Daily Stoic Morning Meditation to Fortify Your Mind

Use this Stoic guided meditation each day to increase your resilience, cultivate gratitude, and prepare for whatever the day comes with wisdom. Different practices like Stoic mindfulness, radical gratitude, and the "good" technique, are combined to create a daily ritual that will make your mindset unbreakable.

Transcript

Welcome to the Stoic Morning Meditation.

You can use this contemplation every day to find peace,

Develop resilience,

And increase your baseline level of happiness.

We are going to keep this meditation simple and straight to the point.

I'll run you through some prompts that you can reflect upon to prepare your mind for the day ahead.

So let's get straight into it.

You can do this contemplation in a variety of contexts,

Going for a walk,

Riding a bike,

Waiting for an appointment,

Or what is probably going to be the most common scenario,

Sitting in a meditative posture.

Ground yourself in your body now.

Relax.

Make the intention now to leave everything behind for the duration of this exercise.

You can pick it back up later.

Put everything down,

All of your thoughts and worries and plans,

And let's begin by reviewing the final chapter of Epictetus' Enchiridion.

He said that on every occasion we should have the following quotations to hand.

As I read these quotes,

Reflect on how you can implement the principles for the upcoming day.

1.

Lead me,

O Zeus,

And you,

O Destiny,

Wherever you have ordained for me.

2.

I will follow unflinching,

But if,

Grown bad,

I should refuse,

I will follow nonetheless.

3.

Whosoever complies nobly with necessity,

We count as wise and knowing things divine.

4.

Well,

Crito,

If my death is pleasing to the gods,

So let it be.

5.

Anitis and Meletus can kill me,

But they cannot harm me.

These quotes are there to instill in you the idea that reality in the external world is unfolding in a certain way.

And while you may have some influence over it,

You cannot claim to control it.

And if you cannot control it,

But you feel all of the frustration and hope as if you could,

That would be foolish.

So instead,

Focus on the things you can control,

Your intentions,

Your judgments,

Your actions,

And try to accept whatever comes today with equanimity.

And also,

Whenever you claim to be harmed,

Hurt,

Bothered by something,

Recognize your own role in that emotion.

And by your own role,

I mean how you're framing the situation,

What judgments you have that are creating the emotions.

An event itself can either be intrinsically good or bad,

And there is a dialogue between the situation and your judgment about the situation that leads to the framing and the ultimate emotion that you experience.

Now let's talk about your behavior,

Your character,

Your habits.

We'll keep things simple.

Review your day yesterday.

Remember the events when you woke up,

What you did,

What you didn't do,

Who you saw,

How you spent your waking hours,

What you ate.

I'm sure you did a bunch of things that you consider to be good,

Virtuous,

Wise,

And you most likely engaged in some behaviors or habits that were not so productive.

Maybe you spoke to someone in a way that you regret,

You hurt someone's feelings,

You did something harmful to yourself,

You overindulged,

You didn't practice moderation,

You acted in a way you would describe as lazy or undisciplined.

Yesterday has passed,

So there's no point to getting upset about it.

Instead,

Let's commit.

Today is a new day.

What one thing,

A single thing,

Do you want to do today based on yesterday that could move your life forward?

What is it going to be?

Make it clear,

Make it specific.

Try to make it attractive or more fun,

In your mind more compelling.

Visualize the benefits of doing this.

And now make yourself the promise that you will do this single thing today so you can be 1% better.

As we move into the day,

There will be challenges,

Numerous challenges.

Some of these will be expected,

Others will surprise you.

But to take the sting out of the potential obstacles that might come and to prepare ourselves and increase our resilience,

It can be useful to rehearse ahead of time what might happen and how we will respond.

A practice that I like and is in line with Stoic philosophy is the Good Practice by ex-Navy SEAL Jocko Willink.

He says,

When things are going bad,

Don't get all bummed out,

Don't get startled,

Don't get frustrated.

If you can say the word good,

Guess what?

It means you're still alive,

It means you're still breathing.

And so Jocko made it a habit to say the word good to any obstacle or setback and then he would look for reasons why it was good.

So for example,

My car could break down today.

Good,

It means I can walk and get some exercise in.

I might lose access to the internet today.

Good,

I can have a detox from social media.

So take a moment now to think of three potential realistic obstacles that could come up for you today and then rehearse saying good and come up with a reason why they are good.

When it comes to practicing gratitude,

In positive psychology,

It's often taught in a way that you just list things you're grateful for.

Who are you grateful for?

What material possessions are you grateful for?

What abilities are you grateful for?

This is a fantastic practice and there's a lot of research to back this up.

How I like to practice gratitude is a combination of this approach plus the stoic approach.

So here's what we're going to do.

We often dwell on our difficulties and we often overlook how much distress we have avoided.

When we avoid distress,

We never see it.

That's a good thing.

But then because we don't see it,

We aren't appreciative that we aren't seeing it.

So every day,

It's a really good practice to think about all of the ways things could have been worse for you,

With a slight twist of fate or fortune,

But aren't.

Think back over the last month.

How much injury have you avoided?

How much grief or despair?

How much luck have you had to be here today?

The world is full of individuals who went to the gym and got injured or left their house and tripped or went to work and had some kind of unexpected issue or lost something or had something stolen from them or had some kind of freak,

Unexpected health issue come up or had some terrible news in their family.

In fact,

There are millions of people all over the world that are experiencing this today.

And for the most part,

My guess is that you've avoided so much of that recently.

So do a little quick survey of your life.

Health,

Wealth,

Relationships,

Family,

Social life,

Abilities,

Possessions.

What misfortune have you avoided?

And now to conclude this morning meditation,

Let's end with some mindfulness,

But not ordinary mindfulness.

I want you to spend the next two minutes doing whatever you want to do,

Ideally paying attention in some capacity.

And just imagine that these are the only two minutes you have left on Earth,

Not in a traumatic way.

Let's imagine that you're relocating somewhere.

Nobody's going to get hurt,

But you have two more minutes left in this place that you are right now.

You'll never be able to come back here.

In two minutes time,

Things will forever be different.

So enjoy the next two minutes in whatever way feels right.

And now whatever you're doing and wherever you are,

I hope you move into today with more resilience,

Equanimity,

Gratitude and joy.

I'll see you back here tomorrow for the daily stoic morning meditation.

Reviews

ℹ love how you make me laugh at small things that bother me.

Contemplative and effective. So much gratitude, Jon. You facilitate my new way of maneuvering this life 💫

A refreshing way to start my day.

What's not to like about the stoic approach! Love it! 😊

Teachings from the wise stoic’s always helps me to re- set and regain purpose. Thanks for creating this - grateful

I love that, Jon! Excellent focus on enjoying what’s wonderful, but being prepared for the uh-oh!
Donna