5 Stoic Ways for Overcoming Your Fears So You Don’t Have to Use Courage
Underrated but powerful and simple lessons to apply
I’m scared of a lot of things. So are you.
There’s really nothing wrong with being scared but it’s not really the best feeling to have.
You want to get rid of it, naturally.
Where do you go for help or guidance? Mentors maybe, yes. Self-help books. Parents. Friends. They’re all legitimate options.
I personally like to see what ancient philosophers had to say about the matter as they were human too, right?
They wrestled with the same fears, in a different context obviously.
But fear is fear.
I’ve been able to find some nuggets and they’re pretty eye-opening to say the least.
Here they are, hope you find some use for them.
1. Tame your hopes.
Seneca talks about this often.
He says there’s nothing particularly wrong with having hope, it’s just that relying on it to solve your problems isn’t the solution.
Because hope lies in the future. You’re hoping for something to happen or not happen.
But you don’t know if it will, unless you can predict the future.
I used to say the word “hope” a lot. Now, I try not to hope so much and just put my focus on today.
Fear keeps pace with hope… both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.
-Seneca
And how do I stop hoping? Limiting my wants and focusing on my needs. More wants, more hope.
Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope,’ he says, ‘and you will cease to fear.’
-Seneca
2. You can’t completely get rid of fear.
You see it on social media all the time.
“Master your mind.” “Master your emotions.” “Master your fears.” Sounds like a bunch of macho non-sense to me.
You don’t master diddly squat. You deal with it, process it, regulate it, learn to live with it. You get comfortable with the emotion but you don’t let it stop you. You subordinate it.
There’s a difference.
Just ask Bono from U2 whether he still gets stage fright after playing for over three decades. He’ll tell you.
No, but seriously.
Here’s a good one from Seneca:
For no amount of wisdom enables one to do away with physical or mental weaknesses that arise from natural causes; anything inborn or ingrained in one can by dint of practice be allayed, but not overcome.
-Seneca
3. Keep your thoughts in check.
I have to remind myself that it’s my thoughts, not the events themselves, that are going to do me wrong right now.
Unless I keep my thoughts in check.
Take a step back and ask what the heck just happened.
Then I ask whether it’s something I should even bother worrying about. Something within my control. If it is, fine, I’ll try to deal with it. If not, well, maybe it’s a tough pill to swallow.
What frightens most people and keeps them subdued? It can’t be the tyrant and his bodyguards; what nature has made free can only be disturbed or hampered by itself. A person’s own thoughts unnerve them.
-Epictetus
4. Know what you can’t control.
The Stoics have a personally satisfying way of dividing what you should and should not focus on.
Satisfying because they do the homework for me by letting me know what’s worth putting my energy into and what’s not.
What’s not worth putting my energy into are things I can’t control.
If you can’t control them and you figure this out before you get into a pickle, then by the time you see the pickle you’re ready to fire.
That’s clarity baby. And peace of mind.
Take a lyre player: he’s relaxed when he performs alone, but put him in front of an audience, and it’s a different s tory, no matter how beautiful his voice or how well he plays the instrument. Why? Because he not only wants to perform well, he wants to be well received — and the latter lies outside his control.
-Epictetus
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