Learning From The Classics Podcast: Women And Stoicism

Okay,

Here we go.

So I won't see your messages,

I'm just going to start.

So we've got two stories we're going to look at today.

We've got Pollyanna,

And we've got Anne of Green Gables,

Both written in the Edwardian era.

Pollyanna by Eleanor Hodgman Porter,

1913.

Eleanor Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables in 1908.

She had it published,

Sorry,

In 1908.

So Eleanor Hodgman Porter,

American novelist.

Eleanor Montgomery,

As we know very well,

A Canadian author.

And these Edwardian series reflect this trend of showcasing the plight of determined little girls.

So it was a trend,

It was a popular thing.

Also we had What Katie Did,

Which is also the whole series recorded on my free track,

So you can find those playlists too.

So as we know with literature,

It goes in trends,

It goes in moods,

It reflects,

As all art does,

It reflects the mood of the time,

What's happening politically,

Believe it or not.

So it's not just a case of somebody sits down one day and writes a story.

It becomes a popular story,

It becomes a promoted narrative of the time,

Because it is saying something that is promotable,

That is popular of the time.

But I just want to,

Whichever time it was written in,

We at least now,

And this is our gift in the 21st century,

We at least now have quite a backlog of work from female authors of the previous centuries that we can refer to,

Because they didn't have very much at all.

In fact,

Most of what they had when they were writing in Edwardian,

Regency period,

Victorian period,

Were works by men.

So it's really outstanding,

You know,

What they produced.

And that's why the classics are classics,

Because they're the first,

Many of them,

Trailblazers.

So going back to Pollyanna and Anna Green Gables,

For me,

They offer validity and hope,

Validity because I feel validated as a positive person.

As a child who walked to school singing out loud,

Because I had just seen Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the weekend,

And believed that everybody should be singing as they walked to school,

And believed that everything in the films is the right way to be,

And what we're doing is not the right way to be,

And why are we doing that?

Why isn't everybody doing what I've just seen,

Practicing joy?

So these stories,

Upbeat,

Innocent,

Charming,

Very simple.

I am not going to paint them as anything more than that.

Simple yet anecdotal accounts of life from a young girl's perspective,

And that resonates.

And I would say,

Just to pull this back a bit,

That my brother,

Who I'm very close to,

One of his favourite stories of all time is Anna Green Gables.

And these are not just for girls,

But they are very much written with that eternal optimism a young child has.

And girls express it more openly,

I suppose,

Expressed it more openly,

Should I say,

Past tense,

In that time,

Because it was more socially acceptable to do so.

So that's why we have the books from the perspective of a girl.

And obviously women wrote them,

So they're going to be in touch with how young girls are.

So we've got this game.

If you don't know the stories,

Both Pollyanna and Anne Shirley play this game.

They choose to focus on the positive aspects of life,

Even when there are many negatives too.

And this is a reminder of one of the insights of Stoicism.

We do not choose what happens to us,

But we choose how we react to it.

And if we will let it change us.

Stoicism is a philosophy that aims at individual freedom and self-determination.

I am free from being controlled by something.

So I have my inner circle of choice.

They're the things I can have control over.

This inner circle of control,

I can control my emotions to a degree,

When I need to certainly.

And I understand that at times of great stress,

I will not be able to do that.

And I will take time out and grieve or express my emotion privately,

Surrounded by close people or on my own.

What I'm saying is the emotion is not suppressed,

But it is in some way controlled.

Why control it at all?

This is the 21st century think tank saying,

Right,

Why control it at all?

Let's all just talk about how bad we feel,

How good we feel.

You know,

How great it is to be horrible to other people,

How other people are getting on our nerves.

But we've gone too far the other way.

So there is obviously a need to express ourselves as an artist myself,

Of course.

But there is a need to be able to survive.

And if we are beholden to our emotions all the time,

It is insupportable.

I speak as a highly empathetic person who spent the first half of her life in at times severe pain,

Because I didn't know how to control it.

Anguish,

I think is the word.

And it has come to a point where you say,

Right,

Well,

I'm going to have to be able to manage this.

And that's what stoicism is for me,

Is management.

So we're saying I can control the way I frame things,

How I react to things.

I can.

But I can't control the things.

I can't control the actions of other people,

What the weather's going to be like.

To a degree,

I can control my biology.

Okay,

So my hormones are going to be sometimes in a certain place,

And that's going to make me feel a certain way.

I need to be able to regulate that or manage that or understand that.

And acknowledge that,

Don't deny it,

Right?

I can control,

For example,

I can go a very long time without eating.

I'm more than happy to do that.

I did it for so long,

But I realized it greatly affected my capability as a human to do things and to feel okay.

It was actually my son that taught me that.

He's a bodybuilder,

And he understands the nature of food a lot more than I ever did.

And he supported me in that.

And my iron levels increased,

And I got well again.

And so that's within control.

It's not suppression.

It's understanding that certain things are beyond our control.

The actions of others,

What's going on in the world around us,

Certain things are within our control.

And when it comes to something as deep as emotions,

Be they extreme joy or devastating anguish,

It is possible to acknowledge that,

Be okay with that,

And then somehow contain that so that it's manageable,

Not for the sake of others,

Not for the sake of how we appear to anyone else,

But to be able to manage life.

And that's the point.

To be able to manage suffering.

So that's what this is about.

And Pollyanna and Anna Green Gables were both,

And Shirley,

Were both put into very by their authors.

And of course,

This is going to reflect somehow the author's experiences.

So obviously they've gone through similar tests as people.

They've managed to create a game where they can reframe things in order to be able to manage,

To be able to cope.

And that really resonated with me.

I thought,

Yeah,

That's it.

That's what I do.

And I looked more into Stoicism and I realised,

Right,

This seems to be what I'm doing.

And for me,

It wasn't something,

It was something I automatically did as a child.

And I've continued to do it ever since.

And it really works.

So Pollyanna and Shirley,

They understand there's going to be,

There are going to be many negative things in life.

But they practise their individual freedom and self-determination to be able to cope with those things.

And their books are all about gratitude,

Being grateful for what they have and understanding there are things that they really don't like.

But those things are too bad.

So they can't afford to spend time focusing on those things.

And if you've noticed with these stories,

It is a bit of a trope and it does get a bit tiresome for me.

This is just my opinion,

But the trope is,

There's a person,

Their mother and their father died.

They had a road,

You know,

An accident or,

You know,

You just think,

Goodness me,

Is it,

Is that all there is?

So for me,

When I wrote Blethingwood Hall,

For example,

Their parents were alive.

The three children,

Adam,

William and Penny,

They're in a situation trapped in a school.

Their parents are actually alive,

But they're just not in a place where they can help their children.

And that seemed for me,

That was more of an accurate reflection of my experience.

But with these girls,

Okay,

So they're both orphans,

They share that.

But yeah,

You have a bigger disparity between happy and sad.

And really that makes for a good story because you can contrast the two.

So one minute they're up,

Next minute something really bad happens.

How do I deal with that?

Now the funny thing about Anne Shirley is she gets cross.

She smashes her slate over Gilbert's head.

And she accuses people of being cruel and horrible.

And she has outbursts that are actually to us very funny.

And they're the moment she's not controlling anything.

But that's the point.

We're not saying suppress it.

But she is set up as a young girl who needs to learn.

And over time,

She does learn and she has fewer outbursts.

And that's the point.

Edwardian literature is anecdotal,

But it's also teaching young girls a lesson with what Katie did.

The lesson was,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

Katie thought she was indestructible.

And she thought that she had so many plans.

But she was impatient and she was clumsy.

She fell off a swing and she hurt her leg.

And she couldn't go anywhere for a long time.

She had to learn self-restraint and patience.

Another lesson.

Okay.

So,

Yes,

They're the lessons of those stories.

But this individual freedom and this self-determination and this optimism,

I won't say eternal because it's not.

Because they do have reflective moments in all of these stories.

But they're probably why these books were so popular amongst young women and some young men.

Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it,

Says Anne.

And Pollyanna says,

Once you learn the art of finding something to be glad about,

You will discover a never-ending source of happiness.

So what is Anne doing there?

Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.

She is saying,

Today was a big mistake.

And there's nothing I can do about that now.

That's out of my control.

It happened.

But within my circle of control is tomorrow.

And I'm going to try again.

Pollyanna is saying,

Once you learn the art of finding something to be glad about,

You will discover a never-ending source of happiness.

She's saying,

By it within those words,

If you read between the lines,

There are lots of things not to be found.

Not to be glad about.

But if we learn to find those little moments,

Those little things,

We hold them close within our circle of control and we keep our eye on those.

Neither of these quotes are denying anything.

They are not suppressing anything.

They're not saying it doesn't exist.

It is not toxic positivity or whatever the ridiculous phrase is.

It is choosing to focus on that thing which gets us through.

Choosing to hone in our point of focus and stay on that point for as long as we can.

And then when it's too much,

We let go.

And that's fine.

I'm going to have a cup of tea.

We do that a lot in the UK.

Something wrong?

Have a cup of tea.

And this is what stoicism represents for me.

And that's why I promote it.

Honing in your focus.

Understanding what you can control.

Most of your experiences are out of your control.

It's only this little circle here you keep really tight.

It's like a bubble.

Many times I thought it's this invisible shield.

And it doesn't matter what's happening out there.

It doesn't matter what's thrown at me.

I've got my shield.

I'm going to be okay.

That comes from a place of hardship.

That comes from a place of having to emotionally survive.

But that doesn't matter.

What happened doesn't matter.

Why I have this bubble doesn't matter.

What matters is I have the bubble.

That's the point.

And that's why I love these stories.

In the times,

In Edwardian times,

So we're talking the early 1900s,

Women and girls were defined by their surroundings.

They were held back by the society in which they lived.

Okay.

So it's a patriarchal society we didn't have as women.

We didn't have.

We didn't enjoy the freedom of choice we have now.

And it may be argued that the patriarchy itself as a concept is boosted up by pessimism,

Which is obviously the antithesis of optimism.

It's boosted up by pessimism.

If you keep saying to a society,

Things are looking grim,

How many times do we hear that?

Oh,

It's really bad out there.

Oh,

It's,

You know,

It's terrible.

This is the only answer.

The only answer is we,

As society as it is,

Which is what the patriarchy was saying at that time,

We can make it better.

We have got the answers.

You have to look to us.

If you are pessimistic and you do not admit there could be changes for the better,

You are not embracing the idea of change.

You are not embracing women having the vote,

Women going out to work.

It sets itself up as the answer and it suited the systems of that time,

That period,

To be patriarchal because that was what everybody knew and that was what worked.

And we can't have women thinking,

God no,

Which is ridiculous because they've been thinking for centuries before.

But it was behind closed doors and don't tell anybody.

And this glad game,

Glad game,

Both Pollyanna and Anne Shirley had,

Goes beyond just,

It's not just positive thinking,

Okay?

There's crying,

There's scenes of sorrow,

There are disappointments.

Pollyanna,

Initially,

She refuses to play the game when she suffers a major tragedy.

She's not the world's greatest optimism,

Optimist,

Sorry,

But she uses optimism as a tool to cope.

And essentially,

That's why we're all here,

That's why we're visiting Insight Timer,

That's why we have the people we like to listen to,

That's why we want the stability of the lives every week,

That's why we have the tracks that send us to sleep because we want to cope.

Because life can be very challenging and we need to find a way to navigate through that.

The point I'm making here is,

Stoicism is a practice,

It's something you have to keep practicing,

It's a skill and some of us find it easy,

Some of us are new to it,

Some of us are not sure and I have had in my teaching,

I've been teaching now for 25 years plus and in my high school years,

Frontline high school,

You can imagine the challenges and the difficult situations and I have seen a lot of misery,

And I've had lots of misery thrown at me and I've had to be able to cope with that.

Now,

Stoicism began because you had these,

You've got this arena or this coliseum or you've got a place where the Roman officials are coming to discuss things and then you've got the philosophers,

Like Epictetus for example,

You've got Marcus Aurelius and they're guiding and supporting and navigating through all of these huge egos and this is why it was originally a male driven philosophy but if you listen to my lives in the past,

You will see that actually it was re-embraced by somebody called Elizabeth Carter,

Translated into English and she then produced a copy of that which was highly regarded amongst both the female and the male population and sort of a resurgence came and a reframing of it for women,

So it's not now,

But at the time,

In the Roman times,

It was male driven.

So you've got these,

You've got Marcus Aurelius sitting there,

You've got huge dominant forces either side of him battling it out verbally,

We're going to send our troops here,

We're going to do this there and he's got to find a way to navigate through that and that's what stoicism is,

It's a navigation technique.

So he's sitting there in the middle,

He's saying,

Right,

This is all beyond my control,

How can I cope?

Because these voices are getting louder and louder and louder and I just can't zone them out.

I'm going to sleep thinking about it,

I'm waking up thinking about it,

What can I do?

I'm going to write this book of meditations,

That's what I'm going to do and I'm going to write one every day and that's going to help me,

Which is where the journaling comes in because it was essentially a journal and he came to understand that there's only a certain amount I can control,

That's it and that's how I respond to things,

Everything else is outside of my control,

I have to understand that in order to be able to cope.

So this idea that everything's misery,

Everything's difficult and we've got,

It's not that,

What it is,

Is an understanding that there are many,

Many,

Many,

Many challenges in life,

We have to navigate through them,

How are we going to do that and keep our sanity and this is what stoicism is,

An attempt at that.

When you're hunting for the glad things,

Pollyanna says,

You sort of forget the other kind,

Reframing what you're looking for.

Okay,

So it's a skill that becomes stronger with practice and obviously you're going to attract that energy if you are looking for that,

You are going to find it.

I don't know,

You know,

How many of us have experienced this before but I would imagine all of us When you subconsciously are thinking about something,

You see more of it.

Gosh,

Isn't she tall?

Isn't he tall?

Everybody's so tall.

They're not any taller than they were yesterday but suddenly you're noticing that everybody seems to be tall.

It's one of those reframing exercises the more you do the easier it is and the more you will do it subconsciously and that's the power of it.

It's a skill that needs practice and you know to come full circle that's why I've written this 10-day course.

It's a beginner's course and it is not meant to be,

It's meant to be a drop in the ocean.

It's meant to be a little bit of an insight into daily questions that we have and how we can try and answer those using a stoic philosophy.

Incorporating gratitude into our daily life,

Choosing to focus on what we can control and watch what we can't control,

Be aware of what we can't control but understand that we can't control it and choose when we look at it and when we don't.

We do have that choice and that's my point.

There will always be something to be sad about.

That's a given,

That is 100% a given there will always be something to be sad about.

But that's okay because there's always something to be happy about too.

So which one are you going to choose?

You have to make the choice and practice the choice.

Don't just let it happen to you,

Don't let life just happen to you.

Choose and if you choose sad that's absolutely fine because you have chosen that.

Today is my sad day,

I choose that but you are coming from a place of knowledge and understanding.

One of the stoic philosophies is wisdom.

Be aware of what you're doing,

Don't just let things happen to you and not be aware because you lose your control and then everything can get in and life will destroy you if you let it,

100%.

Okay I'm going to go back to the screen now.

I think I've said enough.

I've been talking for a long time.

Lee says,

I have to tell you what a brilliant reader you are.

I've listened to your ad books,

You're a vocal genius with your voices.

Thank you,

How nice.

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge of literature.

You are welcome.

I've spent a lot of time on the stage and also sing and it is a skill.

It's quite hard work believe it or not reading characters and immersing yourself in a story and it's quite physically challenging which is quite funny,

Strange thing to say but it's true and I really enjoy it because it's an escape,

A complete immersion in someone else's story and it is an honour to be able to share those stories with you.

Love the thought of these female authors as trailblazers.

Yes they were.

The optimism and positivity in those stories are inspiring and so valuable.

I find comfort in the thought of managing our reactions to things even though we can't control events.

Yes,

Love the image of an invisible shield.

It helps doesn't it if you can visualise something that has some shape.

It does help.

The journal course sounds great too.

Yeah,

I'm looking forward to it being published.

It's going to be good.

Thanks Jo and thank you Lee for your lovely comments.

I think I'm going to stop there today.

Keep an eye out for my course.

It says I can.

.

.

This new screen is saying right you can post things so I'll just try to do it and that's me on there.

If you've never met me before that's my profile.

If you want to follow me I do lives every Friday at three o'clock.

I post a recording of this live so you can catch up if you missed it one week.

The lives now are all about literature and the stoic themes within the books I read.

Thank you very much Inge,

Heidi,

Everyone for coming.

It's been great to be back and I do feel a sense of repurpose.

So I shall see you next week and we will look at some more books of classic literature and we will link them up and hopefully carry on listening.

See you then.

Bye.