Stoic Mindfulness and resilience training

Hey gals and guys,

I'm what I'd classify as an off and on practicioner of Stoicism. The definition of what constitutes Stoicism can vary wildly depending upon your specific philosophical inclination. Myself, I tend to follow the basics of Stoicism without the allegiance or loyalty to any particular branch of it. Believe me when I say, there are some within the folds of Stoicism who are quite fanatic to their chosen teacher.

I pick and choose what I like and what I think fits my circumstances the best.

The strongest thing I've gotten from being a Stoic is resillience. The ability to bend without breaking has held me in good stead in a number of bad situations. SO many times in my life, I've found myself feeling like just one more thing will completely break me. Sometimes they have, but then again, sometimes they haven't. Being resillient isn't about being a dam to hold back the waters of a river. It's more like a blade of grass that bends when the wind blows.

A specific example of this for me was recently a number of scheduling changes at work. They packed in a dozen or more extra classes to my weekly schedule for three weeks in a row. By focusing on what I could control, which was my response to this, and refusing to get caught up in my anger at the situation, I was able to power through the three weeks without breaking. Teaching 12 extra classes a week on my already busy schedule isn't something I want to do, it devalues the currency so to speak, it lowers the overall quality of the classes.

Rather than breaking entirely, I bent a little and accepted that with a few small changes to my teaching style and my routines, I could make it through the 3 week period without having to sacrifice too much quality. Sure I wasn't as up to par as I usually was, but it was far better than I expected. Controlling what is mine to control and focusing on those things got me through that time period.

So what's the point of all this?

The pdf I will link at the bottom here describes a training course that encourages people to build that resilliencey within themselves. If you are interested, as I know I am, we could do this as a group activity together here on the forums. I'm not proposing we replicate this course in entirity. I don't think its possible to do so as my level of Stoic education isn't quite at the level of the people who put this together. I do think though we can come up something for a 7 cups style group effort that might be beneficial for those who embrace it.

http://donaldrobertson.name/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/stoic-week-2015-handbook-stoicism-today.pdf

Lemme know here in this thread and we'll get organized on how to proceed. I have some general ideas but would prefer input from other participants.