Stoic Emotional Intelligence

The Stoic approach to emotions is frequently mischaracterized as suppression. The Stoics did not advocate feeling nothing. They distinguished between first movements (automatic emotional responses) and second movements (the judgments that sustain emotions).

You cannot control the initial flash of anger when someone insults you. That is a first movement — a biological reflex. But the sustained anger that follows — the rumination, the desire for revenge — requires your continued judgment that the insult matters. That judgment is within your control.