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In today’s episode we discuss The Daily Stoic Journal and pieces of My Story of Resilience

If you’re not familiar with the daily stoic journal this a great opportunity to get acquainted with journaling, managing your mind, and cultivating emotional resilience.

So what is it? Written by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman the Daily Stoic Journal is 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living.

The journal provides you with 52 stoic disciplines or practices, one for each week of the year and the authors provide a little guidance on the significance and application of those practices and follow it up with quotes from the Stoics.

What stoics you may ask? Seneca, Epictetus, Diogenes, and Marcus Aurelius

I first started using this journal and it’s prompts on September 29th, 2021. I was physically and mentally going through a difficult time with two injuries that resulted in shoulder surgery and on-going neck pain that I’m still dealing with today.  

This isn’t a a poor me story, if you’ve seen my home gym then you know I’m in it every day and will keep working to regain mobility in my neck, but this is a part of my story of resilience.

The daily stoic journal helped guide from a place of why this is happening to me to everything is happening for me.

You see, without that injury, I never would have created a platform on social media where I help others build a better relationship with themselves so they can have the types of relationships with others that they desire.

Here’s the funny part, I had no idea how to journal. It’s true, you hear me talk about how wonderful it is but like you I procrastinated using this tool because I didn’t understand it’s value or how to use it effectively. So I looked online and searched for videos on how to journal, benefits of journaling, best ways to journal, and the answer was always the same in the few videos I found. There is no right way, you just start.

The year prior I had a gratitude journal that I struggled with because I was unable to tap into any other parts of me, so it quickly became, I have gratitude for my dog Chloe, my house, my home gym, the opportunities I’ve been given, air.

The daily stoic offered something different. It tapped into my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The first journal prompt was on September 29th and it goes like this “Where are my eyes bigger than my stomach?”

I didn’t know what to write so I put that I had physical therapy and went to Panera for coffee and a bagel but that quickly shifted into my role as a police officer was fun and fed a part of my chaotic soul until I began unlearning decades of negative emotional programming.

A shift happened in my writing, and I tuned into or attuned to my inner being, that inner knowing, that piece of me that was dormant for so long that I felt emotionally closed off to the world around me. What came out on the page was it’s time to start growing again, to stop living small, and what I was doing for a career isn’t small, but I had an inner knowing that I could and should be doing more to help others.

Inside the daily stoic underneath the daily prompt, you have space for a morning and evening reflection. My evening reflection that night was an experience I had earlier in the day where group think was of guilt, fear, shame, rumor and gossip. I easily could have been pulled into it but I stepped back and reminded myself that is outside of me, (None of my business) I cannot control how others react, but I can control how I respond and what emotions I absorb from others.

The mantra for that evening I created for myself was Breathe, Be Free, and Let Go!

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