Part One.
A Stoicism Primer.
Especially for those experiencing family conflict,
Alienation,
And estrangement.
My life may not have resembled a prison cell,
But with the emotional challenges I was facing,
It certainly felt like imprisonment.
No contact from my adult child,
Precious grandchildren I didn't see,
The dread of approaching holidays that once brought joy.
How do I keep going?
How do I stay steady?
And then I discovered Stoicism.
A clear pathway from anger to calm.
A way to accept reality without collapsing.
A structure for thinking clearly in the midst of chaos.
What Stoicism really is and is not.
Stoicism is not about being silent,
Detached,
Or emotionless.
It's not about gritting your teeth and enduring.
Real Stoicism is a training of the mind,
So we don't get swept away by emotional storms.
We respond instead of react.
We focus on what we can influence,
And we reclaim peace even when circumstances do not change.
The Birth of Stoicism.
Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE,
Leaving his vast empire without a successor.
The dream of a unified world under Greek rule collapsed into chaos,
And that world where traditional supports of human flourishing,
Stable communities,
Shared values,
Civic participation,
And certainty was gone.
People yearned for answers to these fundamental questions.
How do I live well when I can't control my circumstances?
How do I achieve peace of mind in a world gone mad?
These could be the very questions that we ask today.
In that chaos,
Philosophy became a survival manual.
Eventually,
Stoicism turned its ideas into a way of life by connecting physics,
How the world works,
Ethics,
How to live well,
And logic,
How to think clearly.
The goal was to understand what should I want?
How should I live?
What should I believe?
The three main Stoics,
Epictetus,
Who talked about the freedom of our mind.
He said,
Inner freedom,
Even when life is or feels out of control.
Epictetus was born into slavery.
He had no control over his circumstances,
But he presented a radical idea.
You may not control events,
But you can control how you respond to them.
Seneca,
Who talked about mastering the emotional storm.
Seneca taught that we suffer more in our imagination than in reality.
Where we imagine a future where nothing improves.
We imagine people judging us,
Or imagining my child is intentionally hurting me.
Seneca would say,
Slow down.
Do not allow your imagining to harm you.
And Marcus Aurelius,
Who talked about staying steady in chaos.
Marcus Aurelius was an emperor who faced war,
Plague,
Betrayal,
And political unrest.
Yet he wrote,
We only have power over our mind,
Not outside events.
Inner leadership is possible,
Even in the toughest emotional terrain.
Each of these Stoics lived very different lives.
From slavery to imperial power.
Yet they all found strength and guidance in the same core principles.
Stoicism is about a mindset and a way of living that anyone and everyone can adopt.
And this mindset is based on four cardinal virtues.
And we'll speak of these next time.
They are wisdom,
Courage,
Temperance,
And justice.
