"Stoicism is about learning to understand and control our emotions, rather than simply stifling them. It is about learning to feel in control again, when our negative emotions seem to overpower us. For example, I didn’t choose to have a panic attack at that party, it just happened, making me feel helpless.
Stoics try to show how these negative emotions are actually in our control. They don’t just ‘happen’ as responses to external events. Instead, they arise out of our interpretation of external events. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus put it, ‘it’s not events, but our interpretation of them, which cause us suffering’". Stoicism, the original cognitive therapy — Philosophy for Life
