33 How to Maintain inner peace whilst Striving for Success | Philosophy and Literature - Female Empowerment - Bluestocking Society -Women's intellectual history

Welcome to the Female Stoic podcast.My name is Stephanie Poppins and I am an advocate for literary empowerment.That means I believe the example set by the literary masters can broaden life perspective, create increased self-awareness, and empower us to overcome the obstacles we encounter here in the 21st century.

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By listening and referring what we hear to Stoic philosophy, we can foster a strong sense of self and navigate the world more effectively.This podcast takes the form of both discussions and meditations, and if you like what you hear, you might consider looking me up on my socials where I post empowering videos every day.

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Or you may like my classic audiobooks and original stories available on my website, newworldbooks.uk.Happy listening.

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Welcome to another episode of the Female Stoic Podcast.Today we are looking at how to protect our inner peace when striving for success, which is quite fitting as the Female Stoic Podcast is featured on BBC Radio leads this week.

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So if you've received my newsletter, you'll be able to listen to that interview.And what better a group to refer the topic of success to than our ladies and a few gents.

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The Blue Stocking Society, who championed female success and endeavour in an intellectual and literary capacity in the 18th century at a time when socially acceptable pursuits for women were heavily focused on domestic management, moral development and accomplishments designed to make them suitable for marriage.

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Needlework, music, drawing, reading, making and receiving morning calls, social gatherings, dinners, tea parties, etcetera, contributing to charity work and household management.These societal expectations are beautifully depicted, albeit satirically, in the work of Jane Austen.

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Check out, of course, my many audiobooks and tracks on Insight Timer or wherever you listen to audiobooks.And if you don't know much about the Blue Stocking Group, take a listen to my previous episodes where we look at the members and how their legacy has been contributing to female enlightenment ever since.

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So let's go to this week's question.This was sent into the podcast anonymously.The questioner asks how can I protect my inner peace when I'm striving for success continually?

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I'm goal driven and I've achieved relative success so far, but at times I feel this overwhelming sense of defeat when plans don't go my way and I suffer setbacks.I've never been good with rejection, and the older I get, the harder it hits.

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Thank you, questioner, for sending that in.So as you know, in every episode of the Female Stoic Podcast, we refer to one particular novel, and today we will be looking at the Discourses by epicteters.

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Why?Because this was translated by Elizabeth Carter in 1752 and Elizabeth Carter was a prominent member of the Blue Stocking Group.In the year 1749, she began translating all the works of Epictetus.

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She finished the Discourses in 1752.She added the Anchoridian and the fragments with an introduction and notes.And obviously this is a massive achievement of which we refer to regularly in the Female Stoic podcast.

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Epictetus, as you know, was a Greek philosopher born into slavery who later taught in Rome, who emphasized that the Stoic philosophy is a practical way of life.And he introduced this idea known as the dichotomy of control, which is the focus on distinguishing between what is in our control and what is not.

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The reason I'm referring to this is because the questioner is asking about her focus, where she should place it, and why she remains ill at ease even though she appears to be very focused.

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So despite experiencing severe hardship and physical disability himself, Epictetus maintained 1's inner character remains free even if the body's enslaved or broken.That includes mentally.He himself lived a life of extreme simplicity and embodied this idea that our true freedom is internal.

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He emphasised that true happiness comes from focusing on our own actions rather than external events.How is this relevant?Because the goal in the questioners case is actually, even though it's set by herself, an external event.

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Epic teachers viewed life as a process of continuous daily improvement rather than a race to the final destination.And this is the point here.So he's quoted as saying, devote the rest of your life to making progress.

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He is not saying devote the rest of your life to achieving that goal.He is also quoted as saying make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.Epic teachers advised aligning your desires with reality, suggesting to us that life becomes smoother when we accept events as they unfold, rather than demanding they fit our design.

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For when you have subjected to externals what is your own, Then be a slave and do not resist.And do not sometimes choose to be a slave, and sometimes not choose, but with all your mind be one or the other.

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This is a quote of his from Discourses.So let's have a look at Elizabeth Carter, the woman who translated the Discourses into the English language.As in all the blue stockings, she had goals, she had external focuses, but she understood that her endeavour was a daily one, and that was what she must put her energy into.

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She must also work with what she had, the constraints of the social environment she was within, not the one that she wished for.As a result of this, she adopted the title missus even though she was a single woman.

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Elizabeth Vasey, another blue stocking, married twice.Even though it was considered an amicable but not passionate match.It was based on mutual respect rather than love, and when her husband died she maintained the extensive fortune and estates herself until her death.

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She became a prominent wealthy socialite and literary patron.She used her status in order to fund her daily endeavours.So the Blue Stockings, a term for pioneering highly educated women, 18th century intellectual salons.

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They built, they created and so funded the first female university students in the 19th century.This was a radical approach.It rejected gender limitations in favour of intellectual rigour, education and collective action.

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So there's an understanding here that women had the same capacity for intellectual thought as men, but also an understanding that they were restricted in various avenues.So they were to align themselves with various prominent men in order to achieve connections with the publishing houses and the avenues which fed and nurtured their 'cause they weren't negating the situation they were in, they were acknowledging it and working within that.

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This group was an ongoing intellectual endeavour.They focused on what they had and what was possible within the limitations of the time.Now I argue that by committing their lives to daily endeavour, they laid the solid foundations for those in the future with bigger ambitions than themselves.

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And that's all any of us can do.Work with what we have available to us at the time, that which is in our circle of control.Rather than place our soul worth on a goal that may or may not come to fruition.

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We as Stoics understand this daily endeavour, this commitment, this discipline makes this more likely.But we are focused on the daily endeavour itself rather than the goal.I argue if an 18th century woman had placed her worth on whether or not one day she would have equal rights to her male counterparts, she may well have felt discouraged, for this would be placing her value in the hands of those outside of her circle of control.

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I also argue by Elizabeth Montague's facilitation of spaces conducive to intellectual discussion for both sexes.She enabled this daily, weekly growth of something spectacular.So her focus here being on the communication, the learning, the growing, rather than the end goal.

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If her end goal had been to create equality, it might have been so far beyond her reach.Instead, she was focused on what she could do with what she had available to her in order to daily honour her virtue, her mission, her story.

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And today's message is very much that.Rather than focusing on something beyond what we have the power every day to feel, touch, taste, we are focusing on what we are doing today.

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To go back to the question, how can I protect my inner peace when striving for success?I'm goal driven.I've achieved relative success so far, but at times I feel an overwhelming sense of defeat when plans don't go my way and I suffer setbacks.

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I've never been good with rejection and the older I get, the harder it hits.So the questioner is placing her sense of worth on an external force, an end goal.She admits that she's goal driven.

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She acknowledges she's achieved relative success, she says.But she says she feels an overwhelming sense of defeat when her plans don't go according to her expectations.When she suffers setbacks, it flaws her.

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So I'm assuming here the setbacks are rejections along the way and the message here, looking at the blue stockings and what they achieved, is to focus on the journey itself.They provided a space to showcase women's wit, intelligence and intellectual worth.

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Their goal was achievable with what they had available to them at that time and they worked on making financially speaking and the connections that they had with each other, their social circles, they worked on building a space in order to achieve that at that time.

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If we're focusing on the goal, the message here is we are focusing on that which is beyond our circle of control.And as we know with a dichotomy of control, everything inside our circle of control is our reactions to external forces and the protection of our virtue.

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And that's it, which isn't doesn't seem like very much.And the power is to acknowledge that.The strength is when we acknowledge that there is so much beyond our circle of control, including goals.

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Now, that's not to say we don't set the goal.We do.But it's very easy to fall into the trap of becoming blinded by that goal, to become absorbed in the success that we believe that goal will afford us.

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To be absorbed in the happiness we believe we will achieve when realising that goal.And of course, it's all about the journey, right?

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If I just achieve that goal, the questioner is saying, then my life is a success.And what I'm saying is, well, consider this.When you achieve that goal and you wake up the next day, there'll be another goal and another and another.

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So it's up to us to say to ourselves, are these goals within my circle of control?And as we know now, they are not.Stoics focus their energy not on winning, but on making the right choices.

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Along the way they put aside frustrations about not achieving goals and they understand that their energy must go into anything they do have control over.Thinking this way increases the chances of achieving their goal.

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That is the paradox.So what I'm saying is for us to place our focus on our internal state of mind instead of the final outcome.Winning, achieving that goal is not within our control, but being prepared is.

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And that's the key here.We don't control the failures, the challenges, the rejections along the way.It's not possible.So we don't worry about those.

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We understand that's an inevitable part of the journey.The Stoic analogy of an Archer possessed by the goal who knows neither peace nor resignation is applicable here.

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We compare this to the Archer who lets go of the target and finds peace in the execution itself.Once the Archer has let go of that arrow, it's up to external forces whether it hits the target or not.

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He can be prepared.He can be as prepared as it's possible to be, and that is all that is within his circle of control.And it's the same with the pursuit of happiness.

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This can make us unhappy because we're always looking for the next win.It never stops.So what we are aiming for as Stoics is a state of being where we have a Peace of Mind no matter the outcome.Referring back to the blue stockings, they created a space in which they felt recognised, empowered and committed to intellectual endeavour, to growing collectively.

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It was an ongoing process, it was a journey.If their goal had been something beyond this, something that was so far removed from anything that they may possibly have achieved in their lifetime, for example, the equality we experience today compared to the 18th century, they would have just set themselves up for misery.

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Pursuing happiness and pursuing that next goal is only going to create misery.So.The key here is to focus on the process, to focus on your daily commitment, your daily discipline, and there's a freedom in that, the questioner says.

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The older they get, the harder it is to cope with challenges, to cope with rejection.When we are focused on our process, we understand there will be rejection, but that's not going to change in any way.

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Our daily endeavour, our focus, is all about the feeling we have when we commit to our virtue, when we commit to our process, that therein lies the joy, and the Stoics believe we are most likely to find fulfilment within ourselves.

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For that reason, when we are independent of external outcomes, we can achieve a sense of personal fulfilment which would help in the question state of mind.As Zeno says, the founder of Stoicism, a good flow of life with virtue is the key.

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This is an independent form of happiness.It's independent of other people's states of mind.It's independent of what we have, anything beyond what we can commit to.Every day we commit to improving, doing the right thing, learning.

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And by way of all this, we are finding an inner calm which goes much further than achieving goals, riches or status.We are setting the right direction regardless of the destination.

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We are establishing our path daily.We are setting our intention.And in life this means looking beyond our goals.Setting the goal is easy, but to keep going in the right direction is a lot harder.

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And yet this is where our true peace lies now.The blue stockings, I argue, must have understood by attending meetings, discussing and networking, they were growing something beyond themselves or their personal goals.

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They understood they were setting the foundation for something bigger, and yet they were happy to be creating something they could exist comfortably in at that time, whilst maintaining their virtue and aligning with their true purpose.

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And as a product of this, the English speaking world had access to the works of epicteters as well as many significant women's literary works by Sarah Scott, Elizabeth Carter, Hannah Moore, Hester Chapone, Elizabeth Montague, Catherine McCauley, Fanny Burnie, Hester Piazzi, Catherine Talbot, to name but some.

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Before there was practically nothing.So that in itself is in a major achievement.There might, it may have been argued, a much goal, bigger goal at play, but this combination of continued efforts made for a much stronger foundation.

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And that's my point.Epictetus use the metaphor of a banquet to explain accepting what is offered in life without desiring more or feeling the loss of it.

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Remember, he said, you must behave in life as at a dinner party.Is anything brought around to you?Put out your hand and take your share with moderation.Does it pass you by?

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Don't stop it, it is not yet come.Don't stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you.Do this with regard to your spouse, children, public posts, riches and eventually you will be a worthy partner of the feasts of the gods.

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And if you don't even take the things which are set before you, but are able even to reject them, then you will not only be a partner at the feast of the Gods, but also of their empire, which of course is talking about voluntary hardship at the end there.

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This was a quote from Epic Teeters and I'm going to throw in a more modern day quote, although it is by the late great Napoleon Hill who said if you must be a bookkeeper, at least keep both sides of the Ledger.

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I love that quote and we're going to use that in our journal task today.As you know, each week we do a journal task and today we are going to redress the balance.So where subconsciously our bias is saying right, we should focus on what we haven't achieved yet, on which goals we have and where we want to get to.

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Today's journal task is saying, let's keep both sides of the Ledger.Let's list our achievements.Instead, we are seeking today to address the balance over the course of the following week.

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I would like you to visit your journal and list your wins.Look at how far you've come.It's important here to understand the law that governs all worthy achievement, the law of accumulation.

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Nothing great appears at once.Strength is built repetition by repetition, as seen with the blue stockings.Influence is built conversation by conversation.Connection by connection does not all happen at once.

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The commitment to that endeavour is enough.The fear of not making it, of not achieving your goal, feeds on the illusion that results should be immediate.But of course, they cannot be immediate.

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It's like planting a seed in the morning and cursing the ground by the evening because there's no tree yet we have to water it daily.Every day of right action counts, even when it's invisible.

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We are seeking to train ourselves to enjoy the journey that is within our circle of control.We are measuring our success by our faithfulness to the process, not the achievement of the end goal.

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So today, ask yourself, did I act in harmony with my plan?Did I keep my word to myself?If the answer is yes, you advanced.You were successful and just to conclude, in the meditation app Insight Timer, I will be producing short daily journaling tasks, free 5 minute videos that you can check into for empowering stoic journaling.

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Check insurance everyday and I shall see you same time next week.Bye.Hey Stephanie here, thank you for listening to the Female Stoic podcast.

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It is an honour and I just want to say I really appreciate you being here.It's amazing the power of women in literature and the stoic messages they have to share.Please, if you can, return the favour by spreading their words and sharing this podcast far and wide so more of us can benefit from their wisdom.

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And don't forget to leave a review if you like what you heard.See you next time.