12 Stoic Remedies for When Life Feels Heavy

Designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. I think this idea of the Stoics is having no emotions, being a motionless, having no heart to totally misuse it. It was actually the act of expressing the gratitude that was a gift to him.

I try to remind myself constantly that this moment is enough. That is the path to happiness and to greatness. Stoicism doesn't exactly come off as the happiest, lightest philosophy. And there's good reason for that. Life is hard.

Life is difficult. Life can break our hearts. Other people can break our hearts. And all of the Stoics experience this. The experience, depression, and loneliness, and pain,

and grief, and anger, and isolation, and not being appreciated, all the things that we struggle with. The Stoics struggled with.

“In Marx's realist's meditations, that's what you're seeing.”

You're seeing the most powerful man in the world.

Stuggle with his emotions. Stuggle with feelings of anxiety, and frustration, and isolation, and self-doubt, and try to work his way through. And yet, amidst this darkness, the Stoics understood as Marx's roots would say in meditations

that our soul is died by the color of our thoughts. Our life is died by the color of our thoughts. So if we only focus on the negative, if we don't have tools or strategies for dealing with what life throws at us, we're not going to end up

in a good place. So if you're lonely or depressed or tired or frustrated, dealing with emotional issues, this video is for you. I'm Ryan Hollin, I've written a number of books about Stoic philosophy.

I've spoken about it to everyone from the NBA, to the NFL, sitting senators, and special forces leaders. And what we're going to talk about in today's episode is Stoic Strategies. For dealing with life's difficult situations

and the difficult emotions it brings up, and I think you're really going to like it. (gentle music) Seneca said that the mind must be taken on wandering walks. He said, otherwise you'll break, it'll be too tense.

I totally agree, I try to start my day with a walk, and I try to end my day with a walk. I don't even consider it exercise, although it is that. To me, it's putting the body in motion, it's slowing the mind down.

I'm getting outside, I'm connected with nature. Maybe I'm having a conversation with someone else that I care about, and even though I'm moving, I'm getting closer to a place of stillness. Walking to me is a magical cure all.

So if you're not walking every day, you're not as happy or as healthy as you could be. So listen to the Stoics and take a walk. (gentle music) There's a famous Stoic story,

"Clanthes" is walking down the streets and Athens, and here's this man talking to himself, criticizing himself, and creating himself. And "Clanthes" stops him and he says,

"Remember you're not talking to a bad person." I think one of the things that loneliness does is sort of vicious cycle where, because we're away from people, we don't feel good about ourselves,

because we don't feel good about ourselves, we isolate from other people. This Stoic idea of being kind yourself, being a friend yourself. It's not just lessons, the burden of that loneliness, but it also makes it more possible

for you to put yourself back out there.

First up, I just like the idea of "Clanthes"

walking up to someone who's clearly lonely, who's clearly not having a good time, who's clearly very hard on themselves. And like a brother, like a friend, reaching out and just saying something to him.

I like that, but I also like what he actually said. The message there I think when we are down in those depths, when we're in dark places, when we have isolated, when we do feel this connected from people.

“We have to remember that we're not bad people,”

and how we talk to ourselves matters. And the decision to treat yourself like shit is not a good decision. There's a line by the band that head in the heart, something like, until you learn to love yourself,

that door is locked to someone else. Which I think is beautifully said, like if you don't think you're worthy of friendships or relationships or connection or love, how is anyone else going to see that in you?

So it starts by realizing you're not talking to a bad person. You're not a bad person. It starts with as Seneca says, being a better friend to yourself. (gentle music)

I imagine you wanted this thing for a long time. You wanted to be successful. You wanted to be famous. You wanted to do great work to break out. And that happens.

What does it actually feel like to get there? Was it a delivery on all your hopes and dreams and expectations or was there a little bit of a let down? Yeah, it's interesting 'cause this became front page news a week or two ago 'cause I did,

“I think Bill Mars podcast and I was talking about”

this idea of suffering and the human struggle for happiness finding happiness. I mentioned like I spanned a great deal of time on the office really unhappy.

and said, "Rain Wilson miserable on the set of the office, "Rain Wilson spent the entire office unhappy." You can Google it.

It's incredible how the media works.

Headline after headline, after headline. Making it seem like I'm this ungrateful, miserable fuck.

“The fact is is that no matter how well things”

are going for us as human beings, we have a tendency towards anxious discontent. And my ducca, my suffering, my anxious discontent and the set of the office was, you know, I wanted to be a bigger movie star.

I had a crack at doing a bunch of movies. They didn't turn out very good and people didn't really watch them. Actually, some of them, they're pretty damn damn good, but people didn't watch them

and they didn't work at the box office. And okay, that's fine, but at the time, I was just pulling my hair out like, "Ah, damn it, I won't this movie deal "and why can't I have this and why can't I have that?"

And how come he's getting offered this? And I'm not.

And, you know, envy and pettiness and self-seeking.

Again, I'm so grateful for that test 'cause I look back on a noun like you dip shit. You were on the, that was the, you had it all, it was the greatest job ever. Why couldn't you have just enjoyed it more?

And I wasn't, I wasn't a spring chicken. I was, you know, I got cast in the office. I was 38. I think when I started playing twight, you know, so well into my 40s.

By this last several years, I was in a much better place. You know, it was kind of earlier on year 345 right in that area of the office. But yeah, I had, I mean, it was beautiful.

It was a great group of people and a beautiful job and nice pay and got along great. And I was playing one of the great TV characters of all time and lots of doors were open to me and getting invited to festivals and hotels

and this and that and the other thing and just enjoy it, getting nominated for Emmys. Like, revel in it, that doesn't get better than this. Yeah, it really doesn't like, oh, you're a TV star, but oh, you need to be a movie star.

We want more. We're never satisfied. Being a kid from California, my rancher in Texas seems enormous, right? Anything more than a small backyard seems enormous.

But of course, when I zoom out and look at it from a drone or a flown over it in an airplane a couple of times, suddenly it's really, really small. In Meditations, a handful of times marks

where this talks about zooming out and taking plateaus view. He wouldn't have been able to get up as high as we did, but he also had his empire was also one that stretched almost the entirety of the known world. And yet, he tried to remind himself how small this really was

talked about how the edges of the empire with little armies fighting over it, were like ants fighting over a piece of food. Talk about when you zoom out from the moment that you're in. And you see the larger history, the larger context,

you realize that this has been the same thing happening over and over and over again. That's the famous biblical verse about how one generation comes and another goes, but the earth, a bite, if forever, the sun also rises.

That's where Hemingway gets the title there. It says the sun go with down and hastens to the place where he arose.

“The idea that everything in the world has happened before, right?”

Babies have always been being born.

People have always been squabbling over things. People have always been fighting over things. People have always been lusting over things. People have always been stupid. People have always been ungrateful.

People have always been afraid. They've always been here. They've always been doing this. That's the perennial theme, even of meditations. Not only is Mark is really talking about it,

but he's illustrating, right? You read the pages of this 2000 year old book, and you see that as much as humanity is changed, as much as the world is different. It is also exactly the fucking same.

The rhythm of life continues, even if technology disrupts, even if world events disrupt. We have to find a way to take solace in this, to take humility in this, to get some clarity and perspective from this.

We have to zoom out with the realized that the things we think are very big are actually quite small. And the things that we think are quite small are actually timeless and connect us to all humans who've ever lived.

“That's why we zoom out and take a bigger perspective.”

(gentle music) - Most of the exercise that I do is very solitaire. I like running, I like swimming. I suffer by myself, which is great. That's how I like to do it.

But there is also something special about suffering with other people, doing hard things with other people. Santa Cat talks about doing this cold plunge to start the new year.

There's things that have existed for hundreds of years, polar bear clubs where everyone gets together and they do something really hard and challenging with each other. One of the best ways to find community

is around the things that you struggle to do by yourself. Cross-fit gyms, great communities, martial arts, great communities, races, or physical challenges, Spartan races, warrior dashes, doing really hard things with other people

is a way to pull people together.

is where he says, we're like soldier storming a wall.

“So what if you slip and you have to ask a comrade for help?”

Nothing helps you realize that you're all in something together when it's something that each of you is struggling to do by yourself. So I think facing discomfort is great generally, facing discomfort with other people

is how you quickly become a member of a tribe. This is what 12 step groups, what recovery groups have been doing for also like a hundred years. People at the rock bottom when they need help,

when they are struggling coming together and learning how to be part of an organization that isn't a top-down organization. We're going to tell you what to do, but a collective community-driven organization

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- Senator, I have this word at you, Timia, which he said is the sense of the path that you're on. And he said, not being distracted by the past that Chris Cross yours, especially from those who are hopelessly lost.

It takes an immense amount of discipline.

“I think also confidence, just self-awareness,”

to go like, here are the things I want to do. Here's when I want to do them and not really paying attention to what other people are doing or everything that's coming into your inbox. - It takes all those things, right?

If you're not too caught up in that chase and in your own ego and everything, you actually learn to really settle into the fact that you intellectually grasp, oh, I'm not comparing myself to what Ryan's doing.

Whatever he just did, he's on his own path and you find that it doesn't make you go like, what about me? I did do that at 25 and now, when I hear about that, I don't go like, what am I gonna do?

You know?

- Basically, nothing lasts.

That's the very stoic idea. In Meditations, Marks really says, Alexander the Great and his moral driver, same thing happens to both, and we're both buried in the same earth.

There's that Latin saying, sick transit, Gloria, right? All glory is fleeting. We think that if we become famous or popular or important, right,

to set something about us, it makes us immortal,

forgotten, nothing lasts. It doesn't matter.

“You could be the biggest thing in the world.”

And then one day, you're not suddenly, you're not. One of my books, still list it number one, and then you know what happened the next week? Someone else was there, right? I've had a good run, but it'll go away eventually.

In inevitably invariably, always does.

So what does matter then, the stoics would say, just being a good person, doing good work, focusing on what you control. That's it. (gentle guitar music)

Nobody is more unhappy than the person who's never gone through adversity. Santa Claus says, "Because they've never been permitted to prove themselves." That's something I try to remind myself when stuff gets hard, when I run into a bunch of obstacles

in a row, when it doesn't turn out the way that I wanted to go. I'm going, hey, this isn't opportunity. This is a chance for me to practice the virtues that's what the stoics say. The obstacle is the way it's a chance to practice

or due to practice excellence.

“But more importantly, it's a chance for me to prove myself.”

If only to myself, yes, of course, I would have liked it to go the way that I wanted it. And I might feel a little unhappy that it's not that way.

But I'd be more unhappy if I never got this chance

if I didn't get this practice. If I didn't get these reps with things not being the way that I wanted them to be. So I embrace that opportunity. I do the practice willingly.

I take the rep and I get better for it and ultimately happier. (gentle guitar music) The most beautiful writing that Santa could did he wrote these four essays that are called his constellations.

And they're him consoling people who have lost someone in one case, it's his mother who lost him. He's being exiled. Think this idea of the stoics is having no emotions, being a motionless, having no heart.

It totally misses it. It's about not being overwhelmed and ruled by or destroyed by those emotions. But it's certainly not stuffing them down and pretending they don't exist.

Sometimes it's about using the mind to understand here's why you're feeling this way. This way it's not rationalism. A good way to feel. And then I think in other times,

you've got it all perfectly worked out in your head. And the heart needs to come and overwhelm that and be like's more complicated, people involved. Like we're talking about with formlessness. It's sometimes it's one, sometimes it's the other.

(gentle guitar music) In meditation, the Marxist really talks about being the rock that the waves crash over. And eventually the raging sea falls still around. That idea of stillness of being present,

of locking in, to me it's everything that's happiness. It's also a great work where a flow state comes from. It's where joy comes from. It's where connection comes from. It's where gratitude comes from.

So just lock and cloned down. It doesn't matter what's happening in the outside world. Slow down, lock in, let the waves crash around you. And eventually everything will quiet down.

“You will quiet down and you will do what you need to do”

in this very moment. (gentle guitar music) Don't seek for things to happen the way you want them to happen. But want them to happen the way that they have happened. Wish for them to have happened the way that they did.

That's epictivity. Obviously proceeds nature by a couple thousand years, but nature had this idea of a more faulty, a more faulty translates to a love of fate. Instead of needing things to be a certain way,

instead of simply accepting them as they are. Nature and epictivity say that human greatness, human happiness is in loving things as they actually are. Saying, this is the way that it's supposed to be. This is wonderful that it is that way.

It was chosen for me. And this isn't even necessarily to say that you just accept the world as awful

and unjust and you never try to change it.

But you say, no, no, it was set up this way. So I could be who I am capable of being inside of it. That's what this reminder of it means to me. Marcus really talks about how what you throw on top of a fire is fuel for the fire

that turns it all into flame and brightness. That's what we're talking about. More faulty means that you embrace life as it is, you embrace situations as they are. Instead of fighting them, instead of running from them,

instead of resenting them, even instead of just tolerating them, you love them. That is the path to happiness and to greatness. Every day, I send that one stoic inspired email of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.

If you want more stoic wisdom in your inbox, you can sign up at dailystilic.com/email. It's totally free. Come out and subscribe at anytime we'd love to have you. dailystilic.com/email.

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