Being stoic is not Stoicism: the philosophy was never about hiding your feelings

In everyday English, being stoic means not showing what you feel. Stoicism, the philosophy, asks you to examine the judgments behind your feelings. The everyday word praises a straight face. The Stoics asked what you had concluded about an event, and whether that conclusion was true.

Hiding a reaction and reconsidering the judgment behind it are different skills. That distinction matters in Stoic philosophy and in modern research on emotion regulation.

Where did the two meanings split?

Merriam-Webster records both meanings. Its first meaning of the adjective stoic is “not affected by or showing passion or feeling,” especially “firmly restrained in response to pain or distress.” The second meaning, with a capital S, is “of, relating to, or resembling the Stoics or their doctrines.”

The school came first. Zeno of Citium founded it in Athens around 300 BC. It took its name from the stoa poikilê, a painted porch in the city’s marketplace where the first Stoic philosophers met and lectured.

According to Merriam-Webster’s word history, English speakers were using “stoic” for someone who faces adversity calmly and without excess emotion by the 14th century. The adjective followed by the 15th. The everyday meaning describes outward calm; it says nothing about how a person reaches it.

	stoic (everyday)	Stoicism (the philosophy)
What it describes	Outward composure	A way of judging events
What happens to the feeling	It is kept out of sight	The judgment behind it is examined
What happens to the thought	It can remain unexamined	It is tested against the facts
The modern comparison	Expressive suppression	Closer to cognitive reappraisal
Where it goes wrong	The inner reaction is still there	Reframing something that needs grief or action

What did the Stoics actually teach about feelings?

The Stoics understood passions as judgments. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a free academic reference work run from Stanford University, explains the two parts of that judgment: a belief that something good or bad is present or coming, and a belief that a particular reaction is appropriate. In Stoic theory, correcting the judgment removes the passion’s basis.

The Stoic teacher Epictetus expressed the idea in the Enchiridion, a handbook written down by his student Arrian in the first half of the second century AD:

“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”

That is Enchiridion V in Thomas W. Higginson’s translation. The handbook opens with a distinction: “There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power.” Epictetus places opinion, aim, desire, and aversion within our power; body, property, reputation, and office lie beyond it.

The goal was freedom from passions in the Stoics’ technical sense: those built on false judgments. It is a demanding ideal, and philosophers still debate it. Yet the same encyclopedia entry notes that the Stoic account of the wise person’s “good feelings” (eupatheiai) “belies the caricature of the Sage as an unfeeling robot.” The Sage is the Stoic ideal of a fully wise person.

The Stoics also described pre-emotions (propatheiai): involuntary first reactions, such as a jolt of fear, that arrive before any judgment has been made. In their account, even the Sage experiences them. Being startled is not a failure of Stoic practice. The work lies in examining what you conclude next.

How does modern psychology connect to this?

In their 1979 treatment manual for depression, Aaron Beck and colleagues traced the philosophical origins of cognitive therapy (the “cognitive” in cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT) to the Stoics, naming Epictetus. A 2023 review by Cavanna and colleagues in Neurological Sciences quotes that passage. It also describes how Albert Ellis, the founder of rational emotive behavior therapy, credited Epictetus.

Modern emotion research gives us a more precise vocabulary for the distinction. Cognitive reappraisal means “changing the way one thinks about potentially emotion-eliciting events.” Expressive suppression means “changing the way one behaviorally responds to emotion-eliciting events.”

Both definitions come from a 2014 review by Debora Cutuli. It reports that habitually using reappraisal “is associated with healthier patterns of affect, social functioning, and well-being than is using expressive suppression.” This is an association across studies, drawn from general samples rather than founder samples. It does not establish that a particular reframe will help a particular person.

The comparison is useful within those limits. Hiding feelings resembles expressive suppression; examining the judgments behind them is closer to cognitive reappraisal. Stoicism, however, was a whole way of life. CBT is a clinical treatment delivered by trained professionals. The connection does not make them interchangeable.

RESILIENT: where the Stoic move fits for a founder

RESILIENT, from Len’s book The Psychology of Founder Resilience, names nine capacities for maintaining clear judgment under sustained pressure. It is an authorial framework for self-review, not a validated clinical scale. You do not need the book to use it.

1. Reappraisal. Interpreting a setback in a way that does not amplify the threat.
2. Emotional granularity. Telling similar feelings apart, so you can respond to each one precisely.
3. Somatic regulation. Managing the body’s stress signals through sleep, movement, and breath.
4. Identity flexibility. Maintaining more than one part of your identity, so a setback in one area does not define the whole person.
5. Learning orientation. Treating failure as information for the next decision, not as evidence against yourself.
6. Interpersonal support. Relationships that offer support without demanding a performance.
7. Executive function. Protecting attention and clear decisions from exhaustion.
8. Narrative integration. Making sense of challenge and growth in a coherent story, so hard periods build capacity instead of draining it.
9. Titrated exposure. Meeting manageable stressors on purpose, in measured doses, to build strength.

The RESILIENT framework page explains all nine capacities. Examining a judgment fits within the first: reappraisal.

Consider a hypothetical founder whose lead investor emails on a Friday afternoon: “We are going to pass on the next round.” The founder replies politely, tells the team everything is fine, and spends the weekend alone with the verdict “the company is finished.” The response looks stoic, but the judgment goes unexamined.

Reappraisal separates the event from the conclusion and identifies what the founder can do:

• Facts: One investor passed, by email, with no reason given.
• Story: Everyone will pass; it is over.
• Within my power: The list of other investors, the runway plan, and a question I can ask this investor.
• Beyond my power: The investor’s decision and reasons.
• Next steps by Monday: Ask for the reason in one sentence and update the runway plan.

The investor’s decision remains the same. In this example, reappraisal changes the founder’s next steps and keeps one email from becoming a verdict on the whole company.

Len is also writing Stoic Systems for Decision-Making, which treats Stoic practice as decision design. It is an early draft and not for sale. The published page Stoic systems: judgment as infrastructure summarizes its approach.

Try this today: the two-column test (10 minutes)

Choose one event from this week that still bothers you. Copy these five prompts into a note and answer each one:

1. Facts. What a camera in the room would have recorded. No adjectives.
2. The story. The sentence your mind keeps repeating. Write it as it comes.
3. Two columns. Within my power, and beyond my power. Sort every item from your first two answers.
4. One other reading. A second explanation that fits the same facts.
5. One action. Something from the “within my power” column that you will do within 24 hours.

Keep two limits in mind. If the event is a real loss, do not use the exercise to bypass grief; sadness about a sad fact is not a judgment error. If there is danger or a problem that needs action now, act first and reflect later.

What Stoicism is not

Stoicism asks for more than a calm appearance or a quote on a mug. It leaves room for feelings and requires examining judgments. It is not therapy.

If the same distressing interpretation persists for weeks, or your sleep and daily functioning break down, talk to a doctor or a licensed professional. In the Netherlands, 113 Zelfmoordpreventie is free and anonymous (call 113 or chat via 113.nl); in an emergency, call 112. What is founder resilience? explores the capacities that support judgment under pressure.

Keep a straight face if it helps you in the room. Then take a second look at the judgment behind it.

Cite this:Being stoic is not Stoicism: the philosophy was never about hiding your feelings.Len P. van der Hof. https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/stoic-vs-stoicism/ · Published 14 October 2026.