​Last week, Modern Stoicism published my guest post on Stoic Parenting in the Age of Distraction. If you haven't seen it, please check it out. If you already have, thanks!  

The post is my take on staying focused on what really matters - as parents, modern Stoics, and technology users. It's not an easy task in our world filled with distracting devices and competing demands.

My story begins with my dad, who had remarkable powers of concentration. I find it much more difficult than he did, but every day is an opportunity to practice. I try to squeeze in dedicated periods of concentration. The more I remind myself to be present, the more I'm able to focus on the people and projects I truly care about. 

In case you are not familiar with it, Modern Stoicism is an excellent source on applying Stoic philosophy to our lives today. Writers for the blog explore a wide range of interpretations of Stoic thought. The group also organizes the annual Stoicon conference and Stoic Week. 

 “Those whose bodies are in good condition can endure both heat and cold; and so, likewise, those whose souls are in fine condition can endure anger, and grief, and every other emotion.” – Epictetus (Fragments, 20, Robin Hard translation)
 
My husband took part in an event that put runners through extreme challenges and obstacles—including climbing walls, rolling barriers floating in pools, and electrified wires dangling down through your path. You work with others to overcome everything the course throws at you to reach the finish line. And in this case, you run through lots of mud along the way. 
 
Though I didn’t participate, I applauded him. Both my husband and I have tried to get into better shape physically in the past few years. He’s taken on a regular training routine at a gym. Though my athletic activity is less regular, I’ve worked at staying active. Training matters, as any gym-goer could tell you.
 
You’ll find tons of websites, books, and magazines devoted to physical training, and numerous regimens for how to stay physically fit are being hawked to the American public. Seems that every celebrity has her or his own workout. I recently watched Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg do her gym exercises with comedian Stephen Colbert, and I heard Tom Brady interviewed on NPR about his book on how to train and eat to be fit. 
 
What we don’t hear about in our popular culture is how to train your soul.
 
Certainly, religious institutions have much to say about it from their own particular points of view. There is great value there, but it often hinges on accepting a certain faith and a set of beliefs. That's not what everyone choses to do. 

For the large group of secular Americans, there’s a big gap in what we’re reading and hearing about on a daily basis and our souls’ well-being. 
 
In fact, much of our news and culture seems to drain rather than restore our inner resources. And even our friends are often no help, if we relate to them on social media. I’m really tired of being directed to Facebook updates that seem targeted to generate jealousy, competition, and a feeling of being left out. How to strengthen our souls? How to prepare them for life’s ups and downs? 
 
We will all have challenges, up to and including our own demise. To quote Michael Crichton, “no one escapes from life alive.”
 
I have tried a bunch of approaches, from Western to Eastern spirituality, from organized religion to mindfulness classes, from psychology study to counseling. 
 
Right now, I think the answer is Epictetus. His words can help us train for the real run, the run for our lives and our moral character. It’s not a run we can “win,” exactly. And it lasts our whole lives. 
 
In his Discourses 4.6, the Stoic thinker delves into politics versus philosophy. He is having a discussion with a student who complains that he is not respected—even pitied—by powerful men in political office. Why can’t he play an important role in politics, too? Epictetus points out all the effort that the politician has gone to in order to achieve his “success” in government. He callsmout the attention the politician has given to flattering, pleasing, and lying to get ahead with others. 
 
Those who care about their souls have a different approach, he says. The follower of philosophy should ask herself upon waking up, 
 
"What have I still to do to achieve freedom from passion? To achieve peace of mind? Who am I? Surely not a mere body? Or possessions, or reputation? None of these things. But what? I’m a rational living being."
 
From there, her daily training begins. She questions herself further, “’Where have I gone wrong’ with regard to achieving happiness? ‘What did I do’ that was unfriendly, or unsociable, or inconsiderate? ‘What have I not done that I should do’…?”(Discourses 4.6.34 – 35, Robin Hard translation)
 
The very act of asking these questions of ourselves is a way to keep ourselves nimble in our ethical lives. Self-reflection creates the right circumstances for improving how we treat other people and ourselves. 
 
Stoic exercises can also help us cope with the many sad things we’ll be confronted with in our daily lives. In my study of Buddhism, I’ve encountered the idea that life is suffering. There is truth there.
 
As Stoics, we can strengthen ourselves by training our inner rational being to prepare for the tough times. 
 
We can train by imagining being strong facing difficulty. We can picture looking down, as if from above, on our lives. We can try to keep a broad perspective on each little moment, knowing it is one of many moments lived by many individuals across many lands.
 
And every day, we can question our own thoughts, knowing that these “impressions” so often lead us down the wrong path. That is true all around us, both for our unavoidable difficulties and for our personal challenges. If everyone just relied on their first impressions of the Spartan-style run’s course, the place would be a ghost town. Instead, people ask themselves, “How could I train to do this? What skills would I need? Why shouldn’t I crawl through mud to get that cool T-shirt (and to know I have achieved finishing this thing)?” 
 
I personally would still avoid the mud. But I won’t shirk from working on my inner “genius”—as the ancients called it.
 
And ultimately, I will keep on striving to do my best to represent courage and wisdom, and to privilege that rational part of myself. I know I won’t always succeed and will stumble. But that’s not the point. I’ll still keep running. 

​My daughter made a brave choice a couple weeks ago. She deleted Instagram from her phone. 
 
The intelligence of her decision was brought home just a few days later. Police showed up at her middle school class one afternoon to interview students about—you guessed it—their use of Facebook-owned Instagram. Someone spoofing one girl’s account had been asking for nude pictures of 12-year-olds and using them to blackmail students. Police are trying to track down who did it and what they gathered.
 
My daughter had already decided to remove the app not out of fear, but because of its impact on her moment-to-moment thoughts. Despite the fun of keeping up with her friends’ activities, it was becoming a constant distraction.
 
Her phone was clogged with buzzing reminders and flashing updates featuring all the things she was missing. She also had an unwelcome conflict with a friend. The seventh-grader called out my daughter and a classmate in an Instagram “story”—replete with shaming words. 
 
That’s not to say that communicating online is all bad—it’s central to our lives in good ways, too. For middle schoolers today, reaching each other using mobile devices is part of the social fabric. It’s how they make plans and share memories. I wouldn’t want to deny that to my children.
 
But they do need to learn to set limits. Ultimately, it’s up to them to figure out those boundaries, which is why my daughter’s choice to end a social media distraction made me proud.
 
We are all tasked with serving as our own gatekeepers—and the stakes are high. Recall Marcus Aurelius’ words in the Meditations:
 
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.
 
Online, we are exposed to masses of “thoughts” that can shift our minds. It turns out that many of these expressions are not even real: they are propaganda distributed by people trying to shift public opinion.
 
The news about Cambridge Analytica misusing Facebook data and the indictments surrounding fake news and profiles on the social network have been extremely troubling. It’s been a problem for a long time that’s only now being increasingly exposed. We are seeing the consequences of an online world where people can stay anonymous, create false personas, and wield tremendous influence.
 
As we navigate the treacherous waters of the Internet, we should remain mindful of our souls—and I’m glad my 12-year-old sets a pretty good example.

Never in history have humans lived in a time of more plenty. In modern America, we are surrounded by food, drink, entertainment (of the wholesome and non-wholesome varieties), drugs (legal and not), and much more.

The great good fortune of being born in a well-off country in a prosperous time has a dark side, though, as people indulge in and even become addicted to the things that in small doses give them pleasure. It takes a strong effort every day to resist, and to stay on course with a Stoic-inspired  life where reason prevails (rather than our unthinking desires).
 
In this world, sometimes even the smallest things seem destined to be my undoing, especially when I’m out and about in the suburbs with my two tween daughters.
 
Latest case in point: They have become obsessed by bubble tea, that sweet concoction filled with fruit flavors and sugar, and often with milk and “pearls” or “boba” or “bubbles”—small chewy balls of tapioca or other jelly-type substances.
 
It’s a satisfying indulgence on several levels. The sweetness feeds the sweet tooth. The bubbles, nestled inside the bottom of the cup, give you something to chew on and consume. The fruit flavor brings freshness. And of course the caffeine adds a lift. My kids aren’t allowed to consume caffeine on a regular basis, but the green tea of a bubble tea seems fairly innocuous, when you think about how watered down it is with ice, water, flavor, pearls, etc.
 
We used to have just one bubble tea place nearby, Tea Era, and every time we drove past it out on errands or on our way to a class, the kids would pipe up, “Can we stop, can we stop?” I usually said no, but I did pull over now and then. The mango green tea with pearls called out to me, especially on hot days.
 
But now we have several new bubble tea establishments in my area, one of them in walking distance and the others not much farther away. And the girls’ requests to stop are much more frequent.
 
(To me, this shows that one element of addiction has to do with how often you are exposed to something, how easy it seems to get/do, and how normative it feels in that environment. That’s discussed in a book I’m reading, Adam Alter’s Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Bubble tea is now becoming completely ubiquitous in my neighborhood, at least.)
 
The latest addition to local tea offerings is Gong Cha (translated as “tribute tea for the emperor”). A chain of tea shops originating in Taiwan, Gong Cha has a tried and true way of capturing fruit flavors and infusing them into the drinks. I have to confess: it is really good.
 
My girls gave me an extra Gong Cha straw last time we went, and I just came upon it in my purse before writing this. Like Pavlov’s dog, I found my mouth watering. It’s time to turn to Stoic thought to guide my path before it’s too late.
 
How can I find new inspiration to avoid calorie bombs everywhere I turn?
 
Epictetus, in Discourses III, 12, described the need to train oneself. “Since habit has established a strong predominance… we must set a contrary habit to counteract the former… [and] employ training as an antidote.” He describes “the man who trains” as a person “who practices avoiding the use of his will to get [things].”
 
Despite the man-centric language, any of us could do this. We could experiment with ways that train our minds to go in a different direction. 
 
Training. This is a much more positive path forward than merely decrying that I lack the self-discipline to refuse delicious drinks or foods, quietly sobbing to myself. That’s what I used to do. It got me nowhere except deeper and deeper into a pit of self-pity filled with self-recrimination.
 
Instead, the Stoic advice is to find a way to train, to learn to find the strength through practice. A good lesson for me and for my kids, too. It reminds me of the growth mindset that they have been hearing about in school: we need to believe that we can all learn and grow, not that we are “fixed” in an unchanging situation.
 
Some training is in order for me to break the sweet tea habit before it becomes too strong. 

Maybe it's a good idea to try driving down alternate roads that don't remind the family of tea. I could try harder to suggest other snacks, or seek out calorie figures and comparing those to what else we eat. Maybe it's about training ourselves to try the unsweetened or less-sweet versions and to accustom our taste buds to a more balanced sugar level. And then as we watch others drink the super-sweet, milky-rich drinks, we'll recall that we are in training, and that a simpler and less indulgent version could be (almost) as satisfying. 
 
So every time I drive by a bubble tea shop, I’ll remember that it takes effort to resist, and that it is training that will allow me to harden myself. But it won’t be easy.

​The human condition. I used to think the expression was reserved for pedants and philosophers. But now I know better. It's as important to children as it is to high-thinking adults. Perhaps even more so.
 
Sometimes I feel as if I can almost watch the thoughts happening, the neurons firing, in my daughters' heads. Those thoughts are getting more and more complex. Now they are both old enough and mature enough to question everything in a very grown up way. They ask more than just what and why, but how and when and what will it feel like.
 
As we sat under the stars on our last night visiting the island of Kauai as a family, we looked up and observed an incredibly luminous Sirius shining down on us. My younger daughter, age 10, asked a very serious question. "What happens after we die? What does it feel like?"
 
This is the biggest and baddest of them all when it comes to challenging questions. Not just for children but for every last one of us. None of us will escape our fate. As soon as we our born, when we gain consciousness, we realize we will someday die. And what does that mean? Also: What does it tell us about how to live?
 
I struggled to answer. I came up with platitudes. My husband and I veered onto shaky, nearly mystical ground, trying to reassure her while at the same time dealing quietly with our own terror. It's not the first time we've been asked this. I still have no response.
 
That, my friends, is the human condition in a nutshell. Trying to calm and reassure and guide  our loved ones while feeling our own existential crisis boiling inside. Knowing that we don't know. Facing the scary uncertainty of life and the sure certainty of death.
 
She tried to get us to answer, to provide something concrete. I fumbled further.
 
In the end, I said essentially this: We know these explanations don't satisfy you, but this is this best we can do--and this is the human condition. We live, we enjoy a remarkable moment like this one surrounded by an amazing family that we have created, sitting outside at a patio table of a lovely restaurant, feeling the cool night air, under unusually bright stars and a nearly full moon, hearing the waves crashing onto the beach below us, just out of sight in the night's shadows.
 
This is what we have. All we have. And we are extremely lucky to have this. The rest is the great unknown.
 
In fact, often, the rest is us dealing with pain, loss, frustration, anger, resentment, sorrow, suffering, and not having any way to end it other than returning to the moment we have, and resting in it, taking any joy we can from it, keeping everything sad and tough and joyous and awe inspiring in our minds at the same time. 
 
Sometimes it feels as if we might explode from it all, but generally we don't. We go on. As long as we can. And then we stop. But we hope that by then, we will have left something worthwhile and indeed precious behind.
 
And for us, that thing will be you.

Do you ever feel so angry you could scream, and then suddenly realize that this feeling goes against all you believe? All you try to achieve as a person, parent, and Stoic?
 
As promised, my third installment of my conversation with Stoicism teacher and writer Donald Robertson focuses on anger. I am not the most patient of people, and I often wonder how I could avoid becoming upset too quickly and speaking out in anger, especially to my children. I also would like to do a better job of helping my kids manage their own anger (depicted here!).
 
I asked Donald: What does Stoic thinking teach us about how to cope with anger?
 
You want to begin by spotting yourself becoming angry. As a therapist, I’ve dealt with anger management. The first stage of therapy is that you have to spot it to stop it.
 
There are different levels of self-awareness. Everyone knows when someone turns red. But the hard part is noticing anger before you are truly aware of it. There are early warning signs. Earlier than normal, try to notice it. It becomes harder to control passions the longer they go on.
 
The same thing is true if you are a runner—when you’re going fast, and someone says stop, it’s hard to stop because things have escalated. But stopping when you’re walking, it isn’t as tough. That’s anger. It’s less and less voluntary the longer it continues. Catch it early, and you have more voluntary control.
 
It’s possible that you are getting annoyed, and you are not aware you are angry. One answer to that is that another person could observe you. Stoic mentors, in ancient times, would follow you and notice your responses, like Rusticus did with Marcus Aurelius. It can be more obvious to others.
 
Learn to notice internal signs like tense shoulders. Like the specific thoughts you have, such as blaming thoughts. Or maybe it’s the tone of voice I’m using, or I’m frowning – that’s mindfulness training, as well as self-monitoring and self-observation.
 
Anger is temporary madness. Evidence shows that it creates cognitive distortion. Anger narrows our scope of attention and amplifies our response. We are prone to generalization and can’t problem solve. We have ‘gone crazy and can’t think clearly.’ Awareness of other stimuli will dilute that response—so the more I notice about my body, the more I will be forced to expand scope. That way I can give my mind a bunch of things to do.
 
As a side note: Seneca wrote a book about anger. He said anger is unnatural and unnecessary. It’s ugly and bad. He says, “Look at people’s faces when they are angry, don’t they look twisted and horrible?”
 
Are there other specific Stoic-based approaches to calming anger, once we become aware of it happening?
 
They did cognitive distancing. The ancient Stoics talk a lot about when a thought pops through your mind, you should see it as an arbitrary value judgment. All the thoughts we have are projections. All judgments are fundamentally indifferent. Nothing external is that bad. The only thing we should care that strongly about is our own character. That value doesn’t exist in external world. It’s not things that upset us, it’s our judgments about things. I’m externalizing it – you are a jerk, this is awful, you are awful. This is catastrophizing. We need to learn to roll that back.
 
Epictetus said if you have an angry thought, you can tell it, “you’re just an impression. You’re not the thing you claim to represent.” He is talking to the thought, as if another person, as if it is an outside object. This is creating cognitive distance. “You again, you are my angry judgment that comes up.”
 
It’s like catastrophe-tinted glasses – there’s a difference between looking through the glasses and taking the glasses off and look at the glasses.
 
We can try to take a step back and look at our beliefs, judgments, and impressions. Marcus believed in a catharsis—a separation—of our thoughts from external reality. Learning to notice that we are putting those glasses on and looking through them. It’s not a feature of reality. It’s a perspective, a projection. That weakens our emotional and behavioral response.
 
Having done that, Epictetus says, tell the thought to wait a while, and give us time to rest and respond. You could say to yourself: “Wait until I’ve calmed down and come back to this.” Then you can later be more rational, and ask yourself, what would Socrates do, what would Zeno do? What would the people I admire do?
 
Also, you could do a cost-benefit analysis of your angry response. Say you do what your anger was telling you to do. What would be the consequences? What would be another way of responding? When we have calmed down and removed ourselves from situation – time out strategies. The Platonists believed in that.
 
Counting to ten is not long enough. Augustus had a Stoic tutor, who told him to recite the Greek alphabet when angry. That’s longer than counting to ten!
 
Any other Stoic wisdom on anger, especially when working with kids?
 
The Stoics believed we are all like children in a way. They didn’t claim to be “wise”—no one was a true “sage.” They thought that we are all in the same boat, and none of us are perfect.
 
Seneca said of his philosophy, “Imagine this is a therapy, but I’m not a doctor. I’m the guy in the hospital bed beside you who has been undergoing treatment longer. I’ve made some progress.” It’s like peer support.
 
Getting back to anger: Marcus Aurelius had some strategies for anger management. One of them is to remind yourself that you are just as bad as the person making you angry. Humility could that be enough to stop the feeling. We are all foolish, we all have passions, and you have to figure this out for yourself.
 
Parents who get angry are child-like. Realizing that is humbling and helps to snap us out of it. “There’s a child within me, who is having a tantrum,” we might say to ourselves.
 
With kids, when they get angry, we should teach them not to ashamed of anger. But also to tolerate anger. What matters is what they do next, after the angry feeling happens.
 
Thanks for reading The Stoic Mom. If you have any suggestions or ideas for future 2018 posts or any questions, please write in the comments!

This is part two of my conversation with author, trainer, and teacher Donald Robertson. Read on for his thoughts on Stoicism and parenting, and on how Stoic philosophy can help us question our own values.
 
Add to the discussion in the comments… and share your questions and suggestions for future posts and interviews.
​
Q: How can Stoic philosophy help me become a better parent? And how should I begin teaching Stoic values to my kids?
 
A: The best way to teach is through role modeling. Stoic philosophers did lecture and wrote books, but they also thought that the best thing to do is to set a good example. To start by improving our own character.
 
Accepting that our children and our students are not under our direct control is critical. Even Socrates had bad students who went off the rails. Well, he said, I don’t control their minds. All I can do is provide a role model. Sometimes it’s in the hands of fate.
 
We need to work on accepting these limits and not getting frustrated with them.
 
The ancient Stoics were a lot tougher on kids than we are today. They believed that character is instilled through exercise, sport, and work.
 
Today, many parents express their love through consumerism, buying toys, taking kids out to places for entertainment. But in Stoicism, it’s more important what we give them to DO, rather than possessions. The way we invest our time is a more appropriate gift – and to have them do things that require effort. We develop virtue through hard work. 
 
Q: Parents today get competitive about their children’s success in academics, sports, careers, everything. How can we re-think that with Stoicism?
 
I live in quiet Nova Scotia. That’s not as obvious here. The competitiveness of parents varies a lot.
 
As Stoics, our goal isn’t to give our kids skills that would make them externally successful. Stoicism challenges some of our culture’s values that way. Stoics believed that what they were proposing should upset people. It’s an “epistrophe” in Greek–like a U-turn. Part of that is questioning consumerism and narcissism.
 
Stoics would say – what is Success in LIFE? Will a degree and a good job make our children good people? Is our priority to make our children materially successful, or more rounded people?
 
Sometime pursuit of wealth is obstacle. Epictetus says you can’t serve two masters. If you pursue a successful career, you can earn wealth. Some career paths suck you into a certain type of character and values, which is not necessarily good. External success is not same as virtue.
 
Instead, we should ask: Do our children have wisdom? Integrity? Are they true to themselves? Are they living in a way consistent with rational values?
 
Q: Interesting. Could we apply these same questions to ourselves, as people and as parents?
 
A: Yes. In Stoic week, we do an exercise known as “values clarification.” It’s Socratic. Rather than saying “these are the values,” this approach asks you a bunch of questions. It asks you to figure out what you care about and reflect on those values. The Socratic method can expose contradictions between our beliefs and actions.
 
Another approach is the double standard strategy. You think about what you want for yourself. Then you make a list of what you admire most in other people. Then you ask: What if I did what I admire in others? What would it be like to apply that in practice?
 
We have a Stoic model for this: Marcus Aurelius. In Book 1 of his Meditations, all he does is describe others’ virtues. It’s a huge list.
 
As parents, we could ask: What do you spend most of your time doing with your kids? What are things you most admire about other parents? What if you could do what they do?
 
Q: Let’s go back to the source material for a moment. Much of the language and emphasis in ancient Stoicism is masculine. Discussions focus on “the wise man” and on “manly” attributes. How did the Stoics of Greece and Rome view women?

A: Stoicism’s founder, Zeno, wrote a book called The Republic that we only have fragments of now. It was a critique of Plato’s Republic. He said that everything would be equal in the Republic. That implies no slavery, and that men and women would be equal.
 
Ancient Cynics also seemed to have believed there was an equality between men and women. The idea was shocking then. And maybe only Cynics would think this—they were known for saying shocking and anarchic things.
 
We believe that Cleanthes wrote on the thesis that virtue is the same in men and women, but we know nothing about what he said.
 
Then 400 years later, Musonius Rufus’ lectures argue that virtues are the same in men and women, and he argues that girls should be taught philosophy as well as boys. Women should be able to practice philosophy.

Next time: ANGER rears its ugly head. And it is indeed ugly, as Donald Robertson tells us in part three of our interview. Leave any questions or thoughts in the comments!
 

​The Stoic Mom had the chance to speak with Donald Robertson, author, trainer, and psycho therapist, and creator of courses on Stoicism including How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Crash Course in Stoicism, Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training. Here’s the first part of that enlightening conversation on Stoic thinking, and how it can help us handle our fears and focus on what really matters. (Watch for part two of this conversation soon!)
 
Q: Philosophy helps us think about meaning and purpose. What does Stoic philosophy say about the purpose of human life? What should we be focused on?
 
A: The Stoic goal of life is “living in agreement with nature.” It’s attributed to Zeno, Stoicism’s founder, and Marcus Aurelius is still talking about that 500 years later. It’s a constant. The Greek words used have other translations, like living in accord with virtue or living wisely.
 
What does that mean in practice? They believed that the essence of human nature was reasoning and thinking. We use language. That distinguishes us from animals. And since we can think and use language, we have a duty to use it properly.
 
In other words: Nature’s handed this gift to you, and it is the greatest gift of nature. We should use it to its fill.
 
We can think—but most of us think badly and irrationally. Nature has left us half finished, and we should complete the circle. We have the tools, we should pick up tools and use them. To reason well is to attain wisdom.
 
Q: What does this “agreement with nature” actually look like? I’m often stressed and worried about my kids, my family, my community, my work, and larger events in the world. Can people live in better harmony with themselves and others by pursuing Stoicism? And can Stoic thinking help its followers reach a state of tranquility? 
 
A: We can live in harmony with our own nature by consistently reasoning well. That’s being authentic and true to ourselves. We also need to try to live in harmony with external events. At the level of society, we live with our fellow citizens—and we can try to live in harmony with rest of humanity. One of the philosophers’ goals was to reconcile people who are arguing, for instance. Socrates was really good at introducing people to new friends, forming healthy relationships among friends.
 
In terms of the question of tranquility, it’s not so much how you feel that matters—it is the state of health that your mind is in. A wise person who is flourishing, whose mind is excellent, will probably be tranquil, but it’s kind of a side effect.
 
The problem with making tranquility your goal is that you could just take tranquilizers. You could avoid stressful situations. Psychologists would call that avoidance and withdrawal.
 
Ancient Stoics would disagree with avoiding things. Zeno was engaged with advising politicians and believed you should engage with public life. Stoics also said you should marry and have kids, even if it can be stressful—it’s part of nature.
 
In fact, in modern psychology in past 15 years or so, we now think that many traditional self-help techniques are subtle forms of avoidance. People instinctively do things to help themselves that involve avoiding upsetting feelings, like visualization or breathing exercises. But research shows that being able to ride out and tolerate those feelings is more healthy. You can learn to accept the feelings.
 
Q: Do Stoic thinkers expect us to be perfectly calm in all situations? Do they talk about how feelings, for example of anxiety and worry, affect people?
 
A: The ancient Stoics recognized that all people have involuntary feelings. A wise Stoic might shake, turn pale, and sweat in a scary situation. It is what happens next that counts.
 
One Stoic writer tells the story of a philosopher on a ship during an awful storm. It’s scary. When he gets ashore, others say to him, why were you shaking and turning white? He says, those were involuntary reactions. But what matters is that I recovered my composure afterwards. I’m not a brain in a vat.
 
In fact, it’s impossible to feel courage without feeling anxiety. You can’t have that virtue unless you experience these involuntary first movements. Being in a frightening situation is an opportunity to exercise bravery.
 
Q: Do the Stoic thinkers offer specific techniques for combatting our negative emotions? How can we build our own reason and wisdom?
 
A: Yes. They practiced the “premeditation of adversity.” In modern psychotherapy, we would call it imaginal exposure. You try to habituate yourself to frightening things. If you can do this successfully, your anxiety is more or less extinguished.
 
Ancient Stoics practiced imagining exile, poverty, betrayal, and their own death. That’s the most robust advice they give, but it’s difficult to do on your own, without a psychotherapist or mentor.

​They don’t say how long to spend on it. If you don’t wait long enough for habituation to happen, you could actually sensitize yourself. You can look at modern psychology to understand this. It works better if you do this for longer period, say at least 15 minutes at a time. It feels boring. But that feeling of boredom is habituation happening. It requires patience.
 
A second technique is the “view from above.” You try to imagine situations in the broader context of space and time.
 
So if you meet a person who upsets you, you might think of that person as a child, or when they get older, to see it as just one slice of their whole life. This moderates your emotional response. And maybe you’ll start to understand that other person—as determined by the past, for example.
 
You could also imagine you are floating up in the sky seeing events below. It is not blotting out and avoiding them, but plugging them into a broader context. To be rational, in ideal world, we’d see everything in context. In the ancient world, people believed that Zeus could do this.

It is impossible for humans; we just see slices. and our reaction is amplified. But we can use our imaginations.
 
 
More of my interview with Donald Robertson—on parenting, Stoic women, and handling anger—coming soon.

Do you have any burning questions about Stoicism? Post them here as comments!