Gregg Krech: Procrastination, Taking Action and Mindfulness

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 m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Greg Creech, and 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. If you're getting value out of the show, please go to one you feed dot Net slash Support and make a donation. This will ensure that all five episodes that are in the archive will remain free and that the show is

here for other people who need it. Some other ways that you can support is is if you're interested in the book that we're discussing on today's episode, go to one you feed dot 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 dot Net slash book and I have a reading list there when you feed dot net slash shop and you

can buy t shirts, mugs and other things. And finally, one you feed dot 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 ther 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 talked about on the show. A phrase I use very often as you can't think your way into right action. Sometimes you have to act your way into right thinking. And that's a 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 Um, I like that herble, 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 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,

the wolves that are part of our character or our spirit. Um, 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 most of us think of the Eastern wisdom as

being very contemplative. You know, I think meditation is what a lot of us think of, or perhaps yoga, but you say there's also a foundation of Eastern wisdom that's directed towards action, right, And I think that our Western society has really gravitated towards Eastern philosophy and Zen and Buddhism in many ways because of the meditative and self reflective nature, uh of 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 and many years ago I actually had an opportunity to work with Tick not Han, the Zen teacher back in the nies. 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, um, 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 are involved action and our conduct and um, not

just meditation 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 in some cases, you know, a little bit on the broke side. And uh, I've always found that for me, action is so important as a saying I use a lot, which

is depression hates a moving target. I think that's great, and and I think part of what isn't often 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 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 you know, doing work in the world, or whether it be simply keeping our focus when we're taking 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 um also did you say it Nikon? That's correct, 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 tak talking about in the last few minutes, really our principles from rate the 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 thirty thousand days, and thirty thousand 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 to 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 Rita therapy, rather than having to fix our feelings of depression or anxiety, UM, we developed 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, UM, 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 Kaisen, which originally actually came back in World War Two 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. 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, um, 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, um, even if I've just committed to writing one paragraph, I may end up writing two paragraphs or two pages or ten pages because I was able to sit down and actually start writing. And I think Kaisen is all about momentum and taking those small steps. And then finally you mentioned Nikehon, which is

really the other side of the coin. It is the quiet reflective approach that has to do with going inside and reflecting in our life and exam meaning how we've lived and specifically the relationships that we have. And it's um an amazing method for cultivating gratitude and for kind of shifting from what I would call a complaint based life to um a life based on authentic appreciation and gratitude for what we have and for just our existence itself. Excellent.

Will 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 gonna 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 Morito therapy, one of the key principles is this Japanese term autogamama, 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 dial just basically lay around in bed until my life is over. That would be how I would characterize resignation um whereas acceptance from the perspective that we haven't. Morito therapy means that we have

to accept things as they are. So here, I 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 microcircumstances, then I can think about, well, is there something I can do about this? What's controllable, what isn't controllable in 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. 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 um 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 uh moretotherapy and Japanese psychology is the recognition that that energy, that energy for example, of anxiety or of neuros, this 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 its cycle inside and create more and

more suffering for us? And what about complaining? Well, Complaining is probably something that one of the most common things when I do a book signing for my books on Nicoon is for someone to come up to me at the end and say, um, you know that was 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. Um complaining is you know, it's almost if you think going back to are parable about

which wolf do you feed um 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 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 you know, our wife or husband, or or Chris who's in there working

and for you right now. To be able to express those things um, which is channeling that energy in a different way and taking our attention away from complaining about problems in their life. We've had several guests on who are proponents of are 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 will find a through line in that. Yeah, I do think that that, particularly with the Marita at therapy aspect of Japanese psychology, there is clearly a lot of overlap between

that and a CT. We we've actually trained people here who have also trained in a CT and they see that as well. So one of the main tenants of Marita therapy, you say, is that our internal experience, feelings and thoughts is basically uncontrollable by our will, right, And I think that, Uh, it's it's the recognition, for instance, that if I'm feeling upset, if I'm feeling depressed, if I'm feeling anxious, um, 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. Um. But if you go to the for instance, Zen practice, meditation and 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 watched the feelings that come with them, and

then we watch them dissolve. And I think what we're trying to do in read a therapy is very similar to that, except instead of doing it during meditation, we're doing it throughout our day um, which is to notice are feeling of impatience or a 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 if your little one year old child is at the table and she's fills for milk, um, 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? Um, But there's other more important questions like what needs to be eaten, there's things that are about to spoil or based on my own diet, and what I feel like is healthy to me? Um,

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 distractness 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 calum 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 dry ever of all my actions, and it did not turn out well. I think it

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 roller coaster 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. Um At 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 roller coaster like way. And if we base our actions on that roller coaster, then um, we end up

with a pretty chaotic approach to life. But if we can learn to recognize those thoughts and feelings, UM, accept them, let them essentially be what they are, but respond way you describe towards values or purpose or what the situation needs, UM, we can develop a life that is much more likely to provide meeting and to provide a contribution to the

world in our community and our family. And in order to do that, one of the challenges right particularly in modern society, has taken 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 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 is taking the time to be aware and pay enough attention to think through that absolutely and I think, um, you know, we have a little h hermitage. We call it the Tea House, that's about four 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 business of our day to day lives and UM, the next thing we know, you know, the it's the

end of the year. We always have that response right in October and November, we think, oh my goodness, the year is almost over. Where did it go? Um? And where it went is to just living every day And the important thing is to have these um periods on

a regular basis as much as we can. And it's not 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 um 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 ask my off, like what am I doing right now? And 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 in a romance and novel, you may be hard pressed

to come up with a justification for what you're doing. Yeah, we we don't always like to be confronted with the reality 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 who was an old student of mine that I had worked with many decades ago act actually, and uh, we kind of reconnected, and he was saying that, you know, um, 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 seventy seven years old and so, which is true. And and I said, you have to really think about, um, 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 sixty seven or forty seven or thirty seven, that there's less of an urgency, because to me, there's always an urgency to the question of what is

it that that I want to do with my life. Um, 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. Um. But if we don't, we easily get caught up in the habit of living the way that we've been living last year or the

year before. Um, And before we know what, we are seventy seven and we look back and we haven't done the things that are important for us to do in our life. 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 to and I puzzle over that all the time. Also, the one that I talked about on the show and I talked 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 a 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 on why that is, or do you just kind of accept it as is and 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, um, I would would also say that the time when I go swimming or go biking or go to the gym to work out, um, halfway through or towards the end of my workout or after the workout, I'm I'm really feeling great, and I'm thinking, I'm so glad I did this, and you know, and I my blood is moving around, and my body feels stronger and and my respiratory system

is stronger. Um. And yet even though I'm getting reinforcement for that, uh, the next day will come and I'll think I don't really want to get any current right right, and and so I think, like, like, what kind of mind do I have that I can't finally learn this lesson? 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, UM, 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 we act it actually will often shift our feelings, it will often shift our thoughts.

So we have a maxim and I think it's it's also in the book called Lead with the Body, and it's it's really the solution to the situation that 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 had a long day, just relax and zone out in front of HBO or something that, UM, 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 state of feeling lazy and tired, have that voice in your head, but your body essentially gets your started. And UM, we can trust the body in many ways much more than we can trust the

mind in those situations. UM. And we find out as you just describe it, once we get out there, once we're exercising. UM, 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 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 gonna 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 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 Texas. Texas is I would use as an example because it's one of my things. Um as well and uh and so and but one of the things that I find is that even with Texas, which is high up on my list for things that I would

really rather not to. Once I actually am doing them, I will have at least little strings of moments where I think, this isn't so bad, um. And so I also times we'll use this phrase that the anticipation is often worse than the consummation, right, So so we suffer. 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, this really wasn't so bad, um. And so we can learn from that. We can 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 and adding to essentially all of that time that we

can suffer before we ultimately have to do the thing. Anyway, I agree, all those things are things that I learn and continue to learn and 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 nikhon self reflection and the transformation of our stories. And this is the other side of

the work that I've 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, on 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 um or

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 could be on the lookout for your new book and maybe we'll have you back to a discuss it in more detail. Okay, well, thanks Eric. I perceived 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 least the past day, the past twenty four 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 particularly what have I received from them? The second question is what have I given

to them? So you're looking at the other side, Um, 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? Um? 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, um, it it basically tends to share away some of our self image that we have as a nicer, 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. Will have links to the book on our website. I've I've 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 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 one you Feed dot net slash support