Step Four — The Senecan Way
I examine my thoughts, motives, and actions with radical honesty — without condemnation. Call it Self-examination, not self-loathing.
He said, “I examine my entire day and go back over what I have done and said. I hide nothing from myself. I pass over nothing.”
This is what I continue to learn as I journal my thoughts each morning and evening: self-examination and a daily inventory of events. To Seneca, this was not self-criticism — it was how he governed himself. He didn’t ask us to flog ourselves with whips like the 13th-century Flagellants, but to track our missteps like footprints in the snow, so that tomorrow we step more carefully and do not slip on the packed ice of lessons unlearned.
I have a scar on the back of my head from just such a non-lesson. Marble coffee tables make for poor cushions the same way martinis make for steady two-stepping at Christmas parties.
Self-examination is not self-loathing; it is the discipline of clarity. I forgave myself.
When we honestly stare at our thoughts and motives, we do not weaken—we become like tempered steel, strengthened by our resolve. A person who refuses to look inward becomes a stranger to themselves, ruled by habits they neither see nor realize. I couldn’t handle my boozy things, so I finally laid them down.
But doesn’t the one who observes their impulses with courage gain power over them? I think so.
Seneca warned that the most incredible cruelty is not to others, but to ourselves, when we refuse to tell the truth in silence. For me, my journal became my courtroom, and it still is. My conscience became my judge and jury — and sometimes my witness for mercy.
The Stoic does not say, “I am worthless.”
The Stoic says, “Let me understand why I did what I did so I can become better.”
Self-examination and mindfulness are for heroes. Leave the whips to the masochists — they’re just weird.
Meditation — Step Four
Tonight, I will face myself without fear.
I will not blame — I will observe.
I will not hide — I will illuminate.
Joseph LeSanche is a survivor, writer, and student of Stoic philosophy — seeking meaning, one lucid moment at a time.