We’re at the end of our ropes. We’re exhausted, stressed, and scared. Everyone is.
Three years of a pandemic. Political dysfunction and polarization. A brutal war in Ukraine. Coups and assassinations unfolding all over the globe. Things have never been so hot or intense. Even the actual temperature is getting hotter.
Should it surprise us then that a group of mothers in Massachusetts have been organizing small outdoor get-togethers just to scream—just to shout all their anxieties and fears out into the void.
It seems a little crazy…but also perfectly sane. We’ve all been through so much, but even if the last couple of years had been totally normal, it doesn’t take much to imagine yourself getting a lot of relief from something as cathartic as screaming at the top of your lungs. Certainly it’s better than shouting at a co-worker on Zoom or venting your frustration at your kids or the person who just cut you off in traffic.
The point is: the accumulated stress and difficulty of life is like toxic sludge that needs to be disposed of. We need an outlet for it. Scratch that—as human beings here in 2022, we need outlets, plural. We need ways to channel that energy, that stress, that exhaustion, that existential dread we wake up with, wondering is this ever going to get better?
Like Marcus turning to his journals. Or Seneca taking cold plunges (some even think his brutal plays were a creative outlet). Or Chrysippus going for a long distance run, Epictetus lifting weights, Cato going for a meandering walk around Rome. We need our own version of that simple, restorative practice.
As we said before, stress is a fact. Not finding outlets or avenues for that stress is a choice. Not dealing with it is a choice. A bad one.
Cue Slay Your Stress: A Daily Stoic 20 Day Challenge.
As we said recently, the Stoics knew well that feeling of just wanting to scream into the void. They experienced exile and plagues and famine and bankruptcy and inflation and recessions and the loss of loved ones. And they found outlets for that toxic sludge. They developed strategies to reclaim their life from stress and anxiety. They had mantras and mindsets they fell back on to navigate the relentless ups and downs of life.
This new Slay Your Stress challenge is designed to equip you with all of those strategies and more. It is designed to help you reclaim your life from the toxic effects of stress and anxiety. In this 20-day challenge, we will lay out the most actionable ways to manage your stress and anxiety, backed by thousands of years of research and practice.
You’ll learn to:
- Seize what is in your control and ignore the rest
- Make your to-do list more manageable
- Stop sweating the small stuff
- Get out of your own head
- Gain perspective by zooming out
- Wash off the mud of life
And much, much more…
Additionally, there will be 3 live video sessions with Ryan Holiday, the bestselling author whose books about Stoic philosophy have sold more than 5 million copies in over 30 languages. Along with his writing, Ryan owns a small-town bookstore he opened during the pandemic, travels around the globe to teach people and organizations how to apply Stoicism to their actual lives, and has two young sons. Like the ancient Stoics we talked about above, Ryan has a lot of experience using Stoicism to domesticate feelings of anxiety and stress.
How many hours per day do you lose to stress and anxiety? That’s what the Stoics wanted to ask. Now multiply that by 365. Now multiply that by the rest of your life. Imagine what you could do with those hours, those weeks and months, those years.
Don’t you think it’s time you did something about this?
Sign up to Slay Your Stress Now.
This will be a live course. Beginning on July 26, all participants will move through the course together at the same pace.
Registration is officially open, but only for a few more hours. Registration will close TONIGHT at MIDNIGHT with the first live session set to start at 6:30 p.m. (EDT) tomorrow.
