Category Archives: mindfulness

Feel Everything: The Hedonic Stoic

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Okay friends, time to get loose with some words!

The title of this post may not make any sense to you, and it makes all the sense in the world to me! It manifests my deep desire and commitment to embrace and exude healthy paradox, emerging in the form of fun, which I absolutely love. Suspend disbelief and take a dive with me, ya? Maybe you’ll have some fun too:

Stoic: “a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.” — Oxford Languages

Hedonist: “a person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life; a ‘pleasure-seeker'” –also Oxford

I got a lot of ‘stoic’ messages growing up, some healthy and some not so much. I fell onto a sprinkler head while playing in the water one young summer, gouging a dime-sized chunk of flesh out of my knee, the kind of wound that would only heal by filling in scar tissue from the edges over a couple of weeks. As my nurse mom applied medicine, her demeanor was calm and clinical, and she told me to be still, be brave–勇敢 (yong gan). Looking back, there was no shaming or denial of my pain, just reassurance that everything would be okay, and I had it in me to endure. It was validating and encouraging. Years later, as I cried audibly in the theater during the most tragic movie I had seen to date, a male relative pinched my thigh–hard–to get me to stop. I understood that message clearly, and it was neither validating nor encouraging.

Feel it maybe, control it always, show it never. How many of us could identify this, or something similar, as an unspoken mantra in our families of origin? Or in our collective culture today? When someone is sad, or even happy, how (un)comfortable are we with their tears? Or our own? What are the acceptable expressions of emotion? Smiling, laughing, hugging, drinking, yelling, honking, gesturing, throwing, slamming, dismissing, deflecting, turning away–including with/at/from ourselves? What does this cost us in psychic energy, physical health, and most importantly, human(e) connection with self and others? And how is it both useful and harmful?

Contrary to what some may think, stoicism is not about repressing, denying, or expelling emotions. It’s more about a commited self-awareness and self-regulation practice, so as to not let intense emotions hijack us into poor decisions and ruined relationships. It’s about balancing feelings with reason, clearing the path for (inter)acting according to our highest goals and core values. It makes sense, then, that a dedicated practitioner may end up with what we colloquially call the ‘stoic’ demeanor–straight posture, neutral expression, generally undemonstrative carriage. And, not necessarily. I think it’s possible–preferable, actually–for a true stoic to live an expressive life; just not excessively or gratuitously so. And even if not outwardly obvious, an ardent stoic can (and does, in my opinion) still experience, even revel in their deep, powerful, and moving emotions, while still keeping a leash on it all. For many, this may be easier said than done; that is why the sister practice of mindfulness comes in so handy, particularly skills that help us manage difficult emotions. Stoicism, then, is a practice of inner peace.

Life is so full of sensations–movement, sound, temperature, texture, taste (omg all the flavors!!), light, color, mass, frangance–I feel giddy just seeking the words! And all of this in addition to the infinite complexities of emotion, relationship, and community, holy cow! We are here for such a short time, how sad would it be to live an entire life without full and vibrant awareness, attention, and appreciation for all there is to possibly sense and experience? This is why I love the idea of ‘healthy hedonism’–an all-in, sensually fulfilling relationship with pleasure, yes, but really I think it’s about joy–the quintessential manifestation of joie de vivre. Hedonism is not the same as debauchery. I think of it as liberated and exuberant engagement with all that our sensory world has to offer, within healthy boundaries–actually similar to stoicism in its grounded mindfulness of and devotion to a Why–living a full and fulfilling, attuned and connected, self-actualized and purposeful life.

Feel it all, manage it well, effuse it appropriately: A new personal mantra in progress, maybe. Allow the feelings, apply good reason, express for connection. Practice withstanding severe discomfort. Equip myself to plumb my emotional depths with confidence. Be with it, surrender–to pain, joy, love, loss, uncertainty, confusion, awe, outrage, fantasy, all of it–and then self-regulate: Do the work, learn the lessons, and apply in relationship, the ultimate human expression. As I write this, it’s so clear that besides mindfulness, self-compassion is another key skill for a hedonic stoic to practice.

To face all feelings without fearing them, to embrace a full spectrum of sensation and aliveness, and to emanate unfettered joy, all while solidly grounded in an ethos of love and contribution: This is the essential spirt of the hedonic stoic.

Sign me up.

Magnetize Thyself

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“Your vibe attracts your tribe.”

What is my vibe, I wonder? How do others experience me? What moves us each to approach one another?

It’s been six months since I wrote about feeling liberated to be more authentically and fully expressive of my thoughts and observations. I feel freed to take up more space, be all me, all in, whatever I’m doing. As a result, my encounters and interactions with many people, patients especially, are that much deeper and more meaningful. In this time, I also seem to have attracted and strengthened connections with a number of like-minded and like-hearted folks. It feels joyfully cosmic.

I met the team at Ethos Training Systems three years ago, and stayed on their periphery. I officially joined the community this April, moved by some immutable force, and made fast friends with the coaches. I also feel right at home among my gym classmates. I rejoined Instagram a few weeks ago in order to see the workout videos, and found Coach Jacob’s page. To see posts of a thoughtful, generous, humble, and loving young man, or if you just want some uplift one day, hop on over and read his reflections, watch his videos. I learn so much from Jacob, in more domains than fitness. It reinforces for me the value of making friends with people much younger than myself. The generation ‘gap’ invites attention and exploration, an ebullient mutual bridging. I am convinced we each have something important to offer the other.

Last month I reconnected with Steve, one of my favorite people in high school. Looking back, he was one of the first people with whom I could do joyfully deep philosophical banter, and also talk science. He went to college on a physics scholarship, and now flourishes as a tenured philosophy and religion professor. We met for lunch after over 30 years, and it was as if no time had passed. We humans are who we are from a very young age, and we also continually change and evolve throughout our lives. It’s such a lovely paradox, and I’m finding folks left and right who embrace it like I do–the connections reminding me of formative atomic collisions.

Colleague introduced me to Hilary, an energetic and effusive somatic psychotherapist. It took us a while to connect in person, yet we both persisted in the effort. I felt pulled–called to gather with her. We both feel first hand as well as vicariously, the immense pressure and burnout borne by our fellow healthcare workers. We understand intuitively that COVID was just an oceanic tremor; the myriad recurring tsunami waves of consequences are yet to hit, and we brace for it, personally and professionally. Meanwhile, we both ascribe to Isaac Asimov’s words: “I continue to try and I continue, indefatiguably, to reach out. There’s no way I can single-handedly save the world or, perhaps, even make a perceptible difference–but how ashamed I would be to let a day pass without making one more effort. …I have to make my life worthwhile to myself, if to no one else and writing these essays is one of the chief ways I can accomplish this task.” Like me, Hilary sees and feels her potential in multiple domains at once, gets excited about them all, and must self-regulate. She chooses to embark now on a writing journey. I think I was placed on her path to walk in solidarity with her, while we share, support, and learn from each other. We agree to buy Colleague a drink for bringing us together, right here and right now, just when we both needed.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” Simon Sinek says. It’s about resonance. My Why grows ever clearer, and I manifest it with increasing power and momentum (and hopefully without too much ego). I am definitely attracting my tribe, finding people with whom my Why vibrates strongly. I compare myself to a magnet more often every month–one with rising energy. The tribe grows, maybe approaching critical mass for effecting positive change through relational leadership. But even if not, the coalescence feels profoundly meaningful.

Useful Repulsion

If I am a magnet, then there are elements (people) I will repel, and/or will repel me. I can name, with some regret, friends who have exited my life. Sometimes my bids for initial connection with people I admire get rejected, which doesn’t feel good. Why don’t they like me? Others approach me, and I feel neither spark nor interest, so I politely keep my distance, eventually falling out of orbit. It’s limbic, visceral, irrational, and organic. I have learned to take it all in stride. Not all friendships, relationships, and connections are meant to be, or to last forever. Neither, though, are separations. You just never know. So I resolve to stay open to shifts in whatever polarities are at play, for repulsion now to become attraction later, and vice versa. Anything is possibile.

I have a few longstanding relationships, however, which I will not exit and that yet feel consistently repulsive in one way or another–dissonant, counter, antithetical. How do I reconcile this? What is the cosmic purpose here? I have decided to see it as a form and source of movement, as with Maglev trains or levitating globes. My counterparts and I, like these magnetic objects, are held in sustained proximity by both attractive and repulsive forces of the relationships themselves, based on the positions and polar orientations of our respective magnets. As a result, I am impelled forward, I like to think in personal growth. Or I’m held in place, suspended in stability within which I may spin and bounce–there is security here, even if movement is restricted in some dimensions. Anyway, it’s a fun and encouraging way to think of myself–as a magnet that naturally both atrracts and repels, creating both potential and kinetic energy.

As I continue to step into and stand straight and strong in my core values and life purpose, I understand and accept that my relationships will self-organize accordingly. As I attract some, I will necessarily repel others. Sometimes the latter is painful. Still, the rewards of magnetizing myself this way far outweigh the costs.

Sometimes It’s Blueberries

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Habit change is a lot more complicated than knowing better and then doing better. Because our behaviors are not fundamentally driven by what we know.

“I know what I should do, I just don’t do it.” What is the subtext when patients reply thusly, after I ask about their health habits? It feels defensive and a little ashamed, maybe? They don’t want to talk about it. Not surprising. Our culture pressures us to be perfect: eat organic and plant-based, do CrossFit five days a week, sleep 8 hours, keep up with current events and render strong, articulate opinions, post photos from joyous family gatherings, etc., etc. You name it, and there will be someone telling you you “should” be doing it, and not so subtly implying that you are somehow inadequate if you don’t. As if it’s all so easy.

I think this insight gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what’s actually easy. Sleep happens to be easy for me–I rarely suffer from insomnia (I just don’t spend enough hours in bed, night owl that I am). Some people are natural exercisers, others naturally prefer healthy foods. Some never feel stymied by negative emotions. Some are naturally thin and athletic; others of us are more thick and round. It does not help when we also love all kinds of food, and eat for reasons other hunger (stress, boredom, environmental cues, etc., etc., omg). I have spent the better part of my life judging and criticizing myself for my weight, even though other than pregnancy, it’s been normal–just not thin. Recently I finally understood just how obsessed I have been with policing my own eating. *sigh* What a sad waste of energy and joy.

Healthy eating has never been naturally easy for me. I am a food hedonist. Everything tastes good, I have an incredibly elastic stomach and zero sensitivities or restrictions, and I commune with loved ones around food often. I’m working on sensing hunger and satiety better, balancing starch with fiber, and choosing healthier proteins. I eat less dessert now (maybe?), and I don’t keep ice cream in the house anymore. And still, I struggle and obsess daily.

But a couple months ago healthy eating suddenly became much easier, to my utter shock an awe. Sitting at Ethos after a challenging and empowering total body strength class, I watched Tim popping blueberries like M&Ms out of a pint container. As if it had never crossed my mind before, I realized that I could do that, too. It sounds so silly, right? But I have always had a mindset that berries are too expensive to eat so frivolously. I’d buy them to add to salads or for baking–spread a pint out over many servings and people. To eat a whole pint by myself felt greedy and selfish. But in that moment, my insidious and limiting assumption simply evaporated. It felt random and cosmic at the same time. And since then, I kid you not, an unconscious and involuntary (though wholly welcome and celebrated) transformation has taken place. I feel completely sated with less food. I just don’t crave snacks at night anymore. I feel averse to heavy sauces, large portions, sugary drinks, even ice cream. I revel in a light salad and lean protein, and I don’t feel deprived whatsoever. [Ahem, I still love bread (sheepish grin).] It’s totally irrational, visceral, and not at all because of anything I tried intentionally–at least not directly. How fascinating!

“You cannot reason someone out of a notion they did not reason themselves into.”

So, bottom line: Sometimes behavior change just comes when it comes. We can still nudge and trudge, and stay open to all that may help–lay the groundwork. I think everything I have learned, tried, and failed until now was valuable, just not necessarily effective, given whatever context when I tried it. And the longer I live, the more I believe lasting, sustainable behavior change cannot be forced. Not by guilt, shame, or sometimes even reason. Maybe by peer pressure, but only the kind founded on true belonging and a strong, uplifting sense of community. Or maybe not until it really matters at a core value level, and/or it’s extrinsically easy? Or until our inner nature simply knows it’s the path to take now? Our bodies are built for survival, not modern Western aesthetics. Our cultures and social norms don’t always align with that. We are so judgmental, and there is growing evidence that the psychological harm from that actually keeps us from making the changes we so desperately desire.

Am I totally happy with my weight and my body today? Not really. And, I practice every day to appreciate it more. I’m getting stronger since joining the gym. I’m eating in ways I will regret less in the future. I’m working on getting to bed earlier (not tonight, apparently). And I continue to learn and apply everything I can about relationship, leadership, and all things that make me a better person.

So, ONWARD, my friends. We’re all doing our best here. Let’s all give ourselves and one another a little more grace and understanding, ya? And who knows when we may each have our blueberry moments–may yours catch you joyfully!