Stoic Coffee
  • Podcast
  • Learn
  • About
  • Get in Touch

Control

144 – Emotional Management

September 3, 2018 by Erick

 

When was the last time that you felt a really strong emotion? What was that emotion? Gratitude? Joy? Anger? Jealousy? Emotions are a powerful force in our lives. When channeled properly, they can be the fuel that helps push us through to accomplishing what we want. They can also drive us in ways that we aren’t expecting or don’t want.

I’ve had several listeners reach out to me asking me to talk about how to manage emotions and how to deal with triggering events, so today I want to talk about using stoic ideas to help with regulating emotions. At times, our emotions can seem very overwhelming for us, and push is in a direction that is not helpful and can be damaging. In my own life, I’ve had times where I’ve let my emotions override my common sense and make choices or say things that I later ended up regretting.

I’ve talked on this podcast about how I struggle with keeping my temper in check, and the last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle for me. I’ve been dealing with some insomnia, which tends to leave me with less energy to keep a lid on my anger. And while my lack of sleep is a factor in lowering my attentiveness to my emotional state, my emotions are my responsibility.

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

― Epictetus

First, let’s look out the flow of emotional states. The first thing that happens is we sense something.  Some even occur and we see, hear, touch, smell or taste something, and that information is received by our brain. At this point, it’s just raw data. It may be the vibration of a voice or a song. It may be the image of a car. It may be the smell of something cooking on the stove. This is just an observation of the event

Next, we have a thought about what that data means. We begin to make some kind of interpretation or judgment of what we sensed. We may hear someone say something that we think is rude. We may think the smell from the kitchen is enticing. We may think that the car we see is coming at us at us too quickly.

Once we have added some meaning to the data that came into our heads, we have created some emotion around it. We may feel offended at the remark. We may be excited about eating whatever someone is cooking in the kitchen. We may be on alert that we’re going to be run over by the car.

This cycle of observing, making judgments, and creating emotions continues until we take some action. We might say something back to the person. We may head into the kitchen to see what’s cooking. Maybe we run out of the way of the car.

Once we take action, then we start the cycle over again. We observe what has happened, in response to our action, have a thought about that observation, then have some kind of emotion around it, then we take some kind of action.

Now that we have our pattern established, what happens in this causes us to lose control of our emotions? It really comes from the judgment stage. How we think about something, and what we think that it means, is what create the emotion.  If someone said something trying to offend us, we can decide if we want to let that offend us, and feel that emotion. If we make a judgment that we don’t care about what they said, or that they are misinformed, or that we possibly misheard, then we have a very different feeling about what that person said, and will respond quite differently depending on our interpretation. Because we decide what we want to think about what they said, we are in control about how we feel about it. If we are able to delay making a judgment as long as possible, and just observe events, then we can choose what kind of judgment to attach to something, or to not have an opinion it at all.

Now some things, we should have a quick judgment on. If a car is racing towards us, we should get out of the way. But even in this case, making a wise judgment is more helpful, because if you are able to manage your fear, you can make a better decision of where to run.

The biggest trigger for anger is expectations. When we think that something should happen a certain way or someone should or shouldn’t behave a certain way, we set ourselves up to be disappointed. Learning how to let go of any expectations or outcomes, especially around things that we have no control over, such as what other people think of us, is one of the key teachings of both stoicism and Buddhism. The more we can learn to let go of things we can’t control, observe them, and make judgments based only on things we observe, the easier it is to manage our emotions, and make better decisions.

Most of the triggers for my anger come from my interpretation, my judgments of what I think about what someone else says or thinks of me. This is why the stoics talk so much about not worrying about the opinions of others.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

— Marcus Aurelius

Other peoples opinions are none of my business. They have the right to feel whatever they want. Just like I do. The question I need to ask is, “What do I think it means if they are annoyed at me? What meaning am I attaching to it?” Their opinion of me is not something that I can control, and when I do try to control it, I get frustrated by my powerlessness to be able to control it.

One of the best ways that I’ve been able to get this more under control is by using a stoic exercise called Premeditatio Malorum, or to premeditate on evil, basically imagining what could go wrong, so that you are prepared to handle those negative emotions. This is a powerful exercise in learning how to deal with things that trigger you.

Let’s say for example that you have a family member or friend that seems to triggers your anger. Sit down and imagine a scenario where you normally would get upset and lose your cool. Imagine what the situation would be like, and feel that emotion. And then make a choice to just sit and feel that emotion. How would it feel to just sit with it? How would it feel to just observe that emotion, and notice how it feels in your body? If you can just sit with it, and let yourself feel that you can recognize that this emotion can’t really harm you in any way.

Even after working through this kind of exercise, you’re going to make a judgment about something, and you’ll feel that strong emotion. There is nothing wrong with this. If you do notice this, try to take that step back an observe the emotion. Notice it. Try to see what the thought was behind it. What was the meaning that you attached to it? Once you can start to understand your own thought process, you can start to change what thoughts you have about specific events.

Learning to manage your emotions is not something that is easy to do. It’s something that takes constant work and attentiveness. Understanding the thought processes that lead to these emotions and using exercises like Premeditatio Malorum can help you be prepared to deal with those triggers help you manage your emotions rather than letting them control you.

Posted in: Anger, Awareness, Circumstances, Coffee Break, Control, stoicism Tagged: awareness, circumstances, emotions, judgments, perspective

133 – A Momentary Loss of Attention

May 21, 2018 by Erick

“Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason. it’s much easier for a mariner to wreck his ship than it is for him to keep it sailing safely; all he has to do is head a little more upwind and disaster is instantaneous. In fact, he does not have to do anything: a momentary loss of attention will produce the same result. It’s much the same in our case. If you doze off, all your progress up to that point will be negated. To keep a sharp eye on your impressions, and never fall asleep. It is no small thing that is being watched over, it equates”

— Epictetus

Show Notes:

  • As we work to become better humans, we need to remember that it takes constant attention.

  • We need to make sure that we are finding ways to apply these principles consistently in our lives.

  • And it’s not easy. Our natural inclination is to be a bit lazy.

  • We don’t always want to put into practice what we’ve learned because it takes consistent effort.

  • I’ve talked about dealing with anger in my life, and reaching a point where I can deal with things more rationally more consistently.

  • So when I read this quote it really felt applicable.

  • There would be times when I’d go for a decent period of not letting my anger get the best of me, then I’d get a little tired or grumpy or frustrated, and fall right back into the same old behavior.

  • I don’t expect to be perfect, but it felt like I was undoing all the progress I had made.

  • Working on the things that will help us become better people is something that needs our attention all the time.

  • Consistent application of principles, ingrains them into our character

  • Just because we because we’ve done well with integrating good practices in principles isn’t our lives doesn’t mean that we can simply rest on our laurels.

  • I think it’s also a bit like fitness. We don’t just build up some muscle and then we never have to work on it again.

  • Consistency and attention helps strengthen our character, and keeps us sailing smoothly.

  • Even a good captain can sail his ship all the way to shore, only to end up on the rocks from careless inattention.

    Photo by Nathan Pirkle on Unsplash

Posted in: Awareness, Challenges, Coffee Break, Control, stoicism Tagged: attention, daily practice, principles, stoic, stoicism

123 – A Different Person

May 11, 2018 by Erick

“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”

― Seneca


Show Notes:

• How often do we wish the world would change for us?

• How often do we think that we can run from our troubles?

• Maybe we work at a place where we feel like if our coworkers or our boss would just get their shit together then we’d be happy with our jobs.

• Maybe we’re in a relationship where we feel like if the other person would just change the things that we want them to, we’d finally be happy.

• Maybe we hate the town we’re living in and if only we could live somewhere else, we’d be happy.

• Maybe we think that if we had a better house, a better car, a better partner, better kids, then we’d be happy.

• There are so many things that we could point our finger at and say that needs to change, then I’d be happy.

• But the thing is, all of these things are outside of yourself. Most of these things are things that you have very little control over.

• And what Seneca means by this is that we are in control of our happiness. We can decide at any time to take control over the things that we can control, and be happy.

• Wishing the world to change for us in order for us to be happy just isn’t going to happen.

• Making our happiness dependent upon things that we can’t control is surefire way to be unhappy.

• And all these external things that come our way are things that are outside of our control.

• If you can learn to be happy in the lowest of circumstances, then you can be happy anywhere.


Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Posted in: Awareness, Circumstances, Coffee Break, Control Tagged: change, circumstances, happiness, stoic, stoicism

121 – Anger If Not Restrained…

May 9, 2018 by Erick

“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”

― Seneca

Show Notes

• Today’s topic is one that is a bit personal to me. It’s something that I struggle with at times.

• I’ll get upset about something, and because I let anger get the best of me, I make the situation far worse than the event that I got angry about in the first place.

• And getting angry also causes me to ruin my inner peace. We make myself unhappy by not dealing with anger in a constructive way. I give ourselves a bad day.

• And it’s because sometimes anger feels good. That righteous indignation when we feel that someone has done us wrong and that we have the right to put them in their place.

• Anger is something that each one of us have to deal with.

• We don’t need to turn off anger. Repressing what we feel is not a good idea either.

• But dealing with it in a healthy way is something that we can all learn.

• We can feel the feelings, acknowledge them, then decide what to do about them.

• We can ask whether we were actually harmed. Remember, we are only harmed if we believe we have been harmed.

• We can ask ourselves if our response will do more harm than good.

• We can ask ourselves if this will be important in the future, or will it be some forgotten trifle.

• By giving into anger is like kicking the hornet’s nests because it was in our way, when we could have just as easily gone around

• I know that we’ve discussed anger fairly often on this podcast, but being able to apply principles in your lives is a daily practice. A daily exercise.

• Just as we wouldn’t just go to the gym once and workout and declare that we are in shape and never go back again, working on applying these principles is something that we need to work on everyday. It’s a way to get in our mental exercise.

• And like an athlete, we’re going to have days where we run the perfect race and everything works in our favor. We also going to have a lot of days where we’re off and we fall flat on our faces.

• And just like an athlete we need to gauge our fitness level for the day, and put in our best effort, regardless of how meager it might be.

 


Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

Posted in: Anger, Awareness, Coffee Break, Control Tagged: anger, self awareness, stoic, stoicism

120 – Are You Lucky?

May 8, 2018 by Erick

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

― Seneca

Show Notes:

– Are you a lucky person?
– The Stoics understood that most things in life are out of our control.
– The reason that they stress that ideas so much, that we try so hard to control things around us.
– Trying to control things outside yourself causes yourself and others a lot of suffering.
– Other people, events, and circumstances are certainly outside of our control.
– So much of our life is simply up to chance.
– The people we meet and become friends with and fall in love with.
– The jobs that we get because of being the right place at the right time.
– So many things that just happened by chance, and all of them outside of our control.
– In the Drunkard’s Walk, a book about the role of randomness and chance in our lives, Leonard Mlodinow, after showing example after example about how poorly we as humans misjudge the role of chance in our lives goes on to say, “…ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation—the role of chance…What I’ve learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.”
– If we want to meet a great partner it’s not going to happen if we stay at home playing video games or watching Netflix. We need to go on a lot of dates. We need to be able to carry on a conversation.
– If we want to be a musician or an actor, but we never practice, even if we hustle to get a coveted gig, if we aren’t prepared and we don’t have the skill to pull it off, then we’ve wasted an opportunity.
– I find that there is a lot of dedication on the internet for shortcuts to success. As if success is a bunch of hacks that you can do so you don’t have to put actual work in. But the thing is, taking shortcuts can cheat us of the opportunities for growth. We should become masters of our craft, not only because it prepares us to take those opportunities, but mastering our craft is part of the journey, it makes us who we are.
– And the more we become masters of our craft, the less we need “shortcuts”.
– We also need to be careful to never think think that we “deserve” something.
-Sometimes we think we are entitled to a certain way of life because who we are.
– Entitled to a certain job because of where we went to school.
– We are never entitled to anything.
– As Steven Pressfield said about creative endeavors, “We are entitled to our labors, but not the fruits of our labors.” Meaning we entitled to work our butts off and but we may still never find the success we think we deserve.
– As much as we all want a lucky silver bullet, because luck/chance/fate are all outside of our control, what we can control is consistently putting in the work.
– Fortune favors the bold, but she also favors the prepared.


Photo by Sergi Viladesau on Unsplash

Posted in: Challenges, Coffee Break, Control, Fate Tagged: chance, fate, luck, preparation, stoic, stoicism

119 – Who is Your Master?

May 7, 2018 by Erick

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master;

he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”

― Epictetus

Show Notes:

• Stoics believed strongly that we are all in control of our own emotions

• One of the strongest emotions we have to deal with is anger

• From an evolutionary standpoint it seems to makes sense. We feel threatened and we respond in a way that we think will deal with the threat.

• But the thing is, fear is usually the response to a physical threat. Anger is usually response from a threat to our ego. Anger is usually what we use to try and control something that we can’t.

• When someone speaks poorly of us, or does or says something we don’t like, we’re trying to control them through anger.

• If someone is easily offended and flies off the handle at even the smallest thing, they are are trying to control others.

• But when we get angry we’re failing to control the one thing we truly can control – ourselves. We’re giving control of our emotions to someone else.

• Have you ever seen a kid do things just to get a rise out of someone? Maybe their siblings or their parents? It’s their way of trying to see if they can control the other person.

• This is why politicians like to get people angry about something. Why they choose a polarizing side on an issue. It’s about control.

• Get people angry about something and you have a lot more control over them.

• People don’t go to war because they’re happy and want to be kind to others.

• They go to war because they’re angry about something. And it may have started of being afraid of something, but was channeled into anger.

• Remember, the only thing that you can control is yourself, so it’s up to you to decide – are you the master of yourself, or are you going to give that power to anyone else that upsets you?


Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash

Posted in: Anger, Awareness, Coffee Break, Control Tagged: anger, control, self awareness, stoicism

108 – Opinion Of The Self

April 26, 2018 by Erick

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

Posted in: Awareness, Coffee Break, Control Tagged: coffee break, opinions, others, self awareness

105 – Bring Pain To Your Enemy

April 23, 2018 by Erick

“Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Photo by Fervent Jan on Unsplash

Posted in: Challenges, Coffee Break, Control Tagged: coffee break, control, fear, living, stoic

100 – Life On Your Own Terms

April 18, 2018 by Erick

 

“Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.”

― Epictetus

https://anchor.fm/s/1f44fb0/podcast/play/430768/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fanchor-audio-bank%2Fstaging%2F2018-3-18%2F100---Life-On-Your-Own-Terms-a796b4cb9f11a.m4a

Podcast (coffee-break): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

Posted in: Coffee Break, Control Tagged: coffee break, path, stoic

Support

Enjoying the podcast? Be awesome! Support Stoic Coffee on Patreon.

Become a Patron!

Subscribe to Podcast

Listen to Stoic Coffee Break on RadioPublic

Listen on Google Play Music

Listen to Stitcher

Tags

anger awareness challenges change circumstances coffee break compassion contentment control daily practice death desire education emotions fate fault fear freedom goals happiness impressions judgments life live living love luck opinions others path patience peace perspective philosophy principles progress reflection self-judgment self-reflection self awareness stoic stoicism thinking time wisdom

Categories

  • Anger
  • Awareness
  • Challenges
  • Circumstances
  • Coffee Break
  • Control
  • Fate
  • Love
  • Opinion
  • philosophy
  • self-improvement
  • stoicism
  • Tranquility
  • wisdom

Recent Posts

  • 159 – It’s About Time
  • 158 – How To Be Alone
  • 157 – Don’t Feed the Trolls
  • 156 – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
  • 155 – Interview with Jeff Emtman of Here Be Monsters

Archives

  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018

Copyright © 2019 Stoic Coffee.

Taste WordPress Theme by ThemeTaste