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Episode 123 · 8 June 2024 · 15:33

Amae: The Art of Surrendering and Finding True Strength

What if giving up some control is a strength rather than a loss? The Japanese have a word for it, amae, and I live it every single day.

Subject: Love, Empathy & Other People, Letting Go & Forgiveness

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Stillness in the Storms · Episode 123

What if giving up some control is a strength rather than a loss? The Japanese have a word for it, amae, and I live it every single day.

My carers do not shower me the way I would shower me. I have got comfortable with that. Amae is the mutual trust in depending on somebody, which every baby does and most adults spend their lives resisting. Think of a bow and arrow. The moment your fingers let go it is at the mercy of the wind, and that is the only point at which it can reach anything at all.

One thing to try: Let somebody else make one decision today, and be genuinely alright with how they make it.

In this episode

  • (0:03) The comfort and security we are all chasing
  • (2:04) Amae, and what it means in Japanese culture
  • (3:15) Not dependence. Mutual understanding that strengthens
  • (4:48) They do not even shower me the way I would
  • (6:39) The bow and arrow, and the moment your fingers let go
  • (8:21) The person who is rigid at work, doing it badly
  • (10:00) The sat nav journey that never actually goes to plan
  • (11:34) Stepping back and letting somebody else decide

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Thank you for listening.

Steven

The question this answers

What if giving up some control is a strength rather than a loss?

The Japanese have a word for it, amae. There is no direct English translation. It is the comfort of being able to rely on somebody completely, in perfect safety, and I live it every day.

The heart of it

  • A baby has no choice but to surrender the outcome to somebody else. Most adults spend the rest of their lives resisting the same thing.
  • Hold people rigidly and they become rigid. Give them room and they bring you something you would not have thought of.

My carers do not shower me the way I would shower me. They do not clean the way I would clean. I have got comfortable with that, and it took a long time, because otherwise there is no comfort available at all. Nobody will ever do anything exactly your way.

Eckhart Tolle was on stage once and somebody in the audience said it was alright for him with the houses and the books and the money. He laughed and said that because he had once lost everything, he knew he could lose all of it again and be alright. That is the security. Not the houses.

Think of a bow and arrow. You pick a clear day with no wind, you set your aim carefully, you draw back and you wait for the right moment.

The moment your fingers let go it is at the mercy of the wind, and that is the only point at which it can reach anything at all.

You are not only letting go of the arrow. You are letting go of the expectation, and that is where the courage is.

I am hopeless at decisions anyway. More than one option and I am finished. My mum used to ask bangers and mash or fish fingers. Now people ask what I want for tea and I would rather they just told me. I cannot choose toothpaste in a supermarket.

And a careers teacher gave me about fifteen minutes at nine or ten years old to decide the rest of my life. Astronaut was not on the list. I still do not know what I want to do, and I do not think that hurts.

One small thing to try

Let somebody else make one decision today, and be genuinely alright with how they make it.

Not gritted teeth. Actually alright. Then notice whether the outcome was worse, or only different.

Questions people ask

Is this the same as giving up?

No. Giving up is walking away. This is choosing where your control genuinely reaches and stopping the fight everywhere else, which is closer to stoicism than to surrender.

Is it not risky to depend on people?

It is, and you already do. The pretence that you do not is what makes it feel risky when it becomes visible.

What if somebody does something badly?

Some things you nudge and some you let go. My carers all annoy each other and all annoy me, and every one of them is doing their best from where they stand.

Read along

The transcript

It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.

acceptance · letting-go · vulnerability · relationships

Read the transcript

We all want that wonderful position of comfort and that security that a nice long-term

relationship or buying a house or building a career gives us. That little nest egg in the bank that

means that if things go wrong, I've got some money to fall back on.

And since breaking my neck, I realised that there isn't really that much security at all. And I came across

a Japanese word yesterday. Am I?

And just imagine being in a position where you are with somebody you can trust completely. You can

let go of all your defenses, knowing that you're in perfect safety. That wonderful support

surrounding you and that comforting embrace. In this space, you don't need to worry about any kind of judgement or

control. You are free just to be. Just to be exactly who you want to be.

To feel what you want to be. Say what you want to do. Do what you want to do. And

you feel completely safe. This is the essence of Amai. It's a beautiful concept from Japanese culture that

we're just going to explore today and I want to talk about it and I don't know if I got

the translation perfectly right but this is my take on it and... Yeah, being in my position it's a real...

I just love this concept. So, welcome to another episode of Stillness in the Storms podcast. I'm Steven Webb and

today we delve into Amai. The comforting feeling of being able to surrender completely and rely

on someone else in perfect safety.

So, Amai is a Japanese term that doesn't have a direct English translation. It refers to the

comfort and safety we feel when we can fully rely on somebody else. Surrendering our need for control

and trusting in their support. In Japanese culture, this concept is integral

to relationships. It's a deep sense of, you know, I'm with you now and I

do surrender some of my control to you. And as a baby, you have to do that anyway because you

can't do anything. A baby has no choice but to surrender. It cries if it feels ill, but it's got

to surrender the outcome to you.

And I just imagine what that must feel like for a baby in vulnerable moments. And I think if we

sit back and allow that to happen in our lives a little more without trying to control everything, I suppose

it's stoicism 101 really. Because stoicism very much looks at, well, it's a stiff upper lip. It's about not feeding

my emotions, not allowing my emotions to take over me. And that's not what stoicism is. Stoicism is about allowing

your feelings. And yes, not allow them to take over you unless you choose them to. But Stoicism really is

what is in your control and what is not in your control. And focus on what is in your control.

And just let go of what isn't in your control. And I'll come back to that a little bit later

with an example of the bow and arrow. But am I is it's not just a sign of dependence,

but a mutual understanding that

strengthens, you know, when we let go of that need for security. We feel vulnerable. But in that vulnerability, there's

courage and there's the ability to go, well, okay, I don't need all of that. I can lose everything.

And it was Eckhart Tolle that he was on stage one day and one of the audience member said no,

it's okay for you. You've got all this money. You've got like seven houses. You own half the world. You've

written like 40 books. You've got all the money in the bank, things like that. And he laughed in his

usual way. He'd done his giggle and he just said, yeah, but because I did not have anything at one

point, because I lost everything, I've got the security and knowing I can lose all my houses. I can lose

all my income and I know I'll be okay. And I think that's the opposite to Amai is we're trying

to be in control of everything, trying to control our bank balances, our income, our friends. What

happens in our lives, what happens around us. And I suppose myself as a paralysed person, I've got to rely

on people, you know, wiping my bum I got to rely on people showering me and doing everything I cannot

do. They've got to clean my house. They've got to tidy up and None of them do it the way

I would do it. Yeah, they don't even shower me the way I would shower. And I've kind of gotten

to a point where I'm comfortable with how they do things. But it's not exactly the way I would do

things. But you've got to find that balance in the middle. And unless you find that balance in the middle,

you

will end up with no security that You'll end up with no real comfort because no one will ever do

things the way you would do them. And I suppose am I is giving up the way things ought to

be. And when you give up the way things ought to be, you come to a place of, ah, things

are okay. Things are actually not that bad. And you give other people time. You have more space around you.

You have, the irony is you have more security that's the paradox of things, you know. The more

you don't hold on to things rigidly, the more control you have over them. There's a wonderful example

of the drumsticks. If you hold them too tightly, the music is rigid and not very nice. Hold them too

loosely, you drop the drumsticks. You have to hold them in a light way that the music can flow through

you. Life can flow through you. And that's what this is about is allowing life to be part of your

journey rather than you being controlled of everything.

Because life... Life's never going to turn out exactly the way you want it to. So

imagine setting up a bow and arrow. You can choose the perfect day, clear skies the little wind, and you

carefully set your aim to run back the bowstring, and you're ready to release and you take that perfect

moment. But the moment your fingers let go, the arrow is no longer under your control. There could be a

gust of wind. Anything can happen. You know, it is at the mercy of the weather, the wind and countless

other factors. You have to let go of more than just the outcome of where that bow and arrow ends

up. What it does. The moment you realise you're not just letting go of the physical bow and arrow, you're

letting go of the expectations. And then you have the security. You have the... In that vulnerability and the courage

to let go you have a lot more security because you're not going to be upset or pissed off about

how it ends up.

Because I did my best. I'm okay. At this point, I'm okay.

You know, the people around me, do they do everything I want to do? Hell no. Do they drive me

and saying yes but then my teachers. They all do things differently um Every single one of them. Every single

one of them annoy each other. Every single one of them equally annoy me. But in the face of it,

they do things the best they can, the best they know from their world um view And I think when

we allow that to happen and we sit back in our own vulnerability and go, do you know what? I'm

not in control of a lot of this.

We end up with that more control and more security because people then reach in and say, how do

you want things done how do you because If you're trying to control people too rigidly, they will become rigid.

You

know what I mean by that? You watch someone that's not enjoying their work. They're rigid. They're not enjoying it.

They're they're not doing the things they want to do. Nowhere near as well. I think, who was it

um Zig Ziglar or something like that always use the example of when they come around the corner there's three

people chopping stones. And he said to the first one, what are you doing? And he said, oh, I'm earning

a living. Said to the second one, what are you doing I'm chopping stones. And the third one, he said,

I'm building a cathedral.

Yeah, and you can imagine which one's happier. But where does this come into this podcast? I don't really know.

I just remembered that story. But if you allow people to be part of the bigger picture, be part of

your life, be part of the outcomes, you know, be vulnerable. Look up and say, well, where do you want

to go today? And just do that. You might end up in a place where you might enjoy even more

that you've never been to before. And

this vulnerability is really a source of strength. It's about recognising that you don't have to do

everything on your own as well. We are dependent on other people. We

think we've got autonomy over what we think and what we do, and we haven't. If you think that, you're

going to end up pretty pissed off most days because, trust me, the universe has way way different plans. You

know, you leave home, you get in a car and you drive somewhere, but the universe has different plans for

that journey. You put it in the sat nav and you have that perfect journey and it says, when does

it go like that? It just doesn't. But that's life. When

I was, I don't know, nine, ten years old and I did my careers. In 15 minutes I had to

decide what I was good at and what I was going to be for the rest of my life. And

apparently an astronaut wasn't an option then. It was like army or become, I don't know, a

doctor wasn't on the cards for me either. I think, I don't think my teachers or my careers people had

that high hopes for me. So about 15 minutes in the queue, I had to decide what exams I was

going to take for the rest of my life. I don't even know what I took. I can't remember now.

I still don't even know what I want to do now. But, you know, that doesn't hurt. And in the

words of that Buzz lohmans song um sunscreen

um don't worry if you don't know what you want to do at the age of 30. I know plenty

of people at 40 that don't know what they're doing. They're the most interesting people. So when we do let

go of the outcome, it opens us up to possibilities. It opens us up to other people's

ideas. It

opens us up to living a more broader life, a more fulfilled life. I'm not saying

everybody has to

encroach on your beliefs of what you should do and how you should do it. It's not about somebody else

telling you how you should live. It's about you just embracing the odd moment when you you

could just step back and allow someone else to make the decision and

be okay with that. I'm

okay with that because I can't make decisions. I'm terrible. If there's more than one thing to make a decision

on, that's it, I'm done. It's like, do you want this? Well, is that a yes or no? Oh, damn

it. Just tell me that's what you're having you know I still like it when I was a child because

my mom used to say, do you want bangers with a mash or fish fingers? Nowadays the carers would say,

what do you want for tea? Or my friends or anything like that say, what do you want? And I'm

like,

too much choice. I've

said this before. I can't even choose toothpaste in the

supermarket. That does my head in. It's like way too much choice. There's like, I think at the last count,

there was 3.2 million different types of toothpaste. Not

that many. I think I think it was only like 320 000 or something. But it's still crazy amount. There

may have been 40. I didn't stay there and count them, incidentally, as you can tell. But just

incorporating this in our lives gives us a sense of letting go. A joy that,

in that courage, because that's real courage. Just

allowing our dependence on somebody else. Because we are dependent on other people. Whether we like it or

not.

We give up so much of our time for other people around us. And

we don't even realise it we're trying We think we're in control, we're not.

So this concept's not just vital for like personal relationships, but also how we interact with the world. By

accepting help and showing our vulnerabilities. You know, we really foster that deeper, more meaningful connections.

With everybody around us, with family, with friends, in our relationships, with our partners, it is a

reminder that true strength lies in the ability to trust and surrender. That's worth remembering.

It's a reminder that true strength lies in our ability to trust and surrender. So that's my podcast.

Trying to let go a little bit more stopping Trying not to be in control. So thank you for joining

me on allowing me to talk about my new favourite word am I a m a e It's a

Japanese word. It has no translation to English really and just basically means imagine what it's like to completely let

go to somebody else and how much you can start embracing your life when you do start letting go of

what you're not in control of. I hope this helps in some way. And if you want to stay connected

and you want my weekly calm newsletter, head over to StevenWebb.uk. That's it. That's all my links. And a

real big thank you to you for leaving reviews, for donating to this podcast. You really make a huge difference.

You know, my heart really opens up to you and everybody that listens. And if you've got this far on

the podcast, things are allowing me to be in control of your thoughts just for a little bit.

Yeah, my heart really opens to you. And don't forget my other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations. There'll be a link

all on StevenWebb.uk. So till next time, thank you and I love you.

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