What comes after mindfulness? Noticing the leaves is the start, not the finish.
I was coming down the hill in my electric wheelchair looking at the leaves, and it struck me that plain awareness is only the doorway. It is simple and it is hard, and it is nearly impossible to explain to somebody who has not felt it. Awareness is not only outward either. What can the body teach me right now. And gratitude goes the same way: thank you kettle is the surface, and underneath it runs all the way out to caring about the whole world.
One thing to try: Turn the attention inward once today. Ask what the body is telling you and then just listen.
In this episode
(2:58) Without awareness we snap and snarl
(3:59) So simple, and so hard to hold on to
(5:05) Awareness is not only about the outside world
(6:16) What can the body teach me
(8:02) Deeper gratitude, past the kettle
(9:12) Universal care, and a world centric view
(10:21) We do not know other people. We barely know ourselves
(11:40) Your hips hurting is teaching you something
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
What comes after mindfulness?
Noticing the leaves is the start, not the finish. I was coming down the hill in my electric wheelchair looking at the autumn colours, the trees quietly letting everything go, and it struck me that plain awareness is the doorway rather than the room.
The heart of it
Awareness on its own is simple and hard, and nearly impossible to explain to somebody who has not felt it. Rather like explaining wet.
Give the mind a question to go with the noticing, and mindfulness stops feeling woolly.
Are you aware of your left foot? Notice what happened in the gap before you answered. Are you aware of the air in the room? Are you aware?
In that, there is no stress and no anger, and no peacefulness or love either. There is just awareness. And from there you get insight, and you stop snapping. Not always. My daughter once looked at me after I had gone off on one and said, well, that was not very Zen of you, was it.
So here is the going further. Sat by a river you can notice the sound, the leaves going past, the birds, the cold on your face. Lovely. Now ask a different question.
What does the river teach me? How does it deal with a downpour, or the dry months, or somebody throwing something into it?
Same with the trees. What do they do to drop their leaves? Nothing. They stop feeding them and allow them to fall.
Then turn it inward, because it is not only for a nice walk. What is going on in you in a busy meeting? Continuous stress you are not aware of is what causes the damage. The stress response itself is brilliant.
Gratitude works the same way. Thank you kettle is the surface. How did the water reach it. How did it get the power. What does that say about everything quietly holding together for you. Suddenly it runs a long way out.
And that widening is the same widening that takes you from caring only about yourself, to your group, to more or less everybody.
One small thing to try
Turn the attention inward once today. Ask what the body is telling you and then just listen.
Then out again. Watch a bird and ask what it sees, what you look like from up there, what it is actually hunting for. Watch what a flock does when something startles it, and how it comes back.
Write one line on your phone afterwards. What did this moment teach me.
Questions people ask
Am I doing mindfulness wrong if it feels pointless?
Probably not, and that flat feeling is exactly what this episode is for. Plain noticing runs out for a lot of people. Giving it a question is what stops it drifting.
Do I have to do something with what I notice?
No, and that is the gift of it. You can learn something and act on none of it. Being aware of the thing is already the whole of it.
Do you get this right?
No. I am overwhelmed a fair bit at the moment, which is precisely why I have been leaning on the question rather than the plain version.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
mindfulness · spiritual-journey · nature
Read the transcript
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stillness in the Storms. And I once talked about going beyond mindfulness.
I was on the way down the hill earlier on in my electric wheelchair. I was looking at all the
leaves around me and the beautiful terminal colours. Just, I absolutely love this time of year. Don't so much like
the cold, but the beautiful blue sky. The trees were just letting stuff go. And nature was just
teaching me all kinds of lessons of how to live. And sometimes I just ignore it and get on and
moan about my overwhelm and moan about my life and moan about all the different things that's going on. And
I just, okay, I need to be mindful. And
it just made me think, what would it mean to go beyond mindfulness? And that's what I want to talk
about today. Going beyond mindfulness to deepen our insight on the spiritual journey. I'm Steven Webb and I
just help people through difficult times. I'm paralysed just below the neck. I do meditations on Inner Peace Meditations.
And I perhaps should script this part of the podcast, but I never do. I'm just here and I help
you guys through when you have really difficult times. You help me. I help you. And yeah. Sounds like a
happy family. So let's talk about like first of all, thank you to those that have donated. You're awesome.
It keeps the podcast free. It also helps the Inner Peace Meditations podcast because I don't like adverts.
Nothing worse to me than turning on a podcast and I've literally got to find the bit in the
first 10 minutes to where I have to go through to get rid of the advert. So just thank you.
Anybody that treats me to a coffee at StevenWebb.uk. You guys keep the podcast free, so awesome. Thank you. Right,
let's get on with the show. Beyond Mindfulness for Spiritual Insight. So what do what is mindfulness? What mindfulness is?
The traditional focus of mindfulness is a non-judgmental awareness. So what is happening now and doing nothing
with it? Just being aware of it. So if I said to you, are you aware of your left foot?
And you might say yes, but what happened between that? You just become aware of your left You don't have
to do anything with your left foot. You just have to bring yourself awareness to it. Are you aware of
the air in the room? There you go. You just become aware of it. Are you aware
Awareness And in just awareness, there's no feeling, there's no stress, there's no anger there's no there's not even peacefulness,
there's not even love or anything like that. It's just awareness. And from awareness, you get deep insight, you get
a better way of controlling our lives, a better way of... Seeing things and outlook, we deal with things better.
You know, if we're not being aware, we'll often snap and we'll snarl or we'll get angry. And, you know,
I'm as guilty as the next person. You know, when my daughter comes in and says something and I'm not
being aware and trying to be deep heart mind and trying to be aware of what she's trying to say,
I might just go off on one. And I've done it. I remember when she looked at me one day
and goes, do you know what? That wasn't very zen-like, was it Stevens Damn it. Hold the mirror up. Why
don't you? So awareness is just being present and being here. And scientifically proven
again and again and again to reduce stress, improve mental health improved body health. There's so
many reasons to do mindfulness. But
it's a bit fluffy in it It's a bit woolly. What do you do with it? You know, you're asking
all these questions constantly. Am I being mindful? Is this right? Am I doing it right? Because it is so
simple but so hard to do. It's like trying to grasp it is really, really difficult. And trying to explain
it is really, really difficult as well as you have to experience. It's like trying to explain to someone that's
never encountered anything wet what wet is without actually getting them to experience it. You try doing that.
That's what trying to explain mindfulness is without experiencing it. So, what does it mean to be beyond
mindfulness? So When you become mindful in this current moment, look around at the trees, look around at the leaves
falling. What can that teach us? What can this moment teach us?
Can nature teach us something? Can the trees dropping the leaves teach us something? What do the trees do to
drop the leaves?
Well, for my limited knowledge, they do nothing. They just stop feeding them. They allow them to drop.
And that's the important thing. They allow things to happen. So if we just allow thoughts to be what they
are, allow feelings to be what they are, we don't always have to do something with them. And we can
prepare for the next moment.
And being aware is not always about the external world either. It's all well and good being aware next to
a river or next to a lovely autumnal day out in the out in a nice walk with the trees,
leaves falling down. What's going on inside? You could be at a busy family do or you could be at
work, you could be in a meeting and be aware of what's going on inside.
And just by being aware of your stress moment, it's also been scientifically proven that
stress is not overly bad for the body. Continuous stress and not being aware of that you're stressed.
Can cause high blood pressure, all kinds of problems. But the stress mechanism is brilliant. It's a brilliant thing the
body does to get us out of trouble. But
not being aware of that stress, not being aware of what's going on in the current body, then you have
all kinds of problems. That's
where the blood pressure goes up. That's where all the other things go up. And you cannot return to the
present moment like Aha I'm stressed or I'm worried or I'm feeling peaceful. So even internally, what can the
body teach me? What can the body show me? And I think that's that's where
I'm too with mindfulness around. Because if I just go to plain old mindfulness, which has nothing plain old about
it, but if I just go and be mindful, it just reminds me and makes me think, oh, what do
I do with this? So if I give my mind something to do with it, what can I learn from
it? So for example you don't sit next to a river. You're sat on the park bench next to a
lovely river. And you can go, okay I'm I'm aware of the sounds. I'm aware of the
leaves passing by. I'm aware of the birds in the background. I'm aware of the cold on my
face. I'm
aware of my feelings. I can feel my bum on the bench. That's all great. Lovely. But
what if you ask the question is, what does the river teach me?
How does the river deal with overwhelm? You know, a sudden downpour. How does the river deal with it? How
does the river deal with the dry months? How does the river deal with when people throw things in it
or a whirlpool?
And it just leads to a deeper insight because there's so much wisdom out there. There's wisdom within the body.
There's wisdom within every atom of your body. There's wisdom in every river and every tree and every meeting, every
encounter. There's something there to teach us. See, when we go and beyond the current moment at face
value, watch below it. And I often talk about a deeper gratitude what's What does it mean to go
deeper than to face value gratitude so you can be grateful for the kettle in the morning. Okay, let's be
mindful about kettle. Ah, thank you kettle. So you're moving beyond it and you're kind of grateful And then you
can be aware of, wait a minute. How did the water get to the kettle? How did the kettle have
the energy to um heat up? What can that teach us about systems and bringing things together and all that?
So you're going beyond mindfulness into a deeper gratitude. Again, seeing things as a whole.
And what this does, when we're younger, we often see the world through an egocentric way.
Me. Caring about me. What's important to me. And then, as Nancy giddigan says you know, you have the
um selfish That's egocentric. And then you have the care. We care about the people around us. You know,
ethnocentric. Me and my group that could may even extend to your village or your country sometimes. And
then you care, universal care. That's when universal love, when you see everything. Well, nearly everything. And
you care about the whole world. A world-centric view. And that's where you start bringing more and more. And this
is what a beyond mindfulness does. I
think we should practice mindfulness. And then when we struggle with that, just go beyond mindfulness.
You know, be aware of the bird.
And then go beyond that. What can the bird see?
How's the bird feeling? We don't know if they're right No idea. I don't know what birds eyes do.
Don't know they see in black and white now. If they're on a branch, you can see that they can
see down. What do you look like from above to a bird?
What is it they're looking for?
And we can deepen this awareness by when we're talking to someone, what are they actually saying to us? What
is the message in this moment?
What are they trying to reach out? What are they really trying to say beyond it? Then we may not
have it right and very often we won't get it right because we think we know other people. We don't
know other people. We don't even know ourselves, let alone we know other people. We hear all the time, I
know them like the back of my hand. I know what they're thinking. No, we don't
you don't know any of those things.
So yeah um and the And behaviours of animals. Just said about the bird. What about the rabbits how do
How do birds deal with when something frightens them? They all fly off and they all just steadily come back.
What
can you learn from that?
So just, I encourage you to, when you go out and be mindful now, just go beyond the mindfulness. Just
go deeper or go wider, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't really matter.
And maybe even just write on your phone afterwards, just a little journal to what you've learned Just
that little reflection and contemplation of what has this moment taught me?
That's a great question
and And when you start to do this really deeply, you'll realise that every single moment will teach you something.
Even if it's just what you can see or what you can feel or, you know, it may be your
hips hurting you. Hey, teaching you something it's telling you something.
Listen. Listen.
And sometimes you don't have to do anything with any of this. That's the great gift with this.
How amazing is that? You're in control. So
yeah, I think this really helps me when I'm struggling with mindfulness. I'm struggling with overwhelm, which I am at
the moment quite a bit. So I'm using this to really, what can this moment teach me? That's the question
I'm contemplating at the moment a lot. So that's my podcast for this week. I've just uploaded, or I'm about
to in the next 24 hours, upload a new meditation to Inner Peace Meditations. You can check that out. It's
a morning meditation about dealing with an overwhelming day or a very busy day ahead.
So it's there's a nice congruency between this one and that um So please check out that. There'll be a
link in the show notes to innerpeacemeditations.com. And you can support this podcast. Leave a review. Support this
podcast. Share it with your friends. If it helps you, it will help somebody else. And thank you. Thank you
for listening. Thank you for staying to the end. Thank Thank you for supporting. And if you can, treat me
to a coffee.
That's awesome as well. Carely review. That's awesome.
Your task today is to go
beyond mindfulness.
And what can I learn from this current moment? Take care. I love you. And bye.
