Regulating, not suppressing, my emotions as a Stoic

I am far from being the perfect Stoic (not sure if one exists). After all, I am very human with very human emotions. Touching on this a little more from my last post, I still feel the usual sadness, anger, fear, jealousy, and envy. It’s natural to be so and people are allowed to feel such things. But the one thing that sets people apart are delaying and observing their emotions. This is still one my biggest challenges as a person and a practicing Stoic. I have an episode every now and then where something happens and I stay in an emotion for more than a day, so I have to do some extra work. This is where I have to be kinder and more empathetic to myself. But by delaying my reaction and observing my emotions toward something that triggers me, I can stem the course of what happens next. My low-hanging fruit triggers have become easier for me to immediately address. It’s my bigger triggers that I’m waiting for to happen again and will see what I’ll do.

With that said, Stoicism is not about stuffing emotions down and purposely not showing any. If we do, then we become no different from a shaken up soda bottle ready to burst. The worst part is that you blow up on other people who did nothing to deserve your outbursts directed at them. I’ve done this multiple times until I finally learned the lesson. Not to mention, this bottling up makes it more difficult to deal with stress, which further degrades our health if left unchecked and will make us weaker in the long run. How then would we remain strong like a Stoic? Instead, I sit with, process, and talk through my emotions. Having someone close to talk to is a huge plus.

It’s all about regulation, not suppression. Life is supposed to challenge you and you’re supposed to let yourself feel. Delay and observe. And don’t hold everything in and inevitably hurt yourself and those you claim to love.