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Stoic Attention Practice: Return Before The Noise · The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before you pick up your phone, before the first message, the first headline, the first demand on your attention, a few minutes before any of that, these are precious moments that belong to you.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so sit however you like, eyes closed or open, resting on one spot on the floor or in a chair, and take three slow breaths to arrive.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: In and out.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: In and out.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: In and out.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Stoics had a word for this, prosoke or attention.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was not a technique that they did for ten minutes and then forgot about.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was very important, a key part of stoic practice.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: A continuous watchfulness over where your mind has gone, and a continuous bringing of it back.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Marcus had a few words that he used to remind himself of the importance of prosoke.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Confine yourself to the present, he said.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not because the future does not matter, but because the present is the only place where you have any power.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you can actually do can only ever be done here.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not asking you to just relax.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you right now to train.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be practicing in a form of mental training.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be practicing the return.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Start with sound.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to whatever is around you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Traffic, a boiler, birds, someone moving in another room, the ham of electronics, your own breathing.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to name them or judge them.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just let them arrive and go.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Feel the weight of yourself pressing down, the temperature of the air on your hands and face, the pressure where your body meets the chair on the floor.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing to change just contact.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now the breath the cool air coming in.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: The slight warmth going out.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: The small pause at the top and the bottom.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You were not breathing deliberately.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: You were just noticing something that was happening anyway.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine, that's what this practice is, that is the rep.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: A mind that never wanders gives you nothing to practice with.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: When you notice you have gone, just try this.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Name where you went in one word.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Planning, remembering, worrying, rehearsing.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then just come back to the breath.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: No irritation about it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The noticing is the practice.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: The wandering is just what made the noticing possible.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Most of what pulls you out of this moment is not happening, it's just your mind rehearsing for something.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Come back once more now.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is the point.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You could be waiting for the kettle or standing in a queue that thirty seconds before you walk into a room that you're dreading to enter.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: One breath.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Notice you are here.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the practice.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So take one last breath now.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Take it deliberately.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Notice your fingers and toes, and open your eyes slowly.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: The noise is still out there.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: This practice compounds, so do it tomorrow again, the day after, and you'll start catching your mind mid-wonder at all different times of the day without even meaning to go well.