Welcome to your Stoic Dichotomy of Control meditation training.
In this session we will be exploring one of the key perspectives in Stoic Philosophy,
The Dichotomy of Control.
You can use this meditation to deal with any kind of negative situations happening around you now,
Or as a general training device to implement this perspective into your daily life.
This meditation is not going to be one where you just sit in silence and focus on the breath,
It's an active meditation where I'll be having you visualize and practice with different cognitive elements.
So while there will be some sitting in silence,
A lot of it will be guided.
So just follow along and try to engage with the prompts as best you can.
Epictetus said some things are up to us and some things are not.
The Stoics believed that there are things that are not up to us,
That we are not responsible for and likewise there are things that we are responsible for and that are up to us.
Epictetus listed our judgments,
Our impulses,
Desires,
Aversions and mental faculties as things that are up to us.
In other words our internal world,
To a large degree,
Is our responsibility.
We do have control over our goals,
Our intentions and our conscious decisions.
The things he listed as not being up to us include our body,
So our health,
Our material possessions,
The external world and other people's opinions which would include reputation,
Status and fame.
They recognize that if you are caught up in the uncontrollable externals in life,
You are in some sense a slave because you can't control what other people think of you.
If your emotions are dependent on the external world,
You are enslaved to the external world.
But if you draw your state from within and focus your energy only on the things you can control,
Then you are free.
Now some of you who are new to the dichotomy of control may be thinking,
Well hang on a second,
Are you saying that I can't control my health?
A Stoic would say,
You can control your health insofar as you can do healthy actions and think thoughts that are likely to lead to greater health.
But no,
You cannot actually control your health in the sense that you could get struck down by an unexpected illness or you could get involved in some kind of accident that threatens your health in a serious way.
You can do everything right in terms of cultivating greater health and still be unhealthy.
But a Stoic would say,
I'm fine with that.
As long as I'm doing what I need to be doing,
That's good enough for me.
Marcus Aurelius wrote,
You have power over your mind,
Not outside events.
Realize this and you will find strength.
By practicing this system that I am about to go through with you,
You can expect to rid yourself of hatred and resentment.
You can rest assured that everything you do will be chosen by you.
Your life will orient itself around the decisions and actions you make and everything else will lack the power to affect you and knock you off balance.
Many people think of resilience as the ability to endure,
But resilience is more closely related to valuing the right things.
If you value the right things in the right way at the right time,
That will look very much like a wise,
Resilient individual.
To get the most out of this exercise,
I encourage you to practice diligently and repeat it often.
And try your best not to see it as a technique you just do here and there,
But as a fundamental perspective shift that becomes permanent and part of who you are.
So let's get into the practice.
Sit comfortably,
Close your eyes with an upright posture,
Drop your attention into your body.
Allow your mind to freely wander over the space around you,
Sounds,
Sensations,
Emotions,
Anything you can see behind your eyelids.
Now what I'd like you to do now is to locate a challenge or an obstacle.
Ideally this would be something you are going through now,
Or you think you might go through in the future.
If you can't think of one,
A past obstacle will also work as a way to practice with the technique.
So choose anything that has caused you some distress or negative emotion.
Next we want to recognize that our impression of the event is not the same thing as the source.
So the Stoics realized that a wise person who has a good grip on reality tends to be less affected by someone who has a bad grip on reality.
And so it makes sense that people who are suffering are probably not seeing the situation that clearly.
There may be some distortions in their perceptions.
Most of us don't have access to external reality or ultimate truth.
Everything that we perceive does arise within our consciousness and there are generalizations and deletions and blind spots and bias.
So when we perceive the world we are really looking at our mind's interpretation of it that is preloaded with our experience,
Our upbringing,
Our traumas,
Our lessons and our lack of knowledge or skill.
And so whatever our initial impression of the situation is,
The first step is to recognize that we need to be humble and we need to realize that we are not seeing things completely accurately.
We are identified with one particular story and that is how we are interpreting it.
Seneca said we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
So recognize that there is a difference between our impression,
Our imagination and the reality.
Now as we go back over this event and play it like a movie in our mind,
We should feel some sense of distance just knowing that we are not seeing things completely accurately.
Just like a movie can be edited a certain way,
Framed a certain way,
Shot a certain way,
Certain music or props can be added.
Same thing is true for our own experience.
Part of what we perceive is the situation and part of what we perceive is our generation and embellishment of extra details and those things combined give us the emotion.
And now ask yourself when you look at this situation,
Is this something that is or is not in my control?
I'll ask you again.
Is this something that is or is not in my control?
So we have control over our internal world,
Our goals,
Intentions,
Choices and actions but we do not control other people,
The world,
Material possessions or our body.
I'll ask you again.
Is this something that is or is not in my control?
If you determine that there is something substantial in this event that is within your control,
Write it down and think about a few things that you can implement to make a positive difference in your life.
But if you determine that there are elements of this event that are not within your control,
Say the following sentence to yourself.
That is none of my concern.
That is none of my concern.
That is none of my concern.
A way that you can think of this dichotomy of control training is to imagine that you have an important appointment and as you're walking down the street to go to this appointment you see an argument breaking out between two neighbours.
They ask you to get involved and you simply say,
I'm sorry,
That is none of my concern.
I'm only going to put my attention in this moment on the things that are important and valuable to me,
Things that I'm responsible for.
You too can focus on that dispute,
But that is none of my concern,
And then you continue to your appointment.
You didn't cause that argument between the neighbours,
It's not your job,
Your role to sort it out between them two.
You have other things that are important to you.
And the same is true as you filter reality,
There will be conflicts in the mind that break out and ask for your attention.
When this happens,
Sorry,
That is none of my concern.
So to recap this exercise,
Whenever you're faced with a strong emotion,
Recognise that the impression of the event is not quite the same as the actual source of the event.
Ask yourself what in this event is within my control and what is not within my control.
If something is within your control,
Decide to direct your attention towards it and take action.
If it is not within your control,
Use the mantra,
That is none of my concern.
By practising this repeatedly,
You will learn to experience life in real time with what the Stoics described as the Stoic fork.
You will be able to draw a line down your perceptions and divide the world into things that are up to you and things that are not.
When you get good at this,
Unnecessary psychological suffering will dramatically reduce,
And your productivity and ability to focus on what's important will dramatically increase.
Epictetus reminds us,
Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.
This is an indispensable core exercise of Stoic philosophy.
Thank you for practising with me today and remember this is not just a one time exercise but a way to live a life of tranquility,
Reason and resilience.
May you find strength in focusing on what you can control and peace in accepting what you cannot.
Marcus Aurelius said,
The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts,
So let your thoughts be guided by wisdom and clarity.
This is the end of the meditation and I wish you a serene and thoughtful day.
