:17.420 in on a periodic basis the last thing i felt like doing was getting off the couch and going to the

00:14:23.040 gym and running up and down the court and so again what i found was that i could coexist with that lack

00:14:29.760 of motivation with the feeling of depression with thoughts that were saying you know don't go to the

00:14:35.020 gym just kind of lay here and you know look at your life everything is going wrong and and that i could

00:14:40.960 coexist with that and i could still get my body to put put on my basketball shoes get in the car

00:14:46.500 and drive to the gym and once i was on that gym floor and once i was running up and down and shooting

00:14:51.520 baskets my experience was completely different and so again it's this idea that you're only depressed

00:14:58.260 when you're noticing that you're depressed and the best way to continue to notice you're depressed is

00:15:02.920 to just basically stay stationary sit in a chair sit on a couch lay in a bed and so part of what

00:15:09.180 what people have to learn what we have to learn when we're going through depression is that uh that

00:15:14.840 we can coexist with that feeling but we can still actually get up and do things in our life and that

00:15:20.980 the taking of action is including exercise is one of the best treatments or antidotes for that feeling

00:15:28.020 state but there's no magic to it and i i totally agree with you that that often when you're in that

00:15:33.180 situation the last thing you feel like doing is exercising the last thing you feel like doing

00:15:37.620 is washing a full sink of dirty dishes and that's part of what we get good at i think is as we go

00:15:43.840 through life one of the things that really struck me about the practical value of this material

00:15:49.020 you know was the idea that there is no permanent cure for anxiety for depression for shyness for

00:15:56.180 loneliness that these are part of our human existence and so what we need to be able to do to live a good

00:16:02.460 life is to actually learn to coexist with that experience rather than the idea that somehow we

00:16:08.460 can find a cure so that we'll no longer experience depression or we'll no longer experience anxiety

00:16:13.960 and in that sense i found that this is a very practical way of going about you know living a good

00:16:20.080 life which is not trying to get rid of this in some permanent way but essentially learning to cope

00:16:24.960 with it when we find ourselves in these states of mind so taking action whenever we feel like not

00:16:32.100 taking action is a way to resolve problems in our life and not not not even like small problems but

00:16:38.940 also big problems right sort of larger but what why is it that besides that like why is it that we

00:16:45.940 have a tendency to not want to take action besides the motivation part are there other reasons why we

00:16:51.680 decide okay i'm not gonna i'm gonna put off you know doing that hard that i don't know make that hard

00:16:57.420 call hard talk with a loved one that i need to have or that talk with the boss is it is it fear are

00:17:04.140 there other reasons that morita therapies say we would we put off taking action well i would say that

00:17:10.180 there's there's two really important explanations for that and and one of them is that uh most of us

00:17:16.560 live in a world in which our feelings are the primary determinant of our behavior

00:17:21.440 behavior and so when we're faced with a task we either have a positive feeling about doing it so

00:17:28.680 let's say for instance if you play tennis or golf or basketball and you enjoy that or piano then you

00:17:34.460 may have a positive feeling towards doing that so you have an attraction towards that task or you may

00:17:39.100 have an aversion toward towards it like having a difficult conversation with your boss or with your

00:17:44.640 partner or doing your income tax for example you may have a feeling of aversion towards that or you may

00:17:50.260 have a neutral feeling towards the task but in many cases when we have an aversion a negative feeling

00:17:56.100 towards doing something we allow that feeling to determine whether or not we take action so it's

00:18:01.400 very much like opening the refrigerator door and say what do i feel like eating today

00:18:05.300 right and that question itself is essentially a question in which we're we're looking to our feelings

00:18:12.120 to decide what kind of action we're going to take what kind of food we're going to eat

00:18:16.460 you can open the refrigerator door and you can ask the question out louder in your mind what needs to

00:18:22.160 be eaten and that's a very different question right maybe it's things that are almost going to spoil

00:18:27.540 and you should eat them so you don't have to waste them maybe it has to do with your diet or what's

00:18:31.560 healthy so you'll get a different answer to that kind of question and i think one of the things

00:18:36.220 morita therapy does is to help shift people from what we call a feeling-centered approach to life to a

00:18:43.080 purpose-centered approach to life which means that we still have feelings it's just that we're not

00:18:48.900 putting them in charge so i like the metaphor of a play within like a theatrical setting and that

00:18:55.720 for a lot of people their feelings are the director of that play and what we're trying to do is

00:19:00.700 essentially not kick the feelings out of the play but just making them one actor or actress within the

00:19:07.240 play and then then your purpose or your purposes become the director of that play what is it that

00:19:13.080 you want to do with your life what's really important to do between now and the end of the year

00:19:17.460 and so your purpose essentially becomes in charge of the play and your feelings still play a role but

00:19:24.400 they're not running the show so the question you ask is what needs to be done right and then you do

00:19:30.440 exactly in other in other words we've moved the focus of decision making from how we're feeling

00:19:36.180 to what's being presented us to us in the world and that's a huge shift in terms of the choices

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00:22:06.500 and as you said you don't you don't dismiss the feelings a big part is you have to just you have to

00:22:12.480 accept that's kind of like the first step you have to accept that yes i feel anxious yes i feel depressed

00:22:18.840 yes i feel a bit of fear but then you still take action despite those feelings absolutely and i think

00:22:28.200 people often use the kind of old nike phrase you know just do it and say isn't this what marita therapy

00:22:33.620 is and and it is up to a point but but this idea of first being able to just become aware of and accept

00:22:40.620 what's going on in our internal experience you know i'm going up i'm aware that i'm anxious about

00:22:46.220 getting up on stage i'm aware that i'm nervous i'm aware that that i'm having thoughts about failure

00:22:52.760 or what's going to happen if i make a fool of myself so there's an awareness and an acceptance of

00:22:58.040 what's going on inside us and to do that we have to we have to kind of disengage from that thought or

00:23:04.640 feeling experience in other words we're able to observe it in the same way in meditation that we would

00:23:09.480 observe thoughts as they arise while we're meditating and and so meditation uh in in some ways is actually

00:23:16.100 a good model for this because i started out you know as a someone who was trained in zen meditation i

00:23:22.580 actually lived for a short period of time as a zen monk back in my early adulthood and you would sit

00:23:29.460 there and you would have all kinds of chaotic crazy thoughts coming up in your mind including

00:23:33.520 what am i doing here you know i should i should be out you know basically eating at an all-you-can-eat

00:23:40.360 buffet and instead i'm i'm sitting here meditating with a bunch of of black-robed monks and you could

00:23:46.180 have that thought and you just continue to sit and meditate and you could have sexual thoughts and you

00:23:50.780 could have all kinds of difficult thoughts about frustration or pain in your body and you can continue

00:23:57.060 to sit there and it was this idea that you didn't have to listen to your thoughts and that in fact

00:24:03.160 when you became familiar with you your thoughts you realized that the vast majority of thoughts that you

00:24:10.160 have are really pretty crazy thoughts they're they're chaotic crazy thoughts that really aren't

00:24:15.940 often providing you with very good advice about how to live and when you realize that you stop taking

00:24:21.320 your thoughts so seriously and that's part of i think what you learn in meditation and it's part of

00:24:26.100 what i think we want to teach people psychologically is that you know you can you can be married and

00:24:33.040 one minute you're having thoughts like i am so lucky to be married to this woman she's just an angel

00:24:38.000 she's just the biggest blessing in my life and 15 minutes later you're having thoughts like like she is

00:24:44.320 just such a selfish person she doesn't pay attention to me what a stupid thing it was for me to still be

00:24:50.320 in this marriage and and this is 15 minutes later and if you had a roommate who was

00:24:55.860 speaking to you the way your thoughts speak to you you would think that this my roommate's really crazy

00:25:00.340 so so i think part of what we learn is that we can notice our thoughts but we don't have to listen to

00:25:06.640 our thoughts and we can notice our feeling states but we don't have to act on those feeling states

00:25:11.140 and so again this is something that we develop through practice as as a skill and once we do that

00:25:16.680 we have a certain amount of freedom because we don't feel like we're a slave to what our thoughts

00:25:21.680 are saying or a slave to whatever feeling state we're in at the time so we've written about kaizen

00:25:28.060 and we've actually had a podcast about kaizen uh-huh what what role for those first off for those who

00:25:34.960 aren't familiar with kaizen can you explain it and then what role does that have in does it doesn't

00:25:40.300 have a role in morita therapy well the the history of kaizen as you probably know was that it was

00:25:45.180 originally developed as a method of organizational improvement that was exported to japan after world

00:25:51.940 war ii we had an interest in kind of helping them rebuild industry because we're at war with korea and

00:25:57.540 we felt like if japan could rebuild its economy it would be less like less susceptible to influence from

00:26:03.880 the communist countries that surrounded it but a number of people have taken those same principles

00:26:09.560 from organizational settings and put them into individual on in interpersonal settings in terms

00:26:16.120 of making change and so what i see in kaizen is really this idea of of small steps and incremental

00:26:24.060 change has a wonderful companion to marita therapy marita therapy is helping you deal with the

00:26:31.560 psychological challenges that you're facing when you want to move from point a to point b and kaizen

00:26:37.600 becomes really the the specific mechanics of how to make those changes whether it's you're trying to

00:26:44.480 write a book you're trying to lose weight you know you're trying to make some changes in your financial

00:26:49.060 situation or in your career kaizen is is just a wonderful system of of giving you these small steps

00:26:56.180 and the mechanics of of how to move forward in your life yeah i think that kind of goes helps you

00:27:01.540 helps us figure out a way to bootstrap when you say going back to the example you're depressed you don't

00:27:06.040 feel like you're doing anything you just get up and say i'm going to do i'm going to wash one dish

00:27:10.540 put one dish in the dishwasher and then take another small seat because usually those little

00:27:15.300 small steps help you build momentum but you don't have to say i'm going to do clean out the whole

00:27:20.280 entire sink you just say i'm going to do one and that's it right and and i think that what happens

00:27:25.620 is that by taking these very small steps in some cases like you're saying the smallest step possible

00:27:31.660 you're able to celebrate that small victory instead of saying okay i'm going to use this weekend and

00:27:38.280 i'm going to write 100 pages in my novel and then of course you don't because things come up and

00:27:43.760 you're tired and you oversleep and get phone calls and somebody comes over and and you end up hardly

00:27:49.300 writing at all and then you feel like a failure right and it's very demoralizing and what kaizen offers

00:27:55.760 through these small steps is this idea of momentum we can look at the law of physics you know one of

00:28:01.700 the laws of physics from newton which says that an object um that's that's moving remains an object

00:28:07.700 in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an outside force so once we start getting that momentum

00:28:13.380 we write one paragraph a day for our novel or one sentence a day for our novel but we do it every day

00:28:20.660 we wash one dish right we take five minutes and commit to cleaning the bathroom we meditate for

00:28:27.820 one minute a day on our cushion and and doing that basically develops a really healthy habit in many

00:28:33.860 cases it allows us to make a little bit of progress but it allows us to get this momentum and to see

00:28:39.700 ourselves as capable of doing that without the psychological threat that comes with you know i'm

00:28:45.820 going to lose 20 pounds this month kind of thing so i'm a big fan of kaizen and i think it fits very

00:28:51.720 well with morita therapy as an approach to making change so we've been talking a lot about folks who

00:28:58.120 have a hard time getting started taking action but there's some people who take getting started is like

00:29:05.460 the easiest part in fact that's the part they enjoy the most they start and they're super excited and

00:29:09.800 they're just like this this is it i'm loving this they're feeling good and then like two weeks

00:29:15.240 later those feelings are gone they've lost the thrill and they just completely abandon the project

00:29:21.940 that they started because they're just not feeling anymore so what what about those folks what if you

00:29:27.180 are you're able to start things but you're not able to finish it because you're again you're relying

00:29:32.320 on feelings to keep you going well well i want to confess that i actually am one of those folks

00:29:38.080 so this material has been very helpful to me in that sense that that i think my problem historically

00:29:44.740 was was much less around starting something than it was continuing to work on it once the newness of

00:29:50.760 it wore off and i think that's what we we see in in people who have that kind of style and and often

00:29:57.300 leave this kind of karmic record of unfinished started but unfinished projects behind them is that

00:30:03.460 we're being driven by the feeling state of excitement over something new this this by the way is very true

00:30:09.560 about relationships as well you know you meet somebody you you just have this romantic period

00:30:15.080 where you're just madly in love you can't bear to be away from them you know for more than a few hours

00:30:20.240 and and of course that doesn't last you know it wears that feeling state wears off and i always feel

00:30:26.440 like that when that feeling state wears off that's when you really can see what it means to actually

00:30:32.080 love someone or be loved by someone in that initial period it's just it's a wonderful romantic period to

00:30:38.720 go through but in my opinion it really has very little to do with love you know love is what is

00:30:43.620 going on 10 or 20 years later when that that feeling state is not the predominant state you can

00:30:50.120 still have moments of feeling very romantic and excited by your partner but we see this in relationships

00:30:55.460 where you know someone goes from one relationship to another because what they're really working from

00:31:01.060 is the excitement of the newness of something and again it's the same principle which is making

00:31:07.120 that shift from a feeling centered approach to life to a purpose centered approach to life

00:31:12.740 so so that you can still feel very excited and and about starting a project it could be a novel

00:31:19.760 could be renovating basement in your house or something like that or learning a foreign language or

00:31:25.960 learning an instrument a musical instrument but but also when that feeling state wears off and you

00:31:32.160 hit that wall you're you're then basically drawing your energy from purpose you recognize that even

00:31:38.460 though i don't have that same level of excitement i might even have a level of frustration at this point

00:31:44.280 because i've run into this roadblock but my purpose is to move forward on this and finish it

00:31:50.380 and so that same issue i think is really in play when we see people who once that newness wears off

00:31:58.480 kind of abandons that project and that is um that person learning to make that shift from that feeling

00:32:04.960 centered approach to to what they're going to do and not do to a purpose centered approach

00:32:10.220 i think there's a phrase it's like in the beginning everyone's a hero or something like that

00:32:14.760 i think you mentioned that in the book but i remember i like that describing because yeah i feel like a

00:32:18.800 hero yeah it's kind of easy to be easy to be a hero in the beginning right because there's all that

00:32:24.660 kind of fanfare and applause and everything going on and and on the other hand again there's something

00:32:30.400 very important about starting you know that that sometimes there are people who they have ideas and

00:32:35.700 dreams and visions for years and years and years but they never take that first step so you know what

00:32:41.360 we see is that in from the point of actually getting started on some type of important project in your

00:32:47.020 life or some kind of change that you want to make we're up against roadblocks like every step of

00:32:52.340 the way and for me i think the most effective way to work with those roadblocks has been to kind of

00:32:58.880 develop some skill in being able to cope with the ups and downs of my feeling state the craziness and

00:33:06.040 chaos of my thoughts but continue to keep my focus my sights set on what is it that's really important

00:33:13.120 for me to do here i'm curious you know i could see action is a virtue but is there such thing as too

00:33:20.240 much action like at a certain point is it like well that's actually going to burn yourself out if you're

00:33:25.380 constantly doing stuff yes i actually think there there is and i think that there's actually a couple

00:33:31.700 of issues and one is that you're you're you're doing a lot of stuff but it's the wrong stuff and i think

00:33:37.280 that's really a critical issue particularly in our society that we confuse busyness with

00:33:43.360 productivity and so the real question isn't are you busy are you doing a lot of stuff but are you

00:33:49.440 doing the things that are really important for you to do in your life but even there i think it's

00:33:53.700 important to have this complementary contemplative time in our lives and the the other approach that

00:34:00.140 we teach is something called nikon which is pronounced like we we pronounce the camera nikon but spelled

00:34:06.320 differently and that's a contemplative approach it's an approach to self-reflection and so having

00:34:11.620 that to create some balance in our life between action and reflection to me is is really a healthy

00:34:17.160 way to see our lives i just did a presentation last night about kind of regrouping for the second

00:34:23.040 half of the year and the first thing we do when when we go into a process of regrouping is we step back

00:34:28.700 from our lives and we reflect on the first part of the year on the last six months you know with

00:34:33.480 questions like what have the highlights of this period been what are some of the things i did in

00:34:38.580 this past six months that were really meaningful and fulfilling to me in my life what contributions

00:34:44.040 did i make to the rest of the world people even outside my immediate family during this time

00:34:49.240 so i offered people a list of questions that they could use for reflection and i encourage people

00:34:54.180 to take that time to basically step away from life find a little space in your house in nature

00:35:00.520 by a river or someplace and spend some time just kind of in in contemplation of what's going on in

00:35:07.940 your life what are you doing and use that as a basis for kind of deciding how you're going to move

00:35:13.380 forward it's it's one of the reasons i think travel is something that's so attractive to so many of us

00:35:18.620 because i think one of the benefits of that that we don't always realize is that when we get away from

00:35:24.240 our home and away from our work we we separate ourselves from that in a way that's really healthy

00:35:29.660 we see how we're spending our time what we're doing how we're living our life and often it gives us

00:35:35.460 a different perspective on where we need to go from here but i think contemplation to me is is really

00:35:41.120 essential and i think our society gravitates much more towards taking action if i do a presentation on

00:35:48.900 taking action i'll get a bigger turnout than if i do a presentation on self-reflection and yet i think

00:35:54.000 self-reflection is really one of the things that our culture really lacks right now so the contemplation

00:35:59.760 ensures you're working on the right thing so you don't feel burnt out or like you're you're wasting

00:36:05.240 your time or you yeah you you're you're you're not feeling busy you're feeling so you feel productive

00:36:09.540 not just busy yes i think that that i think one of the things we lose when we don't take when we

00:36:16.220 don't pause in our lives to kind of take stock of what we're doing and where we are and how we're

00:36:21.820 living is that we just start we're on automatic pilot you know we just go through our day day after

00:36:27.480 day after day and the next thing you know your kids are in college and the next thing you know

00:36:31.980 you know you're collecting social security and and you realize that there were some things that

00:36:37.160 were really important for you to address and to do in your life and you never got around to doing

00:36:41.800 them in part because you were so caught up in just the demands of day-to-day living well greg this

00:36:47.980 has been a great conversation is there some place people can go to learn more about your work yes our

00:36:52.840 organization has a website which is toto institute.org so it's t-o-d-o like to do institute.org

00:37:00.920 and if you're interested in the action part of this work my book the art of taking action lessons from

00:37:07.100 japanese psychology i think is a really good place to start it's a very practical guide to

00:37:12.120 how to make change and kind of move forward in your life so those are probably the the two best

00:37:16.600 places to start fantastic well greg creech thank you so much for time it's been a pleasure well thank

00:37:21.220 you brett i've enjoyed being on your show and and i wish you a lot of luck in terms of the work that

00:37:25.940 you're doing and bringing all this kind of material to the world so thanks my guest today was greg

00:37:30.400 creech he's the author of the book the art of taking action lessons from japanese psychology

00:37:34.280 it's available on amazon.com you can find more information about the book at artoftakingaction.com

00:37:38.860 and you can find more information about the toto institute at totoinstitute.org also check out

00:37:43.400 our show notes at aom.is art of taking action where you find links to resources where you delve deeper

00:37:48.260 into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more

00:38:04.260 manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you

00:38:08.160 enjoy the podcast you've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate it if you would give this review

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00:38:19.560 always thank you for your continued support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay

00:38:23.120 manly

00:38:31.360 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#425： Action Over Feelings

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