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Stoicism 3 – Week 2: Fear of what has not come

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Not yet trial-taught Not yet expert-reviewed

Before you start: this level 3 course deals with death and loss. If you are newly bereaved, seriously ill, or having thoughts of dying or harming yourself, please save the course for another time and see Get help now straight away.

This week: practise "measuring" an everyday worry instead of letting it grow in your head. Each day choose one worry about something that has not happened (work, an exam, paperwork, a difficult conversation) and write it out in four columns.

Measurable goal: measure at least one worry a day in four columns, noting your level of worry 0–10 before and after, on at least 5 of 7 days.

1. Traditional teaching

[Traditional teaching] Stoicism teaches that much suffering comes from living ahead of things that have not happened. In Letter 24, Seneca’s friend Lucilius is worried about a lawsuit an opponent is threatening to bring. Seneca does not tell his friend to imagine a happy ending; he points to another route: look straight at the fear and measure it.

Why, indeed, is it necessary to summon trouble,—which must be endured soon enough when it has once arrived,—or to anticipate trouble and ruin the present through fear of the future? It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time. But I shall conduct you to peace of mind by another route: if you would put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen will certainly happen in any event; whatever the trouble may be, measure it in your own mind, and estimate the amount of your fear. You will thus understand that what you fear is either insignificant or short-lived.

Moral Letters to Lucilius (Epistulae morales), Letter 24 "On despising death", excerpt, Richard M. Gummere (Loeb, 1917–1925). Licence: Public domain.

Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear. What you see happening to boys happens also to ourselves, who are only slightly bigger boys: when those whom they love, with whom they daily associate, with whom they play, appear with masks on, the boys are frightened out of their wits. We should strip the mask, not only from men, but from things, and restore to each object its own aspect.

Moral Letters to Lucilius (Epistulae morales), Letter 24, excerpt, Richard M. Gummere (Loeb, 1917–1925). Licence: Public domain.

Reading it in context

  • [Expert judgement] "What you fear is either insignificant or short-lived" is not true of everything: some hardships are large and long. This week’s exercise is about measuring accurately, not telling yourself "it’s nothing". If, once measured, the problem really is large, the "who can help" column is the most important one.
  • [Expert judgement] Most of Letter 24 describes Romans who endured prison, exile and torture, and praises some who ended their own lives. tamhonkhoe does not quote or follow those passages. This course uses only the part where Seneca discusses how to measure fear. If you have thoughts of dying, please see Get help now straight away.
  • Use the exercise only for everyday worries. Do not use it to "rehearse" the death of a loved one, serious illness or a past trauma.
  • The "mask" is Seneca’s image: something familiar dressed up to look frightening. The second column of the exercise is the "taking off the mask" step.

2. What science finds

  • [Verified] Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which includes facing frightening thoughts instead of avoiding them, is effective for anxiety and depression according to a review of 20 meta-analyses, about as effective as cognitive behavioural therapy. (Gloster et al. 2020)
  • [Inference] ACT is a guided therapy. Its results do not prove that the four-column exercise here works the same way. No study has evaluated Seneca’s exercise directly.
  • [Verified] Writing about experiences and feelings has a positive but very small overall benefit (146 randomised studies). (Frattaroli 2006)

3. Practice for adults

About 30 minutes a day.

  1. Slow reading (5 minutes). Read the first passage. Underline "measure it in your own mind".
  2. Choose one worry (2 minutes). Something that has not happened, from everyday life. Note how worried you are now, from 0 to 10.
  3. Write four columns (15 minutes). - Column 1 – What I fear: write it in one sentence. - Column 2 – Taking off the mask: what exactly is this? If it really happened, what is most likely to happen (not the worst thing you can imagine)? - Column 3 – If it happens, what I will do: two or three first steps, and who could help. - Column 4 – What is in my hands today: one small thing I can do now.
  4. Sit still (5 minutes). Breathe slowly, let the worry be there without chasing it away, then note your level of worry 0–10 again.
  5. Do the column 4 task that same day.
  6. Tick it. At the end of the week, look back: which worries actually happened, and were they larger or smaller than when you measured them?

4. Kids' corner 6+

Game: "The shadow that grows and shrinks" (5–10 minutes, with an adult, on a sunny day)

  1. Stand a small stick or a toy outside in the sun.
  2. In the morning, mark the tip of its shadow with a pebble together with the child. Mark it again at midday and in the afternoon.
  3. Ask: "When is the shadow longest? When is it shortest? Did the toy get bigger or smaller?"
  4. Finish: the shadow changes with the sunlight, but the toy stays the same.

Talk only about sunlight, shadows and the time of day. Do not use shadows to tell ghost stories or frightening stories.

5. Stop practising if

  • You feel panic, have flashbacks of trauma, have a lasting sense that you or the world are "not real", lose sleep for several nights, or have thoughts of harming yourself or of dying.
  • Your worry is often higher after writing than before, or you start thinking about worse things each day. Then stop this week and talk to someone you trust.
  • Worry lasts for weeks, fills most of the day, or makes it hard to work: please see a mental health professional.
  • If you have a history of psychosis, bipolar disorder or severe PTSD, ask a doctor before practising for more than 20 minutes.
  • If so, stop and see Get help now.

6. Foundation skills on daynentang

When a worry keeps going round in your head, daynentang has a lesson on it: Lo lắng vòng vo (in Vietnamese).

7. Practice for today

Choose one small worry, note your level 0–10, write the four columns, then do the column 4 task.

Science sources

  • Gloster AT, Walder N, Levin ME, Twohig MP, Karekla M (2020). The empirical status of acceptance and commitment therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 18, 181–192. doi:10.1016/j.jcbs.2020.09.009
  • Frattaroli J (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 823–865. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.823

Scripture sources

  • Moral Letters to Lucilius (Epistulae morales) – Richard M. Gummere (Loeb, 1917–1925) (Public domain) · link