A Stoic Morning Practice For Grief And Loss

Start with where the weight actually is.

Scan slowly.

Chest.

Throat.

The space behind the eyes.

Stomach.

Find the place where it sits heaviest.

Now, if you can,

feel one thing that is simply warm.

Your breath moving, the blanket,

your own hands, sunlight, if there is any.

Hold both at once.

The heaviness and the warmth.

They can share the same body.

Most mornings, they do.

If holding both is too much today,

let the practice be just the breathing.

That's enough.

And you can come back to the rest another time.

Marcus

wrote that the mind, when it is free from disturbance, is a fortress, a place a person can retreat to and be untroubled.

That has been called the inner citadel.

Though that's the modern phrase for it, not his own.

He did not mean a place where nothing hurts.

He meant the part of you that keeps making choices even while it hurts.