joy · you feel you may gain a thing · relationships · self
what you just named
You came in joy, not pain: that you feel you may gain a thing, in your relationships — specifically with self — and you reached for the Stoic voice first. That's what you've named. Listen now to what it answers.
- Stoic
Spirit
mind
The clench you have carried your whole life is not a single thing; it is a collection of decisions you made before you knew you were deciding. The feeling that something is about to unclench is real. The wish to grip the unclenching, to make sure it happens, to time it — that is the disturbance. Epictetus's rule applies here as cleanly as anywhere: men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things. The opinion that you must catch the unclenching as it happens is what will keep you clenched through it. Let it happen on its own time. The body, given permission and stillness, will let go without your help.
heart
Stop trying to time the unclenching. The body will let go on its own when you stop watching for it.
connection
You stand in the line of all who learned that the body unclenches when you stop watching it — the contemplative whose ease came at the end of an unwatched afternoon, the man who realized after a vacation that something had let go and he had not noticed the moment.
Action
Today, when you notice yourself watching for the unclenching, return your attention to whatever your hands are doing. Let the body do its work without supervision.
Reference
Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 5
practice
Removing supervision from the body that is doing its own work
principle
The opinion that you must catch the unclenching is what keeps you clenched through it
value
Letting the body let go without supervision