#194 Stoicism and the Art of Happiness - Donald Robertson

Donald Robertson (0:00)

We know from research that people who strongly want to avoid discomfort and unpleasant feelings and pain tend to be less emotionally resilient. So again, that would be a bad philosophy of life psychologically. And the Stoics, like the Cynics, have this other philosophy that says we should endure voluntary hardship, that it's healthy to be able to experience pain and not to view it as catastrophic.

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Siim Land (0:29)

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Siim Land (0:42)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm a host Siim Land and our guest today is Donald Robertson. Donald is a writer about Stoic philosophy and an expert in cognitive behavioral therapy. He's written several books like How to Think Like a Roman Emperor and Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. This episode is brought to you by KAATSU Training. KAATSU bands incorporate blood flow moderation training that trick the body into thinking that it's lifting heavier weights than it actually is. When traditional weight lifting requires you to reach 70 to 80 percent of your one repetition maximum to stimulate muscle hypertrophy, then KAATSU achieve that effect only at 20 to 30 percent. So it's perfect for treating injuries or use when you don't have access to heavy weights.

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Donald Robertson (1:53)

Thanks very much for inviting me. It's my pleasure to be here speaking to you today.

Siim Land (1:57)

Yeah, you too. And I've read a lot of your books and they're really good in terms of talking about Stoicism, as well as giving like a very practical life advice of how do you implement this kind of philosophy and how do you like actually use it to like just living a happier and a better life.

But how did you get interested in Stoic philosophy and how did you start writing about it?

Donald Robertson (2:21)

Well, actually, I talked about this a little bit in How to Think Like a Roman Emperor because my editor insisted that I say something about how I got into this subject and really, ultimately, I think it was because I grew up in a town in Scotland where Freemasonry was a very popular thing.

Most of my friends' parents were Freemasons and my father was and my father passed away. He left when I was about 14 years old. He left behind some books about Freemasonry. I started to read about it and I realized that it gave my father a virtue ethic, a philosophy of life and it was based around, in part, Hellenistic philosophy. I saw in the book mentions of the four cardinal virtues of Plato, Pythagoras and other Hellenistic philosophical terms. So that got me on this quest looking for some kind of guide to life, some kind of philosophy to life and I read all the world's religions. I read Daoism and Hinduism and Christian apocryphal texts. I studied philosophy at university, but it wasn't until I finished my degree in philosophy that I discovered Stoicism.

And it clicked for me because it kind of covered three things. It gave me a bunch of practical techniques and I'd been learning a lot of self-development techniques, like I was very interested in self-hypnosis and meditation techniques and visualization and stuff. And I saw in the Stoic texts all these different mental techniques, psychological techniques. And I was interested in psychotherapy. I began training as a counselor and psychotherapist, and I realized that Stoicism was the inspiration for modern cognitive behavioral therapy. And I wanted this big philosophy of life as a kind of substitute for religion in a way. And I'd been looking at Buddhism and Marxism and existentialism.

And then I saw Stoicism, and I realized it gave me this kind of virtue ethic, this kind of guide to life. And all of these three things, the therapy, the meditation, the philosophy of life, all suddenly came together like an epiphany for me, really. And that was, gosh, I think it was about 25 years ago now, roughly. And so it stayed with me. And it kind of, I remember joking at the time. I suddenly thought, I'm not going to have to read as many books now.