And welcome to another episode of the Female Stoic Podcast.
Today we are talking about negative visualization.
Which is a stoic mental exercise where we intentionally imagine the loss or failure of things that we value.
Practised by Seneca and Epictetus.
Its goal is not to invite anxiety,
But to build a deeper resilience and Gratitude for what we have now.
And this practice operates on the idea that humans easily take their circumstances for granted.
Of course we know we suffer immensely.
When we are shocked by unexpected misfortunes,
The death of a loved one,
The death of a family pet.
Some unexplained change.
I'm thinking particularly of.
.
.
A time like COVID when the whole world seems to be Unrecognizable.
And.
.
.
The moments we took for granted,
Being able to go out,
Communicate and socialize.
Was stripped away from us.
So what we do as Stoics.
.
.
By practicing Prameditato Melorum,
Which is negative visualization,
We mentally rehearse the worst-case scenarios,
We shift our psychological baseline so that we are not blindsided by adversity.
Now obviously this is the goal.
That doesn't mean that we will not be shocked by external events.
But what we are aiming to do is be more pragmatic in our approach to life.
To understand that.
Bad things do happen.
And,
Sometimes they are unexpected.
And if we have little mental rehearsals every now and then.
In a structured,
Measured way.
It can help us come to terms with the idea of that rather than reigning against that and using that as a reason to be reactive and Sad.
We are aiming here to reduce the initial shock and panic when things go wrong.
We are aiming to confront the biggest fears.
And.
.
.
Not normalise,
But accept.
The power of fear and learn to live with it.
In a structured way.
Fear should not be something that is allowed to overtake our sense of well-being.
We are aiming to avoid that.
It is impossible to construct the situation in advance,
But to get one sense,
One moment's taste of that feeling,
Reminds us that it's important to be prepared mentally.
In order to Stop fear overtaking our well-being.
Initially we can do this in a small way,
So we can apply this to daily irritations,
Things that annoy us,
That actually we could manage to live with.
And endure if we had to.
So that we are not thrown off course when we encounter them.
This is.
.
.
A healthy way of daily practice.
Imagining the loss of something in preparation doesn't necessarily have to mean the loss of a good thing.
It's just us preparing for change.
And of course,
As we know,
In our lives,
Change is one of the hardest things to come to terms with.
And when we face the loss of anything,
That inevitably means change.
So think about the daily irritations you experience.
For example,
In the morning,
If something is not in the right place,
Has not been left in the right place,
In the kitchen.
You expect it to be there,
It's not there.
Where are the scissors?
They are always in this place.
Why are they not there now?
Except that They've gone.
Except that you don't know where they are.
Create a barrier or a distance between the event and your reaction to it.
This is in a very small way preparing us for change,
Which is,
Of course,
What negative visualization is seeking to do.
It doesn't have to be an enormous task.
It doesn't have to be picturing the loss of something so huge that it scares us.
As with any fine adjustments to our well-being and our mental state,
It is wise to start off small.
So let's think about something else.
Perhaps we.
.
.
Are looking for our keys.
We leave our keys in the same place every day.
Somebody's picked them up,
Used the car and moved them.
Where are the keys?
These small changes Practicing the art of taking a pause.
And understanding that.
They are going to happen regularly.
And then refusing to react to that.
But instead smiling and just Once more,
The keys you've got.
Enables us to Maintain the walls of our inner citadel.
It gives us another barrier.
And when the inevitable does happen and we face bad news or the loss of something we are better equipped to deal with it.
What I try to do on the Female Stoic Podcast is.
.
.
Make stoic practice accessible.
Maintainable so that it can become more consistent.
More of a regular practice and less daunting.
So that in fact we can incorporate it in such a small measured way that it begins to Build up our strength without us realising it.
This is the power of daily discipline.
And.
.
.
This is what I suggest you start doing.
Negative visualization needn't be a huge daunting prospect.
Start small.
Imagine losing your keys.
How would you react?
Imagine the loss of something that you depend on in the kitchen.
What will you do?
We are seeking pragmatically to.
.
.
Face situations.
And prepare for them.
And as Stoics we understand this is a key way of protecting our inner peace.
Thank you for listening.
I'll see you next time.
