This video is part 3 of a 6-part series on how to love yourself.

This video looks at the causes of stress, using metaphors like the Stoic dog tied to a cart, and the pointlessness of thrashing around when you’re tied to a chair.

Stress results from trying to exceed one’s capabilities or trying to control the uncontrollable, leading to exhaustion and bingeing on coping mechanisms that exacerbate stress, such as substance abuse or overworking.

We’ll explore the role that unprocessed anxiety and unrealistic expectations have on increasing stress, and the impact of societal pressures and comparisons with others.

We explore the importance of accepting life’s challenges and dealing with them healthily.

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Understanding Stress and How to Handle It: A Stoic Perspective

Stress is something we all deal with, and for most of us, it feels like it’s always just a little bit out of control. But have you ever stopped to think about why we get stressed? It’s not always just about the situation at hand; often, it’s how we react to those situations that cause the most pain. Today, I want to explore the root causes of stress, why we often make it worse, and how we can change our approach to live a more peaceful, productive life.

The Cart and the Dog: A Stoic Metaphor for Stress

Imagine an old-fashioned chariot, rolling slowly down a hill. Tied to the cart is a dog with a rope around its neck. The dog has three choices:

1. Struggle against the rope, trying to run in a direction that’s impossible to go.
2. Lie down and get dragged behind the cart, giving up and accepting the ride.
3. Run alongside the cart, within the limits of the rope, making the most of the situation.

This is a powerful metaphor from Stoicism, which teaches us about fate. Life can feel like this cart—heavy, unmovable, and indifferent. The stress comes when we try to fight against what we can’t change, like the dog pulling against the cart. We end up either suffering by resisting, or giving up entirely and getting dragged through life. On the other hand, happiness comes when we accept the limits of our situation and make the most of what we can control.

The Thrashing Chair: Another Way to Understand Stress

To dig deeper into this idea, let’s think about a simpler metaphor: being stuck in a chair. Imagine being duct-taped to a chair. You could thrash around, trying to escape, but that won’t get you any closer to freedom. In fact, all it does is hurt you more. On the other hand, if you accept that you’re in the chair and sit still, the discomfort diminishes. You’ve accepted the situation as it is.

Stress works the same way. When you resist or struggle against something that’s beyond your control, you only increase your pain. But when you accept what you can’t change and work within those boundaries, the experience becomes more manageable.

Stress Isn’t About Pushing Yourself Too Hard

There’s a common misconception that pushing ourselves beyond our limits is a healthy way to deal with stress. But stress is not about pushing yourself to do more than you’re capable of. Let’s say you’re at the gym, doing push-ups. You might feel like you could push yourself for one more rep. If you do it, and you succeed, you’ve grown. But if you try to do that last push-up and can’t even get off the ground, you’re not just failing—you’re stressing yourself out.

This is the danger of striving for perfection or constantly pushing yourself to exceed your capabilities. Stress happens when you demand more from yourself than you can deliver, and then you beat yourself up for not meeting those expectations. Over time, this leads to burnout, discouragement, and eventually, giving up altogether.

Coping Mechanisms: How We Make Stress Worse

When we’re stressed, we often turn to coping mechanisms to help us feel better. These can range from sugar binges and endless scrolling on social media to more harmful habits like alcohol, gambling, or workaholism. These behaviors provide temporary relief, but in reality, they only elevate our stress in the long term.

Let’s take smoking as an example. You smoke a cigarette to calm down, thinking it’ll relieve stress. But in reality, you’ve just increased your baseline level of stress. You’re not calming down; you’re setting yourself up for more cravings and more stress in the future. The temporary relief you feel actually fuels the cycle of stress.

This is where we start to see a vicious cycle. Stress leads to unhealthy coping behaviors, which in turn cause even more stress, making it harder to break the cycle.

Anxiety and Stress: The Fear of the Uncontrollable

Anxiety is another big contributor to stress. Anxiety is when you fear something that either doesn’t exist or is completely out of your control. In trying to protect yourself from a threat you can’t control, you end up creating unnecessary stress in your mind. It’s like trying to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist, or obsessing over something that might never happen.

Often, anxiety leads to a pattern of “always setting the bar higher.” We create unrealistic expectations for ourselves—setting goals that are too ambitious or expecting to be perfect. When we inevitably fall short, we feel like failures. We reset the goalposts, making it even harder to reach success. Over time, this pattern of constantly falling short builds chronic stress.

The External and Internal Causes of Stress

Stress isn’t just about internal struggles; it’s also influenced by external factors. Life is full of randomness, and sometimes things go wrong for no reason at all. Bad luck stacks up, and before you know it, you’re overwhelmed by a series of problems. But the real stress often comes from how we respond to those situations.

For example, when something goes wrong, our immediate response might be to react urgently or emotionally. This often creates new problems for ourselves, compounding the stress. We then cope with those new problems in unhealthy ways, and the cycle continues.

Many people, especially those dealing with depression, feel as though life is just beating them down. But more often than not, it’s not the circumstances that cause the stress, but rather how we react to those circumstances. By reacting poorly, we add to the challenges we’re already facing.

The Dangers of Negative Narratives

A lot of stress comes from how we tell the story of our lives. If we always view ourselves as victims of bad luck, we’re likely to spiral into negativity. For instance, when people in Western countries complain about minor inconveniences, it’s hard not to feel a little perspective shift when you think about the much worse circumstances many people around the world face. In some parts of the world, people are living through horrors we can’t imagine.

This perspective shift doesn’t mean we should invalidate our own struggles—it just means we need to reframe our problems. If we constantly paint our lives as disastrous, it will always feel like we’re failing. Instead, we could focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t.

Comparison: The Silent Stressor

Another major cause of stress is comparison. Whether it’s comparing ourselves to others or to our younger selves, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing we’re not doing enough or that others are doing better. We rarely compare ourselves to those who are struggling more than we are, and this creates a distorted view of our own success.

Even comparing ourselves to a past version of who we were can lead to stress. We often cherry-pick moments from our past when we were more energetic or productive, and we expect to live up to that version of ourselves. But we forget that we’re always evolving. The person we were years ago is not the person we are today, and we need to allow ourselves to grow without the pressure of unrealistic expectations.

Breaking the Cycle of Stress

So, how do we break this cycle? It starts with being kinder to ourselves. Stop holding yourself to impossible standards. Accept that life will always have its ups and downs, and that you can’t control everything. Practice self-compassion and understand that failure is part of growth, not a reason to punish yourself.

Most importantly, stop using stress as a motivator. You don’t need to push yourself to the brink of exhaustion to succeed. Instead, focus on progress, not perfection, and take time to enjoy the journey rather than struggling against it.

In conclusion, stress is often the result of fighting against things we can’t control or holding ourselves to standards that are impossible to meet. By understanding the causes of stress and adopting healthier ways to deal with it, we can reduce its impact on our lives and live with more peace and clarity. So the next time life feels like a heavy cart rolling down a hill, remember that you can either fight it or run alongside it—your choice.

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Thanks for reading

Hope to speak to you soon

Dan Munro