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Stoic Morning Affirmations: Eight Truths for the Day Ahead (Guided Practice) · The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, settle for a moment.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Feet on the floor if you have them there, hands resting.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Notice the weight of your body where it meets the chair or the bed or the ground.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is a short practice of stoic morning affirmations, and before we start, I want to be honest.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Most affirmations ask you to declare a future that you wish for, like I am abundant or I am unstoppable or I attract good things.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: The Stoics kinda did the opposite.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: They began the day by recollecting what was already true.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no manifestation here, no raising of vibrations.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Just eight old lines, mostly from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and a little silence between each.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can repeat them aloud, you can repeat them in your own mind, or you can simply listen.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever feels best today.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let's begin with the body.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Three slow breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: There is no perfect breath here, just one that's a little slower than the one before.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Breathe in for four and out for six.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Again, in for four, tut for six t one more breathe in t and out.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Notice that you have already done the most important thing today.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: You have woken up.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: At the start of his private notebook he wrote himself a reminder for the morning.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: When you arise, he told himself, the people you deal with today will be ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil, but I have seen the beauty of good.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so none of them can harm me.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Epictetus, who had been a slave before he became a teacher, told his students to keep certain sentences ready to hand, like a small knife on the belt.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: There is a useful modern parallel here.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Repeating I am a lovable person has been shown in at least one well known study to make people with low self-esteem feel worse.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: What the research more clearly supports is making one specific plan, what psychologists call an implementation intention, and the evidence for that is strong.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Which is, conveniently, what the Stoics were already doing two thousand years ago.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we'll do now.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Eight lines, then one rehearsal, then one quiet plan.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay number one Some things are up to me and some things are not.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: What I think, what I choose, what I do, these are up to me.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Most else is not two.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is not things that disturb me, but my judgments about them The event arrives.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The judgment is mine.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Three The people I meet today may be ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, but we were born to work together.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am rising to do the work of a human being.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not the work of an employee, not the work of someone trying to be impressive, the work of a human being.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Five.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: What stands in the way becomes the way Epictetus put it this way Never say of anything I have lost it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Say I have returned it seven.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone can show me I am mistaken, I will gladly change eight and from Seneca He who has lived today has lived enough.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now and this is the part the research is clearest on.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Picture one difficulty you actually expect today, not the worst case, just the one most likely.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: It might be a conversation you've been avoiding, the moment you reach for your phone instead of doing the thing, a meeting where someone usually frustrates you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Picture it briefly.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then make one quiet plan.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: If that happens, then I will dot dot dot one sentence you don't need more Keep it.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's yours.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the practice.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Eight old ancient lines, one rehearsal, one plan.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: None of it will make the day easier.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It will make you steadier inside the day.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Which, the Stoics thought, was the only thing that was ever actually up to you.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Take a slow breath in and out.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Notice the weight of your hands, the sounds in the room.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Go gently.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you back here tomorrow.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if this practice helped, even a little, please leave a rating.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Ratings help other listeners find the track.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for practicing with me.