Constructive Living

What is Constructive Living ?

C.L. is a naturalistic way of living which offers an entirely different perspective than the typical Western Personal Development perspective. It is a non-medical alternative to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.   It was developed by Dr. David K. Reynolds and is based on Naikan (Insight Meditation) and Morita Therapy, a Japanese “quiet” Therapy developed by Dr. Shoma Morita, Japan’s most eminent psychiatrist. Reynolds believes that Constructive Living was our natural language – which we all knew at one time but have long since forgotten.

The dozens of books Dr. Reynolds has written on Constructive Living can be found on Amazon.com and many of them are available for sale at Ordinary Life Bookstore online. Here is a very brief introduction.

· You cannot control your feelings by an act of will.

· Because you cannot control them you are not responsible for them.

· You are always responsible for your actions.

· Your feelings are useful and can teach you about what you want and what’s important to you.

· All feelings fade over time unless re-stimulated.

· We are not separate; we “inter-are.” We are all interrelated.

· The Universe supports us in ways which we often do not see.

· The optimum way of living is to find your purpose, hold to it and act in a way which will lead you to it.

To live constructively you need only:

Know your purpose in everything.

You will always have enough information to find it. This may sound simple in practice. It is, but it’s not necessarily easy.

After you determine your purpose do what needs to be done to achieve it.

Take action with the awareness that you cannot control the outcome of your actions. You can only control your own behavior and not the results of that behavior.

But what if your feelings get in the way of what you want to do?

Well, that’s how we complicate things.

The Pleasure Principle illustrates that we will always move away from discomfort or dis-ease and towards Pleasure. All animals, including we humans, do this. A dog will do whatever it can to get food if it’s hungry. Hunger is painful.

As humans, we often determine that other situations are painful and we do our best to avoid them. Asking for what we need may be painful, trying for a new job may be painful, doing something different to stretch ourselves may be very painful. From time to time, it may be necessary to do all of these things to live a healthy, fulfilled life. But if we are afraid, we may avoid them and stay small and safe because we want to avoid pain.

Pain is Necessary. Suffering is Optional.

We can’t avoid suffering. It’s a part of life.

Usually, the underlying suffering is the everyday pain of living. Sickness, death, unemployment, financial shortages, dissatisfaction at work, ungrateful kids, neglectful partners.

But the man-made suffering that we pile on, such as worrying, anger, avoidance, blaming, fear – is unnecessary and destructive.

In other words – it’s not what happens to you it’s how you deal with it and the meaning that you attach to it.

We all know people who have little in terms of material things but who seem to be happy and have peace of mind. We all know people who seem to have everything, but who are stressed, critical of themselves and others, constantly complaining and permanently dissatisfied with their lives. What determines how these people respond to their very different life circumstances?

The Good News about Feelings.

Your feelings don’t need to be fixed. There’s nothing wrong with them and there’s nothing wrong with you.

This is bad news for the Personal Development Industry which makes billions of dollars a year worldwide persuading people that there’s something lacking which only they can provide. In other words – you need a solution which is outside yourself.

They tell us we need to build our self-esteem, gain confidence, become motivated and empowered, eliminate fear, get rid of negativity and practice relentless positive affirmations and visualizations.

In other words we need to change our feelings before we can act. They tell us there is something outside of ourselves that we need to find, learn or buy in order that we can do what we need to do. Something has to happen before we can really be ourselves.

Does this make sense? Of course not.

You don’t need to add or take away anything from your life. You just need to wake up to what is already there and use it wisely.

A strong emphasis on feelings is misplaced. You can’t build a life on feeling good all the time. Nor should you. You’d be ill-prepared when misfortune hits and sometimes we all need to do things which are unpleasant.

An alternative to building ourselves up before we act is to feel the fear, accept it and act anyway.

This is not the same as acting despite fear or denying its existence, this is choosing action in the completely accepted presence of whatever emotion would ordinarily hold us back.

For a complimentary ebook “Six Simple Principles of Constructive Living“, please go here . This 40 page book is available for immediate download so that you can put these powerful principles into practice in your life today.