Learning From The Classics Podcast: Stoicism In The 1800s

This track is a recording of my weekly LIVE PODCAST, Learning from the Classics, dated March 21st, 2025.

In this LIVE session, I will relate prompts from Classic Literature to the challenges we face every day. There is a certain sense of security in understanding that some struggles are universal and not personal to ourselves. In such novels, there is also a reconciliation to be had with souls we cannot and will not ever meet but who teach us so much.

All LIVES are available week to week on a playlist.

Transcript

Today we are looking at Stoicism in the Victorian Era.

We will be covering,

Excuse me,

We will be covering Jekyll and Hyde again a little bit.

And then next week we're going to go on to Stoicism and Women because I believe the majority of us here,

When we're all here,

Will be women.

And it's not something that's traditionally associated with women,

But it's something that I would say my default settings are Stoic and it's something that resonates with me.

And in the literature I read I see elements of it and it's something that's very,

It's thread runs through my life and it's a way that I found to manage very many difficult situations.

And for me it's something that comes naturally,

Not for everyone,

But for me certainly.

So it's something that resonates with me.

I looked at it,

I,

You know,

Studied it a bit and I thought,

Yeah,

That is something that is inherently what I believe in,

Yeah.

So we're going to start by looking at what,

Just touching on what Stoicism actually is,

And then we're going to look at how this translated into Victorian society.

And specifically at one of the stories that,

We are now on chapter two,

One of the stories I'm reading,

Reading Jekyll and Hyde,

And we,

They're going to focus on Dr Jekyll himself and Mr Utterson.

After that,

We will be just touching on Stoicism for us in our lives.

There's a journaling course that I'm going to be dropping in the next month or so,

And this journaling course is all about that.

It's about Stoicism when journaling,

Which is what Marcus Aurelius did,

She says,

And I've now left his book somewhere.

I had his meditations,

Book of meditations with me and it's gone.

So keep calm and carry on,

As they say.

Okay,

Let's begin.

Ah,

Great.

Yes,

Jo,

That's good to hear.

And journaling in future lives,

I will be talking more about because it is something that is quite closely connected with Stoicism.

And this course will be specific questions,

Specific questions given to you at the beginning of every lesson,

And they are starting points for you to journal from.

Okay,

But we're going to talk about the Victorian era.

It saw a resurgence of interest in Stoic philosophy,

And the Stoics believed in virtue,

Reason,

Living in accordance with nature,

Which kind of ticks all those boxes,

Especially with Jane Eyre.

And I,

As I said,

Next week,

I will be looking more at women and Stoicism and connecting the two.

But today is Jekyll and Hyde,

Which is essentially from a male perspective,

Journalism from a male perspective.

So if you,

I've touched on Stoicism and Jane Eyre before.

If you'd like to just recap that,

You can go back to one of my lives.

They're all on a playlist.

And as I say every week,

Thank you so much for coming.

Really appreciate your support.

Check out the playlists.

Keep going with the tracks.

Everything I talk about is related to what we are reading and listening to now.

And if you can share this with your friends on Insight Timer,

That would be great.

Okay,

So Zeno,

Ancient Greek philosopher who established the Stoic school in Athens around 300 BCE,

Before the Common Era.

So we say that before Christ now.

So he's the founder,

But there are other important figures,

Two of which I might touch on today.

One is Epictetus and the other is Marcus Aurelius,

Who wrote Meditations,

Which was essentially a book,

A journaling book.

He was a Roman emperor and he had held a very significant position at that time.

And he came up with an idea of journaling in order to make sense of and gain control of the difficult situations he found himself,

As any emperor would,

Find themselves in.

And he called this,

This book later was produced as,

Under the title Meditations.

He's examining his own thoughts and actions,

That's what he's doing,

Which is what we do with journalism,

With Stoic journalism.

And the idea of journaling is one that has been repeated over and over and over again and reproduced and recommissioned and redesigned,

But the principles remain the same.

It's encouraging us to strive for self-improvement,

Which is what he was doing.

So,

Marcus Aurelius said,

Right,

Well,

Virtue is enough to achieve a well-lived life.

And I'm going to focus on these four principles of Stoicism,

Prudence,

So good judgment,

Sagacity,

Fortitude,

Courage in pain or adversity.

We see these threads running through the novel Jekyll and Hyde,

Okay,

When Jekyll is put into certain situations and then he is battling with his inner demons.

So,

Good judgment or sagacity,

Hmm,

Not too much of that from him,

Is there?

Courage in pain or adversity,

That's fortitude.

Temperance,

Self-restraint or self-control.

This novel is scaring us.

It's saying,

You know what,

This is what happens if you practice no self-restraint,

Okay,

Self-control.

And justice,

Fair-mindedness.

So,

Obviously,

In the end of the novel,

There would have to be,

It's Victorian,

So it's going to be dramatic,

And it's also going,

There's also going to be a lesson there,

And the lesson would have to be do good.

So,

That's where this justice comes in.

So,

Stoics,

Especially known for teaching that virtue is the only good,

And external things such as wealth and pleasure,

Are not good or bad in themselves,

But they have a value as material for virtue to act upon,

Okay,

Which is quite important.

There are elements of our life that we can see,

There are elements in each of the stories that I read,

That embrace the self-indulgent,

That embrace wealth,

Pleasure,

Desire,

The ego,

And the idea that,

Well,

These are things we can use,

Materials that we can use and build upon to examine our own virtues.

Okay.

So,

Stoics believe the best indication of an individual's behaviour,

And ideally,

If they behaved in a virtuous way,

They would be emotionally resilient to misfortune.

But,

Of course,

Within any story,

Within any good story,

There are going to be challenges,

And in each story we examine,

It's good for us to,

It's a lesson for us,

And it's interesting for us to examine the characters,

How they're portrayed,

And how they indeed approach and deal with and come to terms with the challenges they face.

And,

Of course,

This is allegorical,

This is the message that the author is making.

Okay,

So,

It's teaching us development,

Stoicism is teaching us development of self-control and fortitude to overcome,

So that courage,

Okay,

In the face of adversity,

To overcome destructive emotions.

And,

In various scenarios,

In various novels,

We see that some of the characters are less virtuous than others,

And we watch how that destroys,

Because they're embracing their emotion and not stepping back and saying,

Okay,

Well,

I feel passionate about this,

But I'm just going to dive straight in,

Like Heathcliff,

For example,

And I'm not just going to embrace it,

But I'm going to revel in it,

Or Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Those characters essentially fail.

They're the ones we don't like,

And there's a reason for that,

They're set up in such a way that it's impossible to like them.

So,

This is what the author is doing.

And the authors,

Mainly,

That we've been looking at are women.

So,

The messages are coming from them,

Even though we've been traditionally seen as the emotional sex and the passionate and the unruly,

Not always the case,

Is it?

Proven by the narratives that these women have produced.

Okay.

So,

Yeah,

We're looking at a clear and unbiased thinker as being one who is flying the flag of stoicism,

And as all of us know,

It's quite hard to achieve that.

But some of our characters that we have,

From the stories we've been immersed in the past weeks,

Are doing their darndest to battle with that,

And to conquer their emotions.

Okay.

So,

Let's look at how it translated into Victorian society.

We've got this emphasis on self-control and resilience.

We've got Victoria,

Queen Victoria,

Who's sitting on the throne,

And she is an upright woman who is essentially sold to us as a good mother,

Somebody who doesn't complain,

Somebody who has suffered various illnesses and challenges and trials,

But retains,

As we say in the UK,

A stiff upper lip,

Much like Queen Elizabeth.

A high-value Victorian society was placed on anyone who demonstrated that strength of character,

Particularly in the face of adversity,

And remained calm and composed even in difficult situations.

So,

During this era,

During the Victorian era,

The British Empire was expanding and it was the predominant power in the world.

Victorian era showed a rapidly growing middle class.

So,

Before you had the upper class and you had the poor and that was it,

And suddenly you have this resurgence of a new class,

A middle class,

Somewhere in between.

And they became a very important cultural influence.

They replaced the aristocracy as British society's dominant class.

And that's what you have within Jekyll and Hyde.

You have this Mr Utterson who's a lawyer a professional,

Upstanding member of society,

But he's not from the upper class.

He's still working.

And they were the dominant class.

So,

Increased importance was placed therein on the value of the family,

The idea that marriage was all-important.

But this new idea that it should be based on romantic love,

Not just trying to forge connections between families.

There was an emphasis on respectable and moral code of behaviour,

Features such as charity,

Personal responsibility,

Controlled habits and child discipline.

So,

These good manners,

Self-restraint,

Were much more common.

You didn't have.

.

.

So,

If you think about it in terms of you've got two extremes and then when something emerges from somewhere in the middle,

You didn't have such disassociation from the poor with standards of behaviour.

They were more privy to what was going on.

They would see and have access to this new class.

They were less detached from it.

And because of that,

They would understand there were certain societal expectations and they could choose whether to adopt those or not.

They weren't distanced from it.

Even so,

Before the Victorian era,

If you were poor,

You'd have little chance of ever having access to the rich.

Maybe one of your very,

Very lucky family members managed to work in one of the houses.

And,

Of course,

You've got the old upstairs-downstairs adage where there's a complete separation.

But even so,

Between the classes,

Even so,

They would have some access to accepted behaviours,

Whereas the rest of the poor would have no idea,

Really.

They were immersed in this world and they were only ever privy to what was going on in their world.

Whereas now,

At this time in the Victorian era,

You've got this middle class emerging and,

Of course,

The Industrial Revolution,

The invention of the printing press,

And much more exposure to what was happening.

So,

Whereas now we have the internet,

Okay,

So we can see anything at any one time,

They would have much more exposure visually to messages,

If you like,

About the expectations of a person in society.

And they could then say,

Oh,

We didn't really even know that existed,

Okay.

And that in itself naturally encourages people to one extreme or other.

They either reject that completely or they say,

I'm going to aspire,

You know,

One day,

I can see this is not so far removed from me,

This middle class thing.

I can see one day maybe I could get there.

And it encourages people to better themselves.

Okay,

So we've got Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

It's a sophisticated exploration of human nature and the consequences of a Victorian society that was in equal parts fascinated and dominated by this dedication to appearance and propriety.

Okay,

So now it was everywhere.

Now everybody was behaving or aspiring to be behaving in a certain way.

And,

Of course,

In the story,

When the young girl is trampled upon,

There's an expectation from those people who were defected from the family of the young girl.

Okay,

Well,

What are you going to do about this?

There was an understanding that we do actually have some rights or some voice.

We are closer to the middle class than we were to the upper class and we can be heard and we will be heard.

Okay,

So Mr Utterson,

Respectable middle class man.

And this profession placed him firmly within the middle class.

So integrity,

Moral standing,

And so on,

He embodies these values.

And then we've got Jekyll,

Who embodied the same values when he was a good scientist.

So,

Of course,

As we know,

We've got Darwin coming along,

Challenging the religious doctrine.

And then this is what Jekyll's doing.

He's saying,

Well,

I'm going to challenge it too.

So he is portrayed,

He's set up by Stevenson,

Robert Louis Stevenson,

As someone who is challenging the narrative.

He's middle class.

He's respectable.

He has apparently everything there is to have,

Connections wise,

And yet he's rejecting it.

And he's rejecting it,

So this narrative says,

Because he is embracing his passion.

He's embracing emotion.

He's embracing the need for something other than self-restraint.

Again,

A warning.

Okay,

He admits even when not under the domination of Hyde,

He relished the sense of freedom and indulgence in the sinful pleasure it brought him.

Now,

This can be taken as a lesson.

It can be taken as a lesson in the rejection of over self-indulgence.

And this is what I like about this story.

It's a little bit preachy,

But I do find that many of these novels from this period are that.

That's why when you look at Jane Austen,

It's a relief.

Because she is making a societal observation,

But she's not preaching to us.

She's laughing about the ridiculousness of it all.

And I like that.

And I see that as a female stoicism.

And I'm drawn to that,

Because nobody wants to be preached to.

And yet stoicism is saying,

Hold this together.

Act with self-restraint.

And understand that these emotions you're experiencing are separate from you.

It's something that you are experiencing,

But does not need to control you.

And that's great.

I love that.

The only problem with that,

And what we are taught in today's society is,

But that's repression.

We are therefore restricting ourselves in some way.

But actually,

No.

What the message is,

Is understand that emotions come and go.

They're fleeting.

And they're not us.

They're something that we are experiencing.

And we can find inner peace by being able to manage the experience so that it doesn't overwhelm us.

So you have a balance.

Some of these novels are a little bit preachy.

This is why I love Jane Austen,

Because she's making fun of it.

And heaven knows we have enough expectation upon us every day.

So that's my feminine take.

And I'll die on that hill.

I'm happy to say I'm a feminine stoic in training.

Something that comes naturally to me.

But it's not a stick that I would use to beat anyone with.

And that's the point.

And I do feel with Jekyll and Hyde,

It is a little bit dictatorial.

And Stevenson's Scotland Agenda.

And it's a fascinating novel,

Because if you were reading it for the first time,

And you didn't understand they were the same person,

It would be a delicious shock.

Something to be savoured.

But now,

Knowing what we know,

And looking into it a bit more closely,

Okay,

We're saying,

Well,

We do understand about self-indulgence,

But we are also human,

And there needs to be a balance.

So I'd like to think we as women can offer more of a balanced approach to that.

Because it's no longer something that's just in the masculine space.

So yeah,

You've got this Dr Jekyll,

And he's taking this serum.

And the serum he's taking to transform into Hyde is metaphorically removing the constraints of society.

And what Stevenson is saying is,

Well,

If you remove the constraints of society,

You will revert to a savage,

Brutal animal.

And thank you,

Selina.

And I would suggest that's a little extreme.

But,

You know,

This is how we learn.

We learn from reading classic literature.

That was Freudian.

So architecture is a big love of mine.

We learn from reading classic literature.

And when our eyes are open to it,

We can understand to be very receptive to and aware of who's writing it,

When they are writing it,

The agenda behind the story itself,

Behind the narrative.

All of these things are really,

Really important.

Because we're not just,

Essentially,

Yes,

We're reading stories to get to sleep.

We're reading stories to give us a safe space,

To give us detachment.

But if we actually look at what we're immersing ourselves in,

It's an education of life.

Hence why I am on the Insight Timer platform.

It's a knowledge about society,

Expectations put upon us,

Where we are in this space.

I'm assuming most of us are women here.

I'm going to speak as a woman myself.

And making sense of that.

And understanding that we have a voice and we can choose any one of these originally masculine,

Devised schools of thought.

And we can,

In the 21st century,

Adapt it to our own personal experience.

And own that.

Okay,

So Stoicism for the 21st Century.

Now there's an increased publication of scholarly works on ancient Stoicism.

And there are many people repeating doctrine,

Repeating messages,

Stoic messages.

And I'm just here because I want to relate that to actually what we're listening to and what we're doing in the female space here.

We're not denying ourself.

We're choosing this path.

And the sanctuary lies within us.

And this is about empowerment.

This is about saying,

Okay,

It's a little bit daunting.

We have this patriarchy with which we are existing within.

And it's important for us as women to make sense of that.

To make sense of where we sit within it.

And to understand that we can be virtuous ourselves.

We show as women great courage and determination,

Especially through even just our physical experience as a woman.

And there's a myriad of experiences we have from a very young age that are unique to us.

And they call upon,

If nothing else does,

They call upon Stoicism because we are expected in society to just put up and shut up.

But actually,

What I'm saying is,

I suppose,

It's not about,

Let's reframe that,

It's not about putting up and shutting up anymore.

It's about empowering us and saying,

You know what,

There is power in detachment from the rawness of it all,

From the raw emotion.

And I found it myself,

In my life,

Very helpful when dealing with difficult situations to remove myself,

To step back.

And that's my default.

My default settings are,

Okay,

I'm going to just step back from this,

I'm going to be quiet,

I'm going to be silent,

And I will grieve in my own way,

On my own.

And it might be in two weeks time,

But it's not going to be now.

I'm not going to be reacting to this situation.

I'm not going to be burned visibly,

Of course I will be,

Deeply,

But I'm not going to be visibly burned by your words or your actions,

So that it is noticeable.

I am going to hold that in,

And I'm going to take that away,

And I'm going to deal with that myself.

It's not always possible.

It's a very difficult thing to do.

But as with many of the stories that we are listening to,

Even Jekyll and Hyde,

Much of the internal work is done away,

Away from the drama.

So we see some awful things happening,

Some wonderful things happening.

We hear of a myriad of different emotions,

But we see,

More often than not,

People becoming resilient,

In a peaceful,

In a quiet way.

Which is contrary to the 21st way,

Isn't it?

The 21st century way is,

Let's talk about,

You know,

Let's get onto TikTok,

And let's talk about the fact that I'm not happy that the train's not come on time today.

And that Tesco,

Or whichever your supermarket is,

Has just put up its prices.

And many of us are just saying,

No,

We're going to just,

Like,

Work this out on our own.

And there is virtue in that.

Okay.

I'm going to read a Victorian poem now by Rajad Kipling,

Written in 1895,

Which showcases resilience and determination.

It's called If,

A very famous poem.

And it's a message about how to navigate life's challenges with strength,

Integrity,

Resilience.

And it goes like this.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about,

Don't deal in lies,

Or being hated,

Don't give way to hating.

And yet,

Don't look too good,

Nor talk too wise.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken,

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build them up with worn-out eyes,

Without tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,

And lose and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss,

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them,

Hold on.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings,

Not lose the common touch.

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you,

But none too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distant run,

Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,

And which is more,

You'll be a man,

My son.

Okay,

It's a shame it,

I always think it's a shame it ends with you'll be a man,

My son,

Because it's not me.

But I think we have to,

You know,

As Stoics,

We have to detach ourselves from that,

And we have to see the message for what it is.

And the message is to keep our head.

The message in all the stories I have read so far,

Even the ones I've written myself,

Is to retain that inner strength.

It makes me think,

Which characters are and aren't Stoic?

Yes,

I can see that Arthur is self-indulgent,

Says Joe,

And Helen is Stoic in tenant,

That's true.

And it's painful to watch Stoicism sometimes,

And it's painful to,

For others around you,

When you are a Stoic character,

To experience that.

Because they are experiencing extreme emotion on your behalf,

And they want you to fight.

But it doesn't mean you're not fighting.

It means you are working very hard internally at managing the experience,

That's what it means.

Is there anyone in Wuthering Heights who is Stoic and not self-indulgent?

Well,

This is why I struggle with a story,

If I'm honest.

It's a lesson.

Wuthering Heights was a lesson for me.

Sense and sensibility was a lesson in patience.

We're not going to enjoy every story we read,

Or listen to.

Yes,

It's a question for next week's Live About Female Authors.

Yes,

And Robin,

The answer's,

This answer's something I've been dealing with recently,

Stepping back,

Silent changes,

Which is proving really strengthening,

Yes.

But what I understand,

As a female,

As a mother,

There are expectations upon us,

As a daughter,

As a sister.

And very often,

It's easy to be battered with the,

You're too emotional,

You're a woman you wouldn't understand.

You have a certain part in this family to play,

Battle.

Um,

But in fact,

And a wife,

Of course,

Sorry,

Oops.

But it's very hard for people to understand that because you are quiet,

Because you are accepting that you are not weak.

And this is what Stoicism teaches us,

It's a strength,

It's a superpower.

I do not need to fly the flag to say I have dealt with this,

Or snap back with a witty comment,

Or display anger to be strong.

And this is something that I've struggled with all my life,

The fact that there are so many demands on ourselves,

Our emotions,

How we are expected to react as women.

And if we are not behaving in that way,

Other women don't understand us.

And there's a certain element of distrust there.

Well,

What are you hiding?

And it can be seen as,

Oh,

Well,

They've gone quiet,

So what they must be doing is doing that sort of silent treatment,

You know,

And it's,

Um,

Gosh,

It's a minefield.

Do you do a live on Wuthering Heights too?

For now,

I'm not able to listen to it because it's so dark and cruel,

Yes,

But maybe I don't interpret it correctly.

Um,

You do interpret it correctly.

I read it because it's a classic,

And I owe it to Kathy.

Because I like Kathy because she's messed up.

She's a difficult woman.

That is the original Kathy.

She is torn,

She's troubled,

She doesn't want to be,

You know,

She's a very sweet soul,

But she wants to be what she wants to be.

And she's wild,

And why I struggle with Wuthering Heights is that there's not enough time devoted to her,

Right?

And then you've got this wonderful music that comes along in the 70s celebrating her,

And you buy into the romance,

And then you read the story,

And you think,

What a disappointment,

She's only in it for five minutes,

And she's the only thing I was reading it for.

You have her daughter come along later in the book,

And her daughter shows elements of her personality,

But really,

After the first few chapters,

The romance is dead.

So,

I've tried to do it justice,

And I'm reading it to the end,

And I also understand that it's good to read characters,

Even though you don't necessarily like them,

And it's good to listen.

So,

For example,

With my Blethingwood Hall,

Which is a story I've written,

There's a very difficult scene in it,

About chapter 10 or something,

And it was terrible to write,

But it needed to be written.

Why?

Because these things happen,

And it's not anything to do with any,

You know,

Any danger towards women or anything like that,

Or children,

But it's just a horrible experience,

And we do have horrible experiences,

That's what life is,

And it is difficult to listen to,

Um,

But what I would say is,

I always veer away from anything that is gratuitous and unnecessary,

And I would say with Wuthering Heights,

It is necessary to understand the ridiculousness,

And Tenet of Wildfell Hall,

Of these mean male characters,

Because they do exist,

This does happen,

And this is,

At the time,

This is a woman's voice,

It's a woman saying,

Guess what I'm going to write about this,

Because nobody else is,

Um,

And in some ways we owe it to them to keep that story alive,

Because they were the flag flyers,

You know,

They were right at the front,

They were on the front line,

Taking all the risks,

We think we're taking risks now,

It's nothing compared to what they were doing,

So,

Yeah,

That's their legacy,

That's what they've left,

So I honour that by reading those stories,

But you're right,

And I understand that you're not able to listen to it,

Because it is dark,

And it is cruel.

Okay,

So I'm going to just finish today,

I've talked quite a lot today,

Um,

Just in general,

I'm going to finish today by just mentioning that this,

This journaling is something that I'm looking to do,

Um,

As a sort of day-to-day,

Long-term thing,

And I'm going to,

Um,

Approach it from the view,

Thank you,

Both of you,

Thank everyone for coming,

I'm going to approach it from the view of the stoic female,

And how we navigate life in that way,

With virtue,

As women,

Um,

And I'm going to touch on that,

And next week I am going to talk about my favourite period,

Which is the Regency period,

And how the characters within that,

So you've got your Elizabeth Bennet,

Haven't you,

You've got your Jane Eyres,

And we're going to talk a little bit about how they,

Specifically as women,

Held it together,

And how the,

You know,

The example that they set,

Okay,

And how we can try,

We can but try to live up to their example.

Um,

Thank you so much for coming,

And I shall keep listening,

Please,

And,

Ah,

Does stoicism elevate the suppression of emotion as an absolute strength?

Even if that includes not dealing with emotions internally or examining oneself,

Does it elevate the suppression of emotions as an absolute strength?

No.

Suppression,

I would say,

Is a wrong word.

So stoicism is not seeking to suppress anything.

So,

Just to end on this,

If,

For example,

So I've got quite a few videos about this,

I do,

If,

For example,

Yeah,

That is true,

That is true,

That is what masculinity implies,

But we're not trying to do that.

This is not a masculine stoicism.

So let's look at it from a feminist point of view,

Right?

So I'm in this situation,

And I'm at a family situation,

I'm at a family dinner or something,

Something that has been organised,

And that I'm obliged to attend to.

So I'm sitting there at the table,

And somebody says something,

A family member says something that's insulting to me.

So if I approach it from a stoic viewpoint,

I say to myself,

Okay,

I'm feeling very hurt by that,

And I'm experiencing this emotion.

And I am not suppressing it,

It is happening to me,

And I'm understanding it.

And what am I going to do?

This is what I'm going to do,

Is I'm going to say to myself,

Okay,

This emotion is separate from me.

It's a fleeting moment.

It's something that's happening to me that I'm experiencing,

But it's not me.

It's an emotion,

Okay?

And I'm going to put that there,

And that's going to be this little red ball of energy that's really buzzing furiously.

And I'm going to say to myself,

You know what?

That was okay.

The reason I can accept that,

Not accept that,

But deal with that,

Is because I,

As a stoic,

Have come to this situation understanding that's going to happen.

So I'm already prepared for this,

Because that's what we do as stoics,

We prepare,

Okay?

We prepare ourselves.

Right,

Okay,

I knew that was going to happen.

Then somebody else chimes in,

And this time it's a bit worse,

And we can feel it building up.

I'm not going to give them what they want.

I'm going to smile.

Now I'm going to take a sip,

I'm going to put the glass down,

And I'm going to say,

Right,

Has this gone too far yet?

Do I need to remove myself?

How do I feel about this?

What shall I do?

Is it getting out of control,

This ball of,

You know,

This emotion?

Because if it is,

It means that I,

Physically,

Am starting to experience increased heartbeat,

Sweaty palms,

I'm feeling uncomfortable,

I'm starting to twitch,

I'm aware of what I'm doing physically.

And if that happens,

I say,

I'm just going to pop to the loo,

Won't be a sec,

Biggest smile.

And I'm going to remove myself from that situation.

I give no reward for that behavior.

I experience emotion.

I experience anger,

Hurt,

Upset,

Betrayal,

All of those things,

But I contain them.

I do not suppress them.

They are still there.

And then I take myself off,

If it gets awful,

And I go to safe space,

I go to the loo,

And I sit down,

And I take a deep breath,

I say,

You're in your safe space now,

This is fine,

No one can get you in here,

It's okay.

Yeah,

You can buzz all you want,

You can feel all you want,

Because I'm not going to feel angry in a minute,

Because I understand that that's just this energy.

It's not in there,

It's not mine,

It's just an emotion.

And I refuse to let that control me.

Right?

Not suppressing anything,

You are accepting it,

You are acknowledging it,

And you're giving it a space in which to exist.

And you know darn well,

When you get home,

It's all going to come out.

No one said it wouldn't.

No one said it doesn't exist,

No one's suppressing anything.

You are allowing it to be,

But you are managing it.

Then you go back and you sit down at the table,

Before you leave,

You just say,

With the loo,

You say,

Right,

How many more minutes have I got to go?

Okay,

What I'm going to do is this now,

I'm going to go and eat my food,

And then what else am I obliged to do?

Okay,

I'm obliged to address anything that is addressed to me with humour.

If I have nothing to say,

If all thoughts leave me,

I always have a choice,

I can always step away again.

You do that as many times as you like,

There are no rules,

Nobody is physically chaining you to the chair.

You still have control,

And this is what stoicism is about,

It's a mastery of your emotion.

It is not suppressing it,

That's not mastering anything.

Okay,

So yes,

There are associations with toxic masculinity,

And oh,

Females just need to pipe down,

And just need,

No,

We're not saying that at all.

And this is a reframing of something that I think has great power in its message for us as women to utilise.

Why should they get all the good stuff,

Right?

Why can't we utilise this?

And it doesn't matter then what their narrative is,

Because when we achieve peace within,

When we can master what we are experiencing,

We are free.

And that's the goal.

I hope that helped,

And I shall see you same time next week,

And have a great one.

Reviews

Really interesting, on many levels— I see many benefits to the good sides (feminist😁) of stoicism, and appreciate you sharing these connections To the Victorians worlds we enter through these books— and it’s fun to hear you laugh!! Thank you, dear!❤️🙏🏼