This reminds me of two separate Stoic mental practices—though I should point out that I do neither of them habitually and they have no scientific studies measuring efficacy or life improvement or anything :-)
Negative visualization is the single most powerful tool in the stoic toolbox. In the simplest form it’s spending time visualizing loosing the things you value most. In modern times think along the lines of loosing your job, having your car stolen or the death of a loved one.…
To a stoic, not only is the glass half full, he also has a glass (it could get stolen or broken) and to top things of it’s a glass and not even a ceramic pot. It doesn’t give a peculiar taste to the liquid inside and you can even enjoy the color of the liquid! What a wondrous thing this glass is that we take for granted.
Seneca advises us to periodically meditate on the events in our daily lives, how we responded to them and how we -in accordance with Stoic principles- should have responded in stead.
It’s very simple actually, before you go to sleep lay there for a moment (or kneel beside your bed if you prefer) and think about how your day was. This type of meditation is completely unlike the meditation of a Zen Buddhist. Where a Zen Buddhist sits still for extended periods of time trying to think of just one thing, calming his mind and focusing on his breath or a koan a Stoic will be all over the place with his mind. Focusing on all the events of the day and reliving them. Total chaos if you ask a Zen Buddhist, functional if you ask a Stoic.
The thing that worries me about these techniques is that they seem to be aimed at making a person satisfied with their environment but very focused on changing their mental and behavioral patterns. This runs counter to my general understanding that people’s environments are generally easier to change and have much larger impacts on behavior than are generally recognized. It also makes me worry that it might be part of a memetic “person retention strategy” which could be the basis of people becoming life long stoics even if it wasn’t truly nourishing.
In any case, the thing I was trying to illustrate was that we can use imaginary comparisons to guide our expectations and emotions, people have known the general trick for many centuries, and it seems like a generally useful principle for designing similar practices which could actually be tested for efficacy :-)
The thing that worries me about these techniques is that they seem to be aimed at making a person satisfied with their environment but very focused on changing their mental and behavioral patterns. This runs counter to my general understanding that people’s environments are generally easier to change and have much larger impacts on behavior than are generally recognized.
But it’s one’s mental and behavioral patterns that generally keep one from actually changing their environment. Many of our patterns are also homeostatic in nature: if the environment takes away one way to get the need met, we find another one. Such patterns are much more difficult to fix environmentally.
Paradoxically, being “satisfied” (i.e. neutral) to one’s environment is more conducive to changing it. Stated more precisely, perceiving one’s environment as non-threatening is vastly more conducive to changing it, than perceiving it as a threat. Our brains don’t work nearly as well (or as creatively) when the environment is perceived to be threatening, relative to one’s own resources.
(Btw, Buddhist meditations do include visualizing the loss of valuable things, such as one’s own life. Also, the Zen Buddhist’s mind is also going to be all over the place during meditation… the objective of the meditation is to see through these thoughts as false hopes and false fears distracting one from the objective neutrality of existence.)
I think it’s similar to systematic desensitization which is what I personally believe is the main function of hypnosis (although I’m uneducated about the subject). My application of this concept consists of relaxing while thinking about bad scenarios, over and over again for a few days or weeks.
This reminds me of two separate Stoic mental practices—though I should point out that I do neither of them habitually and they have no scientific studies measuring efficacy or life improvement or anything :-)
The first, negative visualization, is aimed at bringing more satisfaction to one’s life. Quoting from Stoic Psychological Tactics Part One:
The second tactic I’m reminded of is the stoic version of meditation. Quoting from Stoic Psychological Tactics Part Five:
The thing that worries me about these techniques is that they seem to be aimed at making a person satisfied with their environment but very focused on changing their mental and behavioral patterns. This runs counter to my general understanding that people’s environments are generally easier to change and have much larger impacts on behavior than are generally recognized. It also makes me worry that it might be part of a memetic “person retention strategy” which could be the basis of people becoming life long stoics even if it wasn’t truly nourishing.
In any case, the thing I was trying to illustrate was that we can use imaginary comparisons to guide our expectations and emotions, people have known the general trick for many centuries, and it seems like a generally useful principle for designing similar practices which could actually be tested for efficacy :-)
But it’s one’s mental and behavioral patterns that generally keep one from actually changing their environment. Many of our patterns are also homeostatic in nature: if the environment takes away one way to get the need met, we find another one. Such patterns are much more difficult to fix environmentally.
Paradoxically, being “satisfied” (i.e. neutral) to one’s environment is more conducive to changing it. Stated more precisely, perceiving one’s environment as non-threatening is vastly more conducive to changing it, than perceiving it as a threat. Our brains don’t work nearly as well (or as creatively) when the environment is perceived to be threatening, relative to one’s own resources.
(Btw, Buddhist meditations do include visualizing the loss of valuable things, such as one’s own life. Also, the Zen Buddhist’s mind is also going to be all over the place during meditation… the objective of the meditation is to see through these thoughts as false hopes and false fears distracting one from the objective neutrality of existence.)
I know this sounds silly, but the first time I heard of this life-changing technique was in Star Wars episode III, in this quote by Yoda:
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
Quote with context
I think it’s similar to systematic desensitization which is what I personally believe is the main function of hypnosis (although I’m uneducated about the subject). My application of this concept consists of relaxing while thinking about bad scenarios, over and over again for a few days or weeks.