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Stoic Spiritual Exercises Cultivating Temperance
For the fourth week of spiritual exercises I completed last week I focused on Temperance. Stoics associated temperance with logic which got me to thinking. I am a longtime substance use disorder counselor and a lot of recovery work is rooted in learning to be honest: “I made a searching and fearless inventory”.
The discipline of assent is catching ourselves from making value judgements about things outside of our control. We learn that the only good is moral good. When an event happens it is only a terrible thing if we decide it is.
This honest assessment of reality is a path to freedom and living without fear. Dropping our inner deception allows us to grow in our ability to control our desires. We train ourselves to focus on what is in our own power and this allows us to do things we want to do and not do the things that we don’t want to do.
When we feel good about ourselves because we are taking right action then we are less susceptible to falling into unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Research backs up the stoic approach. Mindfulness work is an important part of treatment and recovery. Self discovery allows us to look at ourselves and see what the drivers of our self defeating behaviors may be.
I made a Facebook reel talking about Temperance which will work until 2/26/26 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BpDGBd8GK/
For the spiritual exercises I switched my coffee to black and was mostly vegetarian. I monitored my portion size and steered clear of fast food. I refrained from alcohol with the exception of a couple of drinks with a friend as I’ve been a bit under socialized. I also maintained my other exercises of physical exercise, daily justice work, and study and meditation.
It was a successful 28 days which has helped me focus and make concrete improvements. I plan to do them again in two years.
Blessed New Years
I was blessed to ring in the new year with my fiance in our new home. We closed Thanksgiving week but it’s her busy time at work and we traveled to Michigan/Ohio for the holidays so we didn’t get to move in in earnest until December 30th.
It was a lot of work with us and the two teenagers but we pulled together nicely and got it done in time to kick back a little and enjoy the new year coming in. It was nice to only have to get out of bed two minutes before the new year for my sparkling juice toast and sweet kiss and I was back in bed before 12:02 when I got a Happy New Year text.
Moving and setting up house in a new relationship brings a lot of changes. One of the things that brought my partner and I together was a commitment to sustainability as part of our values.
Shae was a single mom but still really on it as far as recycling. Her oldest is into cooking and has done a lot of research on nutrition and learning to make healthy food versus ultra processed stuff. Being able to support and build on all that has complemented my long interests in what I would call right living, using moral reasoning to choose the best course of life considering sustainability, justice, and neighborliness.
Writing The Practical Guide this year has sharpened my interests in areas I’ve lagged in like personal health. Having a chapter on lifestyle as an instrument of change means you have to eat and exercise to optimize for health and avoid medical intervention. So I’ve done that to good effect.
With helping my partner through a difficulty, house hunting and then moving, starting a political action committee and completing a manuscript and seeing it through publishing has been a lot. Through it I’ve recycled, minimized my food waste, made real food at home for the family, and all the other right living tasks I could reasonably pull off.
When I’ve had to I’ve grabbed the fast food, skipped the gym, or made some other compromise with my overall values to have a smooth flow of life. You don’t have to mail it every time to get a comparable impact but not stressing over that last 10% that would take effort beyond my abilities.
I elevated for a couple days to get the move done and worked harder than I should. I cut a few corners though to make it a bit easier. My brother John says “Most moral choices are between the right thing and the easy thing.”
I want to work hard for a better world and for my family but I also want to take the time for self care, companionship, kindness, and especially whimsy when it can be found.
What are you doing to be happier, healthier, or more sustainable in 2025? I’ll be blogging everyday through Bloguary. Look for an update on #freeKevinBromwell and as January 6th approaches I’ll be talking about the County Party Initiative for the New American Community. Stay warm constant reader.
step one part two
Living alone has forced me to really think about food. Its really inconvenient to live by yourself if you like home cooking. Been making tasty soups I can eat for days and days and realizing I need two thing, because I can’t eat lunch and dinner. The minestrone soup has been good. For lunch on my late day I made hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes so I added some peas, corn, and brie and am baking it for shepherd’s pie.
I have as long as it takes to get done to post. I am going to go back to my paraphrase of the NA Steps in clear, concrete, simple language with all references to hearing removed. Original text is also beautiful, spare and powerful, from Cyber Recovery. I read the first part to get into the flow and it sounds really good I think. Maybe I’ll strip down all my writing, its kind of powerful and adds to clarity of thought.
In recovery what we call success changes. When we were using drugs we were planning to get high or getting over being sick from being high. Success was staying out of trouble. In recovery success can be staying sober and going to meetings. Some people just do that for a long time. Staying clean is success. Working the steps can be success too but really its about knowing God. That way we can get clean physically, mentally, and spiritually. If we know God we learn how to live. We are honest, help other people, and learn how to love. We love people who don’t even love themselves. Going back to school or getting a job can be success too. Some people think money is success. Recovery does not depend on what we have or what we know. Recovery is being free and not thinking about drugs or wanting to do drugs.
Being sad over not doing something we said we would do teaches us about failure. Being curious about what we can do helps us grow. If we can let ourselves fail we can try to do stuff. When we are clean we have to be brave and try new things. Thinking things are better then they are or worse then they are is like when we were using drugs.
Wondering what other people feel and think, especially about us looks like a problem. This helps us think things over and get advice. It helps us learn about God. Learning more about what is good and what is bad helps us know God. We don’t believe old lies we heard or be afraid of things we don’t understand. Learning about God is important in NA.
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getting tired, looks like there will be a step 3. Thanks for checking this out and sharing it if you do. Its cool stuff and I am blessed to have been asked to get to know it more deeply. Your comments are requested and appreciated.
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