Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to stoicism number two. Stoicism introduction yesterday. Hopefully you found it useful and you did the no complaints' tape, which is hard. If you do complain just kind of like, you know, see it and then understand why it's happening.
Speaker 1:It's quite eye opening to see how many things we complain about, quite automatic. But it's not really about trying to over control the automatic reactions, it's about what we do after we realise those automatic reactions, right? And that's the thing about this human body of ours, we think, we really really think we've got control of a lot of things. We really really aren't. When you go outside from a warm house to a cold breeze, the hairs on your skin stand up automatically.
Speaker 1:You don't have to tell them to stand up. You don't have to say, Hey, it's gotta stand up. Quick, it's cold, stand up. No. Doesn't work like a just reacts straight away.
Speaker 1:Then you notice my hair's standing up. You know, I actually smell that cold and then I might actually bring it back down. But we don't have a gore the hair is being standing up. What are you doing standing up? Boy, didn't tell you to do that.
Speaker 1:We don't say that to the hair standing up when we go into the cold. So when we think of stuff like anxiety and stuff like that, or like a worry, that's kind of part of that type of reaction the body has. Sometimes an anxious response or with thoughts like that or those feelings we have, they're quite automatic and there's nothing we can do about them. Like when we feel a bit of, anxiety or worry or this and that, they come and hit us straight away and we're like woah, I don't want that to happen. But you can't really control most of those things but we can choose to respond and say okay I understand what's going on, I get it, calm down, nothing's wrong here.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's where the second layer is where the powers are. That's the important thing to realise, and that's what the Stoics realised as well. You know, they call them proto impressions, the things that happen to us that cause a reaction without us even having to accept it or even to know. You know, when you get scared or when you jump or when something surprises you or when you smell something you get a disgust from like you know these things are like, bam, bam, bam. We need those things because we would never have survived without the body doing a lot of these automated stuff for us.
Speaker 1:If it meant we have to be our frontal cortex to be aware of all this before taking action, it'd be too slow, it'd be dead. We breathe, we don't think about breathing, now you're thinking about breathing and you will consciously breathe for the next thirty seconds, but we don't think about breathing. So we don't have a lot of control over what happens to our body. We have control to the response, which is the watchtower. The watchtower, the frontal cortex can scan the body.
Speaker 1:It can scan what's hit it from a sense of, you know, feeling, smell, taste, sight, touch. Yeah? The Stoics were like okay, let's have a look at the responses. So I just want to bring that up because don't get too wound up if you feel a sense of anxiety walking into a new room with the staff in there or a meeting, don't get too concerned or beat yourself up about those and see it as the hairs raising on your skin from going into the cold, it's just a response to an environment, and then we can actually come and rationalize it. Now I wanna talk to you about Epictetus, he was a slave that then got taught stoicism and then started his own stoic school on the West Coast Of Greece.
Speaker 1:I actually tried to go and find it, didn't didn't find it, last year. But yeah, a lot of the Roman elite went to, read his work and Marcus Aurelius actually got his lectures as well. So that's how he learned a lot of his stoicism. So I'm gonna go a few quotes by Epictetus, and then I wanna talk a bit about overwhelm. And really this is where stoicism is the manual for us is to we all get overwhelmed with life and potentially get more overwhelmed as life goes on when you start adding more work more financial stress, potentially adding kids into the mix, this and that, it gets very very chaotic.
Speaker 1:And for us to deal with that is one of the main tasks we have as adults, especially if you want to be leaders of our own little families and troops. So here's some quotes for you: It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks already knows. Right? This is true for you guys, if you think you're eating 1,600 calories a day and you haven't been losing weight for the last year, and you think it's 3,000 you know, your target's 2,006, you think it's too much, and you think that's true, well, can you learn? Do you think you already know the answer?
Speaker 1:Open mind, become your own scientist for this challenge, and just track honestly and see what happens after the data's collected. That's one example. No man is free who is not master of himself. And by man, we mean human. No human is free who is not master of him or herself.
Speaker 1:Who is your master? Anyone who has control over things upon which you set your heart over things which you seek to avoid. That's true. You know, that's very true. You are not your body and hairstyle, but your capacity for choosing well.
Speaker 1:If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be. Circumstances don't make the man they only reveal him to himself. That's a good one. When we go through, when we go through a bit of chaos and go through a bit of shit times, you really see what people are, dunno? It's very interesting to see when it happens.
Speaker 1:In my case, my father passed away seven months ago and even before when he was alive there was a lot of issues with his business and I have half siblings who are in their fifties from my father's side and two of them are very evil people, you know, and they try to steal everything from him. Fact. And to stop that happening when he was alive was horrific to see impact on his health but also when he died, you know, to see what people are capable of or to see the sinister nature of some human beings. And a lot of people say it's when people die you see it and it's true and it's absolutely mental to see it. And they reveal themselves as these really shallow human beings, they'll do anything for a bit of money.
Speaker 1:And you think to yourself like, are people genuinely got these values? Like how have they not got decent values? Right? And it's only when you see them in those circumstances that they really come out. Yeah, it's quite easy to say the right words and to to convince people of who you to make them oh, that's who they that's who they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They tell me all this and that. It's quite hard to know someone unless you see them in action, in action in different scenarios. And I bet you that a lot of you will learn a lot from your partners even to this day from different scenarios. Them in.
Speaker 1:I do like one quote that's like, When you see how someone treats a waiter or waitress in a restaurant says Laura Burton. And I think it's quite true. Definitely. We are not privy to the stories behind people's actions so we should be patient with others and suspend the judgment of them recognising the limits of our understanding. In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend but in adversity it is most difficult of all things.
Speaker 1:Deliberate deliberate much before saying or doing anything for you will not have the power of recalling what is said or done. It is in the events themselves that disturb people, but only the judgments about them, and to make the best of what is in our power and take the rest as it occurs. And that's a brilliant one to finish on. It's like to make the best of what is in our power, which is our attitude, and take the rest as it occurs. Look.
Speaker 1:Bad shit's gonna happen. Happen. Your health journey is gonna be impacted by a million and one things potentially, and you might not even foresee most of them come in. But you have to trust yourself, because you've done this for all your life, that when the storm comes you can weather it, and you of course you can. You don't have to overly think about these things, but you have to think, well, if these things do happen, I handle them with the tools I have at the time.
Speaker 1:And I think it's it's important to back yourself here. And a lot of people want to go make a stasis and it's gonna one of can say how am I gonna balance my health and the social life and my work?' Well, do what you can, The days are gonna be different. If one day you go to work and it's half nine and there's an emergency meeting, right, and there's nothing you can do for five hours, there's biscuits and tea that you can't leave, have to eat, you're starving, eat, that so be it. That's fine. It's not gonna be one of those days you can have optimal nutrition.
Speaker 1:But there might be some days you can, but that's how it works. There's no need to throw that day out to make it worse, nobody will complain about it, it's just how it is. And yeah you might think it's not fair but it's never been fair. It's never been easy to just Of course, would be brilliant if we had the next twelve weeks, all of us had no disturbances, we could go into the gym, there was no concerns, no anxieties, no worries, no phone calls worried about this, no work, no financial problems, no no, just up completely bliss. Of course, would be amazing.
Speaker 1:That's not true. It's not it's not fact. It's not a fact of life. So what even is the point thinking that they're on well, well, if he was like that, maybe I could. Isn't that gonna be like a guy?
Speaker 1:So that's it. This guy just drove past in some bliss and some tunes. So I also like about petite. He's a very very practical person, with a very practical philosophy, and I think you should take it today especially. One of the tasks today is like mindfulness in anything you do.
Speaker 1:So say, you you're gonna eat, and I'm gonna say you're my lunchtime, I'm gonna eat my meal very very slow, I'm gonna be very deliberate about it, I'm gonna taste it, I'm gonna chew it slowly, I'm gonna be very present, I'm gonna look at the food, see the colors of it, the texture of it, or if you're gonna go for a walk, it's no music, can look at the trees, you can look at the flowers, you can look at the people, you can look at the dogs in the park, you can be very present and just watch and do this for one activity today and just see how it can slow things down, which it does. And I wanna finish with some advice on overwhelm. Right? We all get overwhelmed. I'm talk if you think I'm talking from a position I don't go through any of these things I talk about or have no struggles with, you're completely wrong.
Speaker 1:Of course, I do. Go through all of these things. And similar in the vein to what Marcus Aurelius would do with his meditations, his book, he wasn't writing as a way to give other people advice. He was writing it to to retell him advice, to go through stuff. So when I'm talking about stuff, it's it's the same.
Speaker 1:I'm telling myself these advices because it's always the basics. You have to replay, replay, replay. And it's too late if you don't, it's too late in the chaos to adopt some of these thought processes. It's gotta be something you think beforehand. You know?
Speaker 1:You gotta plan these things, know, and you go through overwhelming periods of time. What can you do about it? Well, you can't take everything all at once. You can't, you know, you're gonna think about giving up a thousand times. I felt I've given up loads of times.
Speaker 1:That thought comes into my daily basis. Give up. What's the point? Go ahead. Put it down.
Speaker 1:Too much stress. Leave it there. Do something else. Trust your best. Back yourself.
Speaker 1:Whatever. Do whatever. There's there's moments where you think, what what really what is the point in this? And that's obviously just a tired mind, or it's an overwhelmed mind just wanting a way out. But the way out isn't to give up.
Speaker 1:The way out is to take it and break it down into one tiny task at a time. That gives you the path out of the overwhelm. For example, you've gone through a very potentially tough financial time right now. You're trying to look after your health, yeah? And you're trying to get ready for an event or whatever, and you've got two kids under five years old.
Speaker 1:And you think how the hell am I going to do all of this? And you're bringing up well, today I've gotta do a doctor a hospital appointment with my kid, gotta go to work, I've got this meeting to do, I've got this project due, I've gotta arrange payments with this credit card and this and I'm beyond my payments, I've got to like plan for Christmas and New Year and you think, my god, can't do it, I can't do it. Think normal. Instead of thinking all of those things, you need to look visualizing, I've said this before, like when you're washing dishes you've got all the dirty dishes on the left, got the sink in front of you and then you've got you're gonna pile up the clean dishes on the right. You can only clean the dish one dish at a time in the middle so you tick one dish, clean it, and put it in the pile to the right.
Speaker 1:Right? So there's only one dish going through the process at one time. But eventually, the clean dishes starts racking up, racking up, racking up, and the dirty dishes are going down and down. Right? That's how you visualize these things.
Speaker 1:Like, it's like I have I've only got two hands. I've only got one brain. There's only one of me. You can ask for help and stuff. But you you have to break these things down.
Speaker 1:Because it's gonna completely overwhelm you otherwise. Overwhelm is one of the reasons why people give up most things. But you break it down, you think, oh my god, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I acknowledge I'm feeling overwhelmed. Why am I feeling overwhelmed?
Speaker 1:Okay, well, this thing's just come in, this thing's just come in, I gotta do this, and I'm just remembered about this last week, and oh my god, I've got this to do. And you're like, where do I start? You think right, I need a break, oh maybe I should eat first, that's making me feel better, oh should I go for a walk first, or maybe I should do this, that'll get this, you start thinking doing other things apart from sitting down with the problem. The only thing that works is to work at the problem. She's like right, what's the one problem I should do right now?
Speaker 1:What's one thing I feel like I want to do? What's one thing I've got the energy to do? Just start on it. Once you start the momentum builds. And it's what stoicism is all about.
Speaker 1:Stoicism is about handling the storms, understanding our emotions, not to not have emotions. Right? That's not what it's about. It's about understanding our emotions and dealing with them. And that's why it's in a very important week to go over these things because this is a very overwhelming time of the year.
Speaker 1:And I want you all to know if you're feeling overwhelmed, so am I, and so is a lot of other people. And we're going to work on that today by doing the one big thing and you can have two one big things. One big thing for your health, one big thing for your work or whatever it is, and just start working on it. Because no one's gonna come and do it for you. And if you really want this thing at the end of that overwhelm, you've gotta get through the overwhelm.
Speaker 1:No one gets to this end goal without any struggle. No one gets to their health. No one gets to their physique. No one gets to this place without struggle. You're gonna feel hungry, you're gonna feel depleted, you're gonna feel no one under the workout, you're gonna feel like your job is too overwhelming, you wanna quit your job, you wanna do this, you don't wanna go out, you don't wanna see your friends, you wanna just sit on a couch and you're overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:So think, well, let me look at what I can do today to help with this. And some of you might be, I need to actually sleep for seven, eight hours. You know, go to bed early one night, or wake up the next day with a clean head and go out there in the morning. That's one tactic. Sometimes you might be thinking of a problem late at night and it's not getting anywhere.
Speaker 1:You think I need to keep going. But actually the answer isn't to keep going, it's go to sleep. Get the sleeping and wake up with a fresh mind the next day. Sometimes all we need is a nice sleep and we go again. It's amazing what a good night sleep can do for our motivation, our view of a task, our energy can completely rejuvenate you.
Speaker 1:And it's one of the most important things and that's why I got a complete week dedicated to it. Right? So if you're feeling overwhelmed, I'm not going to tell you to keep pushing on through loads of stuff, I want you to stop for a second and take a step back, and then go forward with one step, have a good sleep, have a fresh mind, and then look at the whole thing from a a brain that is refreshed. And I promise you, you're gonna feel so much lighter for it. And there might be some shit times coming up, and you might be going through some real tough tough stuff.
Speaker 1:But you've been through real tough stuff before, you've got through it. And you get through this one as well. And you can reach out to the community, of course. So overwhelm is part of the game. It's how we deal with other matters.
Speaker 1:So have a good day and speak to Shunnit.