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How Marcus Aurelius Managed His Mind And What We Can Learn From It by Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Cully here and welcome to you. This
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: week's my Joe Monday. So I am reading a book
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: called Meditations, or it's often called the Meditations, and it
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  Speaker 1: is a journal of the Roman emperor and Stohic philosopher
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  Speaker 1: Marcus Aurelius, who many of you would have heard of.
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  Speaker 1: And I came across this passage. There are many many
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  Speaker 1: passages in this book that make me stop, but I
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  Speaker 1: stopped at this one and I thought that I would
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: share it with you. So what he wrote was constantly
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  Speaker 1: test your mental impressions, each one individually, if you can
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  Speaker 1: investigate the cause, identify the emotion, apply the analysis of logic. So,
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  Speaker 1: just to put this in context, if you're not familiar
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  Speaker 1: with Marcus Aurelius, he was a man who lived nearly
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  Speaker 1: two thousand years ago. He was a Roman emperor. He
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  Speaker 1: was the last of the five great Roman emperors. He
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  Speaker 1: was a Stoic philosopher, passionate Stoic philosopher, as I'm sure
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  Speaker 1: they all were. He was a man who carried enormous responsibility.
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  Speaker 1: So you imagine a Roman emperor that in that era
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  Speaker 1: like relentless pressure. There would have been a lot of
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  Speaker 1: political tension and uncertainty and war and famine, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: even his living conditions, even though he was an emperor,
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  Speaker 1: would have been unimaginably harsher than the comforts that we
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  Speaker 1: take for granted today. So in that sort of context,
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  Speaker 1: in the privacy of his own journal, he was doing
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  Speaker 1: something that I find really fascinating. He was coaching himself
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  Speaker 1: to be a better person. He was reminding himself to
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  Speaker 1: live with virtue, to act with character, and to respond
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  Speaker 1: wisely even when his own thoughts and emotions were trying
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to drag him somewhere kind of less noble. And that's
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  Speaker 1: what Meditations really is. It's not a book that Marcus
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  Speaker 1: wrote for us. He didn't write it for anybody else
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  Speaker 1: to read. As far as we know. It was his
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  Speaker 1: journal that he wrote to himself. And when you read it,
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  Speaker 1: he sounds really preachy in the tone, and I have
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  Speaker 1: to keep reminding myself that he's actually preaching to himself,
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  Speaker 1: no one else. And it's this daily practice of noticing
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: his thoughts and examining his emotions and reminding himself of
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  Speaker 1: the kind of person that he wants to be, the
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  Speaker 1: kind of life he wants to live, and the attitudes
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that he wants to adopt. And when I read this quote,
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  Speaker 1: it reminded me of something in modern psychology. So Aaron Beck,
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  Speaker 1: who is one of the founders of cognitive behavior therapy,
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  Speaker 1: which you many of you would have heard of. It's
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: like a gold standard therapeutic approach for psychologists and counselors,
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  Speaker 1: and he acknowledges the influence of stoic philosophy on CBT.
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  Speaker 1: It was actually what inspired him to develop it, And
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  Speaker 1: so I thought, I thought, that's what this quote reminded
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  Speaker 1: me of. So I thought we could break this down.
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  Speaker 1: So the first line that he says is constantly test
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  Speaker 1: your mental impressions. So in Stoicism and impression is the
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  Speaker 1: first thing that lands in the mind. So someone doesn't
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  Speaker 1: reply to your message and your first impression is oh,
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  Speaker 1: they're annoyed with me, or you make a mistake, and
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  Speaker 1: your first impression your mind gives you is oh, I
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  Speaker 1: always stuff things up. So what Marcus is really saying
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  Speaker 1: is don't automatically believe the first story that your mind
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  Speaker 1: gives you. And this is where I think it links
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  Speaker 1: beautifully with ACT or acceptance commitment therapy. In ACT, we
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  Speaker 1: practice this technique called cognitive diffusion, and that means creating
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of space between you and your thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: So it's not about trying to get rid of them
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  Speaker 1: or arguing with them all day. You just notice them
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  Speaker 1: as thoughts. So instead of I'm hopeless, it becomes I'm
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: having the thought that I'm hopeless. And so you can
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  Speaker 1: if you try this yourself next time you have a
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  Speaker 1: thought and if you just add those words I'm having
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  Speaker 1: the thought that I'm hopeless. What it does It creates
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of distance from those thoughts, kind of
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  Speaker 1: takes the sting out and long enough for you to
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  Speaker 1: really get curious about them. Because when we're fused with
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  Speaker 1: a thought, it feels like it's our reality. But when
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  Speaker 1: we diffuse from them, creating that little bit of space,
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  Speaker 1: we can see them as something our minds are just producing.
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  Speaker 1: So the next line is then investigate the cause. So
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  Speaker 1: I don't think this means that we need to psychoanalyze
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  Speaker 1: every thought that we have, but it does mean we
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  Speaker 1: can get curious about them. So why is this thought
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  Speaker 1: showing up? You know, maybe I'm tired, or i feel overwhelmed,
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  Speaker 1: or I'm comparing myself to someone else, or is this
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  Speaker 1: an old pattern. Is this thought actually familiar to you?
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  Speaker 1: Is this fear trying to protect me? Is my mind
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  Speaker 1: reacting to what is actually happening or what I wish
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  Speaker 1: was happening? You know, sometimes our stress comes from not
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  Speaker 1: the reality itself, but from that gap between reality and
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  Speaker 1: the version of life that we think we should be living.
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  Speaker 1: And without going into a full analysis of why we
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  Speaker 1: think and feel the way we do, I do think
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  Speaker 1: that self awareness is a really powerful skill to understand ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: It means we can be a bit more compassionate with ourselves,
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  Speaker 1: which we all need to be, and it means we
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  Speaker 1: understand our impressions. So those first thoughts that automatically come
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  Speaker 1: into our mind. So have a think about a thought
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  Speaker 1: that is stopping you from taking action right now. Have
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  Speaker 1: a thing about a thought you think, actually, I am
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  Speaker 1: really fused with this thought. You know, maybe it's around
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  Speaker 1: how others are going to people are going to judge you,
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  Speaker 1: or it's around feeling not good enough, and so you know,
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  Speaker 1: don't bother trying a fear of failure. So start to
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  Speaker 1: be really curious about it so you can fully understand
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  Speaker 1: where you're at right now. And then the next line
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  Speaker 1: is identify the emotion. So again, two thousand years ago,
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  Speaker 1: Marcus was pointing to something that modern psychology now actually
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  Speaker 1: supports through research, and that is naming what you're feeling,
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  Speaker 1: so you can go deep on this. Is it disappointment
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  Speaker 1: or shame or fear or envy or sadness or frustration
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  Speaker 1: or loneliness or embarrassment. When we name an emotion, we
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  Speaker 1: stop being completely enveloped by it. We can create a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of room around it. So we don't want
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  Speaker 1: to avoid our emotions or deny them. We really want
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  Speaker 1: to understand them. Because your nervous system is designed to
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  Speaker 1: protect you. So understanding your emotions rather than shying away
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  Speaker 1: from them, means you can better make choices not necessarily
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  Speaker 1: aligned with those emotions, but aligned with what matters to you.
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  Speaker 1: And then he finishes with apply the analysis of logic
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  Speaker 1: now in CBT. This is where that influence has come
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  Speaker 1: in with CBT because it often means challenging the thought.
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  Speaker 1: So is this thought? Is there evidence for this thought?
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  Speaker 1: Is there another way to see it? And that can
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  Speaker 1: be really helpful, But I always, I don't actually always
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  Speaker 1: think that debating with your own mind is the most
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  Speaker 1: useful approach sometimes it turns into the court room and
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  Speaker 1: your head, or sometimes it turns into like a boxing match.
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  Speaker 1: So in acceptance and commitment therapy, which is an approach
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  Speaker 1: that really aligns with me, and I'm trained in it,
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  Speaker 1: so it offers a slightly different question, not is this
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  Speaker 1: thought true or false? But is this thought helpful? If
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  Speaker 1: I keep holding onto this thought, does it move me
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  Speaker 1: towards the person I want to be? Or does it
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  Speaker 1: pull me further into the web? Because that's what can happen.
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  Speaker 1: We can become like a fly trapped in a spider's web.
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  Speaker 1: The more we wrestle with every thought and feeling, the
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  Speaker 1: more tangled up we can become. And then that affects
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  Speaker 1: our choices. You know, in Marina therapy, we'd say, accept
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  Speaker 1: the feeling, see the reality clearly, and do what needs
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  Speaker 1: to be done. So I think that really aligns with
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  Speaker 1: the writings of Marx Aurelius. So maybe the logical approach
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  Speaker 1: isn't how do I stop feeling shame? But is it? Shame?
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  Speaker 1: Is here? What matters now? And maybe the logical approach
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  Speaker 1: is not how do I prove this thought wrong? Maybe
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  Speaker 1: it's this thought is here? Is it useful to follow it.
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  Speaker 1: Can I choose to act with courage or patience while
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  Speaker 1: this feeling is still here? So this week try Marx's practice.
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  Speaker 1: Notice the impression, So the first thought that comes into
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  Speaker 1: your mind, get curious, investigate the cause, name the emotion.
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  Speaker 1: Then choose the next step based on your reality, not
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  Speaker 1: the mind's story, not the spiral, not the emotions swirling
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  Speaker 1: through you. The goal is not to feel good all
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  Speaker 1: the time, so we don't want to wait for that,
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  Speaker 1: and it's not to be free of these uncomfortable and
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  Speaker 1: often really annoying thoughts. The goal is to stop being
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  Speaker 1: ruled by every mental impression that appears, because if you
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  Speaker 1: do that, you won't get yourself on that path that
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  Speaker 1: you know you want to be on. So you are
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  Speaker 1: the person that can notice the thought, name the emotion,
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  Speaker 1: see the reality, and still take that next step. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that advice from Marcus Aurelius is as relevant
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  Speaker 1: today as it was two thousand years ago. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: so much for joining me, and I will catch you
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  Speaker 1: next week. Yeah,