13 (Stoic) Strategies For Conquering Your Anxiety

almost none of the things we worry about day-to-day are actually new humans have been worried about them stressed about them anxious about them for as long as there have been people Marcus Reus lived through a plague he lived through a series of historic floods there were Wars happening in distant parts of the Empire senica lived under political tyranny so did Socrates Zeno lost everything in a shipwreck and ended up basically bankrupt and destitute and had to rebuild his life for all of human history people have been dealing with disruptive technology they've worried about their kids

they've worried about their own health they've worried about whether they were going to get promoted or not these aspects of The Human Condition are Timeless and Relentless this is why the stoics talked so much about anxiety about stress about managing our emotions and not being ruled by them I'm the same way I have anxiety I have stress no amount of philosophy is just going to eliminate this but there are tools and strategies that the stoics can teach us about being less anxious about not being ruled by our fears and not being made miserable because we

don't control what's going to happen next and that's what I want to talk about in today's episode some stoic strategies for conquering your anxiety no amount of philosophy senica say takes away our natural feelings or inclinations I still get nervous before almost any talk I have anxiety I have nerves one of the things I've been doing lately I have this cool St coin and that it's kind of a fidget and I just spin it I like to touch it's got a hole in the middle I just touch it like this it has this quote from

epicus on the front is this in my control or is this not in my control is this up to me or not up to me that's the essence of stoic philosophy and and I just kind of remember Marcus really says that we have to remember the thing is not causing us anxiety we are causing the anxiety in ourselves it's within us which means that we can let it go we don't have to give ourselves over to it and so that's just one of the little things I remind myself we have to remember sto philosophy isn't

this magical thing that removes all the flaws and problems and urges and temptations we have inside of us no it's framework for working through them it's a set of tools for dealing with them that's how I think about anxiety and that's why I carry this wor me there's a tension in stoicism so on the one hand senica says we should imagine all the things that could possibly happen this is premedium laurum says the unexpected blow lands heaviest if you're just naively going through the world expecting everything to be wonderful never considering that this might happen

or that might happen you're going to be caught off guard and it's going to Rattle you and and hurt you worse than if you had some ability to anticipate this at the same time he says he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary he was talking about the way that we can sort of spiral and catastrophize so it's important when we think about this premeditation mum that the stoic idea of anticipating and considering what happen it's not to torture ourselves it's not just to go down this spiral of negativity and is

if this happens I'll do this if this happens I'll do this if this happens I'll do this so when we think about this stoic practice it's not just for generalized anxiety or worry it's constructive okay if this happens here's what I'm going to do if this happens here's what I'm going to do it's focusing on how we might respond to this so it should actually be empowering in some way as opposed to disempowering and scary and alarming you're thinking here are the constructive things I can do about these hypotheticals I believe that I have agent

and power to solve this scenario if it were to happen it's not just that we suffer more in imagination than we do in reality as Sonica says it's that we add suffering right so we're dreading this thing that might happen indeed it might happen but by thinking about it walking ourselves through it going over it over and over and over again living in it right now as if it will happen what we're effectively doing is borrowing that suffering we're like I want to deal deal with it now I want to sit in it now I

want to feel it for longer so we have to remember that that this use of our creativity the way we're thinking about the thing over and over again we're living in it we're actually just adding suffering on top of the thing that may or may not actually even [Music] happen began to study philosophy his teacher Cates gave him a bunch of weird tasks one of them was to carry this pot of lentils through the Athenian Agora and Zeno had no idea why he was doing this but but the reason was that Cates understood that his

student was anxious and nervous and he cared way too much what other people thought of him so as he's walking through the Athenian Agora where all of Athens is Cates sneaks up on him smacks the pot with his staff and it spills lentils all over him and as Zeno stood there mortified cat says courage my little Phoenician it's just a little bit of soup he was trying to do what we would today call exposure therapy he was trying to show him that it wasn't that bad that this was all in his head in fact most

people weren't paying attention nobody really cared and even if they were this embarrassment this worst case scenario was not actually that bad that that he hadn't died that it wasn't nearly as mortifying as he thought just trying to expose this to him to toughen him up to show him that the thing that he was so worried about wasn't so bad a lot of stoic philosophy is like this it's to really put these Impressions these opinions these worst case scenarios we've made up in our head to the test and realize that the one thing they all

have in common is Us in meditation Mark talks about how he escapes anxiety he has a good day and then he realized no I didn't avoid it I I discarded it it was within me it was in my perception and that's the lesson that Cates is trying to teach Zeno in that story he had the power to either be mortified or not mortified and we have to practice this as stoic philosophers I do a pretty good job managing my finances I make pretty good money but I have one really expensive habit that I'm trying to

quit and it's an expensive habit that's cost me so much that's caused me a lot of misery a lot of frustration it's caused me to miss out on a lot of things that are important to me I don't have some secret gambling addiction I don't have some terrible Vice actually I do it is a vice what I'm talking about is anxiety and I would say nothing in my life has cost me more than anxiety and I've gotten so little pleasure out of it that's the the terrible thing it's it's no fun there's no reward except

a tiny bit of belief you get when the bad thing you were so worried about doesn't happen and we don't tend to think of anxiety as an expensive habit but it is how many moments were you taken out of how many experiences did you lose how much strain was placed on relationships or connections because you were worried you were stressed you were scared you were spiraling you were thinking about not this moment that you're in but this hypothetical moment of something that lay ahead that's really what anxiety is senica says we suffer more in imagination

than in reality the emphasis there has to be on the suffering that anxiety causes us I I have this little reminder that I car with me so philosophy is this quote from epicus about whether something is in our control or not in our control that's what I try to ask myself when I'm getting worked up about something is this up to me is what I'm feeling about this thing this is it going to happen are we going to make the connection am I going to get to the airport in time is it going to be

delivered is it going to go my way here you know what I'm feeling this stress that I'm feeling in that moment isn't changing the outcome in any way right that's that's why epicus was saying we have to ask ourselves is this up to me or is it not up to me Senus says that he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary that's the reminder on the back on the front it's the Ora Boris is this image of the the snake swallowing its own tail and and that's what we are doing we

are punishing ourselves we are feasting on our own thoughts our own worries and it comes at at an immense cost and so it's something I'm trying to better at I'm not perfect at but I hope to get better at it every day and I hope you do too by the way you can check this out at Daily stoic.com anxiety it may be reasonable that you're concerned about this thing it it would cause trouble if it happened again so when the Stokes talk about how some things are in our control some things are not in our

control what they're saying is Well focus on what you control about this situation reminding yourself that hey just feeling anxiety emoting about the problem biting her nails about it talking about it incessantly to people it's not making it any more or less likely to happen so try to put that energy to constructive use try to think about okay here's what I'm going to do here's what I can do here are ways that I can influence this situation or at least prepare myself to be resilient or endure or or bounce back from it if it does

happen right put yourself to constructive use put yourself working on something that makes a difference just make sure you're not confusing spending mental bandwidth and energy and torturing yourself emotionally don't confuse that with making a positive difference the stoics can get misinterpreted as being emotionless I I think they're trying to be less emotional in that they're trying to be less ruled by their emotions less overwhelmed by their anxiety but that's because they've explored it they've worked through it one of the places I work through my emotions is in therapy and that's why today's video is

sponsored by better help better help is a platform where therapists and clients can communicate effectively and get the most out of therapy it's hard enough to get yourself into that vulnerable place that therapy demands that we go so I think you want to eliminate all the obstacles that can prevent you from getting there and by that I mean literally traveling parking traffic starting therapy is easy with better help you fill out a questionnaire and they match you with a therapist in as little as a couple of days that therapist isn't a right fit you can

switch immediately and find someone you really connect with if you're struggling and think you might benefit from a therapy session click the link in the description below or go to betterhelp.com stoic to get 10% off your first month of therapy a stoic is not someone who stuffs their emotions down that's not it at all the stoics processed their emotions this is why they Journal Socrates went around asking these questions this is why senica would write these letters to his friend lucilius we even have some of Marcus aurelius's letters that survive the stoics were not stuffing

their emotions down pretending they don't have them they were exploring them the Stokes talk about taking an emotion when it hits you and putting it up to the test observing it meditating on it processing it getting to the bottom of it if you just ignore your emotions if you just conquer them to me it's like putting it on a credit card sure you're not having to pay for it now but eventually it's going to come due and the interest is going to make it even more expensive so don't shut your emotions down deal with them

process them explore them get through them don't be ruled by them but in ignoring them you are guaranteeing that later it's going to be an even bigger deal and you're going to be even more powerless over that emotions so work on your emotions do not fall into this trap that the stoics suppress their emotions they domesticate them as theim TB says but first that requires facing them and exploring them and coming to terms with them you're being robbed and maybe you don't even see it and what's worse is you're robbing yourself think about the times

you left way earlier than you needed to cuz you were nervous or stressed think about that thing you went to and you were wrecked the whole time cuz you were thinking that something might go wrong while you were gone think about all that dread you felt these last couple months convincing yourself that this bad news was inevitably going to come and how did all that end up going what became of it you missed time with your family you spent it instead you know waiting at the gate at the airport you missed the vacation you missed

the outing with friends because although you were there you were not actually present you built up this whole scenario in your head that turned out to be way worse compared to what actually happened this is why senica said we suffer more in imagination than in reality and what he was talking about is our anxiety he was talking about our worries and I want you to think about how much anxiety has stolen from you those racing thoughts those worries those doubts that dread think about how much you missed because of it how often did it actually

turn out to benefit you how often were you actually right that's the funny thing anxiety is sometimes right way more often than not it's totally Off the Mark and the problem with this idea that we suffer more in imagination than we do in reality we are suffering in reality senica says he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary we are suffering on top of the thing that may or may not actually happen but it's so hard to remember that that when you're in that vice grip of anxiety or worry that spiral

what about this what about this what about this and this is something that the stoics think a lot about epic titus's critical question was is this in my control cuz so much of what we're emoting about worried about thinking about isn't affecting the outcome in any way it's not making a difference at all so this thing that you're anxious about that you're dreading that you don't want to happen one question you can ask yourself mark say is how does it stop you this other person this unfairness this bad outcome says how does it stop you

from acting with courage and Justice and wisdom and discipline how does it stop you from acting with the four virtues and you realize it does it look there can be a whole bunch of things that you don't want to happen that are not going to be fun if they happen they're going to cause problems but they can't prevent you from doing your main job from doing what's actually important from acting and living with virtue not only can these things not stop you from acting with courage and discipline and Justice and wisdom but in fact there

are opportunities to act with courage and Justice and discipline and wisdom look it's a bad use of your creativity the time you're spending imagining what might happen the conversations you're making up in your head the things that you think people are thinking about you this is a bad way to deploy your creativity you're using it to make yourself miserable you're imagining these terrible scenarios notice you're never imagining things going well people liking you you're putting your imagination to work on your an anxiety on your self-consciousness on your doubt and it it's just not a good

use of it the Stokes would say our mind is this incredibly powerful thing how are you going to deploy it how are you going to use it are you going to use it to torture yourself or you going to use it to move yourself forward to solve problems or create [Music] them Marcus really writes to himself he says fight to be the person philosophy wants you to be and I just love that so much it's that sto ISM has this ideal for you to be someone who's resilient someone who's strong someone who's virtuous someone who's

kind who cares about the common good someone who isn't easily rattled someone who's committed to bettering themselves that's what stoicism wants for you that's what the stoics have been writing about for centuries that's what we do in these videos in the daily stoic email that's the ideal but the question is are you fighting for yourself are you fighting to be that thing are you striving today to get a little bit closer to that perfect ideal are you fighting for yourself the stoics can't make you be or do anything they can just lay out the formula

but it's ultimately on you to follow it to step up and actually be it that's what I want you to think about [Music] today one thing that's never changed about the world is how much of it's out of our control 2,000 years ago it was largely out of the control of all the Stokes even Marcus really is the most powerful man in the world most things are not in his control when we have a way we'd like things to go we know they might not go that way what does that create that creates anxiety and

so for thousands of years the stoics have been dealing with this thing that you and I are still dealing with today we get nervous we worry we have anxiety we have fears and Dread Markus in in meditations talks about how he had a good day because he escaped anxiety and then he actually corrects himself he go actually no I didn't Escape it I discarded it because it was within me he's he's realizing that he is the common variable in all the situations that cause him anxiety just as you are anxiety is within us so we

want to work on it and think about it so it doesn't rule our lives or ruin our [Music] lives I try to remind myself constantly that this moment is enough I don't need to be anywhere I don't need to do anything I don't need to become anything other than I am at this very moment in time at this very place that I am in this very instant that's it it's enough The Stokes talk about poverty being not just a thing about your finances but about needing Desiring wishing hoping fearing that you are anything but what

you are at this very instant to become present to lock in that's the key to everything to me that's what Stillness is about and that's really what happiness is [Music] too if you want more wisdom inspired from the stoics I send out one stoic themed email every single morning totally for free you can sign up at at Daily stoic.com slil no spam you can unsubscribe at any time I think it's the best thing that I do and it's a community of hundreds of thousands of stoics all over the world we'd love to have you at

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