Effortless Action

Are you tired? Do you find that your life is a constant struggle? Life can be so much easier when we take the time to listen to our hearts and move in the direction of effortless action. By flowing with life and doing things daily that bring us joy and peace, we will find that life can be a wonderful adventure.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Are you tired?

I think a lot of people are tired right now.

When I was a youth,

I used to visit my cousins who lived up in Minnesota.

And they lived by a river.

And in the summer,

We'd go tubing down the river.

This would entail getting an inner tube that you could either rent or bring with you.

They were very comfortable.

And you'd just lie in the inner tube,

Relax,

And float down the river.

It was enjoyable.

It was relaxing.

And it was just a very pleasant experience of life.

You didn't have to worry very much about which way to go.

The river would just take you.

Once in a while you might get close to the edge or a branch.

You'd have to push yourself away.

But mostly,

The river would just carry you,

Floating down the river for sometimes hours.

And there would be a ride at the end that would take us back to our car and we'd go home.

It was such a relaxing,

Beautiful experience.

Even when the rapids came,

It was still enjoyable.

It was fun.

It was like,

Wow,

This is thrilling.

You knew you were safe.

You knew the river would take you where you needed to go.

And you'd just flow through the rapids,

Even with the bumps and bounces that were coming.

But I also remember this.

Sometimes we'd get separated from each other.

And I'd have to jump out of my inner tube and swim upstream against the current because my cousins and my family weren't beside me anymore.

And I remember the times I had to do that were exhausting.

It had been such a relaxing,

Peaceful day flowing with the river.

But when I had to swim against the river,

It was really hard.

Though I could do it,

Of course,

Because I was younger,

It was exhausting.

And I would get back into the inner tube and say,

Oh my,

I'm tired.

And I'd be very glad to start floating again with my family.

So again,

May I ask,

Are you tired?

You might be tired because you're fighting or swimming against life.

And when we swim against life,

We get tired.

We get exhausted.

The river is truly a beautiful metaphor of life.

Because our goal in life is to achieve effortless action.

We do want things to happen.

That's the action part.

But the effortless part is doing things that we just flow with.

It's like flowing down the river.

I was moving somewhere when I was on that inner tube.

I was moving down the river.

I was going somewhere.

I had a direction.

There were bumps along the way,

But they were more fun.

They were enjoyable.

There were things I just rode out.

And a few times that I had to get out and swim against the river was when I was not engaging in effortless action.

I was engaged in effort that caused a lot of action.

And it was exhausting.

And I was tired.

We are like that.

We have the ability to flow with life.

We have the choice to go against life.

If we go against life,

We are going to get tired.

But what does it mean to go against life?

To not engage in effortless action?

Let me use an example.

Let's say two people finish high school.

And they're trying to think about what they're going to do with their life.

One person says,

Well,

I want to make a lot of money.

That's important to me.

People will respect me.

I'll be looked up to.

I'll get honors.

I'll get to buy a lot of cool things.

I'll get to do some amazing things.

So I'm going to get a job and go to business school and make a lot of money.

Even though I may not be that interested in spending hours and hours,

Perhaps 50 to 100 hours a week,

Making that money so that I can have the freedom that all this money is going to bring me and all the prestige.

But I'm going to do that.

And so I do that and I work.

I work really hard.

And I do amass a lot of money.

And now I'm tired because I'm constantly going against what are my pleasures of life.

I'm putting off gratification,

Delayed gratification,

And I'm looking for others to make me feel good through their appreciation of what I've achieved.

I'm definitely not flowing with life because the business that I'm doing,

I'm not very interested in.

It pays well,

But I don't necessarily like it.

It just pays really well and that's why I'm doing it.

So I turn to drink to numb myself.

I have affairs because I find that life is meaningless.

And overall I'm miserable because I don't even get to spend time with my children even though I've amassed a lot of money.

So this person is so focused on that specific goal of amassing a lot of money and all that would come with that.

That they don't think about the cost it will have on their soul or how exhausted they're going to be fighting against the currents of life.

The currents of life say,

Hey,

I actually want to be a musician,

But what I'm doing is being a business owner.

And I'm exhausted.

I'm tired.

And even if I was a musician,

I don't want to work 80 to 100 hours a week.

I like playing an instrument maybe 20,

30 hours a week and then have free time to spend time with friends and relax.

So even that part,

I'm going against the river.

I'm fighting life because I'm putting so much hours into something that I don't even like.

Now let's take a second person who graduates from high school.

And let's say this person says,

Well,

What do I like?

And they spend time looking at their hearts and saying,

What brings me joy?

What can I think about doing that would go well with who I am,

Fit my personality,

And I would find pleasure in it and would not be exhausted at the end of the day because it really flows well with who I am?

Well,

Let me think.

Again,

This person is thinking about what they're going to do.

And they think,

Well,

I do like people.

I'm more of an extrovert than an introvert.

And I really enjoy helping people that are struggling,

Struggling with life.

So I'm going to go to school and be a social worker.

I'm not going to think about how much money I'm going to make because if I'm happy,

It's not going to matter that much.

And then I'm going to think,

Well,

What do I want to do with this social work degree?

Well,

There's a lot of single parents out there,

Moms and dads,

That it's hard for them because they're making it on their own.

I could help them.

I could help find them housing.

I could help find them food stamps.

There's a lot of things I could do to make their lives a lot better.

And I would enjoy that because I get to meet these wonderful people,

Improve their lives,

And then at the end of the day,

I will say,

Wow,

That was a good day.

I enjoyed that.

And perhaps because I don't get paid as much,

I have to live at home for a little bit longer,

Maybe into my 30s,

To save up for a down payment for my condo.

Or maybe I have to live with a friend and share a room,

But I get to be with them and enjoy them.

And we come home at night and cook meals together and laugh and play and enjoy life.

Yeah,

People aren't as impressed with what I do,

But I love what I do because I'm flowing with who I am and flowing with my desires.

I'm just letting what works with my heart to go better.

Now,

What this person did is they listened.

They explored.

They spent time observing what brings me joy.

What do I do that puts happiness in my heart?

The only way we can find that out is by listening.

If we're constantly going,

Being so active that we never stop and listen,

Then we're not going to know what's good for us.

We're just going to think about the end results.

And then that is not going to be effortless action.

Effortless action is a lot about listening.

Listening of what works for our hearts and then flowing with that,

Choosing that path.

The road that is much easier to go down is one that doesn't require so much effort.

And when we do it,

We're not tired afterwards.

Or we're not needing to numb ourselves afterwards because we're so exhausted by what we do.

How many of us know the weekend warrior that truly hates his or her work and can't wait for the weekend to get totally plastered so they don't have to think about it for 24 or 48 hours?

That is not effortless action.

That is an addiction.

That is numbing.

So if you're coming home every day needing to smoke pot or have a few glasses of wine or doing something to alter your mood,

You're not engaging in effortless action.

You're engaged in an addiction that's causing you to numb because you're so exhausted.

Now I know at this point of listening to this talk,

Your life may be very complicated.

And there may be a lot of moving factors that make it difficult to make changes.

You may have a family to support.

You may have bills to pay.

You may have debt that you're responsible for.

But at the same time,

We can begin to make small changes.

And the way we know which direction to make these changes,

Which is the path of effortless action,

Is by listening.

We listen to our hearts because our hearts will speak to us when we don't numb them,

When we're quiet.

They speak to us and they say,

Do more of this.

Go in that direction.

You will actually be amazed at how clear and obvious what you need to do to become more happy,

To live more of an effortless action type life is when you listen.

It's very clear what to do.

When someone comes to me,

I can always in one session know which directions they need to head,

What they need to stop doing and what they need to start doing.

Because I listen.

I help them listen to themselves.

And it's like that in life.

When we're just going,

Going,

Going,

Constantly fighting the river of life,

We will be exhausted,

We'll be tired.

We're going to need to numb ourselves because it will be just too much.

And when we're numb,

That inner voice telling us,

Directing us,

Will become silent.

It never dies,

But it will become silent.

The way we begin to know which is the way of effortless action in my life each and every day is by listening.

And the heart will loudly speak,

Go this way,

Follow this route.

And we begin to do that.

We begin to make small changes that turn into big changes.

It's hard to make big changes at first.

It's true.

But with time,

We'll find that if we follow the path of effortless action,

Where we're flowing with the river of our lives,

We won't be tired.

We won't get exhausted.

And we'll be able to do what we do for decades.

I have been doing what I've been doing as a clinical psychologist for decades.

I love what I do.

But I listen to my heart and I make sure that every day,

Throughout the day,

I check in and say,

Are we on the right path?

Are we flowing with life?

Do we need to make subtle adjustments?

That takes time.

That takes effort.

And that is really challenging these days because there are so many distractions in life.

How often do we check our phone?

How often do we,

The second there's silence,

Change that?

How seldom do we go to nature and just sit and be still?

How often are we meditating during the day?

When we don't do these things,

We struggle.

When we listen,

We flow with life.

Effortless action becomes a way of life.

And that way of life is beautiful.

So the tiredness that we feel in our hearts will begin to dissipate.

The exhaustion,

The wear and tear of life will begin to go away.

And we can just lie back,

Relax and flow with life.

We can do this,

But we have to stop fighting life.

We have to flow with life.

And flowing with life isn't going against life.

It's flowing with what's good for our hearts,

Which brings us joy so at the end of the day,

When we do what we did,

We say,

Thank you.

That was a good day.

Thank you.

And that's through effortless action.

Again,

It is work and a lot of things are going to have to change our life if we're choosing this path.

But it is a good path and one that we're very capable of doing.

And the only thing,

The only person that can keep us from it is ourselves.

And once we realize that we're free,

There may be a lot of changes we have to make,

But now we're free because we know we can go down the path of effortless action throughout our lives.

And each day we wake up and each night we go to bed.

We will not be exhausted.

We will say that was a good day.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Excellent! Good advice. Thank you.

Excellent! You always give good, healthy, common sense advice that help guide anyone in their life regardless of situation, finances or problems. 😊😊💕 Thank you for all your talks & your podcast!!

Outstanding Doc! You are speaking directly to me on this one. I am a little long in the tooth but what you describe is a testament of how I lived my early life. Really always living what someone else thought I should. Not what I really wanted. I passed on what really spoke to me for a career with more money. Luckily I managed to avoid those addictive behaviors you spoke of but nonetheless I took a path that I really didn’t want to. Many things have turned out fine. I’ve been a fortunate man, but now, I yearn for the effortless action as I finish out my life. Thank you 🙏

This really resonates with me, thank you!

🙏 thank you