In Episode 318 of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, we explore the enduring appeal – and potential pitfalls – of Stoicism in today’s world. While its core virtues of courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice offer a resilient framework for navigating life’s challenges, misapplying Stoic techniques can lead to emotional suppression, social withdrawal, or an unhealthy reliance on self-control. Join us as we reflect on the deeper purpose behind Stoic practices like negative visualization and journaling, ask how they’ve helped (or hurt) in real-life situations, and consider how to strike a healthy balance between emotional awareness and rational virtue.
Tune in to see Stoicism Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What Stoic virtue (courage, temperance, wisdom, justice) do you most want to cultivate—and why?
- Have you ever used Stoic techniques (e.g. negative visualization, acceptance) to cope—and how did it impact you?
- Do you ever worry that suppressing emotions or avoiding action could backfire?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.wired.com/story/susan-fowler-uber-sexism-stoicism/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.realsimple.com/health/mind-mood/emotional-health/what-is-stoicism?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://stoicismu.com/criticism-of-stoicism/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/mentalhealthtips
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/selfmanagement
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #318 Transcription
Thank you.
Chris Gazdik: And we do not have Victoria this week. She [00:01:00] is, I don’t know, man. Summer schedules are crazy, but we have officially the fill in person. We’re loving to have Ms. Carrie Hill. She was on the show before. I didn’t look up when it was actually, Neil, you might need to save me and tell me when she was on.
Or Carrie, do you remember how long ago that was?
Carrie Hill: Oh, it was a while. A couple months ago probably. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: A couple of John sneezes ago. Is that what you said? Yeah. Sorry. A couple
Carrie Hill: months.
Chris Gazdik: Excuse me. So she is gonna hang out with us and it was a couple of months ago, I think you’re you’re It was still cold.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What’s that, John?
John-Nelson Pope: It was, it was, it was still cold. So it’s a few months ago. Oh
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Yeah. Not too long ago. But she had an awesome show on prescribing and we chatted around and, and, and she’d go and join us from time to time. I think I
John-Nelson Pope: geek, I geeked out on
Chris Gazdik: it. Carrie, where did they find you? How do they find you?
I wanna make sure off the front end that they can get. Gastonia is Best Medication prescriber. Where do they find you at?
Carrie Hill: So you can find me at Roadtrip to Recovery [00:02:00] is the name of my company, and you can find me either by email or by website. My website’s www.roadtriptorecovery.comandmyemailiscarriehillmpatroadtriptorecovery.com and the two is a two.
Number two.
Chris Gazdik: I won’t try to do a phone number this time. I, I was flopping that up and kind of amazed that, you know, it’s all, it’s all technical now with you, right?
Carrie Hill: Yes. It’s all well, I do do text, so that’s, that’s okay too. No cost.
Chris Gazdik: So this is where you get personal insights from your panel of therapists and prescribers in your car, or personal time at home, knowing it’s not delivery of therapy services in any way.
The three questions, we have an interesting show that we’re gonna be leaning on the academic version of John Pope today. Brother, you gotta bring it today, man. You gotta bring it.
John-Nelson Pope: I know, I know. And I, yeah, you got me. But I’m looking at the show notes here and I’m thinking, Hey, you did a pretty good job of it.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, I think so, right? Yeah, but you, you’re the guy that knows [00:03:00] everything about stoicism because Carrie and I are kind of in the blind. I’m not gonna lie. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Little bit. I’m trying to,
Chris Gazdik: but this is stoicism virtues and potential dangers episode three 18. The questions I want you to think about. As you’re working through it with us today what stoic virtue courage, temperance, wisdom justice, do you most want to cultivate and why?
And then, have you ever used stoic techniques? Maybe you don’t even know what they are. Examples would be negative visualization acceptance to cope, and how did it impact you? And then thirdly, do you ever worry that suppressing emotions or avoiding action could backfire? And that’s actually kind of what my focus is gonna be a little bit today.
But we ask you to subscribe, click the bells, get the notifications, tell a friend. Really, it helps us get found. We try to do content that helps you to blow up stereotypes and stigmas about, you know, mental health. And five,
John-Nelson Pope: five stars.
Chris Gazdik: John gets upset. Go ahead, tell him, John,
John-Nelson Pope: you gotta, you gotta, you gotta give us five stars and you find us [00:04:00] on your podcast and if you do Apple or Google or whatever you or Spotify.
Give us five stars and because that helps us rise like cream to the top.
Chris Gazdik: We wanna be Cream John. That’s right. We wanna be creams, cre to contacted through a therapist. eyes.com Guys, this is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together. And we’re gonna start out with a little bit of a current event today.
Carrie, how much you know about Sean p Diddy Combs? Do you know what’s going on with his, this fella?
Carrie Hill: I know he got in trouble. In trouble. That’s about it. I don’t know really. I don’t really keep up with like what’s happening, but I know that, I guess he’s on trial maybe. And baby or Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: baby oil. Big time.
What’s that? John, what do you know about it?
John-Nelson Pope: Baby Oil. That’s everybody’s, when he got off on some of the counts, everybody was waiving their baby oil. Oh God. Out there in the outside the courthouse. Is that. Is that Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: that’s what they were looking. ’cause [00:05:00] evidently
John-Nelson Pope: that’s what they used a lot into their, their meetups and
Chris Gazdik: okay, so, so those of you who don’t know what happened, this is, this is a, a pretty big court case that’s been going on and it’s with p Diddy Combs, who was a famous rap artist.
And he would have these crazy parties, ca Carrie. So he, he would have what he called ’em as freakouts because they were highly sexual sexualized activity. Just horrific anything goes, details shared in the trials inappropriate times 10 to the ump degree. And so I, I, he, he, he copped charges for actually racketeering charges and then he caught charges for transporting.
Beyond state lines to prostitute, which is a federal offense, two charges of that, which is a federal offense. And then what were the other two charges? Just, I guess sex offending.
John-Nelson Pope: Sex offending. Right. But it how they made into trafficking. Yeah. They were
Chris Gazdik: fullblown sex [00:06:00] trafficking charges. Right. So it came down, Carrie, where the the verdicts came.
Everybody’s been following this big deal. And I mean, it’s, it’s right up there with like, you know, bill Cosby and Epstein and, you know, very powerful people, you know, doing this. And so the racketeering charges, he was found not guilty. Mm-hmm. The sex trafficking charges, he was found, I think not guilty as well, but then he was found guilty on the two transportation for porn.
For prostitution. That’s
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: So he got off. And that’s what happened, John, you know, what’s going on? What do you take from this in Sofar as,
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t know what’s going on. Well, I just
Chris Gazdik: told you, I thought you said you did.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Okay. Well, to me it’s the idea that and, and I, I was thinking of Robert Blake getting off from murdering his girlfriend, I believe at one time.
Is that recent too? I think that’s 20, about [00:07:00] 20 years ago. But, Oh, will, yeah. But that’s not recent. But it, and there’s sense that celebrity and fame does give you some sort of immunity. OJ Simpson going back 30 years. Sure. Goes, goes back there, met violence, and there was a jury nullification.
My understanding was, is that in the, in this case of of, of Combs, is that. There were two people that were adamant that they were gonna nail him, two jurors gonna nail him for everything. And two jurors that just went against what was considered overwhelming evidence and they just,
Carrie Hill: hmm
John-Nelson Pope: mm-hmm.
You know, they, they kind of nullified that.
Chris Gazdik: So, well, I think that’s the thing, John, that, that, that’s shocking. And, and, and guys, what I wanna talk about just for a couple of minutes, ’cause we have a lot to get to with this doism, but you know, if you, if you think about it, this, this case kind of to me, seems to spin really one way or another [00:08:00] on the provability and the issue of Consensuality.
Mm-hmm. That’s what the big rug was, you know, with this particular court case. And, and Carrie, I guess, you know, really, you as a woman, I’m sure realize all of the sexual dangers that are out there, you know, with, you know, men and dating and, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s rough out there right now with all of the internet addiction.
I mean, you know, addiction, right? So, you know, how can we deal with the issue of consensuality in the courtroom with rape issues, domestic violence, and certainly sex trafficking and even racketeering. That consensuality issue, I feel like is really tricky.
Carrie Hill: Yes, it definitely is. And that’s why a lot of women won’t, won’t say anything about when, when things happen, they, they won’t they won’t come forward because they don’t feel like anybody’s going to believe them and they, you know, and plus it’s [00:09:00] a horrifying and traumatic experience anyway.
And then to have people, you know, because of social media and the way things play out, people attack people. And so now it’s, it’s so different with social media and. You know, ’cause everybody’s gonna come at you with their opinion. ’cause everybody’s got one.
John-Nelson Pope: I was thinking too thank you. I, I was thinking too that there, there was a lot of of recorded images of, of P Diddy attacking his girlfriend then, I think her name was Ventura.
And that was in an elevator. That was a, that was a very violent
Chris Gazdik: WellView event on the in, yeah. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Very
Chris Gazdik: ugly.
John-Nelson Pope: Despite that evidence, he’s people have kind of. Cut him a break on, on this.
Chris Gazdik: I, it, it would appear, I don’t know if he’s been cut a break or what really makes me nervous is Yeah. C Carrie, you know, we have way under reporting on this issue.
Mm-hmm. We [00:10:00] have hard provability because you have to prove that this was not consensual. And so it’s just you know, the torturous realities of sex trafficking go unabated. And I’ll go one step further. We do the, the, the, the me Too movement, you know, as women struggling with this issue of abuse and whatnot.
And I’m thinking that men is already even in a way, lesser ability to talk about this report, this deal with this. So when you look at the primary issue of Consensuality being here, like how do men deal with this when they’re a victim of their own, you know, abuse. And I look at the he too movement. So, you know, I don’t really have an answer, but it’s, it’s just, well, how do you prove consents?
I
John-Nelson Pope: mean, this wasn’t just with ma females, it’s also males were involved with the abuse of being abused.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. The, they were only charged with the two women. But you’re right, males were abused in this ring also.[00:11:00]
But I guess that’s what I’m saying, that that’s the challenge that we have as a mental health field guys, right? Yeah. How do we help people understand, you know, the provability and the issue of consensuality so that we, you know, we can get people helped? I don’t really have an answer, but I think that’s the main confliction here.
Do you either have any thoughts about that, either of the two of you?
John-Nelson Pope: No, I just think that we I think we, we just have to keep vigilant and be able to, to, when we see the potential for abuse is to be able to re report it and to be able to, and to deal with it in terms of, in terms of therapy and certainly we, you know, we’re mandatory reporters if we are, if we have knowledge of, of abuse and all.
Good, good. Very fair
Chris Gazdik: points. Absolutely. You know, I, I think that what just comes to my mind is helping [00:12:00] people recognize the importance of dealing with this issue. Mm-hmm. I don’t think people really have permission to even talk about it.
Carrie Hill: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: John, let alone I agree. You know, you know, deal with it in such a dramatic way as the court system is,
John-Nelson Pope: you know, I, I being in academia for for a while there was a there was a I, I would say a silencing of people to be able to make their opinions or, or silencing of dialogue.
And and of course with the Me Too movement you want to be able to any type of unwant warranted sexual advance or anything of that sort is that you want to deal with it, you want to but to not even be able to talk about it. I think that that, because there was so much other is I guess if that men sometimes felt like they couldn’t talk about it and say, and try to get some sort of an idea, well, am I being somebody that is, is [00:13:00] is imposing myself onto somebody somebody else without even knowing, you know, if I’m doing this or not.
And because you’re afraid you’re gonna get in trouble if, if, if you try to inquire about it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I, it’s just, I, it it’s, it seems so murky, so blurred lines so limited in scope of understanding. You know, the thing that occurred to me is, you know, understanding what is pornography and, and there’s this phrase, right.
Where, well, you know it when you see it, but it’s really hard to really define it.
John-Nelson Pope: Hence last week. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Hence last week. Right. So, so I think that there’s some challenges that were coming in to try to get figured out. We need help, guys, the issue is we need help in the court system to either, I heard some talk about lessen the burden of proof.
Mm-hmm. Or something because these are egregious situations, horrifying realities in sex trafficking, and it is way more prevalent than you would ever imagine [00:14:00] the facts of the matter to be. Mm-hmm. And so we have got to get better as a society with this particular issue. I’m just kind sounding a little bit of an alarm.
So let’s move on to a show talk. I had a client, unless you have conclusions, John. Yeah, no. I had
John-Nelson Pope: a client that that he had to go through an education process. He realized that he was actually engaging as a a John in sex trafficking. Absolutely. He, yeah, because he had a propensity, this was in Houston, Texas, a propensity for a preference for Asian women.
And finds out that the women that he had been frequently and visiting were were Thai and they were being sexually exploited. Yeah. And traffic. Terry,
Chris Gazdik: I’m just curious real quick, and then we, we will get off of this, but you know, you work with addiction as well as mental health, I understand, but have you seen increased rates of this?
I mean, what do you see in your circles about just the addiction level behavior with sexual addictions?
Carrie Hill: Not as [00:15:00] much. I mean, I know that it’s definitely, you know, you know, prominent, but but I haven’t seen that as much in, in my practice.
Chris Gazdik: Well, just your own practice maybe so, but the proliferation I’m getting at with the internet has been a just unfathomable in the last 10, 15 years on, on these addiction.
And some
Carrie Hill: people, you know, with addiction, a lot of people don’t realize what, what is the, you know, crossing that when they’re crossing that line.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, right. You know, some people don’t. So I’m, I’m thinking too is that I have a couple of clients that are involved with Porn Hub and. And there is a potential for a lot of exploitation and sex trafficking that, that can be found on those, those heights and in, in a sense.
And, you know, we, we’ve, we’re not, we have a real strong emphasis on, I’m free to do what I want [00:16:00] and our hyper individualism, but we don’t take our responsibility as a society that say maybe we need to, to step down from these areas where people are or, or being exploited. I think we do, I think and where people would have some sort of what is good for the society?
Is, is not to have as much of this.
Chris Gazdik: And I think that’s my landing, John, is we need some legal intervention with legal minds to rewrite code so that this can be litigated. Because right now, golly, you know, this case shouldn’t have been ending in an acquittal. I’ll go out on a limb and say, so you you, you’re not of the baby oil.
Is that what I’m hearing? But we’ve, but we gotta get to moving on. So, so let’s look at our questions. What, what’s stoic virtue? So we have a little bit of a list here, Carrie, courage, temperament, temperance, wisdom justice. What do you most cultivate and why? John, do you know much about [00:17:00] the, well let, alright, let me back up.
Let me set this up a little bit. I thought this would be a cool episode because a, I really don’t know a lot about stoicism and I like learning. Mm-hmm. I’ve always been telling myself for many years now that I need to pick up a little bit on what this whole thing is. So today’s the day, Carrie, for you and I,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s, it’s sit, it’s Xeno
Chris Gazdik: because what, what I have found is I have clients that get real interested in the stoic philosophy, the stoic persona.
And I have theories about that. And I’m really gonna be curious, John, what you think about my thoughts about it. But Carrie and I are a little bit in the blind. John, on a scale of one to 10, 10 being high level, one being low level, I’m probably at about a two or three on this one. I’m, I’m pretty You’re higher than
John-Nelson Pope: that.
Chris Gazdik: I Where where would you say you are?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, I’m maybe four. Okay. Yeah, five. Okay. But, [00:18:00] but, but I, I got some ideas
Chris Gazdik: and I, well, I think you’re about to blow us out with a whole lot more than,
John-Nelson Pope: well one is it started back in the. Like with Zeno with a ZZ ZENO of Citri Sentium. And which is he was Greek.
It was in off of Cyprus. And he was, he was there and he was a merchant. Okay. And he was very successful as a merchant, and he had all his goods on his ship. And then there was a storm, and the storm sank and he survived the ship wreck. Okay. And he started, he, he got really depressed and he got real. He said there, you know, I’m ruining my life is over, and all of that.
And I guess the father of stoicism, basically, he’s the father of stoicism. Okay. And he just, he turned it around and [00:19:00] he did this with the four virtues. That that, that you see here that you spoke about. What was it? Courage, temperance, wisdom and justice. Yeah. The, he also had a school that of, of followers that, that that learned from him.
And there were several philosophers, one of which ended up being a great Roman emperor of Marcus Aurelius in the late second century. But the, the person that Marcus Aurelius Aurelius learned from, was Aus, I believe is how you spell his name. And he was the late first, mid, first century, all the way into the beginning of the second century.
And he was a slave, and he, but he, and he lived in Turkey, and yet he was able to influence emperors with his philosophy because slavery back in those days was different. Than the way we perceive it. Okay. Even though he [00:20:00] and so he had people following him in his school. Now, the thing is, is that with stoicism is that I think sometimes people mistaken it.
And I think this is where the negative aspect is it, and I don’t wanna jump ahead too much, but everybody thinks it’s like Mr. Spock, you know, live long and prosper. Live long and prosper. Okay. Or, or, or you do it here. Suppressing Yeah. Suppressing your emotions here. Can’t do it. But it’s, it’s not, it’s not suppressing your emotions.
It’s however, having courage.
Chris Gazdik: Say that again. ’cause that is a huge Yeah. Element
John-Nelson Pope: right there. It’s not suppressing your emotions as much as, despite your fears is going ahead and doing it and it’s having courage is doing something in, in the face of danger. And going ahead and committing to it. And so there’s an aspect that’s [00:21:00] very appealing to the modern mind.
I think
Chris Gazdik: what I read, I liked Yeah, I’ll tell you that. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I did too. And, and I, I think of I think Theodore Roosevelt talked about the man in the arena. There’s that aspect. You or Rudy Kipling with the, if his poem, if you know when others are losing your heads, you keep yours. Your, you, you know, you, you do this.
There’s another, that’s both
Chris Gazdik: part of the stoic philosophy,
John-Nelson Pope: stoic philosophy.
Chris Gazdik: Scope. I gotta ask Carrie a question. Okay. Because, because you could, you could go on with this. I think we’re, yeah. I’m, I evidently know more than I thought. I did It all sound like a level four knowledge on a one to 10 scale to you.
Carrie Hill: Oh, it’s pretty high up there.
Chris Gazdik: I think we need to replace John’s number. We’re we’re, how, how far up are you going? I, I think I’m going to like 7.5 to eight.
Carrie Hill: To eight? Yeah. To
Chris Gazdik: eight. Yeah. More like eight.
Carrie Hill: Yeah. [00:22:00]
Chris Gazdik: John. John is, John is John is one of the most humble people that I, I think I, I know Salt. Salt of the earth kind of guy, brother.
That’s not a four. Okay. He’s not a four.
Carrie Hill: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, you know, the, the, thank you. I think this, it is humbling to me. I think about Marcus Aurelius in his meditations. That’s another aspect of, of stoicism. Is that even from the various earliest ages, this predates Christianity from the very earliest dates of talking about write it down, be literate.
And so, and so journaling was very important in, in the idea of stoicism because it, it’s a discipline that teaches you how to think critically and cogently.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting. Yeah. And so yeah, here, here’s the thing. I think that, [00:23:00] that this resonates to people for the wrong reasons. John, you’re, you’re, you’re totally on point.
I feel like with that, and that’s, that’s kinda why I’ve had. Usually when stoicism comes up in my practice, it’s somebody that picks up on these things and really gets drawn into what I think is not what you’re talking about. Right? And, and basically it’s, it, it’s folks that want to withdraw, shut down, avoid emotions, you know, internalize things and not be really engaged, you know, with, with resolving and dealing with the uncomfortableness of emotions, right?
Mm-hmm. Basically, they wanna just shut things down and so they find some of what stoicism they think says mm-hmm. But it’s not as, not really accurate as to, as to what the whole philosophy is. Mm-hmm. Carrie, have you ever heard people talking about this at all? Like, you know, and, and people that you’ve come across practicing?
Just curious.
Carrie Hill: [00:24:00] Nope. Just in school.
Chris Gazdik: School. Gotcha. Okay. That was
Carrie Hill: a long time ago too, by the way.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, here’s a great Billy Joel song called Pressure. He always comes up with songs, Gary. But but the, the thing with pressure is, is that you do have, you end up with scars on your face. You do end up with feeling the pressure, but it’s the, it’s the great, nevertheless.
And there’s an appeal with stoicism, with Christianity, even though Markelius the emperor in the late second century great emperor, you might, you’ve heard him on Gladiator. You know, the, the movie
Chris Gazdik: just
John-Nelson Pope: watched it not too
Chris Gazdik: long ago, sir.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, yeah. Well, he really was a wise person and, and he, he did that, but he did persecute Christians a bit.
But anyway, having said that the, the thing is, is that with, with [00:25:00] stoicism people can I think. Prevent, prevent the need eventually. In other words, they can preserve their mental health. It’s wellbeing. Well,
Chris Gazdik: that’s, that’s what I’m getting at. Like let look at, so as we go through and, and, and Carrie and I kind of pick up a little bit more on and learn what it is, like these things seem like a hundred percent what we do care, you know, working with people to develop internal resiliency.
Looking at managing, you know, the thought processes. I even saw in my journey looking at learning a little bit about stoicism. The philosophy is being like cognitive reframing. Like it’s literally a part of John likes that he’s clapping. If you’re watching this on YouTube, you would see right? Like, which we’re on YouTube.
Everybody listening on the podcast realize that we are on YouTube and we do YouTube lives on Thursdays, by the way, anyway, like the, the definition of Stoke is a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining. [00:26:00] That’s, that’s not what stoicism the philosophy is. Uhuh two totally different realities.
John, why are you clapping?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I’m clapping because it’s very similar, I think, to challenging the negative cognitions and distortive cognitions. And so some of the, the things that you’re gonna talk about a little bit later, the techniques that stoicism uses is also REBT, rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.
Chris Gazdik: Now, that’s something people know. Carrie, right?
John-Nelson Pope: Ellis Alice, Albert Ellis he was a pro, he was influenced by stoicism when he came up with his theories.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, really? Yeah. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. So,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, that’s not shocking then.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. So, and so you, you, you, you. Challenge the, the, the, the negative thinking. You, you accept that there [00:27:00] is something negative happening to you, but you need to make it so that it doesn’t go where you’re self-blaming and false blame and false guilt, you know, that sort of thing.
Chris Gazdik: So this philosophy seems to really emphasize control what we can control. And I, and I feel like that’s why people get drawn to it, that I’ve kind of found over the years. Eh, not a lot, I’m talking about a, you know, kind of a handful of people. But I’ve always been curious about this because it seems like, you know, through my practice every now and again, I get, you know, people that are drawn towards this.
And I think that’s what the draw is like, I wanna be able to be in control and not show my emotions. Mm-hmm. I wanna be able to, to, to, to control my actions and judgments and be more grounded in the moment. And, and that’s a lot of what stoicism is, but I think there’s a whole lot more as you’re beginning to kind of see some of the layers.
Mm-hmm. On, on how it really helps to get control of your life rather than just, you know, hide from your life basically. Right? Yeah. Which [00:28:00] is the big drawback, right?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. You know, I was think, I was thinking that stoicism, it, it had causes you instead of withdrawing and, and it says, I think it means engaging in life, right?
Instead of of not having different Yeah. It, it’s having being, having the courage cut RAO May is another person that was an existentialist that was very influenced by the stoics. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but he was an existential No, because you just
Chris Gazdik: went to an 8.5 brother.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
All right.
Chris Gazdik: So four. What is he talking
John-Nelson Pope: about, Gary? So anyway, and, and he talked about this a lot. Yeah. The idea that, that you have the courage to be, to create, there’s that, that sense of, and so there’s, there’s a connection with existentialism too, and which is also a philosophy, [00:29:00] so,
Chris Gazdik: okay. Yeah. I mean, you know, it, it, it advocates for virtue and courage and temperate justice, wisdom, you know, guiding the ethical decisions and purpose that you have in life.
I, I love the way, what does that sound like? It sounds like
John-Nelson Pope: a Rhine ho neighbor prayer, doesn’t it? Or the AA prayer?
Chris Gazdik: Well, aa I can speak here. I think we understand that, but Ribo what?
John-Nelson Pope: Ryan Ho Ber is the one that wrote the AA prayer, the Serenity Prayer.
Chris Gazdik: You’re gonna totally lose me, brother. What is it?
How is it, how is it related to aa?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it’s serenity prayer, you mean? Yeah. Do it and I’ll, I’ll comment on it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. There’s the serenity. I mean, it’s a, that’s a fundamental. Well, Carrie, why don’t you tell us about that? That’s, that’s a, a recovery speak.
John-Nelson Pope: God, grant me the,
Carrie Hill: oh goodness. Y’all want me to use my memory?
Oh, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. See, I don’t do well that way.
Carrie Hill: I wish I could sp it out, but definitely. I know it, but [00:30:00] of course,
John-Nelson Pope: no, it is. God. Grant me the serenity. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: The courage to change the things I can, the, the serenity to accept the things that cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference between the two,
John-Nelson Pope: all the points of
Chris Gazdik: stoicism, those are all stoic points.
John-Nelson Pope: Stoic points. Yeah.
Carrie Hill: Everything that except justice. Mm-hmm.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Okay. And yeah,
Carrie Hill: and these would be lovely principles and the wisdom to know the difference, everybody to live by them. What’s that, Carrie? It’d be lovely principles to live by if everybody would live by them.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, and I think that’s what people were drawn to this, honestly, when they begin getting a little bit of information about it, you know, they get kind of pulled in because Yeah.
It, it really is a whole lot more about how we relate as a culture and, you know, and control what we can control and Yeah. Wouldn’t it be great if we all had elements of that? I cite the serenity prayer all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Courage, temperance, wisdom, justice, key practices. I think that there’s a lot that we can use in our [00:31:00] therapy realm and, and probably do.
But Carrie, I don’t know if you, and I realize that we do do a lot of these practices, like you use meditation when you’re working with people a little bit, right?
Carrie Hill: Oh yeah, definitely. Right.
Chris Gazdik: We use reframing all the time with cognitive reframing. Mm-hmm. Right,
Carrie Hill: right.
Chris Gazdik: You know, we’re, we’re constantly talking about how can you, you know, yeah.
You talk about medications, but one of the things I love about Carrie’s work is you’re much more into, like, you’ll even do therapy with people. Right, right. So, you know, developing internal emotion management, I mean, that’s stoicism is, what did you say, John? How did you refer to it? Like living life instead of avoiding life?
John-Nelson Pope: Right. Living life. Embracing it to the fullness. Having the courage to jump into it, but also doing it with prudence. And that is being able to use it with perception, with with judgment and equanimity. [00:32:00] Anonymity. Yeah. Yeah. Being able to, to know to, to, it means to be empathetic to, oh, one of them said one, I think it might have been Zeno with a Z or it might have been AP pectus who said, that’s why why we have two ears to listen and one mouth to speak.
Chris Gazdik: So, oh, that’s where that comes from.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s where that comes from.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. So that’s where, and I think that’s very important. I’m speaking too much, so I need to
Chris Gazdik: You’re definitely not speaking too much. Therapist.
Carrie Hill: He said that you were gonna know the most about this. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I warned us. Yeah. I got, I got what is virtue by the way?
Did, do we have a, a definition of virtue?
Chris Gazdik: Well, we have computers. Carrie, why don’t you take a shot [00:33:00] at it while I look it up.
Carrie Hill: Virtue as being truthful and honest.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Or living consistently authentic. Right. That’s virtuous.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Definition is behavior showing high moral standards or in traditional Christian an theology.
The seventh highest order of the ninefold celestial heart hierarchy. That’s a big deal. Okay. Virtue. That’s
John-Nelson Pope: atilian. That’s that’s from Aristotle. That’s and that’s from St. Thomas Aquinas. You get those seven virtues. But but, but I guess my question would be or, or the thing of virtue is a practice.
It’s not just a, a a, a static state. It’s, it’s, it’s an active. Practice of living. And so you live a virtuous life is, it’s not one that, it’s not making [00:34:00] mistakes. It’s not, it, it, you do make mistakes, you do falter, but it is moving on, learning from it, moving on, and to ascribe to something making yourself better than you were.
Chris Gazdik: Why do you think that, I guess it’s predated. I’m, I’m, I’m just listening a little bit to you, John, and I’m, I’m kinda like, this is such the wrong name. It feels like for a philosophy. Mm-hmm. You know, like, you know what I’m saying? Ki Yeah,
Carrie Hill: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah.
Carrie Hill: Definitely. It’s weird, right? That’s why it sounds like, you know, like I was telling you in the beginning, it sounds like something where you just kind of don’t like move, like you kind of stand still that, like that word just kind of, yeah.
I don’t think of like you know, when it, first thing that comes to mind is not like. Learning or moving, you know, forward with life is more like standing still. That’s almost what the word. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: it really is. It’s, it’s, it seems so different than [00:35:00] what I’m learning about the, the, the, the, the philosophies are, and you know, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the specific virtues and some of the practices, but I, you know, I, yeah, I just, I, I really think that people use this tendencies to be very maladaptive, to avoid life, to not grow, to not move, to stay stuck, to hide emotions.
That’s, that, that’s what I think of with stoic, but stoicism the philosophy very different. John, I, I’m really loving listening to you about it because I mm-hmm. Really, I mean, I get clients that are drawn to this that just want to avoid people, avoid the world. Yeah. That’s what you’ve drawn to this.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
It’s it. Well then you choose the wrong philosophy because one, you’re not static. And two. You’re, you’re dynamically and actively engaging the world with stoicism and you’re proactive. And part of that is also to, you know, with some of the techniques that they use and which [00:36:00] is sort of the, you said it was negative.
What was it?
Chris Gazdik: Well, we’ll get there. I guess the, okay. Where, what are those things? Yeah, well, okay. The key practices, we can go there. Preto, malorum, I guess that’s basically, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: That bad. That means bad or the bad things. And memento. Morre, which you remember your dad, that’s Latin. And you know, you’ll see that on some guys who have it on their arms tattooed and they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
Really? You know? Yeah. That’s, yeah. It’s, it’s that you, you ponder your your finiteness you, you’re not gonna live forever and you have to make the most of living. In, in, in the here and now. So you remember, you remember your death. And so there’s that sense of, of being able to, you don’t fixate on it.
Instead you acknowledge that one day you are going to die. You’re aware. Embrace it. Yeah. And so you’re [00:37:00] mortality, you, you embrace your mortality and that also means make the most of what you have and to that you’re able to live life to the fullest.
Chris Gazdik: Fullest. So it’s not about, you know, negativity or, you know, hopelessness or mm-hmm.
Stuckness in the moment or recognizing I’m gonna die, so it doesn’t matter. I mean, yeah. I, it’s what do you do while you’re here? How do you, how do you move through it? Yeah. Back to the, the things, I mean, these are visualizing skills, you know? Mm-hmm. Visualization and Carrie, I mean, we have so much overlap with.
What we do with guided imagery and, you know, deescalating techniques and, you know, even, even full blown hypnosis and stuff. Do you use much of that in your practice? Like with panicked people and that type of thing?
Carrie Hill: Not h not hypnosis that
Chris Gazdik: Oh, well, yeah. The other stuff. The
Carrie Hill: other stuff, yeah. But not, yeah, just helping them through high anxiety situations or things that trigger them while, [00:38:00] you know, where we’re in session.
And you know, visualization’s a big one. I love Uhhuh that the guided imagery and and also the, the is, you know, another one of my favorite ones is what, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? What are you, what can you touch? I see. Yeah. Right. And, you know, to kind of,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, that, that has to do with, with stoicism.
And I never, I never knew that key practices, journaling, you know, I mean, there’s overlap with that. I mean, do we ever suggest for people to be. You know in touch with writing activities and, and how they can make sense out of their thoughts by reading what we journal. John, you asked about what the key practices are, you know, reframing, this is where I saw the reframing, you know, I mean, that’s cognitive behavioral therapy.
That’s right. That’s Beck and Ellis. Yeah. Beck and Ellis. Right. The, where am I at? External and internal locus of control. Yeah. Is that
John-Nelson Pope: Glasser?
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Yeah. Carrie, tell us about internal and [00:39:00] external locus of control, because I think people get really confused about that.
Carrie Hill: Yes, that’s true. Oh goodness.
Pulling out, like trying to. Remember all these things that you
John-Nelson Pope: Well, you’re doing that, you’re doing fine. You’re doing fine.
Carrie Hill: This has been a long time since I’ve talked about this stuff. ’cause it’s, it’s just these things that we do and like, don’t really put words to it, I guess you’d say.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely.
Well, yeah.
Carrie Hill: But but yeah, just, you know, and having internal control versus external and how you, how you show those things through. So, but and I get quite a few people with that’ll come to me with nor normal behaviors of like, especially like related to grief. I’ve had a lot of that lately. People losing people and things like that.
And they’ll come to me for medication and I’m like, I don’t think that’s, you know, I don’t [00:40:00] recommend that that’s an appropriate, you need to feel those emotions. We don’t need to numb those. You know,
John-Nelson Pope: feelings. Oh, oh, oh, feelings.
Chris Gazdik: Oh boy. It goes off in song. Yes, Carrie, absolutely on point. And by the way, I love a prescriber that is going to work with you and not tell you, Hey, take these medications and just dope out so that you’re not gonna deal with anything.
Did you hear that y’all? Like that’s, that’s, I love that. Thank you for that. And, and you, and you’re right on point with the locals of control being internal or so stay with it. Stoicism. And I never knew that, but we work with that all the time. What, you know, this is the Serenity prayer again, right? What John?
Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: So, so what I’m hearing is, is that there are, I think a lot of therapists that are, are basically are stoics that didn’t know it. That don’t know
Chris Gazdik: it. Abso that’s what I’m learning.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And
Chris Gazdik: that, that’s the point I’m telling Carrie and I, I mean, you know, we do these things all the time. Mm-hmm. And and isn’t that true though?
[00:41:00] Usually when, when people have like a. A name of a philosophy or, you know, whatever, and this has been around for a long time, wouldn’t you say he did his little gladiator thing, John. Mm-hmm. This was back in Roman times.
Carrie Hill: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Probably predates a lot of stuff. Right? So, so we take pieces that fit, add it with something else, and continue to develop newer things that, uhhuh, that are very effective.
And so this goes way back to some origins of, as you said, cognitive behavioral therapy. Our, our REBT you know, you could say DBT
John-Nelson Pope: di, electrical Behavioral Therapy, d dbt, right? There’s all these
Chris Gazdik: philosophies that combine together, so. Mm-hmm. As, as a, you know, if you’re interested in stoicism and you’re learning a little bit about it with us, what I, what I wanna encourage you to be careful about is to not, not fall into a trap of everything being answered by one thing.
That’s just, you know, generally speaking, that’s generally not gonna be, you know, the case. So, but you can pull things from this in an [00:42:00] active way to really augment what it is that you’re learning about in your life today. And, and some of the, some of the theories, some of the philosophies, some of the components, some of the skill sets are all elements in a lot of whatever, you know, choices the therapist might make about you know, how we’re gonna do therapy.
Mm-hmm. So let’s look at real quick, a little bit of these the virtues and practices, right. Taking courage first. Is that, so these, so am I, am I to believed that these are the core pieces of stoicism, John, that, that are the elements that people base on the whole philosophy? Yeah. Right? Yeah. That, that’s what we’re talking about.
So is
John-Nelson Pope: core beliefs.
Chris Gazdik: So courage is a big component that doesn’t have a lot of elements of avoiding emotion. It doesn’t have a lot of elements of shutting down the way that you feel. Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: As a matter of fact, it has one, it has much more to do with one of the big four that I did in my book [00:43:00] coming out to understand, you know, what do you do to manage yourself?
You value yourself, you stop and reflect on emotions, you have focus points. And the fourth one is action points, which is exactly what you need. Courage in order to do things. So, mm-hmm. Stoicism, am I saying it correctly? John allows us to have courage to do Yes. More than what we would’ve done otherwise.
John-Nelson Pope: Right? Right. It kind of gives you the, maybe it’s, it’s almost like the catalyst to, or the or the mitochondria which are the little powerhouses of our cells. It’s, it’s the stoicism is, is sort of like the, the, the life philosophy, the energy, the energizing aspect to it. Maybe that’s, that would be a way of, of doing that.
It’s stoicism is helping you get the courage to be able to act and to not, [00:44:00] not look back, but to do it boldly. And
Chris Gazdik: military and special forces. We call it front fort. Front front dang, I just messed it up front. Face centered. I, I, I screwed it up. Carrie. Front
John-Nelson Pope: face. Yeah, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. What Does it save me, John?
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, you, that’s fine. I was a chaplain, so I don’t
Chris Gazdik: you do the special courses.
John-Nelson Pope: I, I, I, I ran around with the seals a little bit, but they they, they were they were, they didn’t wait up. They were animals.
Chris Gazdik: So they didn’t, they didn’t wait up for you. Not in a
John-Nelson Pope: bad way.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So temperance in moderation is another virtue.
And to me,
John-Nelson Pope: all things in moderation,
Chris Gazdik: right?
John-Nelson Pope: Moderation. All things in moderation.
Chris Gazdik: Don’t get too up with the ups. Don’t get too down with the downs. Like these are kind of in my mind, like standard things. I didn’t know it was a part of stoicism. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Carrie, I’m gonna submit you and I work with people all the time where we’re trying to help bipolar folks.
Calm down, [00:45:00] self-regulate. Don’t get too up with the great month that you’ve had in your marriage. Let’s, let’s level this out. Don’t get too down when things are rough, right? Like, we talk about this all the time. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: that is precisely what Marcus Aurelius would’ve talked about in his meditations. There we go.
Yeah.
Carrie Hill: Well, and, and burnout too. That’s another thing. Yeah. I actually just got something about that today. It was almost like the. So, you know, you have to realize when you’re getting to the point that things are and sometimes that’s hard to do, like sometimes it’s somebody else saying something to you because you don’t really realize that you’re to that point.
But you know, somebody who’s close to you might. And so it’s always good to kind of check in and make sure that you’re taking time for yourself and not you know, just all involved in work or, or all involved in somebody else, whether it be relationships or something. You need to make sure that you’re also focusing on you and yourself and your health and your mental health.
Chris Gazdik: So, [00:46:00] absolutely, I, I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. I mean, burnout, you know, or we, we call compassion fatigue from therapists. But you know, when you’re in a just a depleted state, you would think, oh, great. I wanna be stoic and just be alone and isolate. Yeah. John’s head starts going, no, no, it’s not it.
Right? It’s like, no, you’re addressing the burnout. You’re actively getting yourself out of burnout.
John-Nelson Pope: Burnout, people are burned out. People are not stoic. Burned out. People are, are people that are alienated from their inner selves. A a stoic would say, I’m in touch with who I am in my thought processes.
Chris Gazdik: Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: I love that. And, and, and my feelings and my thoughts
Chris Gazdik: as the kids say, I’m in my feels.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Moving next. I love the wisdom. Okay. Recognizing what’s within our control and acting rationally. Have we ever heard a [00:47:00] philosophy that operates, you know, from the primary point of, of wisdom? How about how about DBT, you know, anything about DBT with wise mind?
John-Nelson Pope: Huh. Why Wise Mind? You’re talking about DBT, right? Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Other words, another shared principle. But if you have a wise mind, you step outside of yourself, right? And you can be objective, right? That’s not your, you’re not detaching necessarily, but you are observing oneself that gives you control to, to do that.
But it also recognizes that you cannot cha, you cannot change an external, you can change the internal,
Chris Gazdik: so again, internal versus external. So how you, how you
Carrie Hill: respond That Dr.
Chris Gazdik: Kerry got it.
Carrie Hill: Yeah. What that Kerry? So how you respond to things. Yeah. You know, you can’t control what’s happening or you know, around you to Uhhuh, you know, a certain degree, but you can control how you react and respond [00:48:00] to.
So
John-Nelson Pope: one of the things when I was in the military, Chris, was the we would have a crisis. It seemed like there was a crisis, right? All the time. At least once a month. And we would, we’d go to, to death climb one like once it seemed like every month. But it was probably once every three or four months when I was in the Philippines.
And there were people that would just completely fall apart during a crisis. Mm. And and that, you know, it’s okay. It’s okay, but you don’t want somebody to, you know a young marine or, or a sailor to, to, to overreact and shoot you or something like that. But you would I think a person that would be living a stoicism, a stoic life would be.
Able to know maybe to think about how to react in a crisis. Maybe not ev even envision a [00:49:00] crisis and yet not you know, say dwell on it, but to be able to have, have it played out in your, in your mind. And I’m kind of wondering when we have problems that maybe we, we could do that too, is
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. A a, absolutely.
I mean, I think to me this is again, what can I be in control with internally allowing my emotions to be present.
Carrie Hill: And
Chris Gazdik: to me, this happens a lot with trauma. You know, I just had a, a, a conversation, well, my last appointment actually of the day we were talking about his, the, the anxiety is the primary issue.
And I, you know, I’m learning that from a stoics perspective, you know, you’re going to take that anxiety and understand when it’s active. That is Wise mind, at least I, I’m much more familiar with DBT than stoicism, but you know, when you’re using wisdom, go ahead, John.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, no. I, I like it. I was just seeing you, you,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, yeah.
You know, because, you know, I just figured you’d have more thunder with it than I I will, but [00:50:00] I’m, I’m doing my best here. I’m doing, doing my very level.
John-Nelson Pope: You’re doing fine.
Chris Gazdik: You know, the, the idea then with stoicism would be, you know, you want to kind of be in a state of mind where you allow to feel what you’re feeling and realizing that you want to wrap your rational mind around what it is that’s going on.
That’s not being stoic. That’s being rational and grounded and active with the way that you feel like I mm-hmm. Like I said, it’s totally named wrong. Mm-hmm. Because when you have something that’s traumatic or you have anxiety that is a condition, it kind of just takes over and you’re literally not even in control of your own thoughts or you own body because you’re sweating or you’re having sweaty palms or, I don’t know.
What are the, what are the number of things you feel the wise mind
John-Nelson Pope: though would say, I’ve got sweaty palms, I have palpitations, I’m doing this. And that one is able to, to observe what’s going on and thus by [00:51:00] observing it, change the situation and regain a centeredness.
Chris Gazdik: Right. There’s actions that we’re doing.
Actions.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. And all of this in my mind is kind of, because I feel like clients that have been drawn to this are, are, are really drawn. To the inappropriate things that we don’t wanna be drawn to, which is what the potential drawbacks and dangers of this, you know, I would submit, you know, we can get led to.
So, you know, and John, you, you, you reframed this so, so awesomely. I, I feel like, you know, when you, when you said this is about actively living rather than just you know, avoiding, so the potential dangers that I feel like, you know, suppression versus regulating, you know, stoicism is all about regulating your emotions rather than suppressing your emotions.
Is that what I’m writing? Right?
John-Nelson Pope: [00:52:00] Yeah.
Carrie Hill: Yep.
John-Nelson Pope: See one is if you’re suppressing it and repressing it, you’re, you’re, you’re basically denying
Chris Gazdik: this is why I had arguably a bad impression of stoicism because of the, the consistent. Observation that I made of, of who was interested in learning more about this.
Carrie Hill: Mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: For the reasons of suppressing, and I’m finding this is, we’re in a healthy way regulating what you become aware of with stoicism. Mm-hmm. So misinterpreted stoicism can be numb feelings or reducing empathy or mm-hmm. Being emotionally distant or not really processing emotions. None of that is what stoicism support sounds
John-Nelson Pope: like.
Some symptoms of PTSD, right? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I,
John-Nelson Pope: go ahead. No, I, I was, I, I’m gonna have a little, I’m, I’m excited. [00:53:00] About it. There’s the fact there was a Donald Robertson, I think he’s British, I’m not sure. But or Scottish, he’s, he wrote an article, it was Robertson and Cod, its Stoic Philosophy is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
And he explored the similarities of, of CBT with stoicism the philosophy of it. And he was very clear of saying both of the authors, but Robertson was the primary author that that it, it is Stoicism is bigger and deeper than CBT. And because stoicism is a philosophy of life, and so it is a pre preventative to to for having in a sense that it helps prevent having those negative cognitions or thoughts.
That could [00:54:00] lead you into serious mental illness or serious depression or anxiety. And so it actually helps it’s a preventative measure and it’s a way of so it’s a worldview. And I think you could be a in my mind you could be stoic and be a, a, a Christian or be a Buddhist or, or what,
Chris Gazdik: or that they combine together, huh?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. They can be used together. Okay. In, in that sense. Interesting. In a very positive sense.
Chris Gazdik: I wouldn’t have thought it that way. Yeah. What we’re not after is apathy or feeling socially detached or having an overemphasis on individualism, you know, being flat or rigid. Like, again, these are impressions that I think of what people have and are drawn to it for those reasons.
But I. Contrary to that, Uhhuh we’re, we’re working on focusing on acceptance. Yeah. Leading. You know, we’re, we’re, let me go a little further. We’re, we’re [00:55:00] looking at, you know, instead of being an individual, we’re looking at, you know, the whole collective and, and being in, in a togetherness, uhhuh and, and again, being rigid or flat, that’s not it.
It’s, it’s pursuing being rational. So you’re not, you’re not hindering yourself in a limited view based on just what you’re struggling with. It, it opens you up. So, so I, I, I think there’s a lot of misperceptions about, at least I had Carrie. Yeah. You know, does this sound like what you would’ve thought stoicism is, lemme check in with you.
What you’re, what you’re hearing as far as what we may have thought together, you and I before we looked at this.
Carrie Hill: Yeah. This, well, this is a little that like the dangers that’s a little bit more than like that, that’s probably the opposite end. ’cause I kind of felt. Like, it was more of a standing still type thing.
But those, those things are way more negative. So we don’t, we don’t wanna go down that route with the, that’s
Chris Gazdik: what I think people are drawn to initially, misunderstanding what they’re gonna learn about.
Carrie Hill: Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: [00:56:00] You, you touched me when you talked about apathy, right? And you talked about not ability.
Ability to be able to have pleasure. And so, I mean, there’s Greek words for that, that, that we know in, in therapy. And I’m not going to, I’m going to mispronounce ’em, so I’m not gonna say it, but your inability to, and, and that’s a misconception of p socialism. In other words, being apathetic and being indifferent.
If anything, you are the, there’s, there’s Greek myth in the odyssey. Is the island of the lotus eaters. And they would, they would eat this fruit from the lotus flour that would cause people to forget. And so there’s that, that very powerful idea of you don’t go to therapy to forget, you go to therapy to remember and to, to [00:57:00] reframe and
Chris Gazdik: to change.
Ah, terrifying. But it shouldn’t be, it’s relieving and freeing. Right,
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. To, to finish that up. I I, another big piece that I really wanna make sure before we’re running out of time, you know, you, you don’t want to enter into a process of stoic philosophy thinking that that is going to help you to be able to be alone, better with yourself and deal with what you’re struggling with in a pain point.
Instead, it really very much is about, you know, needing to reach out and, and, and, and using that reach out for being grounded. Mm-hmm. You know, it, it, it, it makes me nervous that people are going to kind of stop a therapy experience and, and go into what they think is going to be teaching them how to be non-emotional and controlled, grounded, and Right.
That’s not, that’s dangerous. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: It is dangerous. And that is
Chris Gazdik: not what [00:58:00] Stoicism is advocating. Is that correct? Right. That’s correct.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. That’s correct.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. So full engagement. Oh, go ahead.
John-Nelson Pope: You know, now it’s just say full engagement. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. To begin wrapping us in to, to, to wrap up a little bit, there’s, there’s a balance that we’re trying to get here.
You can frame stoicism as a flexible framework, not a rigid doctrine. And I liked that you said that, John, you, you’re a Christian, you could do this if you’re a Muslim, you can have stoic philosophies and incorporate them into your religious belief. Right,
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I think I heard you say that and Right.
You sure can. Moderation, you know, this is not meant to like, run your life. And like I said, it, it makes me nervous that people would stop, you know, services or discontinue medications, carry, you know, I don’t need those medications anymore. I’m gonna learn how to be, you know, totally grounded without it.
Like they’re not, I don’t think a stoic would advocate for that. Uhhuh.
Carrie Hill: Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Stoic would, would, I think self, self-discipline. [00:59:00] That’s a virtue.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. There’s, there’s a list in scripture, and this is where stoicism some of those scriptures that Paul says, and he has a list of virtues. You know what those vir, those virtues are.
That’s from stoicism. Oh, okay. Yeah, Paul, Paul took them and he, he en engaged them and put them into scripture. St. Paul did. Okay. So that these were truths. And so we have wisdom, which is to me the ability and, and, and it’s human wisdom, but it’s wisdom that I think it’s inspired, I think wisdom that it, in, in the the viewpoint of, of the ancient Greek philosophers of they’re, they’re in the highest level of, of the first level of hell, which is limbo, well, not limbo, but it’s, it’s, it, it, it, it, [01:00:00] it’s the limits of human knowledge.
And so they’re not in heaven, but they are very wise in understanding and they they have a, a life of meaning and purpose. So anyway, I I, I got off on a little tangent, but
Chris Gazdik: that never happens, John, does it? No, I’m listening. I’ve, I’ve learned a lot. Honestly. Your, your teaching points are, I mean, I’m incorporating it honestly as we’re speaking into what, into what I do.
The last thing that I wanna add in sort of striking the right balance is, you know, that we we’re really searching for, in awareness of the emotions that you’re, you’re, mm-hmm. You’re managing and understanding what’s present, not suppressing what is present, whether that’s, you know, your, your, your anxiety biological condition with clinical traits or, you know, mania with bipolar or.
You know, just trauma and what trauma thinking does. You know, we’re really [01:01:00] looking at understanding and, and engaging these things, not suppressing and avoiding them. Right? Yeah. John?
John-Nelson Pope: No, I was just thinking that if you’re somebody for mindfulness because idea of using those techniques with people that even might have a, a thought disorder, schizophrenia yeah.
Some sort of schizophrenic is that they, if they’re into the acceptance that they actually have an issue and they also with this and also with mood disorders, that they might be able to, to, to embrace a stoic philosophy to help them process through what they’re undergoing in internally. And and, and.
And, and see its consequences as how, how they might be able to go on and continue to live with purpose and meaning.
Chris Gazdik: So I learned a lot more, Carrie, about what stoicism is not. Have you, are you picking up on a lot of the same things? I am,
Carrie Hill: yes. Well, [01:02:00] both I’ve, I learned a lot about all of it. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What it’s, and what
Carrie Hill: it isn’t a lot more than
Chris Gazdik: it’s seriously, it’s, it’s, I think it’s a lot of the things that we do all the time and, and probably are not as aware.
Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: We’re all stoics.
Chris Gazdik: We are in many ways. I mean, it, it is embedded itself into a lot of the different theory bases we operate from. So we’re gonna do the shrink wrap up. That’s the way we end the show, Carrie, if you remember from, from when you were on with us. So what we do is we just kind of, you know, wrap up the takeaway points and you know, we have a friendly competition and see how many through the year you might win, filling in with us.
You know, so we won’t, we won’t, we won’t, we won’t bust your chops if you only win like one or twice a year. But I think you and I are gonna have a challenge on this one. Maybe I’m gonna let you go first because I think, John, I need to think, I guess, what’d you say?
Carrie Hill: Well, I said I think John’s got this one in the bag, but
Chris Gazdik: No, no, I don’t.
In the bag. I’m, I’m, no, no, no. Let’s see how we do though. So, Neil, I don’t have to pass a microphone to you. You’re with us. You can pop on and, [01:03:00] and give us the the judgment right there is the man behind the curtain. We’re virtual today, so, so Carrie, I’ll go first, I guess, and try the, the, the wrap up I’m gonna do is look, I, I hope you’ve learned a little bit like I have today on what this is not and, and, and what this is because.
As I said, I got the idea from this because I feel like people are drawn to something that they think this is, and it’s not. It’s, you know, and so if you’re drawn towards shutting down, if you’re drawn towards avoiding things, if you’re drawn towards being stoic and not being emotional, that’s not what stoicism is about.
And so be careful about those traits. If you get in because of those traits, then great, you’re gonna learn about a whole lot more than what you ever bargained for. So either way, I think you’re gonna be okay. Carrie, that’s about the best I got. What, what you got for the shrink wrap up?
Carrie Hill: Well, I think that, you know, we definitely learned a lot today and I wanna [01:04:00] kind of just wrap up with the, the virtues of, of, of it.
I know that we covered the both sides of it. What, what it’s not and what it is, but you know, the courage and the wisdom and the temperance and moderation and justice, those are all values that. I wish more people live by and, right. Those are all, all things that would definitely help our culture and, and our way of life.
And so I, I think that this is something that people should look into, learn more about, like we did today. Like I learned a lot and I appreciate being here.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. You might get the dub, I’m not gonna lie. You, I, you might. Yeah. What you got John? So,
John-Nelson Pope: so I, I just like to, to sum up and is a little bit here is that I think stoicism is, is spiritual father or mother of, of modern psychotherapy theory, particularly those dealing with.
[01:05:00] Cognitive behavioral di dialectical behavioral REBT, irrational Motive Behavioral Therapy. It is basically a lifestyle and a life philosophy, and it informs you and gives you the tools that actually are more resilient than just, okay, I’m doing CBT or REBT. I’m doing, I’m living it out in my life.
Completely.
Chris Gazdik: Love that. Okay. Where you at, Neil?
Neil Robinson: I would’ve to say, I think John gave the best recap, but of course he was kind of the expert in this field. I think Harry’s was a close second, but I think John definitely won this one. Mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: We’re not gonna say who’s last, Gary, don’t, don’t be, don’t be ragging that in.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. No. Yeah. This has been very engaging to me. Challenge. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I, no, I love it. I, I do. I appreciate John. I, I, I guys, I, I went to John before I, I, I did this, this episode [01:06:00] content, and I was like, look, I, I, I’m gonna lean on you with this one man, because, you know, I, I don’t, I don’t have a lot here. And so I, I, I, I like you Kerry.
Learned a lot with it. I, I appreciate, I appreciate you John, with I appreciate you guys. Yeah. And Carrie so much. Cool. Thank you for, for stepping in for us. Maybe we’ll see you. You’re gonna do it again while. What is the email that they get to you in the Gaston County, Charlotte area again for prescribing to find a, a medication prescriber who is a nurse practitioner who actually speaks to you in prescribing rather than five minute med checks.
What’s the email address again?
Carrie Hill: But you can email me anytime at Carrie Hill mp@roadtriptorecovery.com.
Chris Gazdik: Alright, thank you. And we’ll make sure we get that on the show notes. Guys, I think that’s it. Closing comments, thoughts?
John-Nelson Pope: No, God bless. Have a great 4th of July Independence Day. Yeah, I was, I was gonna say,
Chris Gazdik: listen, have a, have a very safe holiday I guess.We’ll, the show will be pro published on Tuesday after the holiday, but hopefully you had, [01:07:00] or if you’ve listened to this live, have a safe, fun, but safe holiday season on the weekend. Take care. We see next week. Alright, byebye.