The Italian physician and educator, Maria Montessori, taught children that each activity in life had three important stages – the preparation stage, the activity itself, and the clean up process. What a good reminder for us all, so that we can make room for all three stages in our schedule. While the activity itself is…
by Dr. Takehisa Kora We cannot remove insecurity and pain from our lives. It is inevitable. The reason is that nature and society are not made to suit our convenience. Nature existed first and people come out of it, so of course nature is not made for people. If we leave plants without care, weeds…
A central principle of Morita Therapy is that we have much more control over the body (actions) than the mind (feelings/thoughts). During my 30’s I lived for a short period of time in a Zen temple in Japan. During long meditation periods I would find that my mind would be all over the place –…
Laughter is Good Medicine by Trudy Boyle There isn’t much to laugh at when it comes to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and so many other painful, life threatening, and on-going difficult illnesses that life throws in our way. Dr. Itami, who founded Meaningful Life Therapy in Japan, uses laughter as part of his healing prescription…
Feelings Flow and Change like the Weather by Linda Anderson Krech Through the study and practice of Morita Therapy we can learn a great deal about the nature of feelings. Given that we may experience a wide range of feelings over the course of one day, or one hour, or even five minutes, we…
It seems to me that people tend to display two extremes of behavior about this time of year. A good many of us, not able to deal with the increasing stress we feel preparing for the holiday blitz , wind up acting impatient, surly, and even downright rude. Often we direct these behaviors at the…
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential,…