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Three ancient mind exercises for processing and subliming bad news.

Imagine: Your house has been burgled. You’ve been fired. Your partner cheated or walked out on you. You’ve been diagnosed with a life-changing condition…

Bad news can leave us in a state of dread and despair. It seems like our whole world is falling apart, almost as if we’re being driven into the ground. We fear the very worst and cannot get it out of our mind, or gut. Often, there are other emotions mangled in, like anger, guilt, despair, betrayal, and love.

Bad news: we’ve all had it, and the worst is yet to come.

So, how best to cope?

I’m going to give you three cognitive strategies, or mind exercises, that I picked up from the Stoic philosophers—who, in the second century, could count the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, among their followers.

All three strategies aim, in one way or another, at generating perspective. While reading, hold a recent piece of bad news in the front of your mind, and consider how the strategies might or might not apply to your bad news.

Contextualization

Try to frame the bad news, to put it into its proper context. Think about all the good things in your life, including those that have been and those that are yet to come. Remind yourself of all the strengths and resources—the friends, facilities, and faculties—that you can draw upon in your time of need. Imagine how things could be much, much worse—and how for some people they actually are. Your house may have been burgled. Yes, you lost some valuables and it’s all such a huge hassle. But you still have your health, your job, your partner… Bad things are bound to hit us now and then, and it can only be a matter of time before they hit us again. In many cases, they are just the flip side of the good things that we enjoy. You got burgled, because you had a house and valuables. You lost a great relationship, because you had one in the first place. In that much, many a bad thing is no more than the removal or reversal of a good one.

Negative visualization

Now focus on the bad news itself. What’s the worst that could happen, and is that really all that bad? Now that you’ve got the worst out of the way, what’s the best possible outcome? And what’s the most likely outcome? Imagine that someone is threatening to sue you. The worst possible outcome is that you lose the case and suffer all the entailing cost, stress, and emotional and reputational hurt. Though it’s unlikely, you might even do time in prison (it has happened to some, and a few, like Bertrand Russell, did rather well out of it). But the most likely outcome is that you reach some sort of out-of-court settlement. And the best possible outcome is that you win the case, or better still, it gets dropped.

Transformation

Finally, try to transform your bad news into something positive, or into something that has positive aspects. Your bad news may represent a learning or strengthening experience, or act as a wake-up call, or force you to reassess your priorities. At the very least, it offers a window into the human condition and an opportunity to exercise dignity and self-control. Maybe you lost your job: time for a holiday and a promotion, or a career change, or the freedom and fulfilment of self-employment. Maybe your partner cheated on you. Even so, you feel sure that he or she still loves you, that there is still something there. Perhaps you can even bring yourself to look at it from his or her perspective. Yes, of course it’s painful, but it may also be an opportunity to forgive, to build a closer intimacy, to re-launch your relationship—or to go out and find a more fulfilling one. You’ve been diagnosed with a serious medical condition. Though it’s terrible news, it’s also the chance to get the support and treatment that you need, to take control, to fight back, to look at life and your relationships from another, richer perspective.

A Taoist story for the road

There’s a Taoist story about an old farmer whose only horse ran away. “Such terrible news!” said a neighbour. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer. The next day, the horse returned with six wild horses. “Such wonderful news!” exclaimed the neighbour. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer. The day after that, the farmer’s son tried to tame one of the wild horses but got thrown off and broke a leg. “Such terrible news!” cried the neighbour. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer, biting into a peach. A week later, war broke out: thanks to his broken leg, the farmer’s son managed to escape military conscription. “It all worked out really well in the end,” said the neighbour, “such great luck!”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer, rolling his eyes.

Neel Burton is author of Growing from Depression, which is currently free to download from his website bookstore.

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Domaine de Beaudon in Fully, Valais, accessible only by cable car.

Only 1% of Swiss wine is exported, and what does get out is usually rare and expensive. A ceramic wine bottle was found in the Valais, in the tomb of a Celtic woman who lived in the second century BCE. In the sixth century, monks from Burgundy established a monastery at Aigle, Vaud, and began cultivating the vine with their customary dedication. Before the arrival of phylloxera in 1874, the country counted ~35,000ha of vines, compared to ~15,000ha today. In 1990, the Valais set up a European-style appellation system, and other cantons soon followed suit.

Today, owing to domestic tastes, more red than white wine is produced, and quality can be very high. The most important area, accounting for almost 70% of national output, is in the francophone west, along Lake Geneva (cantons of Geneva and Vaud) and into the upper Rhône valley (canton of the Valais, see below). In Geneva, where I grew up, plantings are very diverse, including national favourites such as Gamay, Pinot Noir, and Chasselas; international varieties such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Gris; modern hybrids such as Gamaret and Garanoir; and local varieties such as Altesse and Mondeuse. In neighbouring Vaud, the climate is moderated by the lake, which also mirrors sunlight onto proximal vineyards. The region is dominated by Chasselas, which is highly reflective of terroir. Its most revered expressions are the Grand Crus of Dézaley and Calamin on the terraced slopes of Lavaux, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other areas include the Rhine valley in the north and north-east, Ticino south of the Alps, and Lake Neuchâtel (‘Trois Lacs’) in the west. 

Overall, the climate is cool, but the Valais is relatively warm and dry, and Ticino warm and humid. Typically, the cool climate and rugged landscape restricts viticulture to favourable pockets, placing natural limits on production volumes and holding sizes. Over 240 varieties are cultivated, the most common being Pinot Noir, Chasselas [Fendant, Dorin, Gutedel], Gamay, and Merlot. Pinot Noir accounts for around three-quarters of plantings in the Germanic north and north-east, Chasselas for around four-fifths of plantings in Vaud, and Merlot for almost nine-tenths of plantings in Ticino. Pinot Noir and Gamay are often blended to produce Dôle, a concept similar to Bourgogne Passetoutgrains, with a rosé version known as Dôle Blanche. Oeil de Perdrix [‘Eye of the Partridge’], most associated with the area of Neuchâtel, is a pale rosé made from Pinot Noir. Switzerland is full of blind tasting quagmires, such as red Dézaley, Neuchâtel Viognier, Thurgau Pinot Noir, Valais Syrah, and Ticino white Merlot!

The Valais

Terraced vineyards in Chamoson

The Valais (‘the real Northern Rhône’), with its 5000ha under vine, produces over a third of Swiss wine, and is without a doubt Switzerland’s most important and interesting wine region. Most plantings are on the terraced southeast facing-slopes of the main valley, stretching 50km from Fully in the southwest to Leuk in the northeast, where the road signs slip from French into German. There are also small plantings in the side valleys and on what, before climate change, used to be the ‘wrong side’ of the main valley.

Vineyards range in altitude from 450m to 800m or even 1000m in Vispertal. Above them is the Valais’s other claim to fame: its picturesque Alpine resorts such as Leukerbad, Evolène, Zermatt (Matterhorn), Verbier, and Crans Montana. And below them, along the Rhône, fruit trees, industry, and urban development—and two hilled castles at Sion, which you can visit for a view of the surrounding vineyards (sturdy shoes required, skip the museum).

Owing to the Alps and foehn winds, the climate is surprisingly warm and dry with, annually, 2100 hours of sunshine and just 600mm of rain. At Domaine de Beudon in Fully, cacti (prickly pear) have naturalised at 800m asl. The long growing season and high diurnal temperature variation support organic viticulture, late ripening, and the production of sweet, sometimes botrytised, wines, known locally as vins flétris. The main threats are spring frosts and summer droughts, and light irrigation of the thin soils is often necessary.

These soils are varied, ranging from granite in the west (favourable to Gamay) to chalk in the east (favourable to Pinot Noir), interspersed by areas of loess, moraine, schist, and pebbly alluvial fan. Some fifty grape varieties are permitted, but the most important are Pinot Noir and Gamay for the reds, and, for the whites, Fendant (Chasselas with berries that split)—introduced from Vaud in 1848. Other important varieties include, for the whites, Johannisberg (Sylvaner), Petite Arvine, Heida (Savagnin, also called Païen in the Bas Valais), and Ermitage (Marsanne), and, for the reds, Syrah, Humagne Rouge, and Cornalin. There are 12 designated Grand Cru villages, each one for a limited number of grape varieties. These are Chamoson, Conthey, Fully, Leytron, Saillon, Saint-Léonard, Salgesch, Savièse, Sierre, Vétroz, Sion, and Visperterminen.

2005 Fendant with Lake Geneva perch.

When I visited, I was most impressed by the Cornalin (a variety which repays its difficulty with silky notes of morello cherry and cloves), Syrah, Fendant, Petite Arvine, Heida, and the rarer Amigne and Humagne Blanche (which is unrelated to Humagne Rouge). In total, there are only 41ha of Amigne, 33 of which are in Vétroz. All these varieties are seriously ageworthy. At its best, Fendant resembles Chablis, and I tasted several excellent 20-year-old examples with notes of toffee, marzipan, cognac, and—still—a salty, iodine finish. Favourite producers include Simon Maye in picturesque Chamoson (try the Fendants and, later, drive up to Les Violettes for a terroir lunch), Jean-René Germanier in Vétroz (try the Cayas Syrah), Domaine de Beudon in Fully (try the old Fendants), Denis Mercier and Domaine des Muses in Sierre, and Cave Caloz in Miège.

Neel Burton is author of The Concise Guide to Wine and Blind Tasting.

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The Stoic Seneca is the master of the ‘consolation’, a letter written for the express purpose of comforting someone who has been bereaved. Seneca wrote at least three consolations, to Marcia, to Polybius, and to Helvia. In the Consolation to Helvia, he comforts his own mother Helvia on ‘losing’ him to exile—an unusual case, and literary innovation, of the lamented consoling the lamenter.

The emperor Marcus Aurelius (d. 180 CE) had at least fourteen children with his wife Faustina, but only four daughters and one unfortunate son, Commodus, outlived their parents. In the Meditations, Marcus likens his children to leaves, and paraphrases Homer in the Iliad: 

Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when the spring returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines.

Marcus was a Stoic, and would have known, at least in principle, how to cope with grief, loss, and bereavement. But if Seneca could have consoled Marcus on the loss of his children, and could only have told him three things, what might those three things have been?

First, Marcus, remember that life is given to us with death as a precondition. Some people die sooner than others, but life, on a cosmic scale, is so short that, really, it makes no difference. Even children are known to die—indeed, they often do—and these, Marcus, simply happened to be your own. A human life, however long or short, or great or small, is of little historical and no cosmic consequence. Since a life can never be long or great enough, the most that it can be is sufficient, and we would do better to concentrate on what that might mean.

Second, it may be that death is in fact preferable to life (the secret of Silenus). Life is full of suffering, and grieving only adds to it, whereas death is the permanent release from every possible pain. Indeed, many people who have died—think only of our friend Cicero—would have died happier if they had died sooner. If we do not pity the unborn, why should we pity the dead, who at least had the benefit, if benefit it is, of having existed? The unborn cry out as soon as they are delivered into the world, but to the dead we never have to block our ears. If weep we must, it is not over death, but the whole of life, that we should weep.

Third, we should treat the people we love not as permanent possessions but as temporary loans from fortune. When, in the evening, you kiss your wife and children goodnight, reflect on the possibility that they, and you, might never wake up. In the morning when you kiss them goodbye, reflect on the possibility that they, or you, might never come home. That way you’ll be better prepared for their eventual loss, and, what’s more, savour and sublime whatever time that you have with them—and, in that way, lead them to love you more. 

If you do lose a loved one, do not grieve, or no more than is appropriate, or no more than they would have wanted you to, but be grateful for the moments that you shared, and consider how much poorer your life would have been if they had never come into it.

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Why the Stoics valued self-imposed hardship.

Diogenes in his barrel.

In the deep winter, Diogenes the Cynic (d. 323 BCE) would strip naked and embrace bronze statues. One day, upon seeing this, a Spartan asked him whether he was cold. When he said that he was not, the Spartan replied, “Well, then, what’s so impressive about what you’re doing?”

Like their predecessors the Cynics, and like the Spartans, the Stoics greatly valued hardship, albeit on a more modest or moderate scale. We should, they said, routinely practice poverty or put ourselves through mild hardship, and this for several reasons:

First, to discover what we can do without, and reduce our fear of losing those things. In his Letters, Seneca advises Lucilius: “Set yourself a period of some days in which you will be content with very small amounts of food, and the cheapest kinds, and with coarse clothing, and say to yourself, “Is this what I was afraid of?””

Second, to be reminded that simple things, such as bread and olive oil, or a good night’s sleep, can be just as enjoyable and profitable as any great banquet (if not more so), and thus that pleasure is both readily available and highly transferable.

Third, to better reflect upon our true goals, or to work towards them. “If you want to have time for your mind” says Seneca, “you must either be poor or resemble the poor… One cannot study without frugality, and frugality is just voluntary poverty.”

Here are six more advantages of self-imposed hardship, according to the Stoics:

  • To increase our appreciation and enjoyment of the things that we normally enjoy.
  • To break from our normal routine, and reinvigorate our minds while exercising our freedom.
  • To be prepared for future hardship, which, unless we are suddenly struck dead, is all but a certainty.
  • To be convinced that the greater part of our suffering lies not in fact but in our attitude towards it.
  • To practise self-discipline, or test our fortitude.
  • To empathise with less fortunate people, and people from the past.

In addition, self-imposed poverty and hardship can also have more mundane benefits, such as losing weight, saving time or money, and making yourself popular by seeming like one of the people.

Finally, all these motives are in themselves a source of pride and pleasure of a different kind. “Do not” says Marcus Aurelius, “lament misfortune. Instead, rejoice that you are the sort of man who can undergo misfortune without letting it upset you.”

Seneca does us the favour of putting self-imposed hardship into radical perspective when he says: “Armies have endured being deprived of everything for another person’s domination, so who will hesitate to put up with poverty when the aim is to liberate the mind from fits of madness?”

Neel Burton is author of Stoic Stories.

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  • The labyrinth is a Jungian archetype that features in prehistoric rock drawings.
  • Mediaeval labyrinths were not simply ornamental but represented the spiritual path to God.
  • Today, labyrinths are increasingly found in therapeutic settings as an aid to meditation and mindfulness.

In Greek myth, Poseidon punished Minos by making his wife Pasiphaë lust for a white bull. Sometime later, Pasiphaë gave birth to the Minotaur, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. As the Minotaur grew, he became increasingly fierce and even began eating people. Fearing that his people would rise against him, Minos sought to contain his stepson in a series of ever-stronger cages; but after he broke out of the strongest cage, he asked Daedalus to build a maze of tunnels beneath his palace. The Labyrinth, as it came to be called, was so intricate that even Daedalus, having built it, struggled to escape from it.

In time, the Minotaur was killed by Theseus, who retraced his steps out of the Labyrinth with the help of a ball of crimson thread given to him by Minos’ daughter Ariadne.

History of the labyrinth

In the early twentieth century, the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, working on Crete, uncovered the existence of a complex civilization whose people he called the Minoans after the mythical King Minos. Minoan Crete flourished from 3000 to 1500 BCE and revolved around a series of palace complexes, the largest of which was at Knossos in the north of the island. The palace at Knossos covered an area of around six acres (or three football pitches); it contained some 1,300 rooms connected by various corridors and stairways, leading Evans to speculate that the mythical labyrinth was none other than the palace itself.

Although the labyrinth was a branching, multicursal maze, it has long been represented, for example, on fifth-century BCE Cretan coins, as a single-path, unicursal maze in which it is, of course, impossible to get lost. As a result, “labyrinth,” although essentially synonymous with “maze,” has come to connote unicursality, whereas “maze” has come to connote multicursality. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder (d. 79 CE) describes four ancient labyrinths—in Egypt, Crete, Lemnos, and Italy—all of which seem to have been enclosed multicursal complexes, confirming that this is the ancient, original meaning of “labyrinth.” In the Histories, Herodotus (d. 425 BCE) claims that the Egyptian labyrinth surpassed even the pyramids in scale and ambition:

I myself have seen the [the Egyptian labyrinth], and no words can tell its wonders: the sum of all that the Greeks have built and wrought would be a matter of less labour and cost than was this single labyrinth.

The psychology of labyrinths

Far from a mere folly, the labyrinth is, like the serpent, the flood, and the trinity, something of a Jungian archetype, found in prehistoric rock drawings at, for example, Pontevedra in Galicia (Spain), Val Camonica in Lombardy (Italy), and Rocky Valley in Cornwall (England).

In mediaeval Europe, cathedrals sometimes contained a labyrinth traced in the nave from contrasting paving stones. Those that have survived, such as the striking one in Chartres Cathedral, can still be walked today. Cathedral labyrinths were not simply ludic or ornamental but represented the spiritual path to God and provided a substitute for going on pilgrimage. Cathedral labyrinths were, therefore, unicursal, as were the first hedge mazes, which evolved from Renaissance knot gardens.

As I argue in The Meaning of Myth, mazes and labyrinths are spiritual tools, not mere amusements or diversions. Multicursal mazes such as the Cretan or Egyptian Labyrinth may have been built not only to guard against gold diggers but also to deter or trap evil spirits, including the Minotaur.

Unicursal labyrinths, on the other hand, may have been traced to guide rituals or dances. The circular unicursal labyrinth symbolizes the cosmos, completeness, and unity, and, by extension, the spiritual path or journey of life. More than a simple garden, it is a removed, secluded, and liminal space that serves to calm and concentrate the mind—which is why labyrinths, often simply mown into a summer field, are increasingly found in therapeutic settings such as hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes.

Labyrinths, especially single-path, unicursal ones, serve not only as a thing of beauty but also and above all as an aid to meditation and mindfulness.

To walk the labyrinth is to re-enter the womb and travel inward, and to come back out is a kind of rebirth. Ariadne’s crimson thread is thus an umbilical cord that ties Theseus to the world while he undertakes the hero’s journey into the underworld and slays the monster.