A great Stoic concept: our emotions, our reactions, the overwhelm and frustration…these all come from inside us.
We say things like, “This person is so difficult”, “This situation is so frustrating”, or “This day has been so overwhelming.” But the reality is that those adjectives are all internal judgement pieces.
We, our very selves, inside our own minds, decide if something is “frustrating”, “difficult”, or “overwhelming”. We, ourselves, decide if something is “impossible” or “not worth dealing with”. We, ourselves, pass these judgements all day, every day, and influence our self-talk toward the positive or the negative.
But the great lesson is: if these judgements are inside, in our minds, in our choices, in our control, then we can also choose to reframe them. We can choose to see the frustration and overwhelm as an opportunity. We can control our choice to reach out to others and ask for their perspective and help. We can decide to let it define us or defeat us.
The choice is always there inside us, every day. We choose how we interpret life’s challenges. Choose wisely, lest we defeat ourselves from within.
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