The Complete Stoic Radical Gratitude Meditation

Note: This contains powerful imagery that some may find upsetting. If you are very sensitive to challenging imagery, do the other meditations before this one.

This meditation uses the powerful Stoic technique of premeditation of adversity to make you contemplate just how "bad" your life could be. By practicing negative visualisation, you will see with great clarity how wonderful your life currently is.

Transcript

We are about to begin a session of negative visualization,

A practice that is perhaps the most powerful of all Stoic reflections.

But before we start,

I will first go over some of the benefits of negative visualization to help prepare the mind.

There is a mounting body of evidence which shows that gratitude,

That is being thankful for what you have,

Is very good for our mental and physical well-being,

Not surprisingly.

The typical way we are advised to practice gratitude is to simply reflect on how lucky and thankful we are to have the life we have.

The Stoics also realized the power of gratitude.

The Roman Stoic,

For example,

Epictetus,

Believed that most of us do not struggle to attain the essential things we need,

Like food,

Water and shelter,

But we do struggle to attain all of the inessential things we want,

Because they are so great in number and we quickly adapt to them.

For that reason,

Epictetus encouraged us to train our minds so that we want the things we already have.

This is the foundation of gratitude.

But how did they do it?

To overcome this hedonic adaptation and learn to want the things we already have,

The Stoics practiced negative visualization.

They realized that one of the most direct routes to feeling thankful was to acknowledge not the good things that have happened to you,

But to reflect on the bad things that have not happened to you.

No matter what is going on in your life right now,

Whether you are stuck in a difficult position or craving something you don't have,

Your life could be so much worse.

You have not been diagnosed with a fatal illness.

You are not caught in a war zone.

You are not experiencing chronic,

Debilitating pain.

And if you were experiencing these things,

How desperate would you be to get back to the exact position you are currently in,

With all of the stresses and annoyances?

One of the best ways to practice negative visualization is to take a look at real stories about real people who have experienced extreme hardship and suffering,

And to imagine ourselves in their position.

The following story is a story that I myself used as a basis for negative visualization when I had to go through quite an intense double jaw surgery operation,

Which required both of my jaws getting broken and then having to sustain myself on a liquid diet for at least a month afterwards.

Reflecting on this story greatly eased the anxiety that I had as I approached the date of my operation,

Because I had already in my mind's eye experienced a suffering that made the surgery insignificant in comparison.

Now that we have covered some ground that explains why negative visualization is so useful,

Let's begin the meditation by closing the eyes and taking a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

I want you to picture this.

Right now you are in a party.

You've had a few drinks,

Conversations are flowing,

And life is good.

You've received some very nice compliments tonight,

And you've had some very interesting talks that make your future seem much brighter than when you first stepped into the room.

The party wraps up,

Now you are driving home.

Beside you is an old school friend you haven't seen in years.

You are having a great time analyzing all of the interactions from the previous few hours,

The social mistakes people made,

Who looks good and who doesn't,

Who you found attractive.

As you are about to ask your next question,

Bright lights and the sound of screeching tires enter your consciousness.

The car that you are in gets smashed hard by a car from behind.

Before you can think,

You see flames.

Your legs are numb.

Your friend,

Who was at the steering wheel,

Is slumped over and covered in.

.

.

Blood.

Your instinct is to start screaming.

You scream louder than you have ever screamed in your entire life.

Your next instinct is to escape the car.

So you reach for the door handle,

But you can't move your arms.

They are stuck rigidly to the seat behind you.

You are almost glued into your seat.

You look down to see what is going on.

This is when you realize that your clothes are all on fire and your skin is melting into the seat.

You scream louder and you now feel the heat getting more intense.

That's the last thing you remember.

Now you wake up in hospital,

Covered from head to toe in bandages,

Barely able to see out of your left eye.

A doctor comes in.

She tells you that you have suffered second and third degree burns to 60% of your body.

You have lost your hair,

Your ears,

Your nose,

Your lips,

Your left eyelid and much of your vision is gone.

You will have to have dozens and dozens of reconstructive surgeries and you will need assistance for the rest of your life.

A few weeks go by.

Now you look in the mirror for the first time.

You peel away the bandages and see a face that is definitely not you.

This person is monstrous.

A living skeleton.

A person who has just a hole for where their nose is meant to be.

No hair.

Barely resembling a human being.

This is now you for the rest of your life.

Not only do you have to wake up every day being extremely disfigured,

Wake up every day knowing that you can never work a regular job or have a regular kind of life or regular kind of relationships ever again.

But you also know that all of this comes from the decision of one other person who decided to drink too much and drive.

Your whole future gone.

Let this sink in.

Now as you look back over the past few years at your former self,

Reflect on these questions.

Don't force answers.

Just let the answers arise within you.

How much would you want to go back to looking like the person you used to look like?

What would you do or give to be able to reverse the accident that took place?

All of the stresses and anxieties and annoyances and worries and doubts and insecurities in your current life.

How do they seem in comparison to your new life?

Now let's move beyond just gratitude and switch to the topic of resilience.

The other benefit of negative visualization is that when we imagine the worst case scenario we learn that we are a lot tougher than we originally thought.

When we practice enduring great suffering we get stronger as a result.

So now that this accident has happened to you and that you do permanently look different and that your life will never be the same again,

What's next?

What lessons would you take from it?

Could you actually cope with this?

You still have consciousness,

You still have a supporting family and medical supervisors to look over you,

You still have creativity.

What kind of life could you live that would make it meaningful in spite of the suffering you face each day?

As I said,

That was a story about a young Venezuelan girl called Jackie Sabrido.

She has to this day had 120 reconstructive surgeries.

Her hands are stumps and her face is drastically different from her face before the accident and yet she campaigns against drunk driving and she finds joy and meaning in her life still.

You can use her story and other people's story of great suffering and endurance to help you thrive in the face of adversity.

This is the end of the meditation.

Reviews

Powerful. Painful. Challenging. Awful. But very powerful and achieved it’s purpose. Undoubtedly stops you in your tracks and makes you think a lot more about the critical importance of appreciating your circumstances, even if they aren’t ideal…

Thank you for this schocking but also really meaningful meditation. If you let go and let yourself fall in this visualization, it is really powerful. 🙏🏻

OMG that was truly radical, scary and shocking! My heart is thumping in my chest… how dare I complain about my life, my amazing and beautiful life again…
Thank you for being brave enough to put this meditation on Insight Timer… it’s given me more inspiration, insight and wisdom than any other. Bless you,
with gratitude Sue

This is the most powerful meditation I’ve done during my 6 years using Insight Timer.

Yep—pretty rough.

Powerful, painful and scary. And at the same time a huge reminder of how good my life is, despite illness and everyday problems. Thank you.

Profound perspective. Truly thank you.

Wonderful meditation. So grateful for your stoic series Jon!

Very powerful experience. Thank you 🙏

Powerful. Exactly what I needed to hear today. Thank you. 🙏🏽

Thank you, Jon, for one of the most motivational and moving meditations I've heard. I've listened to it twice now, and it's one of the few exercises that allows me to turn my negativity into some positive rather than trying to repress it altogether. I hope you will add more Stoic meditations to Insight Timer soon!

Best meditation I've ever had!