From Crisis to Stoic Clarity with Benny Voncken & Manon on The Healers Café

mentally, kind of depressed, and I looked at the mirrors like, this is not this is not going to be me. This is, I’ve got to make some changes, and I’ve got to be I saw a set some rules for myself, not just like to try and live healthy physically, but, you know, with food, but also mentally. And that’s when I started taking those steps and and one of you know, as I started looking into philosophy, it really helped me to com, compartmentalize the things that are happening to me and how I reacted to it. And one of the major steps was it that I stopped looking at myself as a victim and saying, like, Okay, I have agency here. I can actually improve my life from this if I use it the right way.

Manon Bolliger  04:57

Okay, so that would be one of the 10. Tenants of the philosophy is that you have agency, yeah?

Benny Voncken  05:05

And that’s, and that’s a really nice thing to see once you realize that, that you actually can, can do something in the with the world, right?

Manon Bolliger  05:13

Like, a bit like, it’s not happening to me, it’s happening for me, yeah, which we can look at later, usually not in the moment. It’s like, no way. Okay, so, so what other tenants of stoicism Did you relate to? So that was one of them. What’s another example of

Benny Voncken  05:40

what so a big, so a big one is the dichotomy of control. This is what usually people like, when they start, like, start to talk about stoic philosophies, like, Okay, what’s about? And it’s mainly, mainly to start about what’s in your control and what isn’t. And again, that was something really important, that instead of looking outward and trying to change what was happening to me, I really had to learn to accept it. So there’s this kind of like radical acceptance. But Nietzsche coined a new phrase that the Stoics, the modern Stoics, have used. It’s called amarfati, to really learn to love and embrace your faith. And even someone like Seneca, one of the most famous stoic writers that at least the texts have survived from a Roman stoic, he said, you know, you’re unfortunate if you never been unfortunate, because you’ve never had the opportunity to show yourself and the rest of the world what you’re capable of. And those kind of things they showed me, okay, I can, I can do this, but let me focus on what I need to control. And one of the things, for example, was dealing with criticism and dealing with how other people look at me, and realizing that that’s just their words, that’s just their opinions, and I can make it affect me if I choose to, or I can say, let’s see what’s what? Is there any truth behind it? Let’s see if there’s actually something that can help me. And if not, then I should just learn to let it go. It’s again. You know, it’s easier to explain this, but doing it is difficult. It takes practice, but I’ve seen throughout the years, like my anxiety levels and my worries have really diminished, have really reduced a lot just by practicing it and just trying to apply it on a

Manon Bolliger  07:10

daily basis. So it’s like taking ownership of what is yours and not what isn’t. You know so, and I think, you know, a lot of people have this issue of not liking what’s going on, right? And then it’s like, well, what of what’s not going on? Do you have direct access and control? And if you don’t, then what can you do about your relationship to it? Right? Yeah, you know, I think, I think that’s a, it’s a, it’s a very big turning point for a lot of people when they they work. So for you, it was like, what people think of you, which is a common one, right? It’s like, Are you the tinfoil Hatter? Are you the oddball? Are you you know, whatever, whatever, like, you know, but you’re gonna, you’re gonna make different decisions because they are coming. They’re, they’re really about you and those you control, right?

Benny Voncken  08:11

Yeah, and that’s one of the key points in stoic philosophy and some kind of, you know, there’s a lot of misconceptions about it. And the modern view, you have this broicism, especially in the manosphere, where it just means like to man up and have that stiff upper lip, right? The stoics really had like, the goal of this of a stoic life is called eudaimonia, and I roughly translate it as the good spirit state. So they really focusing on preserving your character and your soul in the best possible way. That’s really what the stoics are after, and they do that by, you know, being virtuous. They say virtue is the only good and to live in accordance with nature by using your reason and logic. That’s kind of like stoicism, in a nutshell. But oftentimes people forget about that goal, that it’s like, oh, you need to be emotionless. You need to not have all these things affect you, but it’s really about things happen to you, and how can you then act in the best morally right way to preserve your character? And that’s really what it’s about, to make sure that when you die, like they say, to give your character in the best possible way back to the to the logos, to the universe. So it kind of resembles a little bit to like Buddhism, but more like in a pragmatic, pragmatic, down to earth way, at least, that’s how I view it.

Manon Bolliger  09:27

Now, that’s interesting. I had not seen it that way. And yes, the bias of stoic has that idea that you’re not going to deal with emotions and you’re going to, you know, do the English thing, put it under the carpet or, you know, and then stand proudly on top of it without noticing what’s happening, right? And I think we have a huge false stoicism as a kind of cultural bias, you know, especially in the male culture. You know, I mean females too, but they tend to eventually talk,

Benny Voncken  10:07

and it’s and it’s interesting, like in my journey, I’ve seen so many more women reach out and talk about it, and also feel like connected with a philosophy like this, and that helped me also kind of reshape my view. And it because, at the beginning, you speak to a lot. It’s mainly male dominated, but more and more women start to identify with with this as well. And it, it’s really refreshing.

Manon Bolliger  10:30

So, so, so there’s, I’m just trying to really get a handle of the third component. Okay, so the third component of this is when you use the word virtue, it’s more like your value system. It’s like how it’s not about virtuous it’s really about knowing what you stand for, being clear about your right and wrong or, or is it God’s right and wrong? Like, how far does it go into your, your inner work and your and your relationship to some people’s relationship to society?

Benny Voncken  11:18

Yeah, and first, like the stoics are very pro social so one of the key things, and what set them apart from their kind of rivaling philosophical school the Epicureans, was that they said like, you need to be part of society, right? That’s part of your duty, part of your responsibility. And when we translate the word virtue as they used it, it’s more excellence, right? So it’s also your idea of being the best version of yourself. So whenever you need to show up, you need to try to be as good as possible, right? Obviously, again, that’s difficult. But to help, kind of they, they divided the Four Virtues well Plato actually did before the Stoics and Socrates, into wisdom, justice, temperance and courage. To to kind of help you a little bit in that moment, to break it in little parts and see okay, what is you know, the wisdom is like knowing what is good and bad. Justice is understanding what is fair to you, but also to the world around you, temperance, moderation and then courage is knowing what is good and bad and then still doing it, even if it isn’t in your your aligned with your desires or aligned with what you really wanted to do. So that’s where it kind of really helps you in that moment, because again, they’re really focused on the present.

Manon Bolliger  12:32

Well, that’s very interesting. What would you say because you’re counseling other people and organizations? What virtue of the four. Do you feel because one came to me like that’s what’s missing. But you know, I haven’t been in this field as you have. What would you say that there is a core weakness of one of these elements more than others, or they’re all what do you see with people?

Benny Voncken  13:00

Well, for myself, mainly, it was like a temperance, but also knowing what is really good and bad to do in the moment. And when I speak to moments, I think nowadays, Temperance is, you know, living in moderation is very difficult because we’re just bombarded with wanting more and all these, you know, the influences from outside. So it’s very difficult to remain in that kind of balance mode, that’s at least what I see, but then also justice and how to interact with people, and again, as I said before, like not to have things really affect you too much from the outside, but trying to learn and to interact in the right and just way with others. But I think what? And there’s a, there’s a there was a French writer. He’s passed away now, but Pierre ado, he wrote about the three stoic disciplines. And for me, that really captures the practice of stoic philosophy. And then you can see where people kind of struggle. So you have the discipline of desire, the discipline of ascent and the discipline of action. And that, you know, most people struggle with the desire, but ascent is a difficult one to basically that that requires you to find the truth of the impressions that you’re getting. And I think that that’s where kind of people miss now, at the moment, to they are not able to interpret the world in a more objective and unbiased way, and then know, know how what affects them, and then how not to act and how to act with the right information, right?

Manon Bolliger  14:28

No, I that’s very interesting. Yeah, the one that occurred to me is courage, because, you know, you see, it’s almost like we see enough violence that, you know you have somebody in the street getting punched, or, you know, an old little lady in her bag is stolen. And you know, people look and then they look away, rather than run and get that person or grab the child. Aisle that is being taken, or whatever the story that you see, right, like, there’s, there’s this kind of, like, well, what difference can I make? Or, you know, or, Oh, it’s not my job. Or, like, we create all kinds of, you know, ideas, but if we’re truly in society as active beings, then really it should be our, our, our duty, in that sense, to to do something right. But I think that also the reason it’s so weak is is the moral compass is unclear. You know, we like now we’re getting, you know, we’re hearing about the unbelievable sloths of, you know what, all our people in Parliament, and you know, the money laundering, the child trafficking, the, you know, the forest parties. You know it’s like, what the world is going on and and it’s like, I don’t know whether it ends up desensitizing or separating us or, you know, I mean, they will all be arrested. I can only hope otherwise, we don’t have a moral fiber in our society, right? Which we haven’t, because the corruption is so deep, you know? But it’s interesting, right? Because, yeah, we’re not citizens anymore, like we’re not active anymore, in the way that it’s like a show, and now it is a joke, but you know it really, there’s a separation there of your your duty to be your best person,

Benny Voncken  16:52

yeah, and it feels like, you know, we’re intentionally being made, like fearful to live in that way, or, you know, ashamed of, you know, if you make certain choices and and that’s where, as you said, rightly, like Courage is lacking, and not just when you know when something like violence happens, but also in the choices that we make.

Commercial Break  17:09

Your life be like if you were pain free, if you were one of the millions who suffer from chronic pain, the thought of just one day without it may seem impossible. This is often because conventional medicine tends to fall short in the treatment of pain, opting to prescribe pills or recommend surgery rather than getting to the root cause of the problem. But if you are suffering with emotional or physical pain, there is hope. Join the founder and CEO of Bowen college Manon Bolliger, live online for your body mind reboot, learn how to listen to your symptoms and get to the root cause of your pain, plus be trained in basic Bowen therapy moves so that you can reboot your body for optimal health. You don’t have to live in pain, you can heal. Stop the pain pill cycle by visiting www dot your body, mind reboot.com, to learn more and to register.

Benny Voncken  18:18

Sometimes, if I want to have a promotion. And you know, because I feel that that’s what society requires of me to accept a promotion at work, well, I might have to spend far more hours there and lose time with my family or with my loved ones. The courageous thing would have been like, No, I’m fine where I am right now, because I have other priorities. But then you need to know what those priorities are, and and we can, you know, relate stoicism back to Socrates, and Socrates said, like, people don’t do bad things willingly. They do them out of ignorance. So if you see someone do something bad, it’s not because they know that this is bad and they want to do it because everybody does the right thing to themselves, right? They that’s the kind of the oecosis, the self appropriation, where they say people do only good things to themselves. But the problem is that most people don’t know what the right thing to do is. So that’s where we see that, that unbalance. And then when we talk about, you know, people going to prison or not at the end of the day, for a stoic that’s, you know, whether they whether they get a, you know, that kind of punishment, they have corrupted their soul. That’s the worst thing that they could have done, right? So there’s a story from the Epictetus, who was a slave and became Marcus Aurelius, inspiration. There’s some really lovely discourses, and a little like handbook that is there, and he tells about like he a lamp was stolen from him that was outside of the house, and he said that person chose to value that lamp such highly that he was able to turn himself into a thief, a thief, right? That he that he corrupted his character, and the lamp was valuable enough to do so. So, you know, that’s the choices that we need to make. And I think if we start to look at the the one thing that we need to preserve, then we. You are able to make different choices, and that’s how we live, and then we can live a peaceful and calm life, because our conscious and our soul is is at peace, and that’s really what it’s and for me personally, that has shifted, like how I look at the world and how I look at myself pretty drastically as well.

Manon Bolliger  20:19

Yeah, well, I was thinking, you know, I mean, this reminds me so much of the in 2020, 2021, you know, when people so called had the choice. Now in Canada we, you know, choice wasn’t really a thing, because there was a big confusion that mandate is a law, right? But practice is that for people who live, which is still at least 85% of the people live paycheck to paycheck two weeks at a time, it’s not a real choice to choose health over experimentation with health, right? But that’s why you need such a top down. And I don’t mean you need it positively. That’s why it was created to have so much misinformation so that people really didn’t know like it went against another fundamental belief. Well, authority, like our government, wouldn’t lie to us, would they? Right? And it’s like, oh, you know, and oh, they don’t make money, you know, our like our own. Well, I won’t give names so that nothing can happen. But you know, I mean, if you own 40% of every shot of Pfizer, you have a an advantage to getting that out, but you see that lack of transparency and that general belief that people wouldn’t do harm and people In Charge wouldn’t be bad, like all of that really went against the instinctual Well, you know, I’m not in their age group where this is a problem. I’m not whatever, whatever, right. Or they’re my children are not, for sure, not right, you know? And I think it’s so confusing, because you have health which people do stand behind, you know, but so do they authority that they see as benign, which is not, but, you know, it’s very it’s very interesting, right? Like, if you had to make one of those stoic decisions, you’d be in total confusion.

Benny Voncken  22:42

Yeah, and this is one of the things that the Stoics, they talk about, the impressions, right? The desire of assent that I say that you can, you can ascend to impression to say, like, Oh, this is really happening. And then you investigate the best as you’re, you know possible. Or you can reject it, like, this isn’t really happening. And you’ve investigated it, it’s truly not happening. For example, if someone is angry at you, and you see someone is looking at angry, it’s like, oh, this person is angry. Ask him, are you angry? He says, Yes, you know. They say, okay, my impression was right. But they also say that in most cases, we should withhold, you know, our judgment on these things, because simply, we don’t know. And then it’s up to us to try to make the best possible choice that we that we can make and but even when we think about a topic like health, you know, and illness, the Stoics, they say that that’s a preferred indifference, right? They when Zeno, the founder of stoicism, he studied with the cynics, and they said, virtue is the only good. Right, whether you’re ill, whether you have nothing, virtue is the only thing you need to live well, to have a good life, right? To preserve your character, your soul. And Xeno said like, well, I prefer to be healthy, right? But if I’m sick, I can still be a good person. If I’m poor or if I have money. And even Marcus already said, like, you can live well in a in a palace, because he thought, like, it’s more difficult to live well if you have everything right, because then moderation goes out of the door, as many examples, like Nero and Caligula, all those emperors show them. But for them, it’s like you can still live well, then I prefer this. This is like my preferred state, and we’ll work towards being healthy. But if I, for example, with my knee, happened that I, you know, I was in bed for six weeks, and I was, if we have, I could ever walk, you know, some sports I cannot play anymore. And obviously this is not like a life threatening disease, but it still kind of had me adjusting my life in a pretty drastic way. But I reminded like I can still be a good person. You know, this has happened to me. You know, fate is not always online with what we want to happen, but I can still make the best choice. So even when all these external things happen, and that’s where I think we as a society should come together a little bit more, instead of standing up against each other, because that’s often what I felt, is to make the debate. And because there were people, you know, and when we talk about the 2020 and 21 there were people being afraid, and then we make unrational decisions, and we lose that. Discourse with each other, where we can all try to learn. Instead of pointing fingers to each other, we can say, Okay, let’s take a step back here. And let’s just because even you know the people in you know, the medics and the people in government, they had no idea, but they had to make a decision. So I don’t know it is, it is difficult, but what I think is the, you know, the worst thing there and is that we lost that connection of trying to find something togetherness and and the second century stoic philosopher hierocles, he created the concentric circles of of how things work, right? It starts with the self, and then you have your your family, you know close family, your friends, your acquaintances. But then you go to society, to the world and to the to the logos, right? The stoics call themselves cosmopolitans, and they said you need to try to bring those outer circles in your inner circle. You need to try to see them as as your you know your peers, your the same. We’re all people are at the end of the day. And that’s kind of what I think is philosophy of stoicism can help us to not act out of those emotions, right? They call it the passions. But to take a step back and and just kind of like, okay, you know what? I’m struggling. You’re struggling. Let’s try to figure this out together. Instead of saying, Oh, you’re wrong and you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s like, okay, you know, I try to empathize with or show compassion with how you feel in that situation, but you know, and if you make a different choice than me, you know that’s that’s your the end of the day, that’s your choice to make,

Manon Bolliger  26:26

yeah, but it is kind of an ideal. And I’m not saying this wrong to have an ideal, but, but really, it didn’t come down to that in in this society anyways, like in Canada, if you shared a different point of view, you were censored, or you lost your license, or, you know, you weren’t allowed to practice, or you didn’t have hospital rights, or, Like, I don’t think there was a fair playing field for that debate, and that’s so important, you know, like, there’s so many things in the discussions that are that are worth discussing, like, that’s, you know, 100% right, but it’s like, you don’t even Get there, because the power structures don’t even allow that very simple citizenship. I’ll call it right, but it’s like, you know, who tells us we can’t speak, but then when everyone who has a tongue loses it, well, we know now how it works, you know, so I don’t know where the stoicism, how it works in that way, you know, in that part of I don’t know if I’m My question’s clear, yeah, yeah, no, because

Benny Voncken  27:55

the stoics are very big on freedom, right? And I said, like, and a stoic, this is kind of the famous saying that a stoic can even experience joy while being tortured, right because they know that they’re doing the right thing. So stoics look at emotions in twofold they see the passions, what they call the bad emotions. You know, the anger, the sadness, the grief, even like exuberant pleasure. Because the reason why they call it bad is because they take you out of a rational state, right? So you don’t want to act out of anger. But they say the good emotions are Joy. Joy is being felt when you act virtuous, right, when you do the right thing. So even when the world is against you and when you are maybe put in a corner, you can still be free, because no one can control, no one can no one can control that. So even you might not have the outreach that you wanted. For example, Socrates is the best example, right? He got sentenced to death because he was, he was, you know, apparently corrupting the youth of Athens with the philosophy. And he had his outs, right? People were able to get him out of prison, and if he only just relinquished, you know, the philosophy and trying to have these conversations with the with the people of Athens, and they would forego a sentence. But he said, No, I can’t do that, because this is who I am, and if I do so, then I will relinquish who I am, and that’s not what I’m going to do. So I live in a society, and there are people who are in power and how they get there, that’s, you know, maybe a different debate, but that’s also the rules that they said that I’ve got to live with, but I can still have my freedom within right? And that’s what the economy of control comes about. Is like, Okay, this is happening outside of my control, but I can still control. And then maybe you can bring it to smaller circles, to the people that you talk to, or at least live by the virtues that you set for yourself, or the virtues and the values, I mean, the priorities, and then you can still live that good life, even though the rest of the world is trying to make it as difficult as possible, you can still do the right thing.

Manon Bolliger  29:56

Yeah, for yourself. Yeah, no. I think I That’s true of the people who could you know. And I think it’s, it’s, it’s very in such a sophisticated propaganda and with a high level of lack of knowledge like and and not the ability to truly share knowledge. It’s interesting. This whole debate becomes very important, right? You know, because so many people are saying, well, I had no choice. And it’s like, well, you did, but the choice would have been not feeding your family. Now, what kind of choice is that, right? So it’s like, you know, some people say, Well, I had to to travel. Okay, that’s a choice, but, you know, and then some people travel because that’s their job. Others need it because, you know, again, there’s a whole spectrum, right, you know. And some people see the freedom in traveling, and that’s what mattered more than health. That’s, that’s then a decision I wouldn’t make, but it’s a, it’s a, it’s a virtue decision if you believe that, you know. So it’s, it’s interesting. It’s a, it’s a very muddy, we’re going to have a it’s going to take a lot of years to sort this out internally, to find that piece, especially, I think as parents, you know, I run a few groups that they did it for school purposes and things like that, you know. And it’s like, what is their responsibility? You know, how do you live with yourself with this level of trickery, you know, like it’s, it’s really a anyway, but it’s time for these conversations, that’s why, yeah, really looking forward for our discussion today, so and but

Benny Voncken  31:59

this also happens on many other levels, right? If you have to make a decision about where to work, and if you’re going to work for certain, you know such a company, or make, you know other decisions in life, that’s and, but, and I think that that’s where people forget that they you know that they are responsible for their own actions and for what they do and and sometimes, you know, we also have to be honest, like we’re human beings, and we’re going to make mistakes, right? And this is one of the things that stoic philosophy gets criticized a lot because they have the bar really high to say, like, you want to be to work towards being the perfect person, but they really focus on making progress. And they say, like, Okay, if you made a mistake, you know, learn from it. Turn it into knowledge. Turn it into something that you can help you for the next for the next time around, and then you might make different decisions, because all of that experience will help you to get to know yourself and you know, and then it’s also time to show compassion to yourself and to others, right? Because when people make mistakes, it’s like, hey, you know, what have we learned here? Instead of pointing the finger, we can say, okay, you know, let’s come together and let’s try to kind of figure this out, especially when times are confusing and they are, you know, we don’t, we don’t know what’s going on, like even in the person next to us, even if they tell us, there might still be a lot of different things going on or in our society. But the story is also clear, like, we live in a society, and if the rules are there, then we either, you know, learn them and try to work as best with them or accept them just as the laws of nature. You know, sometimes nature is the nature can set the hardest boundaries on our life, and still, we need to try to learn and live with them.

Manon Bolliger  33:32

Well, Benny, we’re at the end of our time. Do you have a few last words and maybe, how do people get hold of you? It’ll all be put on the website, but just for those who are purely listening,

Benny Voncken  33:48

yeah, no, I would love to encourage people to find their philosophy of life and to set their values and priorities and to try to really live that good life from an internal perspective, with, you know, connection with everybody around them. And if they do want to learn out more, they can go to via stoica.com that’s, that’s the website, and there’s pretty much all the information there. And also the, you know, the podcast is on YouTube, but via Stoica, that’s pretty much all you need to look for online. And you can, you can find me on all the socials and and everywhere there. And then you can get in touch as well. The my emails and everything is out there as well.

Manon Bolliger  34:22

Okay, great. Well, thank you very much for sharing your your enthusiasm and and purpose, life, purpose. Yeah, thank you

Benny Voncken  34:30

very much for having me on. It was a great conversation. I went by fast.

ENDING: 

Thank you for joining us at the Healers Café. If you haven’t already done so, please like, comment and subscribe with notifications on as I post a new podcast every Wednesday with tons of useful information and tips for natural healing that you won’t want to miss.

Continue your healing journey by visiting TheHealersCafe.com and her website and discover how to listen to your body and reboot optimal health or DrManonBolliger.com/tips.