Stoic Attention Practice: Return Before The Noise

It's free and you can start at stoicchallenge.co. Before you pick up your phone, before the first message, the first headline, the first demand on your attention, a few minutes before any of that, these are precious moments that belong to you, okay? So sit however you like, eyes closed or open, resting on one spot on the floor or in a chair and take three slow breaths to arrive.

In and out, in and out, in and out.

The Stoics had a word for this, prozoche or attention.

It was not a technique that they did for 10 minutes and then forgot about.

It was very important, a key part of Stoic practice, a continuous watchfulness over where your mind has gone and a continuous bringing of it back.

Marcus had a few words that he used to remind himself of the importance of prozoche.

"Confine yourself to the present," he said, "not because the future does not matter, but because the present is the only place where you have any power.

Everything you can actually do can only ever be done here." So I'm not asking you to just relax.

I'm asking you right now to train.

You're going to be practicing in a form of mental training.

You're going to be practicing the return.

Start with sound.

Listen to whatever is around you.

Traffic, a boiler, birds, someone moving in another room, the hum of electronics, your own breathing.

You don't need to name them or judge them.

Just let them arrive and go.

Now the body.

Feel the weight of yourself pressing down, the temperature of the air on your hands and face, the pressure where your body meets the chair on the floor.

Nothing to change, just contact.

Now the breath, the cool air coming in, the slight warmth going out, the small pause at the top and the bottom.

You are not breathing deliberately.

You are just noticing something that was happening anyway.

Your mind will leave.

It probably already has more than once.

That's fine.