Morita Therapy and Fear

  

MoritaTherapy was developed by Japanese psychiatrist Shoma Morita beginning in 1919, and was influenced by the principles of Zen Buddhism. Today much of its ideas can be found within more recent Mindfullness and Acceptance based therapies.  

"Morita Therapy observes that feelings, even extremely challenging feelings, are quite common in the human experience. Most people in their lifetime will encounter feelings of grief, depression, and anxiety. These feelings from a Morita Therapy perspective are not in and of themselves pathological. In some cases, however, our attention becomes fixated on trying to avoid or overcome unpleasant feeling states. Our focus and energy becomes diverted to trying to “deal with our feelings” and in the process we lose our focus on the actions necessary to maintain an effective and purposeful life. Rather than direct our attention and energy to our feeling state, we instead direct our efforts toward living our life well. We set goals and take steps to accomplish what is important even as we co-exist with unpleasant feelings. Feelings are Uncontrollable; Actions are Controllable. Once we learn to accept our feelings we find that we can take action without changing our feeling state. Often, the action-taking leads to a change in feelings. For example, it is common to develop confidence after one has repeatedly done something with some success."

http://moritaschool.com/content/morita-therapy

Gregg Krech Director of the ToDO Institute shares more on Morita Therapy. 

"One of the great gifts Morita Therapy offers my clients is the knowledge that one cannot control one's thoughts and feelings by an act of will. Clients are relieved to know that they are not responsible for feeling hatred, anger, love, or fear. They did not create the feelings and neither are they responsible for them. Most are also relieved to know they are not responsible for their thoughts and that thoughts do not have any deep and significant hidden meaning. For example, we may get frustrated with our child who has been misbehaving all day long and the thought of hitting the child or worse comes to mind. We are not responsible for the content of that thought. It does not mean we are a bad parent or a potential child abuser as long -- as we don't act on it.

I used to get so frustrated with myself for feeling scared all the time. I'd try so hard not to be scared. I'd pretend I was not scared, I'd call myself a wimp, but of course I would still feel scared. I spent so much time feeling scared and trying not to I didn't do much of anything else. In fact feeling scared of new people, of new places, of men was a great excuse not to put myself in many situations. Now I realize that I can't control feeling scared I can only control what I do when I feel scared."

Don't Fight with Fear. One of the most common obstacles to getting things done is fear. Strong feelings bubble up inside us. Our body tenses up. We begin to imagine the road up ahead -- failure, embarrassment, rejection, discomfort, pain, even death. In the face of fear we may find ourselves "frozen" in an iceberg of inaction.

But fear is not necessarily our enemy, although it feels that way. Fear can make us think twice about risky behavior. It can warn us to tread cautiously. It can remind us there are consequences we'd rather avoid. A surge of fear may prompt us in a healthy direction, in spite of the fact that it is disruptive to our inner harmony. Several people I know have made dramatic and instantaneous changes in their diet and exercise regime after they had a heart attack. Fear can be an effective, if not gentle, personal coach.
But sometimes fear arises when we are not in imminent danger at all. We're moving forward towards our dreams. We're taking action that involves risk -- yet all action involves some risk (even inaction involves risk). How do we stay on course when fear is making our hearts pound and our palms sweat? How do we keep fear from preventing us from doing what is important to do?

We learn the skill of coexisting with fear.The best strategy for coping with fear is to accept it. Don't try to fight it, work through it, understand it, or conquer it. Acceptance. The Japanese use the term arugamama to describe the state of "accepting things as they are." Many forms of martial arts use a similar philosophy. Rather than taking on your opponent directly, you use the energy of your opponent against him. That's why a 120-pound woman can throw a 200-pound man. We defeat fear by refusing to fight it -- by refusing to give it our attention. Instead, the effort goes into the task at hand, whether it be changing careers or jumping into a new relationship.

What is the secret of mastering this strategy for coping with fear? Practice.
Working with fear is a skill. What are some of the skills you've acquired in your lifetime -- typing, driving a car, yoga, music. Competence requires practice. When you first tried to drive a car with a manual transmission, how many times did you jolt the car forward as you let out the clutch too fast? But with practice, you learned to do it smoothly, naturally. Mental health skills require the same regimen. Skill development comes from practice and practice requires effort.

So you learn to cope with fear by the practice of coping with fear.

Each time you move forward and take constructive action while coexisting with fear you get better at it. And over time, the effort becomes more natural and a bit easier. So the next time you find fear standing in between you and your goal -- don't fight, don't freeze, just walk around this demon and keep moving forward.

Taking on Perfectionism-Once you've succeeded in getting past fear, you'll find a similar strategy works with related demons: shyness, anxiety, boredom, laziness. But here's a slightly different demon that can either prevent you from starting something, or keep your wheels spinning indefinitely -- perfectionism.

We'd like to write the perfect book, the perfect poem, create the perfect sculpture, or even plant the perfect garden. The realization that we may fall short of our ideal is mind-numbing. How do we handle this demon? Increase confidence? Heighten self-esteem? Or is that the problem?

It's fine to aspire to perfection, but human beings are designed to make mistakes. Even those who are considered great masters of an art or sport make mistakes from time to time. If we think our talent is so great that we shouldn't make a mistake, then we have a very grandiose attitude about ourselves. If you reflect on your past efforts you are likely to discover that the vast majority of your efforts were imperfect. So swallow healthy dose of humility -- a wonderful antidote to perfectionism.
Bottom line: Accept both your perfectionism and the likelihood that you will make mistakes or fail -- and take action.

Before you die!! Now there's a thought that should get us moving on our priorities. We act (and don't act) as if we were going to live forever. But our time on this planet is limited and if there are important things to do we better get started before the opportunity disappears. Art professor James Elkins, in his illuminating book, How to Use Your Eyes (Routledge, 2002), wants to take some time to just go outside and look at grass. He says, "Before I sat down to write the chapter on grass, I had never really paid attention to it. I guess I thought I could always do that sometime in the future, when I am retired and have time to spare." Elkins goes on to calculate how many days might remain where there's an opportunity to look at grass. He starts with 30,000 days, a normal lifetime for someone living in a developed country. By the time he's factored out the days he's used up (he's just over forty) and bad weather days, and seasons where the grass is either dead or not visible, he finds that aren't that many opportunities left.

To live and full and meaningful life it is very important to work with obstacles that are created internally (our thoughts and feelings). Feelings come and go and we can feel happy one moment as we watch the birds feeding at the birdfeeder in the garden then a few moments later feel anxiety as we notice that we have a pile of unpaid bills on the kitchen counter. Even attempting to feel differently about the unpaid bills does not change things; the fact is you feel the way you feel, whether anxious, frustrated, overwhelmed, exhausted or angry. It is both natural and normal to feel this way when you are experiencing some financial challenges.

Shoma Morita, the founding father of Morita Therapy says "Feelings change like the Japanese sky. Emotions are sometimes cloudy, sometimes sunny." Morita teaches that it is important to observe your feelings and thoughts, accept them, let them rise and fall, while you continue to take action and complete your task. Don't ignore your feelings; develop awareness without having to do anything about your internal feelings. Learn to be driven by purpose instead of your feelings, as your feelings can change in an instant, just like the clouds in the Japanese sky.

If your purpose is to go for a bike ride in the country this Saturday, then even if you have feelings of anxiety rising within you, you can take your thoughts and feelings along with you for the ride. The point isn't to shift the feeling but to ride your bike because that is what you want to do. The important thing is neither to control and suppress your thoughts or feelings nor act them out. Instead just allow your feelings to be there while you finish the action at hand. The key is awareness, if you remain conscious of the flow of feelings while still taking action, then you will not suppress them!"

To see how this form of therapy can help those who have been sexually abused go to -http://www.giftfromwithin.org/html/morita.html