Do what you should do
Shomo Morita taught his patients that our emotions,
like the weather, have nothing to do with our need
to do the work, to live our lives. Emotions like fear
and anxiety come and go, and we can note them, but
we don’t need to battle them or obsess over them,
particularly when they become an impediment to
creation.
If fear is able to keep up us from showing up when it’s
our turn, then fear has won the day and it will return
again and again. Morita took a different approach:
When fear arrives, do what you should do. Note the
fear, welcome it if you can, but do what you should do.
It’s noisy out here
Which means you’ve got to figure out how to make it
quiet in there.
There are two places to find our footing, to get the
stability we seek.
The most common way: We can buy into the industrial
system, seeking to make everything okay by finding and
grabbing sinecure, a niche where the world will leave us
alone.
How’s that working for you?
The alternative is understanding that the world isn’t
going to provide this haven. The only reliable way to
find our footing is to create it, to change the story we
tell ourselves, to build an internal foundation that not
only tolerates a crazy world filled with change, but
embraces it.
The sailor doesn’t mind a rough sea. It’s not because
he’s physically different from you - it’s because the
rocking of the boat is expected. We naturally find our
own horizon when the external one is rocking.
Suffering comes from the impossible juxtaposition of
a world that can’t possibly live up to our unreasonable
expectations.
"THE EXPLORER IS THE
PERSON WHO IS LOST."
At night, clouds can float in front of the moon, but it
doesn’t change the fact that the moon is still there.
There’s nothing at all we can do about the clouds, and
trying to will away our anxiety or to wait until we’re in
the mood to do our best is an invitation to frustration.
- Tim Cahill
Morita therapy was developed in Japan in the 1920s.
The essence of the approach is that productive people
are able to distinguish between their feelings and their
need to their work, to show up with mindful effort.