PNTV - Constructive Living by David K. Reynold

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, Constructive Living by David Reynolds. Awesome book. He blends Eastern and Western beautifully. He's a Western psychotherapist who talks about this through the lens of a Zen Buddhist perspective. And he lived and worked in Japan and based a lot of his theories on Japanese psychotherapy theories through that culture's lens and created this beautiful book, Constructive living. It's only 120 pages long. Really, really good. Was recommended to me by my friend and one of my favorite authors, Dan Millman, who wrote Way the Peaceful Warrior, Everyday Enlightenment and and Body, Mind Mastery, two books that we have profiles on in the Philosopher's Note. And Dan just loves David Reynolds in this book and I highly recommend it. So the big idea, there are actually five principles that we'll look at really quickly to Constructive Living. And then we'll look at a couple other great big ideas on how to, as Reynolds says, make our life a work of art. So we want to be artists of living and create, in the words of Reynolds, a fine self portrait where every moment gives us an opportunity to live constructively and do our best and bring our best moment to moment to moment. Now, one of the big things the book talks about that again Dan Millman's really big on, is we've got to have a healthy relationship between our feelings and our behaviors. And the first principle of Constructive Living is that feelings are uncontrollable directly by the will. So a lot of times we think we can just change our feelings immediately through willpower. And the first principle here is that isn't the case. We're going to talk about how we can indirectly influence our feelings through our behaviors, but they're not directly under the control of our willpower, which is a pretty cool distinction. So number one, feelings are uncontrollable directly by the will. Number two, feelings must be recognized and accepted as they are. Number three, every feeling, however unpleasant, has its uses. Number four, feelings will fade in time if you quit restimulating them. And number five, feelings can be directly influenced by our behaviors. It's not even indirectly directly influenced by our behaviors. So number one, we can't directly influence or control, I should say, feelings at will. Can't do that. But we go to number five, we can influence our feelings through our behaviors. Now, knowing that this book suggests we spend a lot of our energy focused on our behaviors, accept whatever feelings we have, see how Those feelings can actually be. If we're angry or depressed or stressed, they can be useful. We can look at them as signs were a little off, and then we can take constructive action. We can live constructively. We can do what needs to be done, which is really the heart of the book. So one of the big questions he asks again and again and again and again and again throughout the book, whenever we find ourselves stressed out, is now, what needs to be done. So you're feeling angry, you're feeling sad, you're feeling depressed, you're feeling anxious. Okay, Accept those feelings. They are what they are. There's no need to deny them. There's no need to feel ashamed about them. They are what they are. Accept the feelings. And then ask yourself the question, now, what needs to be done? Okay, I feel really depressed. I don't feel like getting out of bed this morning. Okay, you accept that feeling. Now, what needs to be done? Well, you got to get out of bed, take a shower, do the workout you committed to doing, do the meditation you committed to doing the journaling or taking the kids to school or all of the above, whatever it is you said you're going to do, that's what needs to be done. And he talks about the fact that the mark of a mature human being is doing what needs to be done in spite of how we feel. Too often, if we don't feel like it, we don't do it. And I certainly know what that's like. I lived a lot of my life basically subjected to how I felt. Did I feel like doing something? Well, that's not a very productive place to be. And sometimes I think I succeeded in spite of myself. And I'm very excited now to have the power that I've developed and continue to develop to, to be the type of human being that does what needs to be done in spite of how I feel. And then the irony is you start to feel really, really, really good consistently. And if you ever. And when you have those little bumps, you know what to do. The practices are there, and there's a level of confidence that's developed that he talks about that is remarkable. When you're the type of human being that knows they will do what needs to be done regardless of the situation, there's an incredible power to that and something that I'm really just beginning to experience. And I can attest to its power. And I'm just so giddy to have tasted it and to see what can be created 5, 10, 15, 25 years from now as this power is developed. But the big idea here again is feelings. You can't just snap out of them all the time. So what needs to be done and the fact is that as we do the right thing, our feelings tend to follow. He says that behaviors wag the feelings, right? So the feelings are kind of a tail that's wagged by the overall behaviors of who we are and what we choose to do. He's got a lot of great ideas as well on the idea that taking the first step, doing what needs to be done is what it's all about. So the first step, he says, actually is accepting where you are. So wherever you are, accept that. Then you can have a dream. And he says you don't need to get rid of your dreaming and your visions. And in fact, those are cool. You can get all excited it. But that's not where the journey begins. The journey doesn't begin. Journey of a thousand miles doesn't begin with even the visioning of that journey. It begins with the first step. So too often and again, I think a lot of the self development visioning process, although awesome, to help us really get excited about what's possible, we need to spend maybe 5, 10% of our energy there and then focus on what needs to get done. What's the next step? What's the next step? What's the next step?

What?

Rather than always thinking about and almost exclusively thinking about what we want to see happen and then forget, we've got to take the steps and then become really attached to the outcomes which are never under our direct control. The only thing that's under our direct control is what we're doing in this moment, our behaviors in this moment. Which again comes back to the idea of constructive living, of focus there and move forward. We talk about Russell Simmons a lot. Who he wrote the great book do youo? Which we profile. He says a lot of people say keep your eye on the prize. And he disagrees. If your eye is always on the prize, you're going to bump into stuff, right? And you're just going to kind of sit there maybe. But he says, keep your eye on the path. What's the next step? What's the next step? And the power is generated. So again, same basic idea. We talk about the idea of dynamic tension a lot. I'm going to mention it again here. You, you have your ideal vision, you have your current reality. You want to get clear on what your ideal vision is. If everything went perfectly, what would it look like? Really important stuff. And then you have your current reality. You want to accept that completely. As Eckhart Tolle says, act as if whatever your current reality is, you asked for it, you scripted it that way. And then what you have is you have a dynamic tension between your ideal and your current reality. Kind of like a rubber band being pulled out. Now, that's just the beginning of it. The way we hold the dynamic tension is through baby steps. Doing what needs to be done. Doing what needs to be done. And a lot of times, if we're just focused here, we get overwhelmed. If all we're doing is focusing on the fast cars and the big houses and stuff like that, and we don't pay attention to what needs to get done next, we can get overwhelmed. And then we feel stressed. And then we only want to move and take action when we feel totally inspired. So then we just spiral down. So again, the idea is we want to be the type of people who do what needs to be done regardless of how we feel. Really big idea. Speaking of feeling a little overwhelmed or depressed, David Reynolds talks about the fact that we can do depression. If you want to do depression, just imagine what you would do. You'd kind of slouch down. You'd kind of constrict your breathing by rolling your shoulders over. Maybe just lay in bed all day long and you just hunch over. Kind of like a wilted flower, right?

Just.

Well, he says that's a good way to do depression. If you do that long enough, you're going to have constricted breathing, constricted thinking, and you're going to feel depressed. You can do it. You can also step back and bring your shoulders back. Breathe deeply, walk, move, jump around, and you can feel better. Try that out. Try to feel super happy when you're totally slouched down. And try to feel super depressed when you're open and doing jumping jacks or running around or dancing or singing. You can do depression. We don't want to do that. Watch your physiology and physical, behavioral movements, posture, breathing, all that kind of stuff. Don't do depression. We talk about it more in the note. And then he's got a great line here. He says, anyone who says he isn't afraid of anything is both stupid and lying. How awesome is that? If you say you're never afraid of anything, you're stupid and lying. That just gets to the point. Everyone has fear. We talk about this all the time. It's not about not having fear. It's about having the courage to move in the face of fear, which is the essence or one of the key aspects of constructive living. We can spend a whole weekend on this idea and look forward to sharing more with you in the future. Hope you dug it. Talk to you soon. Have an awesome day.

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