As a practitioner of Stoicism, what kind of "ritual" do you do to face your pasts and traumas you experienced.

I want to face my traumas because of I know that to proceed with my life, I need to face my past and make peace with it.

Thanks for the answers.

I’m feeling a bit better after observing my thoughts before they take hold of my brain with irrational thoughts and cause anxiety. So wondering if you guys have any other tips.

I'm to have a tube put down my throat next week and I'm shitting it.

Are there any stoic techniques i can use?

If i break it down to what would be the worst thing?

I can't breath and freak out.

And then...

They give me a sedation and I'm off work the next day.

Let my manager know that I might be off the next day.

Hi everyone,

Can anyone recommend an audiobook which does not use the medieval church english most do?

I can not understand what the point of it is. For me it is immersion breaking and pretentious.

In what way? In pursuing your purpose, how does Stoicism help you? Are you forcing or just going with the flow?

I am seeing some similarities in Stoicism and Taoism like the angle of Wu-Wei and the Archer from Stoicism.

Thanks for the answers.

I'm gonna make it short, since you hear all the time how rapidly AI is developing and how it will replace all jobs, drag us into a technofeudalist dystopia or possibly end humanity altogether. I do not at all buy into the tech bro view of worshipping progress, but I do believe that it is inevitable and out of anyone's control (except our dear tech billionaire CEOs). What would be the course of action to take according to stoicism?

Well, this may sound surprising, but arguably the first major systematic work written on the subject of psychotherapy was the Therapeutics (To Therapeutikon) of Chrysippus of Soli, the third head of the Stoic school, who lived in the 3rd century BCE. Chrysippus was widely regarded as one of the greatest intellectuals of the ancient world -- up there with Aristotle.

The Therapeutikon was the fourth volume of a four-volume work titled On Passions (Peri Pathon), which can be loosely translated as On Psychopathology. It was remarkably influential. Nearly four centuries after it was written, it was still being cited at length as the dominant text in the field by Galen, the personal physician of Marcus Aurelius. Origen, the Church Father, was still discussing it a century after that. So it was considered a masterwork of psychological therapy for at least five hundred years.

Sadly, today it is lost. However, modern scholars, most notably Prof. Teun Tieleman, have attempted to reconstruct its contents based on fragments and testimonia found in other ancient sources. Seneca appears to draw heavily upon it in On Anger. Cicero draws heavily upon it in the Tusculan Disputations. And Galen, who hated Stoicism, attacks it mercilessly.

Many people today assume that Sigmund Freud was the inventor of psychotherapy. Ironically, Freud didn’t even pioneer modern psychological therapy. He studied therapeutic hypnotism in France at the Nancy School under Bernheim, and at the Salpêtrière in Paris under Charcot. For half a century before Freud, in fact, medical hypnotists had already been pioneering the modern "talking cure."

However, it may surprise many people to learn that psychotherapy existed long before that in the ancient world. The modern compound word "psychotherapy" didn't exist in ancient Greek. But "therapy of the psyche" (therapeia tēs psychēs) was an established technical term for a branch of applied philosophy. Psychotherapy as an institutionalized clinical practice obviously didn't exist in ancient Greece or Rome. However, the concept of a cognitive and philosophical talking cure certainly did.

Although therapeutics of the psyche predates the Stoics, Stoic psychotherapy became its pre-eminent ancient form. It doesn't look much like Freudian psychoanalysis. But you know what it does look quite a lot like? Modern cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).

That's not entirely surprising, as Albert Ellis, the original pioneer of CBT (or its main precursor, depending on how you look at it), had read Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. He quoted the famous line from Epictetus to all of his clients, his students, and in most of his books: "People are disturbed not by events but by their judgments about them." That's not a minor aspect of Stoic psychotherapy or CBT — it's pretty much the central theoretical premise of both.

So what did Chrysippus' Stoic psychotherapy actually look like? Well, I'm working on a book about it right now. It would be a lot to write up in a single post, unfortunately! It's sometimes said that "CBT" should really be a plural ("CBTs") because there are lots of different cognitive and behavioural therapies today. Ancient Stoic psychotherapy is not identical to any one of them (although it clearly has a cousin in Ellis' Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy or REBT). Rather, it contains concepts and practices that span several different models of modern CBT.

The conceptualization of emotions in terms of specific cognitions is central. Socratic questioning — surprise, surprise! — is important. Alignment of behaviour with core values is integral to any "virtue ethic", especially Stoicism. Mindfulness (prosoche) is foundational.

Crucially, the Stoics developed a sophisticated two-phase model of emotion that directly debunks the popular myth that Stoicism is about suppressing our feelings:

1. The Involuntary First Movement (Proto-Passions): The Stoics recognized that our initial reaction to a trigger is not yet a full emotion, but an automatic reflex they called a proto-passion (propatheia). When you are insulted or startled, your heart races, your muscles tense, and an alarming thought flashes into your awareness. Seneca explains that this primitive surge is completely natural, involuntary, and morally indifferent. You cannot stop it through willpower alone, and the Stoics never expected you to.
2. The Voluntary Second Movement (Assent): The actual passion (pathos) only occurs if we consciously endorse that initial impression — giving it our voluntary agreement, or what the Stoics called synkatathesis.

This pre-eminent Stoic therapeutic concept is often obscured by translation. Synkatathesis is usually translated as "assent," but psychologically it functions almost identically to what modern therapists in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) call cognitive fusion. It means becoming so completely caught up in a thought that we mistake our internal impression for external reality and allow it to dictate our behaviour. Seneca also describes it as "yielding" or "surrendering" to an irrational thought, and being "swept away" by its force.

Stoic therapy is therefore based in something akin to cognitive defusion — learning to step back from our initial impressions, recognize them as mere mental events, and withhold our assent. In the Enchiridion, Epictetus advises that the moment an upsetting impression strikes, our first move should be to tell it: "You are just an impression [an automatic thought], and not at all the thing you claim to represent." Stoic philosophical questioning wasn't an academic debate; it was a practical tool to create cognitive distance and break our fusion with irrational thoughts.

The Stoics considered two types of belief to be central to stressful emotions, especially anger:

• A primary appraisal about how bad or harmful something is: "This man's actions have injured me!"
• A secondary appraisal about how one should respond: "I must retaliate and punish him!"

This ancient formulation is remarkably similar to Richard Lazarus's seminal cognitive model of stress and coping, where emotions are driven by a primary appraisal of threat and a secondary appraisal of coping resources.

In On Anger, Seneca goes further and explicitly frames these two appraisals as rigid "ought" or "should" beliefs: the demand that one ought not to have been injured, joined to the demand that one ought to exact revenge.

The role of rigid demands, or "musts," in Stoic psychotherapy is strikingly prescient of Albert Ellis's REBT and the "tyranny of the shoulds". While modern culture frequently glorifies "righteous anger," Seneca and Ellis both recognized that all anger is founded on these rigid, irrational demands. When we demand that people must never treat us unfairly, and that we must make them suffer when they do, we abandon reason and step into what Seneca called a "temporary madness". (Remember, though, that the Stoics viewed the initial involuntary flash of anger, the proto-passion, as natural, harmless, and indifferent.)

Chrysippus also warned Stoic therapists that when a person is in the acute grip of an emotional crisis, you shouldn't lecture them on high-level Stoic dogma. You soothe the immediate inflammation first by working within their existing worldview before attempting deeper cognitive restructuring. Some evidence suggests Chrysippus believed that it was easier to challenge the secondary judgment, about how one should act, when someone is angry, and to leave disputation of the primary judgment, about how awful something is, until the anger has abated.

So, did Chrysippus invent CBT? Not in the strict sense of inventing a modern clinical practice. But the cognitive architecture of CBT was being systematically mapped out in Athens well over two thousand years ago. And while modern CBT provides invaluable remedial tools to extinguish an acute flare-up of anger, ancient Stoic psychotherapy offers something even bigger: a complete, preventative philosophy of life designed to build genuine emotional resilience. CBT is largely remedial, in other words, and usually a temporary or time-limited practice. Stoicism is preventative, and provides a lasting, indeed, permanent philosophy of life.

The closest we got to Stoic Idealism is through Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism which was fundementally Platonic but integrated Stoic philosophy into its system.

I keep wondering what would Stoics think about Idealism , what if the Intelligible is the ground of reality instead of the material? Yet it's interesting how even within an Idealist framework you could treat the Logos as the ground of Intelligibility (not that Stoics didn't do that to explain the Rational Soul) and the same Principle of Order that resolves contradictions that was explained for the material applies for the Intelligible. Like you can see that in Hegelian Dialectics for example, it's basically Heraclitus but for Intelligibility being the starting point of reality.

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Since I am a bit newer to stoicism, I keep having so many questions. Hope it's okay to discuss here.

I currently am looking for a new job (after a layoff, corporate, tech PR/comms), and at the same time I'm learning/reading stoicism as I feel like I need some guidance in life, otherwise it's difficult. Stoicism seems to make most sense to me, I find it to be quite clear. I read and then I kind of understand what to do.

And lately, or I guess today specifically after receiveing yet another rejection letter, I've been wondering... how can I better apply the stoic principles to looking for/getting a new job?

It is a thing I both can and can not control, right? I can put in the honest diligent work (searching and applying) and hope in the end it works out for me but I cannot control the outcome. But you see, when you keep being rejected it's difficult to be chill about it.

You see, also, the job market is tough yes, and I do believe I am not delusional about myself - I have certain strengths but also I'm not like wow amazing, and it's not like any company would chase me...no, I am quite average, really.

I like this food banquet comparison - like don't be obsessed with getting your plate asap just wait for your turn. But so do I just wait for a new job? I mean keep applying and waiting... What if it doesn't arrive anytime soon? Do I convince myself that the fate decided that it's better this way?

Anyway, sorry, this may read chaotic but at least it's not AI, but I guess what I am asking is... how to keep the upbeat and go-getter attitude amidst all this rejection?

I am 18 years old, and I am in engineering school. I never liked engineering or math in general but I wanted to be classmates with my girlfriend now ex, and she ended up not passing the entrance exam and I did, which was the single unluckiest moment of my life. I failed the second semester of my first year, I am a procrastinator, I know I can do better but I dont know how to start. Even a small step will help, but no matter how hard i try I always keep coming back to my old worthless self. Now i am in my second year and in the first semester, I fear I will fail multiple subjects due to a lack of effort or perhaps im just not good enough. I just want to feel alive again and be set on the right track. I would say my closest passion would be, healthcare. But I dont know, im scared.

Hello I have been reading through On The Shortness Of Life by Seneca and though I enjoy the writing and have been learning a lot from stoicism in general but there is a element of it that I have had a tough time absorbing. It is the critique of things that feel so very human to me and a part of this life that makes it so valuable. That is passions. I understand when referred to by the ancient stoics they refer to our more carnal and indulgent desires like gluttony, sex, Etc.(I also understand that Seneca is considered by many a hypocrite and that some of the things he said are to be taken with a grain of salt but I am speaking a little more generally) but they also seemingly critique things like throwing yourself completely into art, history, music, hosting, and several other things that I find I have a deep connection with that is more than me simply giving into indulgent habits. I understand that these texts were written in an old and very different world but I can’t help getting stuck when I get to sections of texts like this. Especially with Seneca. It seems like he goes down the list of everything that can be enjoyed by humanity and casts it all down as useless and it creates a lot of conflict in my mind around stoicism.

Another thing that I have difficulty comprehending, that was more common in Discourses which I also read recently, was this view that weeping for the loss of those you love is also a thing to be avoided and something not good for reasonable thinking. This is something that I could just be taking at face value and perhaps Epictetus is critiquing the refusal of letting your reason still control your action through painful experiences and thoughts instead of falling into a a puddle of tears and refusing to swim out but I still feel like it need some assistance with understanding.

This is just a more personal thing but I think weeping is one of the greatest gifts we have as people. I am grateful to have things to weep for in life. When someone I love dies I have reason to weep because I have lost someone so valuable to me that there is nothing that can be done to fill that hole in my heart left by their absence and all that is left to do is to submit to a state of pure feeling and to weep. Of course I won’t let that cloud over my own virtue and reasonable thinking but weeping is something that I think makes us so human.

I remain open minded to all advice and I do not wish to poke a hole in stoicism or anything because I think it is a beautiful philosophy and it has already changed my life for the better. I only seek the words of one wiser than me to clarify what I may be misunderstanding. Thank you !

Welcome to the Agora. a space for casual conversation, first aid, and exchange outside the regular post structure.

If you haven't already, read the pinned "Welcome" thread.

Rules:

1. Remember that our nature is "civilized and affectionate and trustworthy."
2. If seeking advice, limit yourself to one top-level question per day.
3. If offering advice, speak as someone interested in Stoic theory and practice — but do not label personal opinion, idiosyncratic experience, or conjecture as Stoic doctrine.
4. If promoting your own work (article, book, etc.), once per day. No self-posted YouTube videos.

These rules may evolve as the thread matures.

Report what doesn't belong. Bring questions, concerns, or feedback to the thread or to modmail.

Please share any tip, any aha moment!

How did you become more confident in life, work, and in how you feel about yourself? I mean via the stoic teachings.

Hello

In short, my girlfriend and I broke up last week. I am really struggling with the fact that it’s my fault. I have a drinking problem that I didn’t adequately address during the relationship and my self-neglect eventually just became too much.

I’ve always kind of resonated with stoic writing. Really I’ve only read Meditations and various quotes from Epictetus and Seneca. Does anyone have any advice or any literature that helped you through a similar situation? For the first time in a long time I want to be better to and for myself.

I'm trying to relate the cardinal virtue of Wisdom and (my understanding of) Epictetus's description of our impressions to my lived experiences.

I've realized I have a pattern of causing interpersonal turmoil by poorly interpreting a situation, and assenting to my impressions of events, then acting in accordance to what I thought were accurate and fair interpretations of the scenario. This has turned mole hills into mountains.

It's never obvious to me at first, but usually through hours of grueling, hurtful, emotional discussion, I become aware that my "fair" and "reasonable" initial assumptions were often based on half-truths, informed by irrelevant past experiences that seemed related at the surface, and muddied by a natural inclination to defend my ego from damage by those who (naturally) don't value my best interests more than their own.

All this to say, I've misinterpreted actions and words by my partner to be coming from more callous places than they actually were. Even when I've thought I understand her correctly, even when I thought I had "enough" facts to provide a rational criticism - in the form of expressing my indignation, which is really just masking pain I perceived, that was never even intended - I often times come to realize that I didn't have all the facts to make a fair impression. It literally doesn't occur to me that I'm angry about something that isn't a fair interpretation, because I feel in those times that no other explanations make sense given the "facts" I've gathered. Until I gather *even more* through difficult, vulnerable, prolonged discussion.

Even if I try to hold myself back from fully assenting to something - which I really try to do, because I'm the type to think there is always more I could learn about a situation to inform my perspective - the mere discussion where we're trying to understand each other and agree on the facts/our intentions becomes more painful than I think it should be, since my impressions still sting me when held at arm's length.

Of course, during all this I still try to affirm that I don't know everything, and am open to changing my perspective. That's generally how we reach resolutions when one or both of us are hurt. But it feels like due to not being Stoic Sages, we hurt ourselves more than necessary.

At some point, we have to decide we're right about a situation and act accordingly, instead of live in a world of theory and hypotheticals. So, how do you trust that you thoroughly understand something enough to assent to your impressions of it, while also holding that your impressions may be misinformed?

I’m a naturally happy, optimistic person who genuinely enjoys life. I don’t really identify as a Stoic or a Nihilist.

Someone suggested that Epicureanism might suit me better.

But do I even need to identify with any philosophy? Can’t I just enjoy life and develop my own way of thinking?

I’m curious what you guys think.

Here's an excerpt from my journal that I just wrote thought was pretty helpful (assuming I follow through with actually applying it irl):

It is easy to feel like I’m getting wiser by constantly analyzing myself and putting myself under a microscope without actually acting on my findings, when in reality the best way to actually learn things, do good in the world, and improve as an individual is to just take the actions based on what i’ve already analyzed (doesn’t have to be 100% certain) and see what happens. It won’t be as easy, but it will probably lead to more clarity and peace of mind in the long run. Even though being an endless thinker sounds wise and feels easier in the moment, it delays progress. When I am old and on my deathbed, I am going to be reminiscing on the things I did, not the things I pondered about.

I think something that ties together everything I have written about tonight is that I need to just try and just trust myself to live to the best of my ability. I’m going to make mistakes and do things with bad consequences, but I need to spend less time driving myself insane with all these questions of “how do I live well?” and start asking myself “what opportunity do I have to life well right here, right now?”

After engaging with Stoicism on and off over the past 10 years, I have come to the realization, that Stoicism is an art that has to be practiced. I think that this art helps me overcome my own stoic nature, which I believe was there to begin with and was in need of cultivation.

I have thought about it this way since I realized what the story was, that is being told about Zeno's history. I am sure it is supposed to be inspiring. At the same time I believe that it could have happened that way.

For everyone who doesn't know, I will tell a quick version. Please correct me if I tell it wrong.

So Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoa, shipwrecked and landed on shore. He ended up in Athens and, there, went into a book store. In the store he read books on philosophy. He began to be so interested that he asked the vendor, where he could learn more. Promptly at that time Crates (a Cynic philosopher) walked by and the bookseller said: "Follow that man." And so Zeno did and learned and eventually founded his own school of thought. The Stoa.

What I like about this story, is the way Zeno faced his plight of having lost his ship and being stranded.

And for me this generates great motivation to practice my art of Stoicism.

It sounds great in theory.

For recent context; My ex and my best friend were the two closest people i’ve ever had. Even after we broke up, my ex was still one of my best friends. The three of us were inseparable, we lived together, and in the last month they've run off together and started dating knowing exactly how I would feel about it.

Now I’ve lost both of them at the same time and I feel like i just got thrown away, left to rot. I keep replaying it and asking how two people who knew me that well could do this. I just want to be numb so it stops hurting.

I know I can’t control what they do. I just don’t know how to actually let it go. How do you get past something like this without becoming bitter? and how do you stop feeling like you weren’t worth choosing?

Any advice would really help.

So as a new stoic I try to focus on what I can control and not on what I can’t…

Easier said than done

I am a social animal, and being treated as a constant scapegoat/political target (I’m trans) is destroying my mental health to the point where it’s also bringing down my physical health

I think my reaction is human

However it is unproductive

I try to ignore on what I can’t control, but my human instincts (social animal) are difficult to suppress

How do I achieve the same “inner peace” as that one Roman guy that just chilled as the court was deciding if he’d be executed or exiled? (Forgot his name)
Like it’s easy to say “don’t care” and a lot harder to actually not care

I would like clarify that I understand my instincts make me human, I’d just like to stop being a slave to my instincts

Are there like exercises or techniques I can do to improve my Dichotomy of Control?
What do you personally do?

Thank you for your help

I always feel weak and lack confidence whenever I try to explain something. Even at the office, I find it difficult to focus on one thing while presenting or explaining my work.

Help me!!