#406 - Dyeing the Soul: How Repeated Thoughts Shape Your Identity

0:00Choose the lens because that's what we're talking about here. How do you choose the lens that you're looking at certain things with so that it can shape who you are so that you can choose the color you dye your soul in? The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts, Marcus Aurelius' meditations, a very famous popular quote, and one that gave me pause for quite some time. But what is Marcus saying here? Yes,

1:00Marcus and I are on a first name basis. Marcus Aurelius is saying something very psychologically profound here. Your repeated thoughts shape your character. Not your occasional thoughts, not the intrusive ones, not the ones that pry them their way into your head, not the fleeting emotions you have, the impulses. No, it's the ones that you rehearse, the ones that you practice. Just like cloth that's dropped repeatedly into dye, that slowly takes on its color. Your inner world, your psychology, your whole how you think and perceive the world, it gradually takes on the tone of whatever it is you dwell on. This is a very, very powerful idea and I'm going to present you an analogy here

2:05on how to understand this from none other than physiology. If you've ever heard of cupping, cupping is a technique in which they take a, sometimes it's an actual cup, now they have silicone cups, but they put it on your arm or your body and they suck the air out of it somehow and it sucks your skin and it creates these dark round circles on your body. And they're using physiotherapy in massage therapy to bring out blood essentially that's blood and toxins that are deep and haven't had any circulation in a while. And so here's what happens. Some muscles in your body, if you neglect them, if you don't give them circulation through exercise or movement, what happens is the muscle collects toxins and it collects blood, like the blood just doesn't move. Imagine a highway where you cut off the road like nobody can get in and around and so there's no

3:10back and forth on the highway. The same thing happens with your muscles. If you don't use them, there's no circulation in there and then well, let's be honest, it's just a bunch of junk that collects and collects in your muscle. And so what cupping does is cupping pulls that toxin out and then hopefully if you drink enough water and you move after that, it circulates throughout the system. So it's a way of hauling out the junk and your mind works the same way. A muscle that is not used, that doesn't have circulation, becomes neglected and it gathers toxins. It goes away, it gets smaller. A muscle that you pump blood into, that you stress, that you resist, those muscles grow stronger, they have good circulation and the muscles are healthy. In the same way, your mind, your thoughts, the ones that you give blood to, the ones that you exercise, the ones that you practice, the ones that you circulate, those are the thoughts

4:13that become strong. And so let's get down to a concrete example here. Let's say you are someone who struggles with self-worth and it could be for many different reasons. You have to figure out what it is actually that you struggle with. But let's say it's something like you don't like the size or the shape of your nose. If that is in your psychology, if you are practicing that thought every day, several times a day, 20 times a day, the thought that goes through your head is, I have a big nose, this person is staring at my nose, oh my god, I'm so ugly, god, I don't like this nose, you will become someone who is very insecure. And all that is, all that is is practice, you're circulating that thought, you're exercising that thought. And you can actually change that, that's a very powerful thing about this, you can change it, you can think something differently,

5:16you can think, well, it's just a nose, whatever, who cares? Now that person might be looking at me, but they're probably not, it's just in my head, or you could even think, well, who cares if they stare at me, it doesn't really matter, my character is what matters, my nose is not. And so you can rewire your brain to think better thoughts. And so when we say the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts, the soul here to the stoic is your character, it's a very physical thing, it's who you are, it's your habits, your character, your integrity, all of that. Hey there, let me thank you for being a listener to this ad-free podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, there are a few things you can do to help me out, a five-star review on Spotify or wherever you're listening to this really does help and it's free, you can also sign up for my substack newsletter or Patreon. Substack free gets each episode,

6:23email to you along with the transcripts in the form of an article, you'll also get access to my live talks, followed by a Q&A afterward. Substack premium supporters and my patrons on Patreon get access to the recordings and a brief article of those Q&A sessions, access to full episodes of the paradoxically speaking podcast, my steps to success, interview series, stoic meditations, and much more. Links to substack and Patreon can be found in the show notes. And so the purity of your soul is directly related to the quality of your thoughts. So if you continuously think poor things about yourself, low and behold, you will have a terrible self-esteem. Your soul will become dyed with those colors, period. If you dwell on resentment, your disposition heartens, if you dwell on fear, your baseline becomes anxiety. But what if you dwell on gratitude,

7:27your temperament softens? What if you dwell on duty, your identity strengthens? The mind doesn't stay neutral. Your mind absorbs. And we think sometimes that thoughts come and go and we have no control over them. And we don't have control over intrusive thoughts and impulses. But we do have control over what we rehearse, what we practice, what we think about consciously. And this is why discipline matters. This connects directly to stoic practice. Guard your impressions, question your interpretations, reframe adversity. In other words, choose the lens because that's what we're talking about here. How do you choose the lens that you're looking at certain things with so that it can shape who you are so that you can choose the color you dye your soul in? You don't control events, but you do control the dye that you are putting on your soul.

8:34And like every other idea in stoicism, this idea applies to modern inputs too. Mark is a realist. He didn't have social media. He didn't have 24, 7 outrage cycles. He didn't have algorithmic negativity. He didn't have doom scrolling. He didn't have to worry about any of those things. But if he did, he would have said, be careful what you repeatedly expose your soul to. Oh, I love that. Be careful what you repeatedly expose your soul to. Given how intentional the stoic aims to be about exercise, physical training, taking care of yourself, your morning routine, your leadership as a leader in an organization or a leader at home or everyone's a leader. We've spent some time talking about that. Ask yourself like what color are you intentionally dying your mind with right now?

9:36Discipline, resentment, expansion, gratitude, ambition, bitterness? Because it will show. It will show up in how you lead, how you love, how you sleep, and ultimately who you become. And so be careful. Guard your thoughts. Don't let your thoughts run wild. Yes, they will come. Poor thoughts will come. Bad quality ones. Colors that you don't want on your soul. They will come. But you can choose which thoughts follow that. You can choose your conscious thinking. That is where you have control. And that is where you can move your character forward by controlling not just the external narrative that you act out in real life. But your internal narrative because of your internal narrative is ultimately what shapes your external narrative. And so in some, your character is how you act. Yes. But how you act is a direct

10:44result of how you think. And so make sure you are thinking appropriately.