Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 3: Part: Modern Stoicism
• Method 2 of 3: Part: Antique Stoicism
• Method 3 of 3: Part: Living Stoic
• Tips
• Warnings

"Stoics" are often called those who rarely and extremely restrained show emotions, as well as those who speak little. This, of course, is nothing more than the modern meaning of the word. And while stoicism was a whole philosophical trend in ancient Greece and Rome, part of which was to make people happier by teaching them to manage their negative emotions. If you want to become a stoic - in the modern or even in the ancient sense, then this article will undoubtedly come in handy for you.

Steps

Method 1 of 3: Part: Modern Stoicism

1. 1 Internalize your emotions. Hide them deeper and do not let them break out. Do not show them - you still need to feel them. Keep everything inside, everything to yourself.
   • This needs to be learned. If you want to learn how to restrain your emotions, then you can watch dramas and melodramas as training material.
2. 2 React as discreetly as possible. When something awakens an emotional response in you, physically react as discreetly as possible, as little as possible. Watch your facial expressions, do not cry and do not make grimaces of rage.
   • Try to think about something else at such moments, if you can. If it is difficult - start mentally humming a song, this will shift the mental focus.
3. 3 Respond as discreetly as possible. When someone asks you a question, answer to the point and to a minimum. When emotions get over you, don't tell people about your thoughts or feelings, and don't say anything that might betray you.
4. 4 Anyway, speak less. And even less. So you will look more like a stoic, and you will also learn to restrain emotional responses.
5. 5 Do not blur out information. As with short answers to questions, you must learn not to tell everyone and everything about yourself, your thoughts and feelings.
6. 6 Don't ever complain. Complaints are a manifestation of emotions, anger or sadness; stoic complaints should be avoided. In fact, why complain? Better to take matters into your own hands and fix everything.
7. 7 Express your emotions later and in private. Keeping emotions in oneself and not paying attention to them is a double-edged sword, one of which is health problems. Even a stoic should have a healthy way of expressing his emotions - even later, even in private, but still. You can shout or cry into your pillow, keep a diary, draw - in general, to your taste.

Method 2 of 3: Part: Antique Stoicism

1. 1 Realize the importance of logic. The main idea of ​​stoicism was the idea that negative emotions lead to bad decisions, which makes life worse. Since emotions are often irrational, the Stoics looked for solutions to emotional problems in working with logic. Look at your life, when emotions raise their heads, from a standpoint of logic.
2. 2 Explore your own inclinations. You may feel that living by certain rules or doing things according to certain patterns is less than another way of living life. Alas, such a view of the situation is fraught with the emergence of a large number of negative emotions in those moments when people disagree with you or when something does not go as planned. Therefore, it is worth thinking about your own inclinations and trying to understand whether it is possible to look at the situation from different points of view. This will make it easier to solve problems.
3. 3 Minimize negative emotions. The goal of stoicism is not to minimize all emotions, but to minimize negative emotions. This philosophy wanted to make people happier by reducing the impact of emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, or envy on their lives. And this is what you, a stoic, should strive for yourself.
4. 4 Encourage positive emotions. Of course, minimizing negativity is good, but you also need to learn to be happy, especially nowadays, when depression and the absence of joyful thoughts in the head is characteristic of almost every second person. So, if you are just one of those second ones, you will have to unlearn living in melancholy!
5. 5 Reconsider your priorities. The nature of people is such that they always want the best for themselves. It doesn't matter what a person already has - he will find something that would make him unhappy. Stoics must reconsider their life priorities in order to learn to be happy with what they already have.
6. 6 Discover the amazing beauty of the world around you. To learn to be happy, you need to learn to look for happiness around you - in the world around you and me. We all sometimes feel like horses are driven - what to do, time is such - but if you throw your muzzles for a second ... your face to the sky and see how beautiful it is - life will become a little better. Seize the moment and appreciate it! Delight and joy will fill you.
   • Think: you have a phone the size of your palm with which you can call any part of the world! Isn't it a miracle? Isn't this the future that was once only dreamed of?
   • Nature is amazing too. Did you know there are trees that are taller than the famous Statue of Liberty?
7. 7 Avoid attachment. When we become attached to something - whether to things, to people, or to situations - we become more vulnerable to the loss of the familiar. Stoicism teaches us to be open to change and accept it, because the feeling of attachment is fraught with great pain in case of loss.
8. 8 Read the works of the ancient Stoics. To learn more about this philosophical trend and immerse yourself in it, you need to read the materiel. At one time, Stoicism was almost a religion, it was a respected trend, and Stoics were among people from all classes. Some of them were literate, some were very literate, from them to our time all these written monuments of the amazing era of Stoicism have survived. For starters, read the writings of renowned Stoics such as Cicero and Marcus Aurelius.

Method 3 of 3: Part: Living Stoic

1. 1 Let go of your anger. Whenever you feel overwhelmed by feelings of anger, stop and consider whether anger will help the problem. No. In principle, your emotions are unlikely to help change the situation. What will help? Actions. Therefore, if you are angry about something, then you just need to think about what needs to be corrected, and then - fix it. And that's all.
2. 2 See life through someone else's eyes. If someone is constantly making you feel angry or frustrated, try looking at the problem from that person's perspective. Understand that everyone is wrong. Strictly speaking, people generally rarely act specifically to harm — they usually think they are acting for good. Try to understand why the mistake was made and try to forgive the one who did it. Then try to improve the situation accordingly.
3. 3 Let yourself be sad. There is no need to throw sadness out of life, no need to pretend that sadness does not exist in nature. This is unnatural and very harmful to health. Instead, be sad. Be sad, but not for long! We were sad for a couple of days, and it will be. Remember that sadness will not make you happy.
4. 4 Do negative visualization. In other words, try to imagine that you have lost something. This simple exercise was a daily practice for the Stoics. Its essence is simple: imagine your life without something important to you. Maybe without a favorite job, or without a spouse, maybe without children or even a dog. It sounds sad, and there is little fun here, but this is what will help you learn to enjoy all the good things in your life, teach you to cope with losses, preparing you for them.
5. 5 Try to abstract from the situation. This is called “projective visualization” and yes, this is also an exercise for the Stoics.Of course, it is not as powerful as the previous one, but it is also useful, especially if you have to cope with something that upsets you greatly. The bottom line is this: you have to imagine that the trouble that is happening to you is happening to someone else. And then you have to think, what advice would you give this person? How would you change your own opinion about the situation? After all, you yourself know that sometimes we sympathize with a person in trouble, and sometimes we just say that, they say, yes, it happens. And this is a very important point. There can always be something that will upset or upset us, because we have no control over it. At the same time, it should be remembered that sadness cannot be helped. In other words, abstract - and it may improve your mood.
6. 6 Appreciate the moment. Enjoy what you are, where you are and how you are right now. As we have said, it is in human nature itself that there is a tendency to feel mildly unhappy. With this, of course, we must fight, and for this we need to learn to appreciate the current moment. This is where negative visualization comes in handy. Just remember that no matter how bad it is, there is always something so amazing and delightful that it is simply a sin to be sad.
7. 7 Wait and embrace change. Stoics are against attachment and constancy, they are against the idea that everything should remain the same. Remember, change is good. Of course, it is difficult to accept situations when something we love disappears, but it is worth remembering that every change opens up new opportunities for us in life. Even when something bad happens, you need to remember that it is not forever.
   • King Solomon, one might say, was no stranger to stoicism - what is his great "Everything will pass"!
8. 8 Apperciate things which you have. The most important application of the ideas of stoicism in life is, perhaps, to be able to appreciate what you know. You should not complain that the wife snores, the little daughter cries, and the dog pulls out, demanding to play with her. If suddenly someone deprives you of all this, then you, at least, will be bored. So appreciate what you have and enjoy every moment.

Tips

• Speak as little as possible. Do everything efficiently.
• Breathe deeply. Oxygen helps you relax.
• Trust a trusted person. Sometimes it can be too difficult to keep everything to yourself and you just need something like ... a vest. Otherwise, you can get to mental problems ...
• It is believed that models should at least share the views of stoicism. Of course, stoicism does not make a person more attractive. The point is that a model's job is… ahem… to be a living mannequin, and stoic look is a traditional part of this business.
• Don't overdo it or try to seem mysterious. Stoicism should be your essence, not your role. Otherwise, it will not turn out well.
• Protect what you believe in.

Warnings

• Being stoic doesn't mean being rude or indifferent to other people. Don't ignore people, don't dismiss their questions. YES, you can clearly make it clear that some topics are taboo and all that, but do not be rude about this, and do not hesitate to answer those questions that a person could answer himself by searching for a couple of minutes on Google.
• If you seem incomprehensible and strange to people, then they are unlikely to continue to communicate with you.