Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism

Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism

In the previous post in this series about dealing with effects of the lockdowns, I looked at some of the psychological and spiritual effects of the lockdown measures on us – not covid, but the lockdowns. I think it is time we become aware of and own these psychological effects so that we can start to heal from them.

This post will be the first of several looking at what I am calling spiritual support systems – ways of looking at the world that give us mental and spiritual tools for dealing with bad fortune, or situations that are outside of our control.

In this essay we will look at Stoicism.

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Stoicism is a school of philosophy that goes back to our Hellenistic and Roman heritage. It has been very influential, and its teachings have had a profound affect on what came after, including a formative influence on the young Christian tradition. Some of the writings of the early Church Fathers sound like they could have been taken straight out of a Stoic manual. It is a useful philosophy and set of psychological techniques for dealing with misfortune, or better, for the ups and downs of fortune.

The modern cliche of stoicism, as a hard and unfeeling philosophy that is all about gritting your teeth and bearing with pain and not allowing yourself any pleasure, is a misleading caricature. Done correctly, stoic techniques can help you maximize positive states of mind, including pleasure and good fortune, and minimize the effects of misfortune by taking control of your reaction to it.

I want to recommend some classic Stoic writers and texts that are well worth researching and learning from.

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher who was born a slave, so his teaching is coming from the experience of losing control of all of your life except your mind and your reactions. His most famous work, that sums up his system, is known as Enchiridion, sometimes called the Manual. We have a series of Discourses from him that were recorded by a pupil. His writing is widely available online, and there is a very nice inexpensive edition of his works published by Everyman.

Marcus Aurelius was an emperor during the period of Rome’s decline. His book known as Meditations is his personal diary of his spiritual exercises and discipline, his putting the stoic principles into practice in his life. When you read Marcus Aurelius for the first time I suggest you start with chapter two, since the first chapter is basically his giving credit to a long list of people he learned from. There are many translations available, some of them in the public domain. My favorite translation is by Maxwell Staniforth.

The essays and letters of the Roman writer Seneca are very good expositions of stoic philosophy and are well worth reading.

There is a very interesting and important essay on applied stoicism by Admiral James Stockdale, titled, Courage Under Fire; it is public domain and readily available on the internet. Stockdale was a student of the writings of Epictetus and his stoic philosophy, and he had the chance to put those teachings to the test under the most severe of circumstances – he was shot down over North Vietnam and spent over seven years as a prisoner of war. The essay Courage Under Fire describes some of his experiences and how he used stoic disciplines to survive intact, and ultimately to prevail. I highly recommend taking the time to look it up and read it.

This quote will give you a taste of his thought. This is quoted from a conversation with Stockdale by James Collins.

When Collins asked which prisoners didn’t make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

“Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

(This is interesting to me as it matches my own experience. In dealing with real misfortune, the weakest and most problematic approach is to use some form of optimism or positive thinking. That falls apart very quickly.)

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I want to start my discussion of Stoicism with a quote from Epictetus that is the opening section of the Enchiridion.

Some things are in our control and others are not.

Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions.

Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, public office, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, un-hindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, re-strained, in the power of others.

Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men.

But if you suppose those things to be your own which are your own, and what belongs to others to be theirs, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed.

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Here is my summary of the basics of Stoicism. I will follow that with some specific examples of how I have used Stoic mental discipline to keep myself in a resourceful state in the face of serious misfortune.

You can divide the different aspects of your experience into three main categories – Epictetus uses only two, but I find it useful to add a third overlap area.

1) The things you do not control at all. This includes facts of nature (the weather, environment), and other people’s actions. It is also VERY important to understand that you have no control over how other people think about you or how they react to you. You might be able to try to influence it, but you do not control it.

2) The things you do control. This is limited to your own thoughts, feelings and reactions, and your actions, at least mental actions. Note that Epictetus puts Body under things we do not control. Anyone who has ever watched a close relative die of cancer knows that one first hand. The person dying is directly experiencing their body being completely out of their control.

3) The things we have a partial control over. I add this category as there are many parts of our lives that we can act on and influence – our bodies (up to a point) our immediate environment like our household (up to a point), the people around us by how we treat them (up to a point), and so on. It is important to accept that the things we can influence can vary widely, from being almost completely determined by us to being completely out of our hands.

The ONLY thing we have complete control of is our response to events – how we think and the choices we make. With all other external events we have either limited or no control.

Now here is the core principle – It is best to put our energy and our work into controlling our responses to events, rather than being emotionally driven by trying to control external events.

If you think about it, for most people the response is the exact opposite – the investment is on external events, and there is no effort whatsoever in controlling the only thing we can control, which is our response. This gives the experience of external events CAUSING us to respond in certain ways. If you take this approach then your entire experience is at the mercy of forces outside of your control. That is a really good way to end up feeling frustrated, thwarted, worried, victimized, oppressed and so on.

It is like you are driving to a really important meeting, and you get stuck behind a stopped line of cars that are waiting for a train to go by. A long train. A very long train. A very, very long train. A seemingly endless train that was put there for the express purpose of stopping YOU from making it to YOUR important meeting – so you have every reason to get increasingly angry, upset, seething with frustration at how unfair that is and how this SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN and MUST BE CHANGED NOW.

That’s a very effective way to make yourself miserable. All your energy is invested in what you cannot control (the train) with no attention paid to what you can control (your reaction).

The Stoic approach is to CHOOSE how we wish to respond to external events, and to let go of trying to control what is beyond us. It takes work, it takes discipline, but it is enormously empowering, especially once you begin to really experience how much control you actually can have.

It is wise to start by giving up all notions of life being fair or unfair. It is what it is; it is outside your control; you are not the center of the universe, you are part of it; so the best thing you can do is to accept your situation and take responsibility for your reaction.

I want to give a couple of examples of how I have used stoic mental discipline responding to events.

I used a stoic style internal dialog when my wife was dying of cancer, and I was at home taking care of her. My internal dialog went something this:

Okay, my wife is dying of cancer. Do I have any control over that? None. I have just a little bit of time left with her. Would it do me any good to dwell on that and get increasingly upset? No; all that would do is to put me in a bad mood which hinders my ability to be with her – I’d be ruining the time we do have left. What can I control? As much as I can, I can work at keeping myself in a resourceful state so that I can be here with her, be of service to her and make this time for her as pleasant as I can. Okay? Okay – now let’s do it – take a deep breath, let it out and keep going.

I went through that internal dialog very often, sometimes many times a day, sometimes every five minutes when things got really bad, whatever I needed to keep going. I just kept working on it; it was a constant mental diligence. And it did help, a lot.

It is very important to note that I did NOT try to deny that she was dying, or to keep hoping for a miracle. Accepting what was going on was central to dealing with it.

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In the past year, along with the lockdown, I have been dealing with the unpleasant reality of constant street construction noise going on right outside of my house, 5 or 6 days a week, starting by 7:15 am and sometimes earlier.

One of the ways I dealt with that is to go through a set of questions and answers in my journal. These helped me take control of my response.

1) What is happening?
2) What about this situation is outside of my control? Whatever it is, I might as well just accept it.
3) What is under my control? Sometimes that is limited to how I respond.
4) Okay then – how can I choose to respond in a way that keeps me in as good and resourceful state as possible?
5) I sometimes add another question: How can I respond in a way that is in some way useful or productive? What can I be doing that gets something worthwhile out of this time?

It is interesting that, after I’d been coping with construction noise for awhile, I began to take a certain self-satisfied pleasure in reminding myself just how much control I really did have over my responses. It is a very empowering feeling that builds on itself – the more I experience that I can control my response, the more control I experience over that response.

I also needed to allow myself short periods for what I nicknamed Controlled Batshit Breakdown. Every so often the noise would be going on for so long, or I’d get a particularly loud burst, so I’d just go ahead and lose it – start crying, maybe start screaming, stomp around the house, let myself lose it and feel it. After a couple of minutes of that I would then think, okay, that’s enough, I don’t want to spend all day there. I’d take a deep breath, let myself calm down somewhat, then figure out how I wanted to proceed.

I let myself lose it, but I put a controlled frame around it to limit it.

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Stoic control of your response does not mean denying what you are feeling or the reality of your circumstances. Sometimes your immediate emotional reaction is part of the situation that you need to start by accepting.

As an example I am dealing with right now, during the past year in lockdown I have spent almost no time out and about and around other people. Now that things are loosening up I am noticing that it is really stressful for me to go in a store mid-day when there are a lot of people there, especially if most of them are masked (I just never got comfortable being around masked crowds.) Now, I could choose to just continue shopping at 6 am in the morning or having my purchases delivered to avoid facing that; it would be extremely easy to justify making that choice. On the other hand, I could go ahead and walk into stores mid-day, paying attention to what I was feeling and how I was reacting. This lets me accept the fear and anxiety, and move past it and through it. The anxiety then became a fact of my experience I have to accept and respond to.

Note that this is the opposite of going into the store and saying I WILL NOT BE ANXIOUS, I FEEL PERFECTLY CALM DAMMIT. The process has to start with acceptance so that I stay grounded in my body and my immediate experience.

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There is another curious experience I had related to dealing with the effects of the lockdown. In one conversation I had with a friend of mine, we were talking about covid and our attitude to it. I soon figured out that it was important to my friend that I feel afraid; just the fact that I was taking all necessary precautions and following all guidelines, was not sufficient for him. From my point of view I had weighed all the data available to me and accepted the situation, and I just didn’t feel afraid, I wasn’t worried. Strangely, this seemed to be very upsetting to my friend, who was very concerned that I wasn’t upset.

From a stoic point of view I think my reaction was rational – I weighed my risks, took all reasonable precautions, and let go of worrying about what I had no control over. I still find it curious that my lack of anxiety seemed to make my friend more anxious. That is an example of where my friend’s lack of control over my internal state negatively impacted their own internal state. That is the inverse of a stoic approach.

Reacting to the pandemic also means I disciplined myself as to what news media I consumed and what I read about the disease. I see no purpose to be served by dwelling on an unending stream of frightening stories about something I have zero control over, especially since much of the news coverage seems to be crafted for maximum fear and anxiety. For the most part I focused on my own experience, my own neighborhood, and the people I knew, the verifiable first hand experience that directly effected me. That kept me in a much calmer state of mind.

Taking control of your mental state includes being selective and taking control over what media you choose to consume.

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It is very important to be clear that Stoic philosophy does not mean not allowing yourself to take pleasure in the positive aspects of human experience. However, there is a world of difference between enjoying a positive event, and being invested in that positive experience to the point that you experience frustration and disappointment if it doesn’t live up to your expectations or it is taken from you.

To take a very simple example, I really enjoy a well-brewed cup of good tea, but very few restaurants or cafes know how to brew tea properly. When I am out with friends and am served a cup of tea that is, shall we say, less than perfect, I can choose to be upset and disappointed – or, I can let that go since I don’t control it, accept and take what pleasure I can from what I am served. I’ve come up with a way of thinking about that – whatever cup of tea I happen to be drinking is always my Favorite Tea, because it is what is in front of me right at that moment, so it is my Favorite of what I am experiencing at this moment in time. It works, and it makes every cup of tea taste better. Don’t take my word for it; try it for yourself. (Interestingly, I happen to be drinking my Favorite Cup of Tea right now.)

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Summing up – Stoic mental discipline is about accepting the reality of what I am experiencing, giving up trying to control what is out of my control, and investing my energy and focus in controlling what I can, giving special attention to my attitude, my response, my mental state. It is extremely empowering to realize that I have far more control over choosing how I respond to events then you would think. I can choose my responses.

Stoic mental discipline is practical and powerful; I have proved that to myself from first hand experience.

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