When I think of all the stress I’ve put myself through over things that had not yet happened, I can only laugh.

CBT tip: when you find yourself stressing over a potential future, ask yourself if you have any evidence to support your assertion. Imagine you’re in a courtroom presenting a case; if you don’t have anything other than “what if”, your logical brain may jump in and calm down.

By doing something like this, you’re also actively rewiring pathways in the brain so that next time maybe it’ll be just that little bit less stressful and you’ll not get as anxious over possible futures.

Is this not mindfulness?

I have to consistently follow a mindfulness meditation routine to be able to reach this level of awareness. It takes practice, patience, and persistence, but it is worth it.

Mindfulness meditation creates a mental buffer of sorts that lets us catch the brief void between impulse and action. It lets us consider things, weigh up consequences, and choose with reason, not only emotions.

Seneca isn’t talking about the material crap we collect to offset the various empty spaces in our souls and lives.

He’s taking about the burdens of our mental crap; that which we hold onto, even though we would gladly give away all we own to be free of it.

If you know this experience all too well, please check out Sukie Baxter’s Vagus nerve stimulation exercises on YouTube. We are holistic beings, physical melded with psychological, and each influences the other. Try the exercises, they’re so easy yet provide incredible healing power. Please?

There is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice.

This is a core tenet of non-attachment, I believe. Catching those moments we assign good or bad values, or judgements if you will, to the smallest of daily decisions with the same weight as our most defining choices and actions.

I visualise a retro VU meter like you’d find on a stereo, and it’s set in the middle, with good and bad, positive and negative, to either side. And I try to keep it centred. That’s it.

No judgements, no attachment to an outcome I haven’t yet experienced, and no emotions allowed to build based on something not yet passed.

It doesn’t take away from my sense of self; rather, it enhances the clarity with which I can observe my life. To let reasoned choice take the lead, and not emotional hijacking. It starts with catching those moments and adjusting our reactions to be responses. Measured, tempered, and within the centre of our internal meter.

Non attachment is something I’ve been trying hard to grasp, and maybe one day master.

The emotional wiring that creates within us the overwhelming need to emotionally validate our actions and thoughts can be altered. Reading about polyvagal theory and doing Vagus nerve exercises has profoundly changed my mind, my viewpoint, and most of all, has helped me to work on stopping my masking behaviours.

Letting go without attachment applies to our thoughts: to the instinctual feeling we may have that forces us to internally assign a good or bad value to everything we do, say, and feel. If we can practice mindfulness in observing these valence checking behaviours, we can rewire our brains to let them go.

Totally logical, yup. But still can’t quite believe it…

This quote deserves more consideration.

Many define themselves well because they are emotional; yet how many do so because they are rational?

Mindfulness in capturing our emotional states and observing our actions can act to change our neural wiring. We can perceive that out addictive behaviours manifest when stressed or triggered emotionally. When was the last time you drank too much because of rational thoughts? When did you last make a regretful choice unencumbered by strong feelings hijacking your actions?

Emotional spending is my vice, and I do it mask grief, pain, and trauma. But, I see it. Now I must fight it.

I don’t know about you, but this is the hardest principle for me to put into practice.

Mindfulness meditation and this stoic quote go well together. Through refocusing your errant thoughts on your breath, the neurocircuitry in your brain rewires (what fires together, wires together), and strengthens your ability to stay present in the moment.

This is a difficult one to find comfort in, but maybe it’s enough to see a different perspective from its meaning.

So many have lived through misfortune, but perhaps we don’t see it as a badge of strength. Maybe we should.