May 1, 2025 • 48 mins
You've probably heard this over and over - "Don't be negative." What you won't hear is how to accomplish that. Liana talks with life coach Janet Ettele, author of "How Joyous Effort Works" about how a slight shift of focus in how we approach our relationships, our jobs, our families and ourselves can uncover sources of happiness that have always been there.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kersner, and i am
(00:29):
not a therapist, but i am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayanks
for going good crazy. This week, I'm gonna talk about
joyful effort. Joyful effort is a concept from Buddhism, and
our guest this week is author of the novel How
Joyous Effort Works. This author is also a coach, teacher,
(00:51):
and student of Buddhist dharma. Janet Etaly will be joining
us later. I'm not gonna get too deep into the
Buddhist stuff, because you know, you get into Buddhism, things
go really deep. I'm not an expert, and while we
only have so much time, but the Sanskrit term for
joyful effort is also translated as energy, persistence, perseverance, vigor, effort, diligence,
(01:20):
and enthusiasm. It's sort of a collection of concepts, and
I can already hear some of you rolling your eyes
because toughness is miserable, right, Nope, wrong. In a lot
of ways, this Buddhist concept has masculine connotations, and it's
the opposite of glowering like a particularly corny version Batman.
(01:43):
The more you invest in a concept, the more aware
of it you become. The more aware of it you become,
the more it's going to multiply in your life. So
if you're defined by hating everywhere you are and everything
you do, guess what you're gonna get. Guess what you're
gonna see more stuff you hate.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Too many people link achievements to happiness. Oh, I meet
this goal, then I'll be happy. I'll get a billion dollars,
I'll be happy. Right. But the truth is that happiness,
a real core sense of being okay, is what gives
you the perseverance to achieve the things you want to achieve.
(02:29):
Because there's no amount of followers, fame, clout, or money
that's gonna make an unhappy person into a happy one. Well,
poverty does contribute to unhappiness, sure, right, you've got to
struggle more. You're struggling more. There are a lot of people, though,
who are well off and still the most unpleasant people
(02:51):
you will meet in your entire life. Western culture actively
teaches this unhappiness, at least in my opinion, we're taught
to think in these chains of increasing catastrophe, right, instead
of connecting good things together. The most common thing I
hear from students these days or people just entering the
(03:13):
workforce is you know they're going to fail a test
or in interviews, so you know they won't pass, or
they won't graduate, or they won't get the job, and
they'll end up homeless and dying poor. It escalates rapidly.
Instead of focusing on learning the material, you know, preparing,
they're putting unhappy effort into the hypothetical consequences of not
(03:38):
doing the thing. They just have to knuckle down and do.
The task doesn't change if you approach it with a
more productive focus on what you have to do instead
of what will happen if you fail. You're just using
your energy on that task instead of negative what ifing.
But even the advice to avoid negativity is done through negativity.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I've talked about this before, but when I was younger,
it used to drive me crazy. How older relatives would
go Leanna, don't be negative without giving any concrete advice
or an example of how to be more positive. The
answer was just be positive. You know, if you don't
(04:26):
see a ton of examples, what does that mean? Okay,
I admit it. People who talk that way still drive
me crazy. Why because it suggests that the person really
doesn't know how to take a positive outlook. They tell
kids to figure something out that these adults don't exactly
have a grasp on themselves. It's a dodge, right, Because
(04:50):
a positive outlook isn't, you know, ignoring negatives, not acknowledging negatives.
That's why I say top ten phrase. Ignoring negatives isn't
being positive? Positive outlook takes active work. Let me give
you an example. Failure. Hey, cheery topic, right, but failure
is a part of life. Avoiding failure, you know, if
(05:12):
you try to get one hundred percent no failure, that
means avoiding trying anything. If you make attempts at things,
you will sometimes fail. But a focus, an intense focus
on avoiding failure means that your chances of success go
(05:32):
way down because you're making fewer attempts. Make sense, but
there's this huge focus on avoiding failure, and I get it.
We culturally humiliate people to try and fail. We've glorified
revenge and made learning from our mistakes into a form
(05:54):
of weakness. It drives me nuts. People actively compete these
days to prove they're more oppressed than their neighbors, when
everyone involved in this competition has a college degree, is employed,
lives in relative safety on a diet provided by DoorDash. Like, seriously,
(06:15):
someone delivered you food because you didn't want to walk
fifteen minutes or cook, and you probably didn't tip them properly,
and you still think you're oppressed. That self oppression right there,
But also tip your food delivery person. But that's what
(06:35):
adulthood has become, right, spreading the misery around because of
responsibilities we don't embrace, and therefore we resent them and
confuse that these responsibilities that aren't bad, we confuse that
with oppression. We focus on how hard parenting is, how
(06:56):
hard holding a job is, how hard getting a job is.
You know how hard paying bills are and okay, all
of this is hard, but it isn't only hard, right
we resent our jobs even if we have this dire
fear of losing them. We even managed to make holidays,
every holiday a different way. We managed to make it
(07:19):
into an exercise in draining obligation instead of joyful effort.
Christmas trees are a symbol of colonization. Gift wrapping is
presented as something that keeps women down. And okay, these
maybe your sincerely held beliefs, but what are they doing
for you? Passover started this past weekend, And okay, it's
(07:42):
a lot of work, and I'm very familiar with the
time honored tradition of a lot of complaining about that work.
I've heard my share of bitter jokes that women were
never freed from slavery because while the bulk of the
cooking cleaning an organ is traditionally women's work, so women
(08:04):
still end up doing the lion's share of it. And
no joke, it's It is a lot of cleaning, and
it has to be done in a compact amount of time.
But when it comes right down to it, we choose
to do this, We're not forced. So it's either an
opportunity to complain and be miserable, or an opportunity to
(08:25):
reflect on the people in the world who have it
a lot worse right now. And there are a lot
of those people. And now I also have a clean microwave,
air fryer and coffee maker. I didn't get the oven cleaned,
so I won't use it for a week, or maybe
you'll clean it because then it will be clean. See,
I had a choice. I could hate every minute of
(08:47):
this custom I choose to participate in, or I could
recognize that doing the work meant having clean stuff, and
that coffee maker turned out to be surprisingly nasty. The
beauty of freedom of religion and freedom of choice is
that if something is miserable to the point of being
(09:08):
bad crazy, we're not forced to do it to satisfy
some government enforced religious doctrine. Our choices can be truly ours.
Now all these choices consequence free, no, but missing the
joy that can be found in effort means we're denying
ourselves a lot of that day to day happiness. But
(09:31):
that's my perspective from my faith, and I want to
bring you another one after the break, because sometimes some
traditions say things in a way that others don't, and
it's like click, yeah, it makes sense how joyous Effort works.
Author Janet Italy, who's also a coach, teacher, and student
of Buddhist dharma, will join us after the break. Do
(09:52):
you have a story you think would be good for
the show? Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna
at Notthapyshow dot com. Not Therapy Show dot com is
the website at not Therapy Show on social media. We'll
be back after this with author Janet Utterly joyous Effort
on it.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Not therapy, no Radio, no Problem. Stream is live on
SAGA ninety six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still Aana Kursner. I'm still not
a therapist. It is time for the interview. Like I said,
(10:41):
we have a fiction author on this week. She's not
just an author. She's a coach, a teacher, a musician,
and most importantly and a parent and a grandparent. But
she's also a student of Buddhist dharma. And that's what
I'm going to focus on mostly here. The author of
How Joyous Effort worksanett It Eily Janet. Welcome to It's
(11:01):
not therapy. How are you?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Thank you so much? I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
How are you doing good now? How Joyous Effort Works
is the fourth book in the series, right, yes, And
what's sort of the overview of this series of novels.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
It is a story that's actually it's a series of
books that is really based on a particular teaching that
was taught by an eighth century Buddhist monk and scholar
back in India named Master Shantideva. And this teaching is
known as the Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of Life.
And the Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life is
(11:38):
present something called the six perfections of generosity, moral and
ethical discipline, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom. Those are
the six and so what I've done, along with the
publisher that I've worked with it this was his idea actually,
(12:00):
and I happen to be the person writing it, is
to take these teachings and put them into contemporary fiction.
With Western characters living our contemporary life, and in my opinion,
I feel that when we have these characters that we
(12:21):
can relate to and perhaps feel some kind of connection with,
excuse me, that we can sort of experience that character's
learning is reflection on what's being presented in the teachings,
is meditations, and also is taking what he's learned into
(12:43):
his everyday life, encountering a myriad of things as we
all do in daily life. And we kind of get
to be the fly on the wall as he then
applies these teachings into his daily life.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
And that's I like how you frame that, because we
do a lot of people do see Buddhism in this
very exoticized form, right, there's sort of an esthetic as
opposed to the way literally and I do find a
lot of the teachings get lost in the gimmicks, right,
And how joyous if it works is about you know,
(13:21):
young man in his twenties. It's almost like a catcher
in the rye set up, you know, background of substance abuse,
the idea of anger which I want to get on,
and he sort of gets onto, you know, sort of
the middle path under the guidance of bootist age.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Yees.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Now, how because a lot of people see this kind
of stuff with the meditation and all that as not
relevant to a modern life, how do you respond to that?
Speaker 4 (13:56):
That's that's a really big question. You know, I could
make that huge.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Taking anywhere you want. I did. I didn't want to
bias the answer.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah, but and but feel free to kind of interrupt
if I'm going off someplace that doesn't feel relevant to
what you're really trying to get to. But one thing
to understand about meditation is that meditation literally is a
method to familiarize your mind to something. Okay, it could
be you know, meditation is maybe you're studying for an
(14:30):
exam and you're you're really rehearsing that. You know, that's
a form of meditation. There's they have analytical meditation where
you're maybe presented with a topic such as impermanence, which
is a big one in Buddhism, or the faults of anger,
or because you mentioned anger, there's so many things that
(14:53):
you then can meditate on those in an analytical way.
And then you have the comma biding where our kind
of meditation, which is perhaps like focusing on your breath
and just trying to bring your attention to only your breath.
But we can even take those things that we've been
analyzing and analytical meditation. Once we've really done that, we
(15:18):
can then settle into a more focused meditation on that,
and that becomes our rehearsal sort of for what we
deal with in life. But something I want to say
about this, what are we familiarizing our minds too? If
we think about the number of thoughts we think and
(15:41):
every day, you know, even if it's a thought per
second something like fifty seven thousand and six hundred, If
we sleep eight hours a night, we have that many
week seconds to where we have thoughts. And there have
been some studies that say somewhere around eighty to ninety
percent of the thoughts we think are repeated daily. So
(16:04):
those are our own very unconscious meditations that we're rehearsing
and deepening. And you know, I think of it like,
you know, if you were to roll a wheel back
and forth over the dirt, it just gets deeper and
deeper and deeper where you don't even need to steer
that wheel any longer.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
It just goes to a groove.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, So meditation is a really helpful way of what
we call training the mind, cultivating awareness of what is
happening in the mind and learning how to understand what
that is. And with that understanding where it needs to
be tweaked, we can then do that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, And that's where the joyous effort comes in, right,
because it is a really interesting concept that I wish
more people focused on. We hear about, you know, all
the stuff that ended up in starf Wars, attachments and
avoiding hate and all that stuff. But the idea of
effort as something that can bring joy, I think that
(17:10):
is one of those unconscious meditations. It's hard. Everything's hard.
I'm so tired, you know. And if you focus on that,
that's the first thing that comes to mind whenever you
start a task. But when you go this is going
to be good for me, and I'm going to learn
something and it's going to be interesting, it's much easier
(17:34):
to take the first step into change. Right. And the
thing about that groove that you were talking about is
the deeper that groove gets, the harder getting out of.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
It is, Which is what I hope I'm presenting in
my books, is that Buddhist view is so rich. It's
really a philosophical view, and when we can start to
open our mind to another way of seeing things, you
know that that is not like woo woo out in
(18:04):
the cloud someplace, but observable realities that we can we
can relate to that we can it's logical and grounded.
We then can kind of give ourselves some support to
help us shift out of that groove. And the joyous
effort I think too is when we, as you were saying,
(18:27):
when we understand the value of something, When we understand
the benefit of something, then we're excited to do whatever
it is, even if it is hard work. But I
think we have resistance to things. You know, it's worth
checking into what are what am I resisting when like
you just can't push yourself into doing something and coming
(18:49):
to an understanding of what that is. And not in
all cases, but sometimes I wonder, I wonder what you
would think about this is when we're doing things that
are out of alignment with what are like our deep values,
then then we're not going to be joyfully. There's going
(19:09):
to be a lot of inner conflict and angst and
resentment and all those other things that snarl up and
can stand in our way too.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, then it becomes outcomes driven and you can't control those.
And that's I mean, that's the suffering part, right that
if you set your goals based on I say, healthy
goals are based on things you can control all the
time on this show, it's because if you set like
I'm going to act in accordance with my values, I
am going to feed myself positive statements, not diluted statements,
(19:42):
just positive things based on fact I can say this
is what I can do, instead of focusing on what
I can't. That is very different because no matter what
you do, if you're living in you know, if you're
living in alignment with your values, then no matter what
the outcome, you can well, I was true to myself, right,
And that's an outcome in itself. And in dealing with
(20:05):
addiction in the book Addicts, that's that's the core of it, right,
is there's something so painful that they're numbing. They can't
feel their feelings, they can't process their emotions. Everything's out
of alignment. And it's not about the substance. The substance
is the symptom a lot of the time of what's
(20:28):
really going on underneath. Is that why you chose to
focus on substance abuse and anger for Troy, the main
character in your book.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
The I think the substance abuse was just part of
and it's more in his past than it is in
the present, you know, of when the story pickup.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, because the story picks up in in in like
in medius rays, so to speak. Yeah, already in progress.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yeah, but you know the sort of in his reflection,
we understand that he's not having a good time. When
you once you're addicted, you're not You're not partying and
having a great time. You're suffering. And that addiction is
that that craving, all of that is just.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
You're not happy in that state, from what I have
observed or understand and seen firsthand.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
So I feel that we all have various different addictions.
Some of them are more destructive than others.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And people kind of get addicted to concepts. They can
get addicted to an identity, a piece of their identity, right,
and those can really be the you know, I'm a
bad person, I'm worthless, i am not going to amount
to anything. These are things that aren't helpful and we
don't have to think them, and yet a lot of
(22:01):
people do that's so true.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
And that's you're right, and that's tragic.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, yeah, And you hear it a lot, you know,
it's it's sort of the underpinning of modern discourse. You
hear the words worthless, rotten, no good, disaster, and just
hearing them, you feel like you've taken a bit of
a hit.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Absolutely, absolutely, And I think that's one of the things
I mean, as I mentioned a little bit ago, impermanence
is one of the things that we learned to focus
on early on when we first start to study any
of this Buddhist and probably other traditions too. This just
happens to be the one that I know. But because
(22:43):
of impermanence, we have the capacity to change all that.
And that's I think a really helpful. Like when you're
down in that down place, that pit, it's a kind
of like one of those rescue ladders. It says, wait
a second, nothing is permanent, this is not my destiny.
(23:03):
And with some wisdom and some compassion, you know, compassion
for yourself and your own suffering and just it all
gives you a little space, even if it's small steps,
but a little space to experience that potential for change.
Act become actualized. And that's what this main character, Troy.
(23:25):
We get to see him go through these changes where
he goes from just being in a lot of pain
and grief to coming to some peace.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
You anticipated my next question, and I want to go
to break because there is like the death and grieving
and literal and when you mentioned in permanence, I thought
that was sort of a good place because that's that's
where a lot of people, first, I think, encounter the
idea that everything is temporary, nothing is permanent. We lose people, right.
So we're going to be after the Break, coming back
(23:59):
talking about Reef and Joyous Effort with author Janet Italy,
author of How Joyous Effort Works. She's also a student
of Buddhist dharma, as you can tell by the interview.
We'll be back more with Janet after this. And it's
not therapy.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in this therapy. I'm still Ana Kurzner. I'm still not
a therapist for talking.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
But Buddhist stuff, and I'm not an expert, of course,
but I have author Janet Italy, who is a student
of Buddhist dharma, and before the break we were talking
about her book How Joyous Effort Works and how Joyous
Effort applies to facing change.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And before the break, Janet, we were talking about impermanence
and a key theme of your novel, the loss of
the main character's uncle and him dealing with that, and
the idea of impermanence. This is how I first sort
of became aware of it. The first time you lose
(25:21):
somebody like that, it's it's the hardest, you know, especially
when you're young, and it's terrifying for somebody to be
there and no longer be there anymore. And we can
tell ourselves all the stories we want that death of
a loved one is one of those impermanent things where
we really have no choice but to let go or
(25:41):
be miserable. So how does the book, how does your
practice approach that very real you know, exclamation point on life.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Okay again, they're like I've got like swans flying through
my head right now, I'd say, first in the in
the first book and in the second book. So I've
written these books in such a way that they can
be read in any order, because I weave the backstory
of each book into the subsequent ones. But we learned
(26:12):
that Troy, while he was away at college and while
he was you know, dealing with all kinds of things,
his very closest friend from home was killed. That was
the grief that was his close friend, and that was
one of his rocks in his young life, and that
is what triggered him off into just you know, not
(26:34):
going to classes, just drinking horrifically, getting into a lot
of fights. And by the time in this fourth book
when he's lost his uncle, he's actually met and been
helped very much by three different teachers that he meets
in each of the previous books. And one of the
things we one of the reasons we focus or think
(26:58):
about in Permanent is also to understand the impermanence of
our own lives. And by doing that, not in a
morbid way to say, oh my god, I'm going to die,
what's the point. Not like that. It's more like, of
course I've born. I've been born, so of course I'm
going to die. We don't know when our shelf life
(27:20):
is going to be there, and so we use that
as an inspiration to make the best use we can
of this life. So there's the joyful effort too, of
recognizing the value we have of being alive and the
potential to do good things for others to do, you know,
(27:43):
live a good life. And I think that in this
fourth book on how Joyous Separate works. With his uncle's passing,
he was an elderly man. So while it's a grief
and it's it's a sadness, it's not an unexpected right
us where the death of his close friend was and
(28:05):
young loss. And you're right, do you just it takes time.
And I don't want to pretend to say that, well,
if you understand impermanence, you won't feel grief. I mean,
that's just.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Not FeAs No, I would argue the opposite that understanding
impermanence means I'm not going to feel this way forever.
So it's okay to take a moment and feel this
way now. I'm not going to get stuck in it.
I'm not going to lost in it. I'm not going
to drown. I feel this way now. There will be
a time I don't yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think
a lot of people are afraid to stop and feel
(28:43):
negative emotions. And I mean this is something that people
find the concept of dharma which is really poorly understood.
People confuse it with karma. Right, But how does that apply?
Like when you say you're a student of Buddhist dharma,
how do to that study bring you here dealing with
(29:05):
like you're kind of straddling two worlds, right, this very esoteric,
very abstract, you know, the theory of everything, the paramotmon
and then very contemporary story in the West.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
That is such a good question really because that's sort
of where in this book, Truy, the main character, his
thing is like can I do this? I want to
have a regular, ordinary life. I want to He has
this girlfriend that he's crazy about and hopes that he
can build a life with her. He needs to have
(29:39):
a career, he realizes, and what is he going to do?
And can you balance all of that with this deep
spiritual practice?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
And how can I do that? And and that is
something that the sage character that he meets in this
book helps him to sort of to figure out. And
it is it's like anything I have two sons who
(30:09):
go into you know, they have their work, they have
their family, and they go through these different phases. You know,
one year it was golf. They were golfing all the time,
and that takes up a huge amount of time and money.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, money, And now you.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Know, lately it's weightlifting, you know, so oh, you know,
you know, whatever it is, they do full throttle. And
and I think that people find a way to build
these things into their lives. And what I have found
in my own experience is the things that I've learned
(30:44):
don't just stay in a little compartment on a bookshelf.
Because I've learned them, and because I've been reflecting and
trying to implement what I've learned in my life, I
have the experience of having experienced more peace when things happen.
(31:06):
I'm not rocked quite like I had been prior in
years ago.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Right, And it.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
Is something that it's not easy, Like if I have
a practice and if I were to go away traveling,
it's that's part of the question, is like, oh, wow,
am I going to you know, people are going to
think I'm a nut if I'm like, excuse me, I
have to go do a meditation practice or something. So
it's something you you find a way to build into
(31:33):
your day.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, and these these older belief systems, I mean, it's
your life goes through Tristan turns. And if you stay
true to your your core values, your beliefs, you it'll
be okay no matter what happens. That's what I think.
Tell me, tell me if you agree or don't these
(31:56):
thousands and thousands of year old concepts do right. You
don't have to worry about outcomes as long as you're
sticking to what you know is I don't know if
right is even the word righteousness is loaded.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, you know. I I think it's interesting you mentioned
how many thousands of years old these teachings are, and
yet human nature has been pretty consistent. And yes, teach
still apply. And in this how joy is Supper works.
(32:35):
There's a point in the story where Jules, who's the
sage character, is talking to him to Troy about these
teachings being like like the old day's celestial navigation. M hm,
they they you can read their reliable guidance.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Everything else breaks, that still works. Yeah, it don't end
to plug in to navigate via the stars.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah, I don't do't worry I have the satellite going
down or anything like that. Those stars are there and
you can use them no matter where you are and
in what circumstances you can draw from them.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But it doesn't give you everything either, does it. I mean,
you do have to learn to trust whatever you want
to call it, the divine spark, the inner voice, anything,
to get through this tough stuff. Right, there has to
be a certain belief that one it matters, because you
can't motivate if it doesn't. But two also, there's a
(33:35):
point or a purpose to all of it. And I
think that contemporary life, with all our distractions and all
of these this morality and weight we put on the
tiniest little purchase at a convenience store, like oh, that
has moral weight, right, It takes us away from from this,
(33:58):
from the joyous effort. Right, it's just effort. It's misery.
It's not there's nothing joyous about worrying about, you know,
the social circumstance about who picked your coffee beans. At
some point you do have to go like, look, I'm
just doing my best.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Right, absolutely, yeah, So how how do you mix this?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
You know, these these traditional teachings that obviously come from
both a more complex and simpler time because we didn't
know as much scientifically, but some argue we had less
to worry about as well. How do you mix that
idea that living a good and purposeful life in accordance
(34:42):
with deep values and the word deep is pointed there
with the complexities of everything.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Now, well, I want to again every question you've asked me,
I have like five answers flying around in my head
at the same time as you're asking. But so, first
of all, in these these teachings, the dharma, it's it's
never something that you're supposed to take on and say, oh,
because it says this, I must do it. It's because
(35:17):
it says is. Let me think about it and see
if this applies. See if this is grounded, Does this
make sense? Is this true? Test it out? You know.
So that's one thing. And you talk about not having
the scientific knowledge. Even so twenty five hundred years ago,
these Buddhist sages or whatever you want to call them,
(35:41):
they understood that everything was like they understood that everything
was made up of these small little particles.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah yeah, and that.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Nothing is inherently existent and based on nothing being inherently
existent and everything being impermanent, we then know there's nothing
to be attached to, that's anything that's substantially there to
be attached to, And as we remind ourselves of that,
(36:13):
then we can that can soften some of that grasping.
We tend to do onto, like you said earlier, whether
it's a right you know, being right about something, or
that this is a destination I must achieve, or this
person must never die or this relationship can't ever change,
you know, So we learn to realize the absurdity of
(36:34):
expecting something that is impossible to.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Right with that right right, and that that's I think
a really common misconception about Buddhism and the you know,
the thing about a waiting attachment. It's not that you
don't care about people. You care about people very very
very deeply, but you can't hold on to something that
doesn't want to be held on too.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
My distinction is there's afference between attachment and devotion. If
you're devoted your porn, your love is an outpouring of love.
Attachment is like I need you, you know, I need
you to always be there, I need you to always
love me, I need you to whatever it is it's
a bit more about you than it is about the
(37:19):
other person or feature or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
We'd call it, in a lot of circles of codependence. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's funny because attachment has entered popular culture through
Star Wars, through anime and all that stuff, and yet
because it's so personal, it's really hard to explain it.
You know, when you've got a healthy devotion to something
(37:46):
as opposed to an unhealthy attachment to it. Sort Of,
once you hit that wisdom, it's easy to keep, but
getting there takes a lot of effort.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
It takes a lot of openness.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Okay, Now, what's the distinction between effort and openness.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Well, openness is pretty easy. You just kind of allow
yourself to think about something.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's the hardest thing in the world. For some people, though,
because every thought that pops in their head they judge,
you know, like, I've had this thought, Oh, I shouldn't
think that that's bad? Why did I think that? Does
that mean something about me? Like they get they get
tangled up in it. Instead of just having the thought,
acknowledging the thought, let the thought pass.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Okay, So there's that openness to I guess at some
point one has to be open to when you're suffering.
Is like, when you're miserable enough, you're going to say,
I'd like to change this, I'd like this mirror has
to be different. And then I think that that that
(38:55):
in itself is a little opening to like I need
I need help here. And it's it's as simple as, like,
you know, realizing that that reflection you see in the
mirror isn't the person, right, So and so I'm using
(39:16):
that as an example of like, so many of the
things that we get fixated on are things that we
have concretized in our own minds as being something that
lack that substantial quality.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Right now, you do coaching as well as a whole
bunch of other things. As a coach. If somebody came
to you deep in self judgment, deep in other judgment,
deep in in suffering, in misery, what would be the
first thing you did with them to take that step
(39:51):
into just misery into joyous effort.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
You know, that's a big question, and sort of in
a broad sense, I don't know that it's a one
size fits all for everyone.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Let me let me give you an example, because the
whole thing about image, right, there's an increasing group of
young men who think, oh, if I don't look like
you know four from the movies, women aren't gonna like me,
and I have to have, you know, muscles and a
lot of money and all that stuff. Now we know
that's not true, but they believe it. They are attached
(40:28):
to that fallacy. How do you open a person like
that up to another story?
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Well, I don't know. But the first question that comes
to my mind when I hear you present that is
to ask, well, how does that serve you?
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Mm hmm?
Speaker 4 (40:48):
I mean. And the coaching process is of questioning because
when coaching, you really the person is the expert in
their own life life and you're. My job as the
coach is to ask questions to help them sort of
(41:08):
get to their own answers. And I can share, you know,
bits and pieces of things like I'm sharing with you,
depending on everyone's openness. Not everybody wants to hear about Buddhism, right,
But to the degree that someone is open and receptive,
I can present some of these ideas that aren't aren't
about religion, right, They really aren't, you know, in.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Well, there's no deity in Buddhism, there's no god.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
There's no creator God. Right, there's no creator God. In Buddhism,
they do have, especially when you get into the Tibetan Buddhism,
there's like deities like.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
All over the place. Yeah, but I mean it's very
clear you're a deep thinker and we've just gotten into
this discussion. And that's why your books exist, right, that's
why you're here. If you guys like what Janet had
to say, check out How Joyous Effort Works is her
fourth book. So Janet, can people just go to your
(42:10):
website janetetaly dot com and find out. Yeah, it's how
generosity works, how patients work. So it's each of the
four perfections, and it's six perfections. They can start at
the first one and just sort of work through.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
They could actually if I did my job well, if
I succeeded in writing them so that the backstory is
woven into all the other books, they could pick up
with any book they wanted. But if they wanted to
start from the beginning, Yes, how Generosity works is first,
they're short reads. They're small books. There, I would say
(42:43):
they're quick reads. But from what I'm feedback I get
from people is people like to reread them. They like
to underline things.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Oh yeah, I was going back the quotes and like
taking a moment and sitting with it. It's like, wow,
that's profound it. I really did feel the need to
slow down and really read it instead of skim it.
Jenet etily dot com etaly is spelled e t t
E l E so et te lu to those of
(43:10):
those Canadians of the Quebec Qua. Jenet, thanks so much
for coming on. It's not therapy and sharing sort of
your journey and your personal perspective.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Well, thank you so much. I'm loving your program or
your podcast. I should say, you can tell how old
I am. I call it a program.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Well, it is on the radio too, so I catch
myself saying broadcast like nope, nope, nope, it's streaming.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Now, yeah, whatever, whatever the medium is. I'm really grateful
for what you're doing. I think it's great work and
you're you do a fabulous job. So it's lovely to
meet you. And thanks for the great conversation and wonderful questions.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Really, thank you all right when we come back, final
thoughts on how you can weave joyous effort into your life.
It's not, as jen said, it's not woo oo, it's
every little day things. What is this doing for you?
Back after this on It's Not Therapy, Question comments, concerns.
Leanna at not Therapyshow dot com. Not Therapy Show dot
(44:11):
com is the website at not Therapy Show. Is our
socials Back after the break with more Joyous Effort on
It's Not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot caa.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back
in It's Not Therapy. I'm still Leanna Kurzner. I'm still
not a therapist. We're still talking joyous effort. And Janet
(44:50):
Etily was on the show before last two segments to
talk about her perspective as a student of Buddhist dharma
and author, and she's read a bunch of novels and
we talked about thoughts connected to effort. And I want
to circle back around on that because there's a lot
(45:12):
of reasons to not do things, to not try to,
you know, hide away people live in fear of cancelation. Right,
people complain about men being dangerous and women being manipulative, controlling,
and cruel. So dating is terrifying and miserable, and the
deck is stacked against us. And these are all excellent
(45:33):
excuses to not start. And you don't need excuses. Just
don't socialize, just don't date. Our cultural attitudes towards human connection,
romantic or otherwise aren't right right now, okay, But you
know you don't have to explain why you don't want
to socialize. You also don't have to explain wanting to
be treated well, and you don't have to make up
(45:56):
new words for lonely men or even men who mistreat women.
And I'm so sick of this word in cell getting
thrown everywhere. Netflix shows, It's all over it, even the
latest episode of Doctor who dropped the word in cell
and the idea that it's involuntary real talk. Okay, they
(46:21):
would rather talk about women like especially ugly cattle, than
do the required things to get a woman to like
them enough to want to be with them, to consent
to sex. These are a series of voluntary choices. There's
nothing involuntary about it, but you know, throwing the word
(46:41):
in cell around to just anybody you don't like it,
that too is a choice. All right. It's a cruel
term with shifting meaning designed to belittle. It doesn't even
mean literally what people mean. A part of joyful effort
is thinking deliberately and precisely, and then speaking deliberately and precisely.
(47:10):
And if we deny ourselves these cheap insults, these various
derogatory terms towards men, towards women, racial slurs, right, we
can more precisely confront and communicate our issues with a
given person, with a given place, with a given activity. Right.
(47:33):
Because part of the problem, part of the reason you're
unhappy if you're doing stuff like this, is you're picking
these petty fights and these things really don't matter. Okay,
try this instead, say openly that you like something, Oh,
I really like it, And notice how the people around
(47:53):
you respond. Do they join your happiness, do they ask
questions about why you like it even and if they don't,
or do they leap to criticize Because criticism is a
low effort activity. It's so easy to criticize. So people
who praise instead, that is joyful effort. And I am
(48:16):
out of time, questions, comments, concerns Leanna at not Therapyshow
dot com, Not therapyshow dot com. At not Therapy Show,
if you want to send me feedback, You're crazy. Is
only a problem if it's hurting you. Talk next time.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kersner, and i am
(00:29):
not a therapist, but i am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayanks
for going good crazy. This week, I'm gonna talk about
joyful effort. Joyful effort is a concept from Buddhism, and
our guest this week is author of the novel How
Joyous Effort Works. This author is also a coach, teacher,
(00:51):
and student of Buddhist dharma. Janet Etaly will be joining
us later. I'm not gonna get too deep into the
Buddhist stuff, because you know, you get into Buddhism, things
go really deep. I'm not an expert, and while we
only have so much time, but the Sanskrit term for
joyful effort is also translated as energy, persistence, perseverance, vigor, effort, diligence,
(01:20):
and enthusiasm. It's sort of a collection of concepts, and
I can already hear some of you rolling your eyes
because toughness is miserable, right, Nope, wrong. In a lot
of ways, this Buddhist concept has masculine connotations, and it's
the opposite of glowering like a particularly corny version Batman.
(01:43):
The more you invest in a concept, the more aware
of it you become. The more aware of it you become,
the more it's going to multiply in your life. So
if you're defined by hating everywhere you are and everything
you do, guess what you're gonna get. Guess what you're
gonna see more stuff you hate.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Too many people link achievements to happiness. Oh, I meet
this goal, then I'll be happy. I'll get a billion dollars,
I'll be happy. Right. But the truth is that happiness,
a real core sense of being okay, is what gives
you the perseverance to achieve the things you want to achieve.
(02:29):
Because there's no amount of followers, fame, clout, or money
that's gonna make an unhappy person into a happy one. Well,
poverty does contribute to unhappiness, sure, right, you've got to
struggle more. You're struggling more. There are a lot of people, though,
who are well off and still the most unpleasant people
(02:51):
you will meet in your entire life. Western culture actively
teaches this unhappiness, at least in my opinion, we're taught
to think in these chains of increasing catastrophe, right, instead
of connecting good things together. The most common thing I
hear from students these days or people just entering the
(03:13):
workforce is you know they're going to fail a test
or in interviews, so you know they won't pass, or
they won't graduate, or they won't get the job, and
they'll end up homeless and dying poor. It escalates rapidly.
Instead of focusing on learning the material, you know, preparing,
they're putting unhappy effort into the hypothetical consequences of not
(03:38):
doing the thing. They just have to knuckle down and do.
The task doesn't change if you approach it with a
more productive focus on what you have to do instead
of what will happen if you fail. You're just using
your energy on that task instead of negative what ifing.
But even the advice to avoid negativity is done through negativity.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I've talked about this before, but when I was younger,
it used to drive me crazy. How older relatives would
go Leanna, don't be negative without giving any concrete advice
or an example of how to be more positive. The
answer was just be positive. You know, if you don't
(04:26):
see a ton of examples, what does that mean? Okay,
I admit it. People who talk that way still drive
me crazy. Why because it suggests that the person really
doesn't know how to take a positive outlook. They tell
kids to figure something out that these adults don't exactly
have a grasp on themselves. It's a dodge, right, Because
(04:50):
a positive outlook isn't, you know, ignoring negatives, not acknowledging negatives.
That's why I say top ten phrase. Ignoring negatives isn't
being positive? Positive outlook takes active work. Let me give
you an example. Failure. Hey, cheery topic, right, but failure
is a part of life. Avoiding failure, you know, if
(05:12):
you try to get one hundred percent no failure, that
means avoiding trying anything. If you make attempts at things,
you will sometimes fail. But a focus, an intense focus
on avoiding failure means that your chances of success go
(05:32):
way down because you're making fewer attempts. Make sense, but
there's this huge focus on avoiding failure, and I get it.
We culturally humiliate people to try and fail. We've glorified
revenge and made learning from our mistakes into a form
(05:54):
of weakness. It drives me nuts. People actively compete these
days to prove they're more oppressed than their neighbors, when
everyone involved in this competition has a college degree, is employed,
lives in relative safety on a diet provided by DoorDash. Like, seriously,
(06:15):
someone delivered you food because you didn't want to walk
fifteen minutes or cook, and you probably didn't tip them properly,
and you still think you're oppressed. That self oppression right there,
But also tip your food delivery person. But that's what
(06:35):
adulthood has become, right, spreading the misery around because of
responsibilities we don't embrace, and therefore we resent them and
confuse that these responsibilities that aren't bad, we confuse that
with oppression. We focus on how hard parenting is, how
(06:56):
hard holding a job is, how hard getting a job is.
You know how hard paying bills are and okay, all
of this is hard, but it isn't only hard, right
we resent our jobs even if we have this dire
fear of losing them. We even managed to make holidays,
every holiday a different way. We managed to make it
(07:19):
into an exercise in draining obligation instead of joyful effort.
Christmas trees are a symbol of colonization. Gift wrapping is
presented as something that keeps women down. And okay, these
maybe your sincerely held beliefs, but what are they doing
for you? Passover started this past weekend, And okay, it's
(07:42):
a lot of work, and I'm very familiar with the
time honored tradition of a lot of complaining about that work.
I've heard my share of bitter jokes that women were
never freed from slavery because while the bulk of the
cooking cleaning an organ is traditionally women's work, so women
(08:04):
still end up doing the lion's share of it. And
no joke, it's It is a lot of cleaning, and
it has to be done in a compact amount of time.
But when it comes right down to it, we choose
to do this, We're not forced. So it's either an
opportunity to complain and be miserable, or an opportunity to
(08:25):
reflect on the people in the world who have it
a lot worse right now. And there are a lot
of those people. And now I also have a clean microwave,
air fryer and coffee maker. I didn't get the oven cleaned,
so I won't use it for a week, or maybe
you'll clean it because then it will be clean. See,
I had a choice. I could hate every minute of
(08:47):
this custom I choose to participate in, or I could
recognize that doing the work meant having clean stuff, and
that coffee maker turned out to be surprisingly nasty. The
beauty of freedom of religion and freedom of choice is
that if something is miserable to the point of being
(09:08):
bad crazy, we're not forced to do it to satisfy
some government enforced religious doctrine. Our choices can be truly ours.
Now all these choices consequence free, no, but missing the
joy that can be found in effort means we're denying
ourselves a lot of that day to day happiness. But
(09:31):
that's my perspective from my faith, and I want to
bring you another one after the break, because sometimes some
traditions say things in a way that others don't, and
it's like click, yeah, it makes sense how joyous Effort works.
Author Janet Italy, who's also a coach, teacher, and student
of Buddhist dharma, will join us after the break. Do
(09:52):
you have a story you think would be good for
the show? Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna
at Notthapyshow dot com. Not Therapy Show dot com is
the website at not Therapy Show on social media. We'll
be back after this with author Janet Utterly joyous Effort
on it.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Not therapy, no Radio, no Problem. Stream is live on
SAGA ninety six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still Aana Kursner. I'm still not
a therapist. It is time for the interview. Like I said,
(10:41):
we have a fiction author on this week. She's not
just an author. She's a coach, a teacher, a musician,
and most importantly and a parent and a grandparent. But
she's also a student of Buddhist dharma. And that's what
I'm going to focus on mostly here. The author of
How Joyous Effort worksanett It Eily Janet. Welcome to It's
(11:01):
not therapy. How are you?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Thank you so much? I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
How are you doing good now? How Joyous Effort Works
is the fourth book in the series, right, yes, And
what's sort of the overview of this series of novels.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
It is a story that's actually it's a series of
books that is really based on a particular teaching that
was taught by an eighth century Buddhist monk and scholar
back in India named Master Shantideva. And this teaching is
known as the Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of Life.
And the Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life is
(11:38):
present something called the six perfections of generosity, moral and
ethical discipline, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom. Those are
the six and so what I've done, along with the
publisher that I've worked with it this was his idea actually,
(12:00):
and I happen to be the person writing it, is
to take these teachings and put them into contemporary fiction.
With Western characters living our contemporary life, and in my opinion,
I feel that when we have these characters that we
(12:21):
can relate to and perhaps feel some kind of connection with,
excuse me, that we can sort of experience that character's
learning is reflection on what's being presented in the teachings,
is meditations, and also is taking what he's learned into
(12:43):
his everyday life, encountering a myriad of things as we
all do in daily life. And we kind of get
to be the fly on the wall as he then
applies these teachings into his daily life.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
And that's I like how you frame that, because we
do a lot of people do see Buddhism in this
very exoticized form, right, there's sort of an esthetic as
opposed to the way literally and I do find a
lot of the teachings get lost in the gimmicks, right,
And how joyous if it works is about you know,
(13:21):
young man in his twenties. It's almost like a catcher
in the rye set up, you know, background of substance abuse,
the idea of anger which I want to get on,
and he sort of gets onto, you know, sort of
the middle path under the guidance of bootist age.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Yees.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Now, how because a lot of people see this kind
of stuff with the meditation and all that as not
relevant to a modern life, how do you respond to that?
Speaker 4 (13:56):
That's that's a really big question. You know, I could
make that huge.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Taking anywhere you want. I did. I didn't want to
bias the answer.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah, but and but feel free to kind of interrupt
if I'm going off someplace that doesn't feel relevant to
what you're really trying to get to. But one thing
to understand about meditation is that meditation literally is a
method to familiarize your mind to something. Okay, it could
be you know, meditation is maybe you're studying for an
(14:30):
exam and you're you're really rehearsing that. You know, that's
a form of meditation. There's they have analytical meditation where
you're maybe presented with a topic such as impermanence, which
is a big one in Buddhism, or the faults of anger,
or because you mentioned anger, there's so many things that
(14:53):
you then can meditate on those in an analytical way.
And then you have the comma biding where our kind
of meditation, which is perhaps like focusing on your breath
and just trying to bring your attention to only your breath.
But we can even take those things that we've been
analyzing and analytical meditation. Once we've really done that, we
(15:18):
can then settle into a more focused meditation on that,
and that becomes our rehearsal sort of for what we
deal with in life. But something I want to say
about this, what are we familiarizing our minds too? If
we think about the number of thoughts we think and
(15:41):
every day, you know, even if it's a thought per
second something like fifty seven thousand and six hundred, If
we sleep eight hours a night, we have that many
week seconds to where we have thoughts. And there have
been some studies that say somewhere around eighty to ninety
percent of the thoughts we think are repeated daily. So
(16:04):
those are our own very unconscious meditations that we're rehearsing
and deepening. And you know, I think of it like,
you know, if you were to roll a wheel back
and forth over the dirt, it just gets deeper and
deeper and deeper where you don't even need to steer
that wheel any longer.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
It just goes to a groove.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, So meditation is a really helpful way of what
we call training the mind, cultivating awareness of what is
happening in the mind and learning how to understand what
that is. And with that understanding where it needs to
be tweaked, we can then do that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, And that's where the joyous effort comes in, right,
because it is a really interesting concept that I wish
more people focused on. We hear about, you know, all
the stuff that ended up in starf Wars, attachments and
avoiding hate and all that stuff. But the idea of
effort as something that can bring joy, I think that
(17:10):
is one of those unconscious meditations. It's hard. Everything's hard.
I'm so tired, you know. And if you focus on that,
that's the first thing that comes to mind whenever you
start a task. But when you go this is going
to be good for me, and I'm going to learn
something and it's going to be interesting, it's much easier
(17:34):
to take the first step into change. Right. And the
thing about that groove that you were talking about is
the deeper that groove gets, the harder getting out of.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
It is, Which is what I hope I'm presenting in
my books, is that Buddhist view is so rich. It's
really a philosophical view, and when we can start to
open our mind to another way of seeing things, you
know that that is not like woo woo out in
(18:04):
the cloud someplace, but observable realities that we can we
can relate to that we can it's logical and grounded.
We then can kind of give ourselves some support to
help us shift out of that groove. And the joyous
effort I think too is when we, as you were saying,
(18:27):
when we understand the value of something, When we understand
the benefit of something, then we're excited to do whatever
it is, even if it is hard work. But I
think we have resistance to things. You know, it's worth
checking into what are what am I resisting when like
you just can't push yourself into doing something and coming
(18:49):
to an understanding of what that is. And not in
all cases, but sometimes I wonder, I wonder what you
would think about this is when we're doing things that
are out of alignment with what are like our deep values,
then then we're not going to be joyfully. There's going
(19:09):
to be a lot of inner conflict and angst and
resentment and all those other things that snarl up and
can stand in our way too.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, then it becomes outcomes driven and you can't control those.
And that's I mean, that's the suffering part, right that
if you set your goals based on I say, healthy
goals are based on things you can control all the
time on this show, it's because if you set like
I'm going to act in accordance with my values, I
am going to feed myself positive statements, not diluted statements,
(19:42):
just positive things based on fact I can say this
is what I can do, instead of focusing on what
I can't. That is very different because no matter what
you do, if you're living in you know, if you're
living in alignment with your values, then no matter what
the outcome, you can well, I was true to myself, right,
And that's an outcome in itself. And in dealing with
(20:05):
addiction in the book Addicts, that's that's the core of it, right,
is there's something so painful that they're numbing. They can't
feel their feelings, they can't process their emotions. Everything's out
of alignment. And it's not about the substance. The substance
is the symptom a lot of the time of what's
(20:28):
really going on underneath. Is that why you chose to
focus on substance abuse and anger for Troy, the main
character in your book.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
The I think the substance abuse was just part of
and it's more in his past than it is in
the present, you know, of when the story pickup.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, because the story picks up in in in like
in medius rays, so to speak. Yeah, already in progress.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yeah, but you know the sort of in his reflection,
we understand that he's not having a good time. When
you once you're addicted, you're not You're not partying and
having a great time. You're suffering. And that addiction is
that that craving, all of that is just.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
You're not happy in that state, from what I have
observed or understand and seen firsthand.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
So I feel that we all have various different addictions.
Some of them are more destructive than others.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And people kind of get addicted to concepts. They can
get addicted to an identity, a piece of their identity, right,
and those can really be the you know, I'm a
bad person, I'm worthless, i am not going to amount
to anything. These are things that aren't helpful and we
don't have to think them, and yet a lot of
(22:01):
people do that's so true.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
And that's you're right, and that's tragic.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, yeah, And you hear it a lot, you know,
it's it's sort of the underpinning of modern discourse. You
hear the words worthless, rotten, no good, disaster, and just
hearing them, you feel like you've taken a bit of
a hit.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Absolutely, absolutely, And I think that's one of the things
I mean, as I mentioned a little bit ago, impermanence
is one of the things that we learned to focus
on early on when we first start to study any
of this Buddhist and probably other traditions too. This just
happens to be the one that I know. But because
(22:43):
of impermanence, we have the capacity to change all that.
And that's I think a really helpful. Like when you're
down in that down place, that pit, it's a kind
of like one of those rescue ladders. It says, wait
a second, nothing is permanent, this is not my destiny.
(23:03):
And with some wisdom and some compassion, you know, compassion
for yourself and your own suffering and just it all
gives you a little space, even if it's small steps,
but a little space to experience that potential for change.
Act become actualized. And that's what this main character, Troy.
(23:25):
We get to see him go through these changes where
he goes from just being in a lot of pain
and grief to coming to some peace.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
You anticipated my next question, and I want to go
to break because there is like the death and grieving
and literal and when you mentioned in permanence, I thought
that was sort of a good place because that's that's
where a lot of people, first, I think, encounter the
idea that everything is temporary, nothing is permanent. We lose people, right.
So we're going to be after the Break, coming back
(23:59):
talking about Reef and Joyous Effort with author Janet Italy,
author of How Joyous Effort Works. She's also a student
of Buddhist dharma, as you can tell by the interview.
We'll be back more with Janet after this. And it's
not therapy.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in this therapy. I'm still Ana Kurzner. I'm still not
a therapist for talking.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
But Buddhist stuff, and I'm not an expert, of course,
but I have author Janet Italy, who is a student
of Buddhist dharma, and before the break we were talking
about her book How Joyous Effort Works and how Joyous
Effort applies to facing change.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And before the break, Janet, we were talking about impermanence
and a key theme of your novel, the loss of
the main character's uncle and him dealing with that, and
the idea of impermanence. This is how I first sort
of became aware of it. The first time you lose
(25:21):
somebody like that, it's it's the hardest, you know, especially
when you're young, and it's terrifying for somebody to be
there and no longer be there anymore. And we can
tell ourselves all the stories we want that death of
a loved one is one of those impermanent things where
we really have no choice but to let go or
(25:41):
be miserable. So how does the book, how does your
practice approach that very real you know, exclamation point on life.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Okay again, they're like I've got like swans flying through
my head right now, I'd say, first in the in
the first book and in the second book. So I've
written these books in such a way that they can
be read in any order, because I weave the backstory
of each book into the subsequent ones. But we learned
(26:12):
that Troy, while he was away at college and while
he was you know, dealing with all kinds of things,
his very closest friend from home was killed. That was
the grief that was his close friend, and that was
one of his rocks in his young life, and that
is what triggered him off into just you know, not
(26:34):
going to classes, just drinking horrifically, getting into a lot
of fights. And by the time in this fourth book
when he's lost his uncle, he's actually met and been
helped very much by three different teachers that he meets
in each of the previous books. And one of the
things we one of the reasons we focus or think
(26:58):
about in Permanent is also to understand the impermanence of
our own lives. And by doing that, not in a
morbid way to say, oh my god, I'm going to die,
what's the point. Not like that. It's more like, of
course I've born. I've been born, so of course I'm
going to die. We don't know when our shelf life
(27:20):
is going to be there, and so we use that
as an inspiration to make the best use we can
of this life. So there's the joyful effort too, of
recognizing the value we have of being alive and the
potential to do good things for others to do, you know,
(27:43):
live a good life. And I think that in this
fourth book on how Joyous Separate works. With his uncle's passing,
he was an elderly man. So while it's a grief
and it's it's a sadness, it's not an unexpected right
us where the death of his close friend was and
(28:05):
young loss. And you're right, do you just it takes time.
And I don't want to pretend to say that, well,
if you understand impermanence, you won't feel grief. I mean,
that's just.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Not FeAs No, I would argue the opposite that understanding
impermanence means I'm not going to feel this way forever.
So it's okay to take a moment and feel this
way now. I'm not going to get stuck in it.
I'm not going to lost in it. I'm not going
to drown. I feel this way now. There will be
a time I don't yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think
a lot of people are afraid to stop and feel
(28:43):
negative emotions. And I mean this is something that people
find the concept of dharma which is really poorly understood.
People confuse it with karma. Right, But how does that apply?
Like when you say you're a student of Buddhist dharma,
how do to that study bring you here dealing with
(29:05):
like you're kind of straddling two worlds, right, this very esoteric,
very abstract, you know, the theory of everything, the paramotmon
and then very contemporary story in the West.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
That is such a good question really because that's sort
of where in this book, Truy, the main character, his
thing is like can I do this? I want to
have a regular, ordinary life. I want to He has
this girlfriend that he's crazy about and hopes that he
can build a life with her. He needs to have
(29:39):
a career, he realizes, and what is he going to do?
And can you balance all of that with this deep
spiritual practice?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
And how can I do that? And and that is
something that the sage character that he meets in this
book helps him to sort of to figure out. And
it is it's like anything I have two sons who
(30:09):
go into you know, they have their work, they have
their family, and they go through these different phases. You know,
one year it was golf. They were golfing all the time,
and that takes up a huge amount of time and money.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, money, And now you.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Know, lately it's weightlifting, you know, so oh, you know,
you know, whatever it is, they do full throttle. And
and I think that people find a way to build
these things into their lives. And what I have found
in my own experience is the things that I've learned
(30:44):
don't just stay in a little compartment on a bookshelf.
Because I've learned them, and because I've been reflecting and
trying to implement what I've learned in my life, I
have the experience of having experienced more peace when things happen.
(31:06):
I'm not rocked quite like I had been prior in
years ago.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Right, And it.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
Is something that it's not easy, Like if I have
a practice and if I were to go away traveling,
it's that's part of the question, is like, oh, wow,
am I going to you know, people are going to
think I'm a nut if I'm like, excuse me, I
have to go do a meditation practice or something. So
it's something you you find a way to build into
(31:33):
your day.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, and these these older belief systems, I mean, it's
your life goes through Tristan turns. And if you stay
true to your your core values, your beliefs, you it'll
be okay no matter what happens. That's what I think.
Tell me, tell me if you agree or don't these
(31:56):
thousands and thousands of year old concepts do right. You
don't have to worry about outcomes as long as you're
sticking to what you know is I don't know if
right is even the word righteousness is loaded.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, you know. I I think it's interesting you mentioned
how many thousands of years old these teachings are, and
yet human nature has been pretty consistent. And yes, teach
still apply. And in this how joy is Supper works.
(32:35):
There's a point in the story where Jules, who's the
sage character, is talking to him to Troy about these
teachings being like like the old day's celestial navigation. M hm,
they they you can read their reliable guidance.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Everything else breaks, that still works. Yeah, it don't end
to plug in to navigate via the stars.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah, I don't do't worry I have the satellite going
down or anything like that. Those stars are there and
you can use them no matter where you are and
in what circumstances you can draw from them.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But it doesn't give you everything either, does it. I mean,
you do have to learn to trust whatever you want
to call it, the divine spark, the inner voice, anything,
to get through this tough stuff. Right, there has to
be a certain belief that one it matters, because you
can't motivate if it doesn't. But two also, there's a
(33:35):
point or a purpose to all of it. And I
think that contemporary life, with all our distractions and all
of these this morality and weight we put on the
tiniest little purchase at a convenience store, like oh, that
has moral weight, right, It takes us away from from this,
(33:58):
from the joyous effort. Right, it's just effort. It's misery.
It's not there's nothing joyous about worrying about, you know,
the social circumstance about who picked your coffee beans. At
some point you do have to go like, look, I'm
just doing my best.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Right, absolutely, yeah, So how how do you mix this?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
You know, these these traditional teachings that obviously come from
both a more complex and simpler time because we didn't
know as much scientifically, but some argue we had less
to worry about as well. How do you mix that
idea that living a good and purposeful life in accordance
(34:42):
with deep values and the word deep is pointed there
with the complexities of everything.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Now, well, I want to again every question you've asked me,
I have like five answers flying around in my head
at the same time as you're asking. But so, first
of all, in these these teachings, the dharma, it's it's
never something that you're supposed to take on and say, oh,
because it says this, I must do it. It's because
(35:17):
it says is. Let me think about it and see
if this applies. See if this is grounded, Does this
make sense? Is this true? Test it out? You know.
So that's one thing. And you talk about not having
the scientific knowledge. Even so twenty five hundred years ago,
these Buddhist sages or whatever you want to call them,
(35:41):
they understood that everything was like they understood that everything
was made up of these small little particles.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah yeah, and that.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Nothing is inherently existent and based on nothing being inherently
existent and everything being impermanent, we then know there's nothing
to be attached to, that's anything that's substantially there to
be attached to, And as we remind ourselves of that,
(36:13):
then we can that can soften some of that grasping.
We tend to do onto, like you said earlier, whether
it's a right you know, being right about something, or
that this is a destination I must achieve, or this
person must never die or this relationship can't ever change,
you know, So we learn to realize the absurdity of
(36:34):
expecting something that is impossible to.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Right with that right right, and that that's I think
a really common misconception about Buddhism and the you know,
the thing about a waiting attachment. It's not that you
don't care about people. You care about people very very
very deeply, but you can't hold on to something that
doesn't want to be held on too.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
My distinction is there's afference between attachment and devotion. If
you're devoted your porn, your love is an outpouring of love.
Attachment is like I need you, you know, I need
you to always be there, I need you to always
love me, I need you to whatever it is it's
a bit more about you than it is about the
(37:19):
other person or feature or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
We'd call it, in a lot of circles of codependence. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's funny because attachment has entered popular culture through
Star Wars, through anime and all that stuff, and yet
because it's so personal, it's really hard to explain it.
You know, when you've got a healthy devotion to something
(37:46):
as opposed to an unhealthy attachment to it. Sort Of,
once you hit that wisdom, it's easy to keep, but
getting there takes a lot of effort.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
It takes a lot of openness.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Okay, Now, what's the distinction between effort and openness.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Well, openness is pretty easy. You just kind of allow
yourself to think about something.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's the hardest thing in the world. For some people, though,
because every thought that pops in their head they judge,
you know, like, I've had this thought, Oh, I shouldn't
think that that's bad? Why did I think that? Does
that mean something about me? Like they get they get
tangled up in it. Instead of just having the thought,
acknowledging the thought, let the thought pass.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Okay, So there's that openness to I guess at some
point one has to be open to when you're suffering.
Is like, when you're miserable enough, you're going to say,
I'd like to change this, I'd like this mirror has
to be different. And then I think that that that
(38:55):
in itself is a little opening to like I need
I need help here. And it's it's as simple as, like,
you know, realizing that that reflection you see in the
mirror isn't the person, right, So and so I'm using
(39:16):
that as an example of like, so many of the
things that we get fixated on are things that we
have concretized in our own minds as being something that
lack that substantial quality.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Right now, you do coaching as well as a whole
bunch of other things. As a coach. If somebody came
to you deep in self judgment, deep in other judgment,
deep in in suffering, in misery, what would be the
first thing you did with them to take that step
(39:51):
into just misery into joyous effort.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
You know, that's a big question, and sort of in
a broad sense, I don't know that it's a one
size fits all for everyone.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Let me let me give you an example, because the
whole thing about image, right, there's an increasing group of
young men who think, oh, if I don't look like
you know four from the movies, women aren't gonna like me,
and I have to have, you know, muscles and a
lot of money and all that stuff. Now we know
that's not true, but they believe it. They are attached
(40:28):
to that fallacy. How do you open a person like
that up to another story?
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Well, I don't know. But the first question that comes
to my mind when I hear you present that is
to ask, well, how does that serve you?
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Mm hmm?
Speaker 4 (40:48):
I mean. And the coaching process is of questioning because
when coaching, you really the person is the expert in
their own life life and you're. My job as the
coach is to ask questions to help them sort of
(41:08):
get to their own answers. And I can share, you know,
bits and pieces of things like I'm sharing with you,
depending on everyone's openness. Not everybody wants to hear about Buddhism, right,
But to the degree that someone is open and receptive,
I can present some of these ideas that aren't aren't
about religion, right, They really aren't, you know, in.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Well, there's no deity in Buddhism, there's no god.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
There's no creator God. Right, there's no creator God. In Buddhism,
they do have, especially when you get into the Tibetan Buddhism,
there's like deities like.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
All over the place. Yeah, but I mean it's very
clear you're a deep thinker and we've just gotten into
this discussion. And that's why your books exist, right, that's
why you're here. If you guys like what Janet had
to say, check out How Joyous Effort Works is her
fourth book. So Janet, can people just go to your
(42:10):
website janetetaly dot com and find out. Yeah, it's how
generosity works, how patients work. So it's each of the
four perfections, and it's six perfections. They can start at
the first one and just sort of work through.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
They could actually if I did my job well, if
I succeeded in writing them so that the backstory is
woven into all the other books, they could pick up
with any book they wanted. But if they wanted to
start from the beginning, Yes, how Generosity works is first,
they're short reads. They're small books. There, I would say
(42:43):
they're quick reads. But from what I'm feedback I get
from people is people like to reread them. They like
to underline things.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Oh yeah, I was going back the quotes and like
taking a moment and sitting with it. It's like, wow,
that's profound it. I really did feel the need to
slow down and really read it instead of skim it.
Jenet etily dot com etaly is spelled e t t
E l E so et te lu to those of
(43:10):
those Canadians of the Quebec Qua. Jenet, thanks so much
for coming on. It's not therapy and sharing sort of
your journey and your personal perspective.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Well, thank you so much. I'm loving your program or
your podcast. I should say, you can tell how old
I am. I call it a program.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Well, it is on the radio too, so I catch
myself saying broadcast like nope, nope, nope, it's streaming.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Now, yeah, whatever, whatever the medium is. I'm really grateful
for what you're doing. I think it's great work and
you're you do a fabulous job. So it's lovely to
meet you. And thanks for the great conversation and wonderful questions.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Really, thank you all right when we come back, final
thoughts on how you can weave joyous effort into your life.
It's not, as jen said, it's not woo oo, it's
every little day things. What is this doing for you?
Back after this on It's Not Therapy, Question comments, concerns.
Leanna at not Therapyshow dot com. Not Therapy Show dot
(44:11):
com is the website at not Therapy Show. Is our
socials Back after the break with more Joyous Effort on
It's Not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot caa.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back
in It's Not Therapy. I'm still Leanna Kurzner. I'm still
not a therapist. We're still talking joyous effort. And Janet
(44:50):
Etily was on the show before last two segments to
talk about her perspective as a student of Buddhist dharma
and author, and she's read a bunch of novels and
we talked about thoughts connected to effort. And I want
to circle back around on that because there's a lot
(45:12):
of reasons to not do things, to not try to,
you know, hide away people live in fear of cancelation. Right,
people complain about men being dangerous and women being manipulative, controlling,
and cruel. So dating is terrifying and miserable, and the
deck is stacked against us. And these are all excellent
(45:33):
excuses to not start. And you don't need excuses. Just
don't socialize, just don't date. Our cultural attitudes towards human connection,
romantic or otherwise aren't right right now, okay, But you
know you don't have to explain why you don't want
to socialize. You also don't have to explain wanting to
be treated well, and you don't have to make up
(45:56):
new words for lonely men or even men who mistreat women.
And I'm so sick of this word in cell getting
thrown everywhere. Netflix shows, It's all over it, even the
latest episode of Doctor who dropped the word in cell
and the idea that it's involuntary real talk. Okay, they
(46:21):
would rather talk about women like especially ugly cattle, than
do the required things to get a woman to like
them enough to want to be with them, to consent
to sex. These are a series of voluntary choices. There's
nothing involuntary about it, but you know, throwing the word
(46:41):
in cell around to just anybody you don't like it,
that too is a choice. All right. It's a cruel
term with shifting meaning designed to belittle. It doesn't even
mean literally what people mean. A part of joyful effort
is thinking deliberately and precisely, and then speaking deliberately and precisely.
(47:10):
And if we deny ourselves these cheap insults, these various
derogatory terms towards men, towards women, racial slurs, right, we
can more precisely confront and communicate our issues with a
given person, with a given place, with a given activity. Right.
(47:33):
Because part of the problem, part of the reason you're
unhappy if you're doing stuff like this, is you're picking
these petty fights and these things really don't matter. Okay,
try this instead, say openly that you like something, Oh,
I really like it, And notice how the people around
(47:53):
you respond. Do they join your happiness, do they ask
questions about why you like it even and if they don't,
or do they leap to criticize Because criticism is a
low effort activity. It's so easy to criticize. So people
who praise instead, that is joyful effort. And I am
(48:16):
out of time, questions, comments, concerns Leanna at not Therapyshow
dot com, Not therapyshow dot com. At not Therapy Show,
if you want to send me feedback, You're crazy. Is
only a problem if it's hurting you. Talk next time.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot CA.
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