The Daily Stoic - 12 Stoic Remedies for When Life Feels Heavy

Episode Date: March 29, 2026

The Stoics knew life could be heavy, that loneliness, frustration, and heartbreak were part of the deal. They also knew something most people miss: if your thoughts shape your life, changing them can change everything.Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you! Grab tickets here |  https://www.dailystoiclive.com/🇺🇸 USA:Portland, Oregon - June 8 San Francisco, California - June 11Minneapolis, Minnesota - August 18 Chicago, Illinois - August 19 Detroit, Michigan - August 20 🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND:Auckland, New Zealand - October 13 🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA:Sydney, Australia - October 16 Melbourne, Australia - October 18 Brisbane, Australia - October 20Perth, Australia - October 21 🎙️ AD-FREE | Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 VIDEO EPISODES| Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. I think this idea of the Stoics is having no emotions, being emotionless, having no heart. It totally misses it. It was actually the act of expressing the gratitude that was a gift to him. I try to remind myself constantly that this moment is enough. That is the path, the happiness, integrated. Stoicism doesn't exactly come off as the happiest, lightest philosophy. And there's a good reason for that.

Life is hard. Life is difficult. Life can break our hearts. Other people can break our hearts. And all of the Stoics experience this. They experience depression and loneliness and pain and grief and anger and isolation and not being appreciated. All the things that we struggle with, the Stoics struggled with.

In Marks to relis' meditations, that's what you're seeing. you're seeing the most powerful man in the world struggle with his emotions, struggle with feelings of anxiety and frustration and self-doubt, and try to work his way through. And yet, amidst this darkness, the Stoics understood, as Marks Rios would say in meditations, that our soul is died by the color of our thoughts. Our life is died by the color of our thoughts. So if we only focus on the negative, if we don't have tools or strategies for dealing with what life throws at us. We're not going to end up in a good place. So if you're lonely or depressed or tired or frustrated dealing with emotional issues, this video is for you. I'm Ryan Holliday. I've written

a number of books about Stoic philosophy. I've spoken about it to everyone from the NBA to the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders. And what we're going to talk about in today's episode is Stoic Strategies for dealing with life's difficult situations and the difficult emotions it brings up. And I think you're really going to like it. Seneca said that the mind must be taken on wandering walks. He said, otherwise you'll break. You'll be too tense. I totally agree. I try to start my day with a walk and I try to end my day with a walk. I don't even consider it exercise, although it is that. To me, it's putting the body in motion. It's slowing the mind down. I'm getting outside. I'm connected with nature. Maybe I'm having a conversation with someone

else that I care about. And even though I'm moving, I'm getting closer to a place of stillness. Walking to me is a magical cure-all. So if you're not walking every day, you're not as happy or as healthy as you could be. So listen to the Stoics and take a walk. There's a famous Stoic story. Clanthes is walking down the streets in Athens and here's this man talking to himself,

criticizing himself, berating himself. And Clianthes stops him and he says, you know, remember you're not talking to a bad person. I think one of the things that loneliness does, it's this sort of vicious cycle where Because we're away from people, we don't feel good about ourselves, because we don't feel good about ourselves, we isolate from other people. This stoic idea of being kind yourself, being affront yourself. It not just lessens the burden of that loneliness, but it also makes it more possible for you to put yourself back out there.

First off, I just like the idea of Clienthe's walking up to someone who's clearly lonely, who's clearly not having a good time, who's clearly very hard on themselves. and like a brother, like a friend, reaching out and just saying something to him. I like that, but I also like what he actually said. The message there, I think, when we are down in those depths, when we're in dark places, when we have isolated, when we do feel disconnected from people, we have to remember that we're not bad people, and how we talk to ourselves matters. And the decision to treat yourself like shit is not a good decision. There's a line by the band, the head, and the heart.

Something like, until you learn to love yourself, that door is locked to someone. which I think is beautifully said. Like if you don't think you're worthy of friendships or relationships or connection or love, how is anyone else going to see that in you? So it starts by realizing you're not talking to a bad person. You're not a bad person. It starts with, as Seneca says, being a better friend to yourself. I imagine you wanted this thing for a long time. You wanted to be successful. You wanted to be famous. You wanted to do great work to break out. And that happens. what does it actually feel like to get there? Was it a delivery on all your hopes and dreams and expectations,

or was there a little bit of a letdown? Yeah, it's interesting because this became front page news a week or two ago because I did, I think, Bill Maher's podcast, and I was talking about this idea of suffering and the human struggle for happiness, finding happiness. I mentioned, like, I spent a great deal of time on the office, really unhappy. Of course, it was misquoted.

and taken out of context and said, Rain Wilson, miserable on the set of the office. Rain Wilson spent the entire office unhappy. You can Google it. It's incredible how the media works. Headline after headline after headline, making it seem like I'm this ungrateful, miserable buck. The fact is, is that no matter how well things are going for us as human beings,

we have a tendency towards anxious discontent. And my doca, my suffering, my anxious discontent on the set of the office was, you know, I wanted to be a bigger movie star. I had a crack at doing a bunch of movies. They didn't turn out very good and people didn't really watch them. Actually, some of them, they are pretty damn good, but people didn't watch them. And they didn't work at the box office. And okay, that's fine.

But at the time, I was just pulling my hair out. Like, oh, damn it, I want this movie deal. And why can't I have this? And why can't I have that? And how come he's getting offered this? And I'm not. And, you know, envy and pettiness and self-seeking. Again, I'm so grateful for that test because I look back on it now.

I'm like, you dipshit. You were on the, that was the, you had it all. You had it all. It was the greatest job ever. Why couldn't you have just enjoyed it more? And I wasn't, I wasn't a spring chicken. I was, you know, I got cast in the office. I was 38, I think, when I started playing Dwight, you know, so well into my 40s.

By this last several years, I was in a much better place. You know, it was kind of earlier on year three, four, five, right in that area of the office. But yeah, I had, I mean, It was beautiful. It was a great group of people and a beautiful job and nice pay and got along great. And I was playing one of the great TV characters of all time. And lots of doors were open to me and getting invited to festivals and hotels and this and that and the other thing. And just enjoy it. Getting nominated for Emmys, like, revel in it.

It doesn't get better than this. It really doesn't. Like, oh, you're a TV star, but oh, you need to be a movie star. We want more. We're never satisfied. Being a kid from California, my ranch here in Texas seems enormous, right? Anything more than a small backyard seems enormous.

But, of course, when I zoom out and look at it from a drone or I've flown over it in an airplane a couple times, it suddenly gets really, really small. In meditations, a handful of times, Marks Reuss talks about zooming out and taking Plato's view. He wouldn't have been able to get up as high as we did, but he also had, his empire was also one that stretched almost the entirety of the known world.

And yet he tried to remind himself how small this really was. He talked about how the edges of the empire with little armies fighting over it were like ants fighting over a piece of food. Talked about when you zoom out from the moment that you're in and you see the larger history, the larger context. You realize that this has been the same thing happening over and over and over again. That's the famous biblical verse about how one generation comes, another goes, but the earth abideth forever. The sun also rises. That's where Hemingway gets the title there. It says the sun goeth down and hastens to the place where he arose.

The idea is that everything in the world has happened before, right? Babies have always been being born. People have always been squabbling over things. People have always been fighting over things. People have always been lusting over things. People have always been stupid. People have always been ungrateful. People have always been afraid.

They've always been here. They've always been doing this. That's the perennial theme even of meditations. Not only is Marcus Reelis is talking about it, but he's illustrating it. it, right? You read the pages of this 2,000-year-old book, and you see that as much as humanity has changed, as much as the world is different, it is also exactly the fucking same. The rhythm of life continues, even if technology disrupts, even if world events disrupt. We have to find a way

to take solace in this, to take humility in this, to get some clarity and perspective from this. We have to zoom out. We have to realize that the things we think are very big are actually quite small and then the things that we think are quite small are actually timeless and connect us to all humans who've ever lived. That's why we zoom out and take a bigger perspective. Most of the exercise that I do is very solitary. I like running. I like swimming. I suffer by myself, which is great. That's how I like to do it. But there is also something special about suffering with other people, doing hard things with other people. Seneca talks about doing this cold plunge to start the new year. There's things that have existed for hundreds of years. Polar Bear clubs where

everyone gets together and they do something really hard and challenging with each other. One of the best ways to find community is around the things that you struggle to do by yourself. CrossFit gyms, great communities, martial arts, great communities, races or physical challenges, Spartan races, warrior dashes. Doing really hard things with other people is a way to pull people together. There's a great line from Marcus Reelis where he says, we're like soldiers storming a wall. So what if you slip and you have to ask a comrade for help? Nothing helps you realize that you're all in something together

when it's something that each of you is struggling to do by yourself. So I think facing discomfort is great generally. Facing discomfort with other people is how you quickly become a member of a tribe. This is what 12-step groups, what recovery groups have been doing for also like 100 years. People at the rock bottom when they need help, when they are struggling, coming together and learning how to be part of an organization that isn't a top-down organization, we're going to tell you what to do, but a collective, a community-driven organization where you're all coming together and you're getting comfort from each other as you do uncomfortable things together. So I told you I was at this Airbnb here in Maui on this trip we took and, oh man, the mattresses were not. good. I did not sleep well. The kids did not sleep well. I wish that they had Helix mattresses. If you've ever slept on a Helix, you will know why so many people love them. Basically, you take

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trial and limited lifetime warranty. Just go to helixleep.com slash do it for 27% off. That's Helix sleep.com slash stoic for 27% off. Make sure you enter our show name at checkout so they can know we sent you. Helix sleep.com slash stoic. Today's sponsor is Chime, the fee-free banking app changing the way people bank. Chime isn't just another banking app. They unlock smarter banking for everyday people with products like MyPay, giving you access to up to $500 of your paycheck anytime.

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slash stoic. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Bank card, and my pay line of credit provided by the Bank or Stryd Bank N.A. My pay eligibility requirements apply and credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Option. Option.com.com may have fees or charges. See chime.com slash fees info. Advertised annual percent and yield with Chime Plus status only. Otherwise, 1.0.0% APY applies. No mean balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details and a place. term. Senegal had this word euthemia, which he said is the sense of the path that you're on. And he said not being distracted by the path that crisscross yours, especially from those who are

hopelessly lost. It takes an immense amount of discipline, I think also confidence, just like sort of self-awareness to go like, here are the things I want to do, here's when I want to do them, and like not really paying attention to what other people are doing or everything that's coming into your inbox. It takes all those things, right? If you're not too caught up in that chase and in your own ego and everything, you actually learn to like really settle into the fact

that you intellectually grasp, oh, I'm not comparing myself to what Ryan's doing, whatever he just did, like he's on his own path. And you find that it doesn't make you go like, what about me? I did do that at 25. And like now when I hear about that, I don't go like, what am I going to do?

You know? Basically, nothing lasts. That's the very stoic idea. In Meditations, Marx really says, Alexander the great and his mule driver, the same thing happened to both. They were both buried in the same earth. There's that Latin saying, sick transit, Gloria,

right? All glory is fleeting. We think that if we become famous or popular or important, right, this says something about us, it makes us immortal, but it doesn't. You're eventually inevitably, invariably forgotten. Nothing lasts. It doesn't matter. You could be the biggest thing in the world.

And then one day, you're not. Suddenly you're not. One of my books, Stillness hit number one. And then you know what happened the next week? Someone else was there, right? I've had a good run, but it'll go away eventually. Inevitably, invariably always does. So what does matter then?

The Stokes would say just being a good person, doing good work, focusing on what you control. That's it. Nobody is more unhappy than the person who's never gone through adversity, Seneca says. He says because they've never been permitted to prove themselves. something I try to remind myself when stuff gets hard, when I run into a bunch of obstacles in a row, when it doesn't turn out the way that I want it to go. I'm going, hey, this is an opportunity. This is a chance for me to practice the virtues. That's what the Stoics say. The obstacle is the way. It's a chance to practice virtue, to practice excellence. But more importantly, it's a chance

for me to prove myself, if only to myself. Yes, of course, I would have liked it to go the way that I wanted it. And I might feel a little unhappy that it's not that way. But I'd be more unhappy if I never got this chance, if I didn't get this practice, if I didn't get these with things not being the way that I wanted them to be. So I embrace that opportunity. I do the practice willingly. I take the rep and I get better for it and ultimately happier for it.

The most beautiful writing that Seneca did, you wrote these four essays that are called His Consolations. And they're him consoling people who have lost someone. In one case, it's his mother who lost him. He's being exiled. I think this idea of the Stoics is having no emotions, being emotionless, having no heart. It totally misses it.

It's about not being overwhelmed and ruled by or destroyed by those emotions, but it's certainly not stuffing them down and pretending they don't exist. Sometimes it's about using the mind to understand, here's why you're feeling this way, this way is not rationalist, it's in a good way to feel. And then I think in other times, you've got it all perfectly worked out in your head, and the heart needs to come and overwhelm that and be like, it's more complicated.

There are people involved, like we're talking about with formlessness. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's the other. In meditation, the Marks Surrealist talks about being the rock that the waves crash over and eventually the raging sea falls still around. That idea of stillness, of being present, of locking in, to me it's everything. That's happiness. It's also great work, where that flow state comes from. It's where joy comes from. It's where connection comes from. It's where gratitude comes from. So just lock in, calm down. It doesn't matter what's happening in the outside world. Slow down, lock in, let the waves crash around you, and eventually everything will quiet down,

you will quiet down, and you will do what you need to do in this very moment. Don't seek for things to happen the way you want them to happen, but want them to happen the way that they have happened, wish for them to have happened the way that they did. That's Epic Tito. He obviously precedes Nietzsche by a couple thousand years, but Nietzsche had this idea of amorphati, right? Amorfatty, it translates to a love of fate. Instead of needing things to be a certain way, instead of simply accepting them as they are,

Nietzsche and Epictetus say that human greatness, human happiness, is in loving things as they actually are, saying this is the way that it's supposed to be, this is wonderful that it is that way, it was chosen for me. And this isn't even necessarily to say that you just accept the world as awful and unjust and you never try to change it, but you say, no, no, no, it was set up this way so I could be who I am capable of being inside of it. That's what this reminder of it means to me. Marcus Rurus talks about how what you throw on top of a fire is fuel for the fire that turns it all into flame and brightness. That's what we're talking about. Amorafati means that you embrace life as it is.

You embrace situations as they are instead of fighting them, instead of running from them, instead of resenting them, even instead of just tolerating them. You love them. That is the path to happiness and to greatness. Every day I send out one stoic-inspired email to hundreds of thousands of people all over. over the world. If you want more Stoic wisdom in your inbox, you can sign up at daily stoic.com slash email. It's totally free and unsubscribe at any time. We'd love to have you. Dailystoic.com slash email.