I have adopted Stoicism.
A philosophy practised by emperors, soldiers, statesmen, and people who had to function in environments of uncertainty and stress.
Of course, my life is not unfolding in some extraordinarily high-stakes environment. But I have found Stoicism surprisingly useful.
The biggest lesson I have taken from it is finding inner stability in a world of chaos.
The idea sounds wonderful. But what does it actually mean?
What is the point of philosophy—or, for that matter, of learning anything—if we cannot practise it when we actually need it?
Then I came across Joe Hudson’s live coaching interventions online, and something clicked.
The shift was small, but essential.
I attended my first mindfulness retreat in 2011. I am writing this in 2026. Looking back, I realise that mindfulness by itself has not helped me as much as I once expected it to during difficult moments.
It created the right environment. It taught me to observe.
But I was missing something important: letting things pass without struggling against them.
Then I watched Joe Hudson coaching people through intense emotional experiences. Again and again, I noticed a similar invitation:
Why are you running away from what you are feeling?
Let it be.
Stay with it.
The emotion itself may not be the biggest problem. Much of the suffering seems to come from our desperate struggle to get rid of it.
Anxiety arrives, and I immediately want anxiety to disappear.
Something goes wrong, and I immediately want reality to become different.
Uncertainty appears, and I start searching for certainty.
The struggle begins.
What I am learning now is to experiment with ending that struggle.
Not necessarily the anxiety.
Not necessarily the uncertainty.
Just the struggle against them.
I don’t even want to reassure myself that this too shall pass. Because perhaps it won’t pass as quickly as I want it to. Perhaps the situation will actually become worse before it becomes better.
That isn’t under my control.
But I have found immense value in simply refusing to wrestle with the moment.
Stay in the storm. Let the chaos unfold.
Don’t invite it.
Don’t poke it.
Don’t unnecessarily react to it.
And don’t exhaust yourself trying to make the storm disappear.
Just stay.
Just be.
Perhaps this is what inner stability actually means.
Not living without storms, but discovering that I don’t have to become the storm myself.
What a thought.
And, more importantly, what a feeling.