Four Stoic Exercises

Control Journaling

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react “I examine my entire day and go back over to it that matters.” Epictetus what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.” Seneca CONTROL Focus on what you can control in life - your JOURNALLING response. When something goes wrong or the Use journaling as a way to self-reflect on the day unexpected happened, focus on your reaction. and asses how you performed when you were This is where your power lies. met with challenges.

Negative visualisation Voluntary Discomfort

Envision all of the things that could go wrong in “We will train both soul and body when we order to prepare for potential problems. It can also accustom ourselves to cold, heat, thirst, NEGATIVE be used to help you cultivate gratitude by VOLUNTARY hunger, scarcity of food, hardness of bed, VISUALISATION contemplating loss. abstaining from pleasures, and enduring DISCOMFORT pains.” Musonius Rufus *This exercise comes with a warning - don’t use this if you are not in a good mental space. You Prepare for future adversity by practising must be careful when contemplating loss - don’t adversity. Push yourself out of your comfort zone get dragged down by it - focus on the gratitude. to build resilience. It’s a positive exercise if you focus on this aspect of it.

www.benaldridge.com @dothingsthatchallengeyou Book Recommendations

The three main Stoic philosophers and their most prominent work:

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (the Gregory Hayes translation is great)

Discourses and Selected Writings - Epictetus

Letters from a Stoic - Seneca

Modern writers on Stoicism:

The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

A Guide to the Good Life - William B. Irvine

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius - Donald Robertson

The Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday

Other resources: www.dailystoic.com www.modernstoicism.com www.benaldridge.com @dothingsthatchallengeyou