It used to be that when people felt someone needed to be tougher, they would say the person needed “thicker skin”, which meant they were going to pick on them more often to make them tougher. We now recognize this as just another form of bullying. Instead, let’s think of “thicker skin” as resilience, a strengthened spirit, mental toughness, or a mindset where you realize, at your core, that you have value. Then, the words and actions of others won’t be as hurtful.
This lesson is hammered into boys, who end up suppressing a whole different set of emotions than girls are conditioned to suppress. Yet, we can choose to become more resilient. It’s a mean world out there, and there will invariably be things that will be upsetting, so what have you got to lose?
We tend to think that our mental and emotional characteristics are what they are, and that we are simply stuck being this way or that way for the rest of our lives. Nope. Remember that brain science says otherwise. We can choose better, more functional ideas or thoughts, and create better habits and behaviors through repetition and training.
The key word here is “training”. There is no magical, quick fix. The closest I’ve seen to a quick fix is hypnosis, which I’ve used since my teens. But you still might need multiple sessions. Changing mindsets will take three-to-four weeks, at a minimum, because that’s how long it takes to form a new habit. Deeply held beliefs may take months to change. Would an outcome of an easier life make this effort worth it?
Earlier, I mentioned Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which holds that our thoughts control our emotions. By paying attention to and learning to control our thoughts, we can manage our emotions. But, since I do not hold a degree in psychology, I’m going to offer another option.
A few years ago, I got into the philosophy of Stoicism. During a visit to my psychiatrist, I mentioned making a daily practice of studying it. He told me that Albert Ellis, the psychologist who had come up with Rational Emotive Therapy (the first form of CBT), was inspired by the Stoics.
Stoicism is easy to access. You don’t have to see a psychologist, although I still highly recommend mental health check-ups for, well, pretty much all of us. You can find plenty of information on Stoicism online, including videos on Youtube and the works of the original Stoics as well as contemporary authors. My current favorite is The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, because he gives you a daily quote from a philosopher and then makes it easy to understand how to apply this timeless wisdom to your life.
Stoicism is meant to be studied daily, for a few minutes in the morning to get you off on the right foot, and then later, if needed, to get you back on track or to evaluate how you did at the end of the day. It focuses on the fact that so much of our lives is not under our control. We can’t control external events or other people. The Stoics believed that letting our happiness and self-worth be affected by what we cannot control led to lots of unhappiness, anger, and disappointment. However, we can learn to take charge of how we interpret events as well as the words and actions of others.
We just—and I know this is a huge “just”—need to change our expectations. We tend to think we’re entitled to things working out the way we hope or expect they “should”—maybe because we worked hard for a particular outcome, or maybe just because we wanted so much for things to be a certain way. And then, when they don’t work out, we are disappointed or unhappy.
Stoicism gives us power over our thoughts and feelings. I know it sounds crazy, maybe even impossible, but this philosophy works. All it takes is practice, and the effort that you put into this will yield amazing results in all aspects of your life. Stoicism can help you become resilient. Practicing this philosophy can help you become immune to the cruelty of other people and the world. We can realize that what people say to us doesn’t matter. We can choose to not react, to just ignore it. What matters is that we know who we are, that we love and respect ourselves.
When you get good at this, it is unbelievably liberating. Imagine not spending any more time worrying about what someone said, or what they might have meant, or if you might have done something wrong because this or that happened. Can you imagine having all that mental energy freed up for other things?
Again, I’m guessing you might be feeling that this is just too hard, if not impossible. I get it, because I remember feeling that way when I first encountered these ideas. But I found that by keeping my mind open, giving it a try, learning and applying the ideas, I was freed from the horrible thoughts that constantly ran through my mind. You can do this, too.
And we are not limited to Stoicism or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. These concepts have appeared in the works of many philosophers, scholars, writers and poets throughout the ages. Dr. Viktor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, details his practice of this while he was a prisoner in a concentration camp in WWII. He had lost everything and everyone, and yet realized he could still control his thoughts. The work he created from his experiences is called “Logos Therapy”, from the Latin logos, or “word”, although the larger meaning is “wisdom” or “the way”.
In The Four Agreements, this concept is Agreement Number Two, which says to not take anything personally. Everything people say and do to us is about something going on with them. This is a variation of the adage “You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it’s a reflection of something you love or hate about yourself”.
Dr. Deepak Chopra discusses a similar idea in his book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, in Law Number Four. It’s the law about releasing attachment, in this case attachment to a specific outcome. Or, as I phrased it earlier, the idea that just because we want or worked for something, things will turn out a specific way. The Buddha said that desire is the cause of all human suffering, as in desire for a specific outcome. Same idea, different phrasing. The concept has been regenerated for millennia.