Dr. Nicole Cain introduces the Japanese concept of ikigai as part of her 5F life design system within the ACT method, framing it as a tool to help people reduce anxiety and find purpose (their "bullseye") during healing from anxiety or depression. She emphasizes that recovering can feel scary because the future is unfamiliar and promises a visual graphic and practical notes to clarify the concept.
Chapters
Today, I'm so excited. I've been thinking about a really cool topic that is in the 5F life design system that we created for the ACT method. And I'm going to talk with you about it today. And in this session on this live today, you're going to learn about finding your bullseye. There's this concept in Japanese culture, it's called ikigai. Have any of you listening, have you heard of this? Have you heard of ikigai? If not, this is going to be such a really cool discovery for you, and I'm really excited. When we think about our healing journeys, there's a couple different layers that can come with that. We want to think about the problem we're trying to solve. We want to think about the symptoms that we're having that we want to get rid of. And as we make that momentum, we also want to think about our bullseye, where we're going. Otherwise, we can just feel like we're wandering aimlessly. We don't know which direction we're heading. And that can feel a whole heck of a lot more scary than being where we are right now. Recently, I was talking with somebody and the conversation was around how it can be really scary to heal from anxiety, so scary to heal from depression, because at least when we're anxious, we're familiar with that, right? We know what to expect. We've been there before. And so when we start thinking about what is next, what could be the next part of my story, it can feel like this big, nebulous world of endless opportunity, but really scary and overwhelming. And so today you're going to learn about this wonderful ancient Japanese tradition called ikigai. And it's a part of the 5F life design system, which you can get more information on in the ACT method. Also, when we finish this live, we're going to post a really beautiful graphic, because I don't know about you, I'm a visual person, and so you're going to see exactly what I'm talking about and visually depict it. I also have a bunch of notes up here.
