Stoic Wellbeing - Stoicism and the Art of Happiness with Donald Robertson

Episode Date: November 13, 2021

Even though I haven't lived in the U.S. for 10 years, I've been in Italy and England for most of this time, I still pay close attention to my home country. And my goodness, things are heated. I see the divisiveness and bitter partisanship. People are becoming more tribal. Canceling out opposing views. At the same time people seem desperate for connection and to be part of something greater than themselves. And then I look around and see what they're gravitating toward. If they're not religious, it seems social media and YouTube are sucking them into extremist groups, gangs, and conspiracy theories. I wondered what it would it look like if we could offer them a peaceful, compassionate, hopeful alternative idea to believe in.  Then I realized this idea already exists in Stoicism, a 2,300-year old philosophy that essentially says: Live your values. Don’t worry about things that are beyond your control. Be a person of good character who looks out for other people.Stoicism gives us the tools we need to increase our self awareness, be more present, and to respond to life in a mindful way and not out of emotion or habit.Consider this episode Stoicism 101. I couldn't think of a better person to talk to about this than Donald Robertson, a Stoic expert and a cognitive behavioral therapist. He's written my favorite books on modern Stoicism, including Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. AND, he's an expat/world wanderer: a Scotsman who moved in Canada but has been appropriately hanging out in Athens for a good part of this year. Enjoy the show!Visit sarahmikutel.com to get in touch about how we can work one-on-one together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life. Looking for a guide to help you discover your Enneagram personality type? Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionWant to connect on Insta? Find me hereDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

A lot of us say that we want more meaning in our lives to be part of something greater than ourselves, to feel more connected to other people in the universe. This begins with becoming more connected with who we are and more self-aware of what's unconsciously motivating us. Welcome to Stoic Wellbeing. I'm your host to Sarah Megatel, an American in England who uses stoicism and other techniques to help my coaching clients become more present, productive, and open-hearted. I am here to help you to visit Stoicwellbeing.com to learn more. Even though I haven't lived in the U.S. for 11 years, I've been in Italy and England for most of this time, I still pay attention to what's going on in my home country. And I see this divisiveness and bitter partisanship

and people becoming more tribal, canceling out opposing views. At the same time, I see people becoming more desperate for connection and to be part of something greater than themselves. And then I look around and see what they're gravitating toward. And if they are not religious, it seems that social media and YouTube are sucking people into extremist groups and conspiracy theories. And I wondered what it would look like if we could offer them a peaceful, compassionate, hopeful, alternative idea to believe in. And then I realized that this idea already exists in stoicism, a 2300-year-old philosophy that essentially says, live your values, don't worry about things that are beyond your control, be a person of good character who looks out for others. This podcast, a focus

on how to use this practical philosophy to live a good life. So it will be very helpful to you to have a foundational understanding of what stoicism is and what it is not. So no worries if you are brand new to stoicism. Consider this episode, Stoicism 101. I couldn't think of a better person to talk to about this than Donald Robertson, a stoic expert and cognitive behavioral therapist. He's written my favorite books on modern stoicism, including Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and how to think like a Roman emperor. And he is a fellow expat world wanderer, a Scotsman, who moved to Canada, but has been appropriately hanging out in Athens for a good part of this year. You might hear some Greek dogs barking in part of this episode, and what could be better than that? First, let's

clear up the confusion between uppercase stoicism and the lowercase adjective Stoic, which is in common use today. So lowercase stoic is what we think of when we say, you know, somebody is really stoic. They've got a stiff upper lip. They're often thought of as emotionless, like hard as a rock. Uppercase stoicism and practicing stoics are the complete opposite. Here is Donald to explain. People who try to have a stiff up a lip and repress or conceal their emotions tend not to seek social support. So they don't talk to their friends about the problems and they don't go to doctors and therapists and stuff like that. So for social reasons, it's unhealthy, but also the mere attempt to repress or conceal emotions usually makes them worse. There's what we call a paradoxical rebound

effect in psychology that's been well established. There's loads of research on this. So we know that lower kastasism is actually quite unhealthy. And yet people kind of, you know, cling onto it as a way of coping. It's a kind of desperate way of coping with emotions. It's like what people do and they can't think of anything else to do to do with their emotions. Just hide them. You know, just like try and conceal them or use alcohol or something to get rid of them or drugs. And uppercase, or capitalized stoicism, was the philosophical inspiration, by contrast, for the leading evidence-based form of modern psychotherapy, which is cognitive behavioral therapy.

That's right. Cognitive behavioral therapy is founded on a stoic tradition that's thousands of years old. Also, mindfulness, practicing gratitude, meditation, journaling. that all goes back to the Stoics. In the 1950s, Albert Ellis, a psychoanalytic therapist who'd studied the Freudian approach, realized that that didn't really work. And so he decided in the middle of his career to start again from scratch. And he looked around for ideas that he could use to build a whole new approach to psychotherapy. And he remembered that when he was a teenager, he'd read Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, two of the best-known Stoic philosophers.

In particular, there's a passage in the handbook of Epictetus that says, it's not things that upset us, but rather our opinions about them. And Alice jumped on that idea because it mirrors what we know called the cognitive theory of emotion. And that is the fundamental premise on which all of cognitive therapy is built. Freud wasn't the first psychotherapist. You know, this surprises a lot of people, even many academics, but the Stoics had the same. psychotherapy, they wrote books called On Therapeutics. They talk about the therapy of the psyche, and they wrote extensively about psychotherapeutic techniques that are similar to the cognitive

therapy techniques we use today. The medical model is pervasive in ancient philosophy, from Pythagoras and Socrates all the way down. Socrates said that his method, the famous Socratic method, the Alencus, we call it. It was a type of medicine for the soul, the psychosis. and he said specifically, not a lot of people know this. He said several times quite clearly that it's a medicine that cures arrogance or conceit, and that was what he was attempting to do. And so sometimes it was dangerous because he would question people and try to cure them of their intellectual conceit, and sometimes they'd get angry.

And that's partly why they made them drink hemlock, right? He pissed some people off doing that. But other people were happy because it made them realize that they had more to learn. So Ellis knew that. He invented a whole new therapy that drew a lot of inspiration from the Stoics. But most importantly, this fundamental premise is something that the two traditions share in common. It's fundamental to Stoicism. It's fundamental to CBT.

And so although they're different, they have this really essential thing in common, this insight that it's not things that upset us, but rather our opinions of them. So the reason that's so important, clients come into therapy and they'll talk about their problems. So they'll go, I'm angry, I'm depressed, I'm anxious, and then they'll talk about all the horrible consequences of that. So they'll say it's destroying my relationship. It's affecting me at work. You know, it's preventing me from being creative, like it's impairing the whole quality of my life. And so then there reaches a point, having talked a lot about how awful this is in the consulting room where most clients will then kind of think they need to explain why they're stuck.

So they'll say, but I can't help it. I know it's bad. I know it's having all these terrible consequences, but I can't help it. It's just the way I feel. And then Ellis would say, because that's kind of like that kind of stymies a lot of therapists,

you know? You think, I guess it's just how you feel then. Like it's like saying there's nothing I can do about it. And Ellis would say, but it's not just how you feel, is it? It's also how you think. Because the cognitive theory of emotion says that thoughts,

and feelings are not two separate things, and that our feelings are based upon underlying beliefs, value judgments, and attitudes. And the reason that's of seismic importance, that changed the whole ballgame in psychotherapy. It turned everything upside down. Things were never the same after this. Because as soon as you recognize

that your feelings are also thoughts or beliefs, they have a truth value, and it means that you can question them. You can ask whether those beliefs are rationalized, or irrational, whether they're logical or illogical, whether they're based on any evidence, whether they contradict other beliefs that you have, or whether they might be alternative, more helpful, more realistic ways of looking at the same situation. If that just blew your mind, let's take a step back.

The Stoics were saying, and also modern psychotherapists, that our feelings and thoughts are interlinked. We have to train ourselves to separate what happened and our feelings about it. we have the power to change our thoughts and our negative feelings by questioning our thoughts and negative feelings. So a lowercase stoic would say, I have these thoughts, there's nothing I can do about them, I'm just going to try to fight it and put on this stuff up or lip. And an uppercase Stoic would say, I can't control everything that happens in this world, but I can control how I react. And if that sounds tough, don't worry, I will be talking about how to do that a lot on this

podcast. The Stoics believed that human beings were rational, and when I first heard this, I thought, not a lot of the human beings, I know, but the idea is that we are all capable of being rational beings and we can learn to be more rational and reasonable. Stoics say the goal is to get rid of our negative passions like anger and anxiety and replace them with healthy passions like love and compassion and joy by following stoic practices to become more rational, happier, and more resilient. And Donald says that stoicism is actually stickier than cognitive behavioral therapy because it's a way of life that's focused on prevention and reflection, rather than addressing an immediate psychological concern. It's not things that upset us, but rather our opinions about

we call that cognitive distancing in modern psychology. There's a growing body of research. that shows it may be one of the most powerful and reliable techniques in the entire field of psychotherapy. You could describe it as the ability to separate our opinions from external events and to realize that if I lose my job and I think it's a disaster, it's a catastrophe, it's awful, that those qualities don't adhere in the external event itself, but they're just expressions of how I feel about it. Those are my value judgments I'm projecting into it. there is no good and bad in a sense in nature itself.

There's just stuff that happens. And I'm the one that shouts about it, complains about it and says it's awful. But I might not, I could choose not to do that. Ten years from now, I might look back on losing my job and think it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And be describing the same event, but viewing it from a completely different perspective. Someone else that works with me might lose their job. And they might think, you know what? It's an opportunity.

It's a challenge for me. There's more than one way to interpret. a perceived catastrophe. And so the Stoics want us to realize the subjectivity of our response, the value judgments, the awfulness of something comes from inside us. We're projecting it and to realize that and gain a separation of our feelings and thoughts from the external events so that we can take more responsibility from them. So this is a little bit more of a subtle technique, but it's very powerful and very important. Okay, by now you get that what Epictetus said, it's not things that bother us. It's our judgment about things is one of the core ideas of

stoicism. Here's something else you need to know. There are four cardinal virtues in stoicism. Wisdom, justice, which goes beyond justice as we know it, to also mean treating people fairly and kindly and doing the right thing, courage and moderation, also known as self-discipline, temperance, so being mindful and not following every impulse, not flying off the hands, handle if somebody upsets you. Stoicism was started around 300 BC by a rich merchant name Zeno after he lost everything in a shipwreck and he ended up in Athens where he read about Socrates in a bookshop, and thus began an ancient philosophical tradition that flourished in Athens and Rome for 500 years. The Stoic goal is to live a virtuous life, but their use of the word

virtue is different than how most of us today understand that word. When you hear virtue, it can sound like purity, but a more modern translation of the word virtue is excellence of character. So at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that the U.S. is extremely polarized at the moment. And during the election, and actually long before that, I kept thinking about the word character and wondering why it seems so unimportant to so many people. The Stoics ancient and modern, would say that character is the only thing that matters. Another way of saying this is that the goal of life is to live in agreement with nature, to use reason to live in harmony with ourselves, other people, and the universe. Stoicism is a philosophy about love. It's about

kindness and connection, about loving all of humanity, not just your immediate tribe. Here are some other core ideas of Stoicism. The Stoics were pantheists, so they were material. So unlike Plato, Plato believed there was this metaphysical realm of pure ideas that sort of existed in a whole other world, like apart from the world that we know. A world behind the scenes, Nietzsche called it. And the Stoics were like, nah, this is it, right? There's this material world that we have to live in. That's all that we really know about. And what's sacred? Isn't this kind of like hidden mysterious thing that's in another dimension from us? or whatever, like in a metaphysical realm. The Stoic said, no, like, this universe, considered in its totality, is sacred and divine. That's, like, the most holy thing is the all, like the totality of the universe considered as one.

And they said, that's what truth is. When you understand things within the context of the whole of time and space, like, that would be the truth, like, of the universe. They also realized way, ahead of the time, that in modern psychology, we know when someone's anxious, they engage in something we call threat monitoring. So normally, you can pay attention to several things at once, like about half a dozen things, right? So you can be driving your car and listening to the radio, thinking about what you're going to have for dinner and arguing with your kids in the back seat

all at the same time. How cool is that? I say it's like our ability to walk and chew gum, right? We can do more than one thing at a time, except when you're freaking out, like when you're anxious or when you're really angry, the scope of your attention gets narrowed down. and you tend to focus in on, like you have confirmation bias. If you're angry, you'll focus on the things that make you even more angry. And if you're anxious, you'll look automatically like a laser beam, like a spotlight, you'll be looking around you for signs of danger. Now, the downside of that is that you ignore safety cues in the environment

or other things that would balance out your emotions. So your emotions become more intense and monolithic and harder to control when you do that. the Stoics knew that. So they knew that the trick is to broaden our attention. Because one of the dilemmas in therapy is if there's something that's freaking you out, there's two things. People tend to go from one extreme to the other in terms of how they respond to things that freak them out that trigger them.

So either they grab onto the thing that bugs them and they chew it over incessantly for hours. They ruminate about it. They ask themselves questions about it. What if this happens? What does it mean? what if that happens, how they have a dialogue with themselves about it that's just really negative and churns over things and makes them worse.

Like they just plow the field of their anger more and more, right? So either they do that, they won't let it go, overthinking it. Or they try and avoid it by drinking, watching some TV program, binge watching something on Netflix, or whatever they do to distract themselves, right? or they just try and kind of like squeeze it out of their mind they try and blot it out so either we avoid and we push it away or we grab it onto it and kind of struggle with it too much

neither of those is a good strategy if you only focus on the present moment and the worst part of it it would be like putting the painful thing the trigger under a magnifying glass so it makes your feelings more intense but if you back out and look at the bigger picture there'll be signs of safety signs of opportunity

that would balance out So you'd actually have a more nuanced emotional response. It would be like a mini-coloured canvas rather than just an intense spot of blood red, like, or black or something. Just one intense negative thing. Like there's a complex picture. And you'd have a complex emotional response to it that's more balanced and mature and nuanced. A really, really easy therapy technique.

So a chronological way of doing that would be a client comes to me and says that they're worried that their girlfriend might dump them or something, right? Or then maybe they're worried they're going to get sacked for it. from their job, their boyfriend might break up with them or something. So a therapist will often say, well, let's suppose that does happen. What do you think is probably going to happen next? And so the client will usually say something bad. Like they go, well, I'll probably sit at home and cry a lot.

I'll be crying in my beer for hours and hours. Like, drowning my sorrows, like, I'll be heartbroken if my partner dumps me, let's say. And then the therapist will just repeat themselves. Like, and they go, well, suppose that happens. What's probably going to happen next? And they'll go, well, maybe I won't even be able to go into work. Like, I'll stay at home for a while and, you know, kind of wallow in my sorrow and stuff.

And then the therapist will say, sure, like, well, then suppose it happens, what's probably going to happen next? And they'll say, I guess eventually, maybe I'll start going out and socialising again. What's probably going to happen next? Well, I guess, like, maybe eventually, you know, I might meet somebody else and it's probably going to happen now. We'll probably end up in another relationship.

And then you can say, well, if you look at things from that perspective, of how catastrophic does it seem like if you're to break up your partner or something like that. And they go, well, okay, like maybe it doesn't seem like it's the end of the world anymore. But so it's odd. What we want to get people away from is not the idea that something is bad,

but the idea that it's catastrophic. It's the end of the world. An author that I quite like word far, and so I throw out a good book on Stoicism called The Practicing Stoic, and he put it away that I'd never really thought of before. He said that, you know, the purpose of many of the techniques in Stoist is just to allow us to feel now the way we would feel about things if we'd had a chance to get used to them,

which is like not a bad way of putting it. That's partly why the Stoics want us to anticipate problems and mentally rehearse them. So we kind of get bored with them and we kind of get used to them. So we're not denying them. So remember, people normally deny stuff or try and avoid thinking about it, or they kind of struggle with it as if it's a huge threat. And what we want to do is neither of those, but to be able to accept things and not freak out about them. I see them as more moderate rather than as being all on nothing.

I want to jump in and mention something else that Ward Farnsworth said in his book, The Practicing Stoic, because it relates to everything that I said in the previous episode on the limitations that our passions and our patterns have on us and illustrates why the Enneagram and Stoicism works so nicely together to break us out of those passions and patterns. Here is a quote from the practicing Stoic. We desire whatever we don't have. We are contemptuous of whatever we do have, and we judge our state and our success by comparisons

that are arbitrary and pointless. We chase money and pleasure in ways that can bring no real satisfaction. We pursue reputation in the eyes of others that can do us no real good. We torment ourselves with fear of things that are more easily endured than worried about. We constantly overlook the present moment because we are preoccupied with future states that will in turn be overlooked when they arrive. This suggests the flavor of the stoic diagnosis. In short, we vex ourselves with beliefs, mostly half-conscious, that came from nowhere we can name, and that tend to make us unhappy and ridiculous, thinking better and harder about the workings of our minds can free us from many subtle insanities. Now back to Donald.

And another way of doing the same thing is just to say 10 years from now, five years from out, 10 years from now looking back on it, how would you feel about it? And they might say, well, I mean, the facts would be the same, but I'd feel differently about it. I wouldn't be as upset about it. And so I like to say to people, well, if 10 years from now looking back, he wouldn't be upset about the same thing, the same facts, and why should you be a, you be any more upset about it looking back on it 10 minutes from now and they'll go, I don't know, like just

because it's just happened. And I'll go, what difference does that make? Why does that make any difference? If it's something especially that you can't control and it's done and dusted, what difference doesn't make whether it's 10 minutes or 10 years? Why shouldn't you, why allow yourself to feel now the same way that you would 10 years looking

back on it? From which perspective would you be most able to cope? They go, well, I guess like, you know, this way where it's more matter of a fact, and I'm a bit more to tire, they've been more able to move on and think what my next, my plan is going to be and so on, whereas if I think, oh my God, this is a catastrophe. I'm kind of paralysed and I can't really think what to do next. So it might be beneficial, like, to be able to accept the facts of it. So you're not avoiding the reality or denying it, but viewing it in the way that you would as if it was

old hat, they'd had a chance to get used to it. Stoicism uses all sorts of ways to improve our well-being by making us more reflective, calm, and resilient, which benefits us as individuals, as well as society as a whole. I opened this episode talking about the tensions and tribalism increasing in the US right now, and this is also unfortunately happening across the globe. So what can we do about this? What is our role to play? We should start with ourselves. You know, this is a therapy that if we can get it to work on ourselves, almost by magic, it starts to benefit other people, right? If you think that the people, you know all those bad people and the angry people, the annoying, the prejudiced people, like, they need it. But we need it as

well, right? We should cure ourselves first because it for sure it makes them worse if we start to copy them. And that's always what happens in the internet. One person gets angry, then the other person gets angry and it's like a spiral. But if someone can get angry with you and you can remain like it's water off a duck's back and continue to try and understand them and be empathic and be patient with them. That can be very powerful, right? You know, like sometimes their anger will fizzle out pretty quickly if you don't keep stoking it. People are shocked. If you actually listen to them, like, they're not used to, it freaks them out, makes them uncomfortable. If you say, well, tell me more about this. Like, I have friends that say, I think it's outrageous, you know,

this idea of having a state-funded healthcare system's crazy. You know, that's a slippery slope to Stalinism. And you say, have you ever been to Britain? Like, and I like to say, it's often, my friends that are kind of into guns and the military and stuff, and I go, do you think that the military should be privatised? Like, they go, no, that would be great. Like, I'm an awful idea. They go, like, well, just this. Why should the military be state-funded but not the healthcare system?

Then, like, what's the different? And just get them to explain, right? And also, rather than disputing people didatically, we should do what Socrates did, which is to, you know, question people, saratically by pointing out contradictions, gently, compassionately, patiently, in what they've said, rather than just saying,

you're wrong, you're an idiot. We should go, but hang on a minute, like a few minutes ago you also said this. Like, so how do you square those two things and help them to figure it out themselves that maybe they're contradicting themselves or that their beliefs are contradicting their actions to say, I just want to understand, like, I'm curious.

I think also if you approach it with a sense of curiosity, like genuine curiosity, I mean, sometimes you find out you're wrong and you go, no, that guy's got a valid point. But at the moment, it's both, sides in the political spectrum in America that are like constantly slapping each other in the face and the angrier

they get the more irrational they get on both sides and you know somebody has to go first and de-escalate the whole thing. We have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that at some level you know we share common interests like maybe if we disagree with people about politics that nevertheless you know

maybe they actually want to benefit society but they disagree with us about the way do it, you know, because if we can find, even if it's buried really deep, like, that if there's some kind of common values, then that allows us to have a conversation. Whenever the stoics are dealing with anything external, include, i.e. another person, they always attach what they call the reserve clause to it. So it's a technical concept, stoic ethics and psychology. But it's very simple. It's like saying, if nothing prevents me, or fate willing, to say, I'm going to try and explain this to this dude. fate willing, like, he'll understand. But if he doesn't, it's not the end of the world,

rather than he's got to understand, like, you know, like, I don't understand why he won't listen. So this kind of demanding attitude is a recipe for neurosis. And the stoics of the philosophical attitude is to say, I will try and explain to this other person or try and help them to understand fate permitting, or if nothing prevents me. But I also accept the fact, like, it might not turn out as I might have preferred. So we accept the fact that they might disagree with us. We accept the fact they might insult us. We accept the fact that they might ignore us

in advance because that's human nature. That's the stoic philosophical attitude. But nevertheless, we're going to try and enlighten, inform, educate them, show them a better way insofar as that's possible. To recap, the stoics say, don't get sucked into the drama, but don't

turn your back on society either. We have a duty to engage with the world and also to lead by example. I don't know about you, but leading by example is the only way I have ever had influence over anyone, definitely not by ranting on social media or by telling them all the reasons they're wrong, which is something I've done, and I'm sure I'll do it again because I'm not perfect. There are no perfect Stoics. This podcast is all about self-improvement, not perfection. Okay, I hope you have enjoyed this intro into Stoicism and are feeling more at peace and inspired to live a more

satisfying stoic life. In the next episode, I will continue my conversation with Donald talking about my favorite stoic, Marcus Aurelius. In his book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Donald brilliantly explains the stoic philosophy by telling the story of Marcus, the last of the five good emperors. Meanwhile, go and have a look at Donald's website at Donald Robertson.com.com. Name. He has created another books and courses and videos and articles on stoicism to keep you busy for the next 2,000 years. Seriously, I don't know how he does it, but everything he creates is super engaging, so I know you will get a lot out of it. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend who would like to hear it. That is the best way to grow the show. All right, until next time,

you will never have this day again. Make it matter. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a little. it a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah igatel.com slash blank no more.