Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

CHAPTER 3

How to Overcome Worry and Anxiety

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

—Seneca, Letters 13.4

EVERYONE HAS EXPERIENCED WORRY OR ANXIETY.

Just before writing this chapter, I was alone at home with my small son, who is in grade school. My wife was traveling to a couple of conferences, so it was my duty to take care of him and to make sure that he got to school on time.

All in all, we had a perfect time together, some fun conversations and enjoyable dinners, and we deepened our father–son bond. But there were a few moments when we were leaving the house and going to school when I experienced a bit of panic or anxiety. It wasn’t entirely irrational, but a moment of neurotic thinking that most people suffer from, from time to time.

My anxiety focused on the idea that some kind of mishap could take place, added to by the fact that I live in a place where I speak only a bit of the language, which could make it difficult for me to get help. While I speak enough of the local language to get by in simple settings, like restaurants, and many people here in Sarajevo speak English, there are some who don’t speak any English. In more complex situations, I rely upon my wife to handle translations, and now she was away in a nearby country.

Basically, I started thinking, What if?

What if I locked us out of the house without a key, and no one could help me? (Something similar happened a few months earlier, so we had to change the lock on the front door.) What if I was in a car accident, and my wife wasn’t around to translate? (It could easily happen, since the driving is so terrible here.) What if I suddenly became incapacitated and couldn’t take care of my seven-year-old son while my wife was away? What if . . . ? What if . . . ?

None of these worries were entirely irrational, and that’s how the process begins. People start to worry about the future and also about things that are beyond their control. They start to worry . . . What if? And if things get bad enough, they then start to worry about the fact that they are worrying.

As a keen protopsychologist and student of human nature, Seneca carefully studied how worry and anxiety arise, and how it’s possible to reduce or eliminate anxiety by using the techniques of Stoic philosophy.

WHY PEOPLE WORRY

For Seneca, being able to plan for the future is one of the most amazing gifts that human beings possess. The ability to plan ahead, and to create many things of value, depends upon foresight, which is our inner way of imagining the future.

But while Seneca likens foresight to “a divine gift,” there is nothing worse than worrying about the future (or what could happen), which, for most people, is the leading cause of psychological anxiety. And when people worry like this, it’s because they have taken “foresight, the blessing of the human race,” and turned it into a source of anxiety.1

Throughout his writings, Seneca explores precisely how worry and anxiety arise, and how to eliminate these kinds of worries, or at least how to address them and reduce them significantly. He even describes specific exercises his readers can use to overcome their worries, fears, and anxiety.

Seneca explains that two major fears everyone needs to work on overcoming are the fear of death and the fear of poverty (or the desire for wealth). Since those are important topics, we’ll explore Seneca’s advice about how to do that elsewhere in this book. In this chapter, we look at the more general question of how fear and anxiety arise in the first place, and how to defuse them.

The first teaching of Stoicism is pure common sense: some things are “up to us” or fully within our control, while other things are beyond our control. So far, no one could possibly argue with that. The way the Stoics extend this idea, though, takes more effort to explain.

The next step, according to the Stoics, is to understand that all of the external things beyond our control that happen to us are not truly “bad,” because all such things are just indifferent facts of nature. But they become “bad” based on the mental judgments we make about them, which then create emotional reactions. In fact, nearly all negative emotions originate from judgments or opinions. Today, psychologists call this the cognitive theory of emotion, which the ancient Stoics originated.

This is one belief that every single Stoic philosopher shared, and Marcus Aurelius expressed it this way: “Get rid of the judgment, ‘I’ve been harmed,’ and the feeling of being harmed vanishes. Get rid of the ‘I’ve been harmed,’ and you’re free of the harm itself.”2

Another way of stating this central idea is that while we don’t have control over the external things that happen to us, we do have control over how we respond to them. For example, you can probably remember some rainy day when you were walking down a busy road and a passing car roared through a deep puddle and splashed you. While the splash was unavoidable, how you responded to it mentally was your choice. On the one hand, you could have simply thought, “Oh, I just got splashed.” On the other hand, you could have screamed out, “You ruined my entire day!” Of course, that outburst would have been followed by feelings of rage and fantasies about how you could seek revenge on the driver.

For the Stoics, the first thought, “I just got splashed,” is an objective mental observation about something beyond our control. But the second thought, “You ruined my entire day,” is a judgment or belief that creates anger and emotional suffering.

When we feel upset, we usually think that we are reacting to outer things in the world, but we are actually reacting to things in ourselves: our inner judgments, beliefs, or opinions. And we react emotionally because of the internal judgments we are constantly making. For Seneca and the other Stoics, rather than being irritated by things in the outer world that might be perfectly normal and expected—like getting splashed, or the bad behaviors of other people—it’s better to look at the inner judgments that cause us to feel so upset. In that way, we can learn to live a more tranquil life.

Seneca saw that human beings have powerful imaginations that shape our feelings and the kinds of mental judgments we make. When the power of foresight, which is a kind of imagination, becomes misused, it creates worry, fear, or anxiety, which is different from having a legitimate, rational concern. Because of this, most anxiety is about things that could happen to us in the future, like the what-if story I started this chapter with. What if she leaves me? What if I have an accident and can no longer work? What if I reach retirement age and don’t have enough money to live?

These might be entirely legitimate concerns, and they might demand serious, rational attention. But they become something else—sources of fear and inner turmoil—when we lose our mental composure. For Seneca, fear is a form of slavery, and “there is nothing worse than worry about future events,” which “sets our minds trembling with unaccountable fear.”3 The only way to avoid this, he explains, is to not “reach forward” mentally but to live in the present moment, and to realize that the present moment is complete and perfect just as it is. As Seneca explains often, you can only be anxious about the future if you view the present moment as being unfulfilling.

Whenever Seneca discusses fear or anxiety, he’s always quick to point out how to overcome these kinds of worries: instead of mentally “time traveling” to some imaginary point in the future when something bad might happen, and worrying about it now, live in the present moment. Marcus Aurelius, who read Seneca, agreed. He wrote that the only life we truly have is in the present moment.4

For Seneca, worrying about the future (or having regrets about the past) is an entirely psychological phenomenon in which people indulge their negative emotions. As he explains, because the past and the future are both absent, and we can feel neither of them, the only source of pain can be a person’s emotions, opinions, or imagination.

I don’t know if Mark Twain ever read Seneca, but he is said to have expressed a similar thought: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” In other words, they were imaginary.

Seneca explains how to return to the present moment. He also describes other remedies for worry and anxiety. But before we examine these in depth, let’s take a closer look at how worry arises in the first place.

AN IMAGINARY HOUSE OF MIRRORS

In his writings, Seneca draws upon the imagination in powerful ways. He conjures up stunning descriptions of scenery to create a mood or to set the stage for something he’s going to explain. While a rational thinker, he also uses the imagination to sometimes offer an image of transcendent beauty, like his thought, “I wish that mankind could glimpse philosophy in all its unity, so that it would appear unveiled like the glory of the starry heavens at night.”5 Then, like other Stoic philosophers, Seneca sometimes offers an imaginary exercise or visualization, which can be psychologically beneficial. One such practice, which was made famous by Marcus Aurelius, is called today “the view from above”: it involves imagining yourself far above our planet and looking down on the Earth below, to see how small we are, and realizing how tiny our personal troubles are in relation to the greater universe.

As we’ve seen, Seneca also praises the imaginative power of foresight, which allows us to create the future. But despite this positive belief in the goodness of the imagination, Seneca recognizes that the imagination can take negative forms. It can help give rise to human obsessions, and it can also give birth to worries and fears that spiral out of control. “Even when nothing is wrong,” he writes, “and nothing is certain to go wrong in the future, most people burn with anxiety.”6

When the imagination becomes mixed with raw emotion, this can create a feedback loop in which imagination amplifies emotions and emotions then amplify the imagination. (Modern psychologists sometimes call this experience of “becoming anxious about being anxious” meta-worry or meta-anxiety.) In a situation like this, with the imagination and emotions each amplifying one another, the entire system can spin out of control, resulting in extreme anxiety, panic attacks, or other psychological symptoms. In a situation like this, when the imagination reflects fear and fear reflects the imagination, we could refer to it as an imaginary house of mirrors, fueled by emotion. While everyone experiences worry or anxiety at some point, people who experience extreme anxiety live in a place like this frequently. As Seneca writes, “Each person is as miserable as he imagines himself to be.”7

Seneca didn’t use the image of a house of mirrors. He used the image of a maze instead. Seneca says that the happy life is fully available, right here and now, in the present moment. But by seeking it elsewhere or in other things, people lose the freedom of confidence they would already possess if they were fully present. He then likens this state to running through a maze, in which you lose the awareness of your true self: “This is what happens when you speed through a maze: the faster you race, the worse you become entangled.”8

HOW TO OVERCOME WORRY

In Seneca’s philosophy, there are several ways to overcome worry, and they’re all rather simple. But since Stoicism involves practice, and is a practical philosophy like Buddhism, these solutions must be applied for them to work.

One of the first and most effective ways to reduce worry is simply to monitor your inner judgments and the emotions they give rise to as the process happens, and as you start to feel anxious about future events. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus called this practice prosochē, “mindfulness” or “attention.” Once we understand how emotions arise and learn to monitor this process in real time, at the exact moment that anxiety is first felt, we can make a conscious choice to follow Seneca’s advice: this involves calling our mind back from the future to live fully in the present, because the future doesn’t even exist.

For a Stoic like Seneca, it’s reasonable to be concerned about future events but it’s a mistake to worry about something in advance that might not even happen. As he wrote to Lucilius, “My advice to you is this: Don’t be miserable ahead of time. Those things you fear, as if they were near at hand, might never arrive. Certainly, they haven’t arrived yet.”9 This is one piece of advice that Seneca stressed many times over, throughout his writings. Marcus Aurelius also supported this view when he wrote, “Don’t allow the future to trouble you,” because when it does arrive, you’ll face it with the same sense of reason you apply to the present moment.10

Second, since anxiety, fear, and psychological suffering arise from bad judgments, faulty opinions, or a misuse of the imagination, Seneca asks us to undertake a key Stoic practice: to analyze wisely our patterns of thinking in order to understand the source of the suffering. For if anxiety arises from faulty beliefs, by rationally analyzing those beliefs and dismantling them, we can also cure the distress. As Seneca puts it, “We agree with opinion too quickly. We don’t test those thoughts that lead us to fear, or question them with care. . . . So let’s examine things carefully.”11 Modern cognitive psychologists call this kind of inquiry Socratic questioning, another tip of their hat to ancient philosophy.

Albert Ellis, one of the modern founders of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), had studied the Stoics. When Ellis first started work with new clients, he always gave them a copy of this famous Stoic saying: “It’s not things that upset us, but our opinions about them.”12 That, in essence, is the central, foundational thought behind the entire field of cognitive therapy. Ellis used a simplified scheme, known as the “ABC Theory of Emotion,” which was directly based on Stoic philosophy (see figure 2). First, with A, there is an Activating event. Then with B, there is a Belief, opinion, or judgment. And finally there appears C, Consequences, which is usually an emotional result of the earlier belief.

Fig 2: Albert Ellis’s “ABC Theory of Emotion” was directly based on the Stoic idea that “it’s not things that upset us, but our beliefs about them.”

If you get splashed by a car on a rainy day and simply believe “I just got splashed,” the main consequence is that you might feel a bit wet. But if you believe “My entire day has been ruined,” which is the same as saying “I’ve been harmed,” the consequence would most likely be extreme anger. From this, we can see that it’s our unexamined, often irrational beliefs that cause emotional reactions. Fortunately, we can better understand those faulty beliefs, and even eliminate them, by analyzing them through the practice of Socratic questioning, either on our own or with the help of a therapist or mentor.

Nearly 20 percent of people in the United States suffer from anxiety disorders. But many individuals who study Stoicism and use Stoic mindfulness techniques have reported significant declines in the experience of negative emotions like anxiety and anger.

It’s fascinating to see how cognitive therapy was influenced by Stoicism, especially since some of Seneca’s letters to Lucilius read just like little psychotherapy sessions. Seneca knew Lucilius well enough to understand what many of his friend’s underlying beliefs were, and it’s educational to see Seneca questioning his friend’s assumptions. It’s also remarkable to watch Seneca explaining how other beliefs might lead to happier outcomes. This is exactly the same process a modern cognitive therapist would use today.

In this way, Stoicism was a precursor of modern-day cognitive behavioral therapy, and the founders of CBT, like Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck, directly drew upon Stoic teachings to create their modern therapeutic methods. In the first major textbook published on cognitive therapy, Beck flatly stated, “The philosophical origins of cognitive therapy can be traced back to the Stoic philosophers.”13 As Stoicism and CBT both show, by coming to understand and challenge the distorted thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that cause suffering, psychological anxiety can be greatly reduced. Significantly, this cognitive “therapy of the passions,” which originated with the Stoics, has been scientifically proven to resolve many kinds of psychological disorders. For example, CBT is the most studied form of psychotherapy, and is the “gold standard” in treating mental anxiety. In some studies, CBT has helped 75 to 80 percent of patients to recover from different types of anxiety, including panic attacks.

Another approach from Seneca, which is also used in CBT, involves dialing down the level of our emotions, especially emotions connected with the future. In Letter 5, Seneca writes, “Limiting desire helps to cure fears.” He then quotes a line from the Stoic philosopher Hecato: “Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear.”14

Seneca explains that hope and fear are conjoined because they are both emotions that become activated by our imagination about the future. He writes, “Both come from a mind that is in suspense, worried in anticipation of what is to come. The greatest cause of each is that we don’t apply ourselves to the present but project our thoughts far into the future.”15

While many concerns we have about the future might appear to be reasonable, Seneca taught that we should carefully analyze those concerns. In that way, we can respond to them in a thoughtful way, rather than in a way that generates emotional suffering. For example, Seneca noted that people have an irrational fear of death, even though death is a part of life. Since death is natural and something everyone should expect, to view it as being something terrible is a cognitive error. The later Stoic, Epictetus, agreed with him:

It is not things themselves that disturb people, but people’s opinions about things. Death, for example, is nothing frightening, or Socrates would have thought so too. The fear arises from the opinion that death is frightening [emphasis added]. So whenever we feel frustrated, disturbed, or upset, we should never blame anyone else, only ourselves—that is to say, our own opinions.16

Ultimately, while the Stoics didn’t believe in the existence of real misfortunes, they understood full well how things feel like misfortunes through the judgments we make or the opinions we hold. Also, as Seneca pointed out, it’s just not possible to avoid emotional shock at some events. Those reactions are natural, instinctual, and not based on opinions. But even in such cases, it’s possible to reduce the psychological impact, and to keep those emotional shocks from developing into something more serious.

For some conditions, like the fear of poverty, Seneca advocated specific exercises to lessen or eliminate the grip of the fear, and to prepare ourselves for the feeling of misfortune or emotional suffering. We’ll take a look at some of these exercises in other parts of this book. In fact, Seneca frequently recommends that we consider in advance every possible adversity that could impact us. In this way, if such a mishap actually occurs, we’ll be mentally prepared for it, and the blow of the misfortune will be decreased. But for Seneca, anticipating or even rehearsing the possibility of adversity in the future is not a form of worry or fear. It’s a way to calmly and rationally consider things that could happen, draining future misfortunes of their emotional impact should they occur. (This also resembles a technique used by modern psychologists.)

While it takes awareness and practice, when a feeling of worry about the future first arises, we can question it, analyze it, and consciously decide to return to living in the present moment. But living in the present moment isn’t just some kind of psychological solution for Seneca—it’s one of the key things needed to lead a complete human life.

FINDING YOURSELF IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

The present alone can make no one miserable.

—Seneca, Letters 5.9

Do you want to know why people are greedy for the future? It’s because no one has yet found himself.

—Seneca, Letters 32.4

When you live in the present moment, you have finally found yourself, and you are living from the center of who you really are, your most essential self.

The idea of living from your own center, and being present at this very moment, without desiring future states or external things, is one of the keys to achieving Stoic happiness or joy. When we are fully present and living from our inner selves, we experience feelings of radiance, joy, and completeness. To use a metaphor, the soul starts to shine like the sun; and as long as we can maintain this sense of presence and self-sufficiency, the sun will keep shining. This doesn’t mean there won’t be external disturbances, but those disturbances will be like clouds floating below the serene, radiant face of the sun. Those clouds float by, but do nothing to alter or disturb the sun or its light.

This image of the sun and the clouds appears in two of Seneca’s letters, and in both cases the sun and its light represent lasting goodness, virtue, and joy: any adversities or anxieties we experience, he writes, “have no more power than a cloud can have over the sun.”17 Similarly, when we experience true joy, “even if something obstructs it,” it’s just like a cloud, “which is carried below, and never overcomes the light of day.”18

This symbolic image, which I find to be powerful, gives me a personal way to evaluate my mental or psychological state at any time. Do I possess the inner serenity of the sun, shining in the present moment, in which external disturbances are just like harmless clouds floating by my path? Am I experiencing the joyful state of being present and undistracted, with the right mental focus, and not worrying about some imaginary future event that might not even occur?

If my inner state is not focused, luminous, and joyful, I can remember and identify with Seneca’s image of the sun. Then, returning to the radiance of the present moment becomes easy.

Ultimately, this kind of “unbroken and lasting joy,” which Seneca speaks of and symbolizes by the sun, is a by-product of Stoic practice, and being fully present is one way to catch a compelling glimpse of it. But the way to make it into a continuous state—or as constant as possible, since no one is perfect—is through the development of virtue, one’s inner character, and the practice of Stoic mindfulness. This allows the Stoic to experience tranquility of mind, despite whatever troubles life throws our way.