Clearview Counseling

09/26/2025

Stoic thought: (day 3 of 7)

“People don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Denial and rationalization are like a warm blanket , but they make us weak and rot the soul. Facing the storm, head strong into wind, facing “what is”, that is the genesis of freedom. No more childlike clinching the covers hoping the evil paases us by, rather face to face with the monster we have allowed ourselves to become.

Hold the line.

Reflection:

Nietzsche said, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” To deny suffering is to prolong it. To face it is to reclaim dignity. The moment we strip away illusions—excuses, justifications, distractions—we stand naked before reality. It is harsh, but it is also liberating. In the raw clarity of truth, the path forward becomes unmistakable.

09/25/2025

Stoic thought: (Day 2 or 7)

“I should have liked, therefore, to have attempted to effect this cure in the earliest stages of the disorder; it might have been checked by milder remedies, but now that it has been confirmed by time it cannot be beaten without a struggle.” – Seneca

The first time you said yes, it was choice. The hundredth time, it was compulsion. Control is lost slowly.

Hold the line.

Reflection
Addiction whispers: “You’re still in control.” But as Marcus Aurelius reminds us, truth does not bend to desire. The illusion of mastery fades with repetition. What once felt like freedom reveals itself as bo***ge. Yet the return to control begins the same way it was lost—one decision at a time. Freedom is reclaimed not by wishing, but by acting.

09/24/2025

Stoic thought:

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken"- Samuel Jackson

The chains of habit are invisible until they’re unbreakable. Don’t wait. Move now. Even a single step weakens them.

Hold the line.

Reflection:
Samuel Johnson was right: habits creep in silently, tightening their hold before we realize we are bound. Seneca warned that if we wait too long, cures become harder, the struggle more violent. But despair is not the answer. The antidote is motion—today, now. The first small step is the strike against the chain. Do not wait for perfect strength; strength is forged in the act of moving.

09/23/2025

Stoic thought of the day:

“We can use everything that happens to us as the means for waking up... whether it's our conflicting emotions and thoughts or our seemingly outer situation... to show us where we are asleep and how we can wake up completely." — Pema Chödrön

The demons aren’t half as scary once you stop running.

There comes a moment when the pain you’ve been running from finds you. It always does. You can lock the doors, keep the lights burning, drown yourself in noise. distraction or substance—but suffering is patient. It waits, lurking like something under the bed you never outgrew fearing.

You can wish it away, plead for reprieve, but when the hour comes—and it will—you’ll find that your only power is not escape, but endurance. Seneca knew it. Dostoyevsky muttered it through clenched teeth. The Dalai Lama dressed it in gentler words. But the truth is the same: the only way out of pain is through it.

You don’t get healed by turning away. You get healed by walking into the cellar, by opening the rusted door, by letting the darkness press in until your eyes adjust and you realize the monster was always you—your grief, your anger, your broken places. And if you can stand there, if you can breathe in that air and refuse to crumble, you begin to change.

Life doesn’t care how many times you’ve begged for mercy. It is relentless. But here’s the strange thing—the more blows you take, the more you realize your bones don’t break so easily. The more you suffer, the more you see that suffering is necessary.

Hold the line.

09/16/2025

“If you humble yourself enough times, pride dies.”- Chris Matakas

Not all battles are fought with fists or words. Some are won in silence—by bowing your head, admitting fault, listening more than speaking. Each time you choose humility, pride starves a little more. In its death, you discover strength, clarity, and peace.

09/01/2025

Stoic thought of the day for those who struggle:

“There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my suffering.” – Dostoevsky

Addiction is a furnace — it burns away years, relationships, money, health, dignity and almost any sense of self. It leaves you staring into the ashes, asking if anything can be rebuilt. But there is a deeper fear than relapse, deeper than withdrawal, deeper even than death: The fear that my suffering will mean nothing.

Please dont let the hell I went through be for nothing. Please let the tears I cried to have healed some part of me. Let me become the man who can sit across from someone still in chains and say, “I know the way out.”

To be worthy of my suffering means I cannot waste it. I cannot crawl back to the bottle, back into the darkness, back to the endless cycle of numbness.
I cannot keep living like I did before, blind and pathetic.

My suffering must become an impetus of rebirth. Help me to honor the nights I begged for another chance by using this chance.

The pain was real, so is the peace in the reclamation of self.

Hold the line.

08/18/2025

Stoic thought of the day:

“Just stand” - Ephesians 6:24

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”- Sun Tzu

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” – Bruce Lee

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Confucius

There are times when philosophy is too heavy, too abstract, too far away from the moment you’re in. What you need then is not an essay, but a blade, sharp, small, easy to wield. A mantra. Something to pull out in the instant you’re wavering, when you want to quit, when your mind is searching for excuses. The mantra doesn’t have to be profound; it just has to cut through the noise and bring you back to center.

Mantras are not about eloquence—they are about repetition. About anchoring yourself in a truth you’ve already chosen. When pain rises, when despair whispers, when temptation leans in close, the mantra is what keeps your feet planted.

• “One step more.”
• “Do the hard thing.”
• “Fall seven, stand eight.”
• “This too, shall pass.”
• “Not today.”
• “Embrace the suck.”

Forge one for yourself. Repeat it until it is written in your marrow. When the storm comes—and it will—it will be the thing that steadies your hand.

Hold the line.

08/12/2025

Every difficulty…

08/10/2025

08/09/2025

08/03/2025

Stoic thought of the day:

“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” – Susan David

“You will never always be motivated, so you must learn to be disciplined.” – Unknown

“Pain and suffering strips us of all that is false. Embrace pain mindfully. It is not the amount of darkness in our lives, rather how we chose to stand in it.”- Robert Wicks

“If thy faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”- Proverbs 24:10. 

Growth doesn’t come gently. It’s violent. It rips away your comforts and forces you to confront every part of yourself that you’ve tried to avoid. The process is messy, uncomfortable, and humbling. But it’s also sacred. It’s where the brokenness mends. Where weakness gives way to resilience. Where our scars heal over and toughen. It is brutal and necessary. Stop waiting for it to be easy.
Yes, change is hard—but so is wasting your life. Learn to suffer in the right direction.

You are not beyond redemption.

Hold the line.

08/01/2025