ARTICLE: Constructive Living; Accept your feelings, know your purpose, do what needs to be done.

“The key is not to resist or rebel against the symptoms or to try to get around them by devising all sorts of tricks, that is, to accept them directly as they are without shunning them.” – Takahisa Kora, MD

Constructive Living (CL) is a Western adaptation of two Japanese psychotherapeutic practices: Morita therapy and Naikan therapy. It offers a pragmatic approach to mental health that emphasizes a realistic and reflective stance toward life. The method encourages individuals to accept their feelings, focus on purposeful action, and perform necessary tasks. Reflection in CL helps us to understand our past and present, while acknowledging the support we receive from the world around us.

Accept your feelings

Accepting feelings is not about suppression or avoidance, but rather about welcoming them. Vietnamese poet Thich Nhat Hanh suggests we approach our emotions directly: “Hello Loneliness, how are you today? Come, sit by me and I will take care of you.” Similarly, Morita’s philosophy advises that we embrace emotional diversity: “In feelings, it is best to be wealthy and generous”—in other words, allow many emotions to surface and express themselves freely.

Know your purpose

Morita’s approach, deeply rooted in traditional Zen psychology, advocates for independence of thought and action—a stance somewhat at odds with the Western ideal of indulging one’s whims and moods. According to Morita, thoughts and emotions are as uncontrollable as the weather, both being the products of complex natural systems. Since controlling emotions is as futile as controlling the weather, Morita argues that our focus should be on our behavior, which is entirely within our power. His guiding question, “What needs doing now?” becomes a central tenet.

Do what needs doing

It is possible to feel overwhelmed or isolated while weeding a garden, yet one remains in the garden because of an underlying intention to nurture flowers. Morita’s treatment method diverges from Western diagnostic approaches, leading his students through experiential learning, or taiken—a process of gaining knowledge through direct experience. Rather than explaining lessons, Morita allows students to discover them through action.

CL explores the relationship between thought and action through the use of a journal, where individuals record their behaviors and associated feelings several times a day. Over time, this practice reveals the multiplicity of emotions we experience and dispels the myth of rigid “personality types.” This exercise underscores that emotions are not simply caused by external circumstances or past traumas; rather, they arise continuously and change frequently, much like a computer’s background processes that we tend to overlook.

Human beings retain only about 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, and 90% of what they actively do. In CL, the lessons are learned through practice in everyday settings—whether gardening, shopping, or conversing in a playground. One student was asked, “What would you do first if you were cured today?” and immediately set out to do that very thing. Morita emphasized that effort itself constitutes good fortune: “Each time you feel shy, it is a new shyness.” The brain, constantly evolving and reconfiguring, undergoes change on a near-constant basis. In this view, every moment presents a new opportunity for transformation—a chance to shape a new self.

Attempting to control the uncontrollable leads only to frustration, much like trying to subdue a wave by striking it. This lesson echoes throughout various “quiet therapies,” including Constructive Living. Exercises often challenge us to control the impossible, a task as difficult as watching the mind and body without interference for just 20 minutes.

Constructive Living seeks to help individuals view the world realistically and act based on that understanding. A fundamental question we ask in CL is: “What is controllable and what is not?” Gregory Willms, a CL instructor, refers to the “bones” of this paradigm as the essence of the practice, beginning with the issue of controllability.

Realistic thinking and action hinge on this distinction: it is pointless to expend effort on controlling what cannot be controlled. This often leads to the realization that much of life—other people’s actions, opinions, external events, and even our thoughts and feelings—remains beyond our control. What we can control, however, is our own behavior. Barring a few exceptions (such as stuttering or trembling), our actions are always within our command.

Though action may be challenging, it is always possible. Even while feeling lethargic from illness, for example, I am still capable of typing this very article. Writing is a behavior, and it is within my power to act, regardless of my mood. The key insight is that we do not need to “fix” our feelings or wait for motivation to take action. As we mature, we accept that life cannot always be easy or comfortable, but we find empowerment in the knowledge that our behavior remains under our control.