Episode notes
Why does your calm hold in a traffic jam and vanish the moment your own family walk in? Because calm without foundations is just good weather.
You can build any house you like, but without the decking underneath it goes the moment the weather turns. I lost it completely with my daughter once, over something so small I cannot now remember what it was. Stillness is not the absence of trouble. It is having more control when trouble arrives. And your subconscious is not broken either. It has kept you alive this long.
One thing to try: Pick a trigger you meet every day. Red traffic lights work well. Every time you hit one, take two breaths on purpose.
In this episode
- (0:01) The second ever episode, and what these foundations are for
- (2:50) Build any house you like, but not without the decking
- (5:12) Losing it with my daughter over something I cannot even remember
- (6:31) Calm in the traffic jam, gone again a week later
- (8:51) Setting up triggers, and why red lights are ideal
- (10:09) Your subconscious mind is not broken, it has kept you alive
- (13:00) Stillness is not quiet, it is control
- (15:09) The tree that bends, and the one that snaps
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Thank you for listening.
Steven
Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
- Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
- Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk
The question this answers
Why does your calm hold in a traffic jam and vanish the moment your own family walk in?
Because calm without foundations is just good weather.
The heart of it
- You do not need stillness in front of Netflix. You need it when everybody wants a piece of you at once.
- Stillness is not losing control. It is having more of it.
- Your subconscious is not broken. It has kept you alive this long. It just has no moral compass.
Think of a house. It can have the big windows, the pillars, the lot. Build it on sand and the first storm takes it.
Or a tree. The one with shallow roots comes out of the ground the first bad night. The one that is properly rooted bends in the wind, stands in the rain, and keeps its own soil damp in a heatwave.
That is the difference between feeling calm and having a foundation.
Two years ago my daughter walked in and I went off on one. I still cannot tell you what it was about, which tells you how important it was. In my head I was shouting. She said afterwards I was not actually that loud. She waited for me to finish, about a minute or two, and said, that's not very zen of you, is it.
I laughed. She was right. I still had work to do.
That is the honest version. You get a quiet week, you keep your head in traffic, you think you have cracked it, and a week later you are back at square one. That is not failure. That is what happens without structure.
The tools are simple, and I go deeper into each one in later episodes.
- Meditation. I could not do it for twenty years because I thought it meant no thinking. It does not.
- Mindfulness in ordinary life. Washing up. Walking the kids to school. No cushion, no robes, no shaved head.
- Two or three slow breaths when the wave hits. Easy to say. Not easy to do.
- Triggers. Every red light, listen to the traffic instead of drifting off.
- Journaling, and a list of the things you already know set you off.
All of it does one job. It puts you here, so you can see the reaction coming instead of finding out after.
One small thing to try
Do this now, eyes open.
Breathe in and lift your arms above your head. Let them down slowly as you breathe out, and rest them beside you.
Breathe in the word calm. Breathe out the word relax. Notice that your body loosens on the out breath on its own. You do not make it happen.
If your mind wanders, smile, say thank you for the thought, and come back.
Eyes open matters. If your calm only works with your eyes shut for five minutes, it will not be there in the middle of an argument.
Questions people ask
Is this only for naturally calm people?
No. When I hit rock bottom my mind would not stop, and I was asking my carers for a triple just to get to sleep. If I can get to this, so can you. I have taught people far more in their heads than me, and people who feel everything, and both get there.
Does stillness mean letting the world burn?
The opposite. It means you are present enough to respond properly instead of reacting and regretting it. Stub your toe and you hop about. That is not you deciding, that is habit. Stillness is getting a vote back.
What if I can only feel calm when someone else is guiding me?
That is a belief, not a fact. When I take you through a meditation, you are doing all of it. You simply believe you can while I am there. The foundation has to be one you carry, not one that depends on who is in the room.
Is my subconscious the enemy here?
No. It kept you safe. Its only flaw is that it asks what worked last time, not whether it was kind or good for you next year. Your job is to add the missing bit, not to fight it.
Read the transcript
The transcript follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
0:01Steven Webb: Welcome to Stillness in the Storms. The podcast that helps you to find that little inner peace when you have
0:08Steven Webb: it least and you need it most. I'm Steven, your host, and thank you for joining me. This is the
0:14Steven Webb: second podcast, and today we're talking about building the foundation of stillness. now How do you cultivate that much
0:22Steven Webb: needed foundation that when things do go wrong you're ready and you can respond
0:29Steven Webb: in a calm Nice Enjoyable manner instead of reacting and then regretting it later.
0:37Steven Webb: That's what this show is about. So on this show we're going to cover what is the foundation of stillness?
0:43Steven Webb: Can anybody have this foundation? Or is it just reserved for calm, quiet people? Why
0:52Steven Webb: is the foundation so important? And how can we start today? And I'm going to end today's podcast with a
0:59Steven Webb: little meditation to give you an experience a little... Sense of what this stillness is all about. Because
1:07Steven Webb: unless you experience and you know what it's about, you don't know what you're going for. You don't know what
1:12Steven Webb: it feels like. And I'm a great believer in teaching that I could do a hundred podcast episodes and I
1:20Steven Webb: can tell you all day long, every day, what it's like and how you can do it. But unless you
1:26Steven Webb: experience it, it's like there's no point. It's like it's very much like me telling you that water's hot. No
1:34Steven Webb: matter how many times I try to explain what it feels like, just putting your hand in it, you're gonna
1:39Steven Webb: know instantly. And that's what the meditations are about. So yeah, let's start. First of all, thank you for being
1:47Steven Webb: here. Thank you for supporting me on this podcast. As I said, this is the second episode and you can
1:54Steven Webb: head over to Patreon. Subscribe and you get the whole podcast without the outtakes and With the outtakes, I
2:02Steven Webb: mean. And you get to hear more of when things go wrong and when things go right. And
2:09Steven Webb: I answer your questions. And you also get standalone meditations. And that's a way of me
2:17Steven Webb: thanking you and me of helping you to create a little more stillness in your life. So let's get on
2:24Steven Webb: with today's show um Let's first tackle the subject of what is the foundation of stillness.
2:32Steven Webb: Well, foundation is very much like when you build a house or you build a building. You know, the building
2:39Steven Webb: could be amazing building it could be It could have the most elegant design. It could have really large
2:47Steven Webb: windows. It could have the pillows in front of the doors. It could be this big mansion or whatever you
2:55Steven Webb: decide for it to be. But if it hasn't got the foundations and you haven't given it a firm decking
3:01Steven Webb: to build the house, it's gonna be no good when things start going wrong. It's like when they say building
3:08Steven Webb: your house on sand. The
3:12Steven Webb: sand moves the house is going to move. Your house is going to fall down that's going to be no
3:17Steven Webb: firm foundation for your house. So that's what I want to do. I want to help you do is
3:25Steven Webb: build the foundation of stillness. So it's not when you're sitting on the cushion or when everything's going well, that
3:33Steven Webb: you need the calmness. You know, you don't need it when you're sat down in front of Netflix watching your
3:37Steven Webb: favourite program. It's when things are going wrong, when you need it, when you're in a traffic jam or when
3:43Steven Webb: you're at work and your colleagues and your boss are all demanding something from you. It's when all the kids
3:50Steven Webb: are hungry and you're hungry and everyone around you is wanting a piece of you and then your partner comes
3:57Steven Webb: in and then the phone goes. The building of the foundation is so that in those times you've got the
4:03Steven Webb: tools and you've got the experience and you are ready to deal with them. In a skillful way rather
4:11Steven Webb: than just
4:14Steven Webb: go away. Leave me go. Can't deal with this right now. I've had enough of this right now. I'm tired.
4:21Steven Webb: Just, yeah. So yeah, it's about building this awareness. And when we
4:28Steven Webb: have this awareness, we're no longer buffered and we're no longer reacting. We're no longer we're no longer running around
4:36Steven Webb: putting fires out. We don't start the fires. And that's the main thing. And living with this foundation means you're
4:44Steven Webb: just going to be more understanding and caring. You're going to be more loving. The people around you will have
4:52Steven Webb: more of a sense of enjoyment because they won't be treading on eggshells anymore. I've been in relationships where
4:59Steven Webb: I've been frightened to know what to say um Whereas with a calmness, I feel now I don't have to
5:06Steven Webb: say everything I'm thinking I can I can take a step back and go, that won't be kind. So I
5:13Steven Webb: choose not to say it. Even sometimes now, I'm almost there now um And I can
5:21Steven Webb: remember two years ago, my daughter came in one day and I I lost it um I cannot
5:29Steven Webb: remember what it was about. It was something so insignificant. I laugh now, but it wasn't insignificant at the time.
5:34Steven Webb: And she came in and she looked at me and... I went off on one and I was, in in
5:41Steven Webb: my world, I was shouting. I was being quite loud, but I wasn't actually being that loud, she said to
5:46Steven Webb: me afterwards I went off for about a minute, two minutes, and she just stood there and goes, hmm, that's
5:54Steven Webb: not very zen of you, is it?
5:58Steven Webb: And I laughed. And she knows I've been trying to deal with that side of me
6:05Steven Webb: um Trying to deal with the the monkey brain, the subconscious mind that reacts to these moments.
6:12Steven Webb: So that was a wonderful reminder that I still have work to do. And what we always do, and this
6:19Steven Webb: is why we need a structure and a practice. This is why we need the foundations put in place. Because
6:25Steven Webb: we often think we can... A moment of calmness where we do a little bit of practice. Then we get
6:32Steven Webb: into traffic jam we remain calm and we're chilled. And we're like, I've got it. I understand now. It's cool.
6:38Steven Webb: I'm... I've got this calmness and stillness in storms and things like that, you know? But
6:45Steven Webb: then a week later
6:47Steven Webb: back to square one. So that's why we need some structure and some kind of tools in place.
6:54Steven Webb: So what are some of these tools? Well,
6:57Steven Webb: meditation. I hate to say it. No, I don't hate to say it. It's just difficult saying it because so
7:05Steven Webb: many people believe they cannot meditate and that was me for many years. I said in the first podcast about,
7:11Steven Webb: you know, I was reading all these books and in the books it said about do meditation.
7:18Steven Webb: That would help you. Meditate, meditate, meditate I kept turning the pages just thinking oh God, a solution that I
7:25Steven Webb: cannot have.
7:27Steven Webb: It's a solution that I it's not available to me because my mind thinks too much. I've always got something
7:34Steven Webb: on my mind. Something's always happening. And my mind would not go peacefully, sit down. So I couldn't sit there
7:42Steven Webb: and have nothing. But I've learned now that it's not about that. And I'll cover meditation more in depth in
7:49Steven Webb: future episodes. But I want to briefly outline how you can build some kind of foundation this one. So I'm
7:56Steven Webb: just going to just touch upon them. So mindfulness practice is another one.
8:02Steven Webb: And meditation, mindfulness can be done in everyday life. They can be done washing the dishes, walking the kids to
8:07Steven Webb: school, doing everything. You don't literally have to go out and buy a cushion, get some monks robes. You don't
8:13Steven Webb: have to shave your head. You don't have to. Instantly, they used to shave their heads. Not because of some
8:21Steven Webb: kind of practice or anything. It was purely so the teachers would know when one of the monks would run
8:27Steven Webb: off. They could instantly recognise because they were the ones with the bald heads. Or so was told um
8:35Steven Webb: I believe there's some truth in it, but I don't know.
8:39Steven Webb: There's breathing techniques we can use. Just go into our simple breath when things are overwhelming us
8:47Steven Webb: or when we're angry, we can just pause and take two or three deep breaths. And although that's easy to
8:54Steven Webb: explain now, it's not so easy to do. We
8:58Steven Webb: can also set up triggers in our lives. Perhaps traffic lights, something like that. Whenever we get traffic lights and
9:06Steven Webb: they do turn red, that we just take a few deep breaths and we take notice of what's going on
9:12Steven Webb: around us. Perhaps we listen to the other cars for just a moment instead of automatically going to our subconscious
9:20Steven Webb: mind because that's what this is about is building The stillness into our conscious mind
9:27Steven Webb: instead of allowing our subconscious mind to continually go back to the habits that he's used to doing. And
9:36Steven Webb: there's more in-depth things we can do. We can do journaling, we can have lists and other things that
9:43Steven Webb: we know triggers us, we know that gets to us. And it's all about, and I've said it a couple
9:50Steven Webb: of times, it's all about knowing. It's all about being here, present and knowing what's actually happening. That
9:58Steven Webb: is the only way of really intercepting it and cutting off these
10:05Steven Webb: habitable reactions that we've been doing for so long in our lives. And there's nothing wrong. The subconscious mind is
10:11Steven Webb: not broke. It's kept us alive it served us really well. Very often when you hear these advice in the
10:18Steven Webb: spiritual world, it's like, ah, subconscious mind. It'll get us in trouble all the time. No, it's it's kept us
10:24Steven Webb: safe. The only thing... That we could improve with the subconscious mind is give it some moral compass.
10:31Steven Webb: It has no moral compass it just how do I stay alive? How do I repeat what I did last
10:38Steven Webb: time? It worked. It doesn't matter whether you get in trouble or whether it hurts somebody or whether or not
10:43Steven Webb: it's damaging you long term. It's all about instant gratification and how do I react in this moment? What
10:51Steven Webb: did I do last time? Whereas the human mind is all about, well, how do I do things in this
10:59Steven Webb: moment to improve my later on? So it goes from instant gratification to eating healthier, being
11:07Steven Webb: more healthier, having a healthier mind instead of just going with the thoughts. We work with the thoughts. We
11:14Steven Webb: we are in control of what we do with them. So can anybody have this stillness?
11:21Steven Webb: Yes. Anybody
11:25Steven Webb: can have this stillness. When I hit my rock bottom, my mind was giving me so many questions and pain
11:32Steven Webb: and feelings. It was awful. I was having a drink just to go to sleep at night. And that drink
11:38Steven Webb: become more and more and more until I was so embarrassed to ask the carer for like a treble please
11:44Steven Webb: I was drinking spirits um just to get to sleep, just to shut my mind up. It was too much
11:51Steven Webb: for me. There was too much going on going on. And they were not just thinking, they were painful thoughts.
11:57Steven Webb: So when I sit down to meditate or sit down to try to even just have a little bit of
12:03Steven Webb: moment's peace, I couldn't even get a disconnection when watching movies or anything like that because every movie
12:11Steven Webb: reminded me of the pain I was going through. So I was really struggling.
12:16Steven Webb: So if I say I can get to this place of stillness, I know you can too. And I know
12:22Steven Webb: people that are even more... Thinkers than me over thinkers Real in their head, stuck in their head people. And
12:29Steven Webb: real emotional empaths that feel everything. I've helped all sorts from all the way
12:37Steven Webb: from in the head to in the heart find stillness and normally through some kind of meditation.
12:44Steven Webb: So yes, it's possible um And I want to bust one of the myths about stillness.
12:52Steven Webb: Stillness doesn't mean losing control.
12:55Steven Webb: It doesn't mean stepping back and allowing the world to just burn. Stillness is more control.
13:03Steven Webb: Stillness is
13:06Steven Webb: remaining calm, present, totally with it. So therefore you actually have more control over what's going
13:13Steven Webb: on. You've got the control to respond properly. You
13:19Steven Webb: know when you stub your tail on the bed and you jump up and down ah Who's doing that? You're
13:24Steven Webb: not doing that. It's your subconscious mind just like, hey, dance on one foot for a moment because your toe's
13:31Steven Webb: hurting. So I don't know where that reference comes from. But it's in there now.
13:39Steven Webb: So there's more control of it and And there's an awareness with the control of the outside world. What can
13:46Steven Webb: you do about the outside world? Well, very little. When people say they're not in control, it means they're not
13:51Steven Webb: in control of the outside world and what they want to do out there. Really, we need to learn to
13:57Steven Webb: control ourselves inside so that when you see something out there that you don't like or not the way you
14:04Steven Webb: expect it to be, you can be okay with it. You can be like, well, you know, it's not the
14:10Steven Webb: way I think it'd be ideal but it is the way it is and I'm not going to work myself
14:14Steven Webb: up about it.
14:16Steven Webb: And I know you're capable of doing it because at least once in your life you've done that. Not my
14:22Steven Webb: monkey, not my circus.
14:25Steven Webb: So it's possible but some people it just might take a lot more practice than others. It may not be
14:31Steven Webb: so easy with some people.
14:35Steven Webb: Now then I spoke a little bit about the foundation of stillness and what it is for you. I want
14:43Steven Webb: to talk about why build the foundation now
14:47Steven Webb: um and And the best thing to do with that is compare ourselves to nature sometimes. You take the tree.
14:54Steven Webb: A tree that hasn't got a decent roots and a decent foundation. It's
15:00Steven Webb: going to get torn up at the first time of any kind of storm. It's going to get tore out
15:05Steven Webb: of the ground it's going to If kids go climbing it and all that, it's going to not going to
15:08Steven Webb: last long. It's going to break down. It's the trees that have a decent rooting on the ground, in a
15:14Steven Webb: decent ground that can grow taller. They can bend in the wind and bend with all the rain and the
15:22Steven Webb: storms and all the different weather yeah
15:25Steven Webb: even protects itself in the hot sun because the ground below won't dry up.
15:32Steven Webb: So tree is a perfect analogy for building a foundation.
15:40Steven Webb: However, we don't want to build a foundation that we cannot move and we're not flexible. We want to have
15:46Steven Webb: this foundation that we can take with us. And the foundations cannot rely on other people around you. Well, I
15:52Steven Webb: can stay calm in Steven's presence. I very often get it. How can I do it with you? How can
16:00Steven Webb: I feel this calmness? And I cannot do it by myself. But you can. It's not dependent on me. You're
16:06Steven Webb: the one doing it. If I take you through a meditation in a minute or when I take you through
16:10Steven Webb: a meditation in a minute, you really are doing it yourself. You
16:17Steven Webb: just believe you can do it when you're with me and that makes a difference. And you don't want to
16:22Steven Webb: end up like a weeble wobble. Can you remember those weeble wobble things? I think that's what they're called.
16:27Steven Webb: These silver things that you spin around and they just... I think that's what they are anyway. You don't want
16:34Steven Webb: to end up like that, that you've been pushed around by everybody so much that you don't even know what
16:38Steven Webb: direction you are in and you don't even know what to do. So I hope that makes sense. Let me
16:44Steven Webb: know in the comments um Let me know review how am I doing on this podcast.
16:48Steven Webb: And the final thing I want to cover
16:51Steven Webb: before we go into a little meditation is how do we build this foundation? Well,
16:59Steven Webb: listen to this podcast. Subscribe to this podcast for one because
17:04Steven Webb: We're going to be talking about how to build this foundation and what this foundation looks like and different practices
17:11Steven Webb: and techniques. And we'll be going deeper and deeper and deeper into them. So don't miss them. So that's one
17:17Steven Webb: of the major ways in which you can build a foundation.
17:24Steven Webb: Also, become aware of what's going on around you. Just become aware. Just sit there every now and again during
17:30Steven Webb: the day and go, that's a cup. That's in my life because it holds my drink.
17:36Steven Webb: What am I feeling right now? What am I seeing right now? What's happening outside right now? What can I
17:40Steven Webb: hear right now? When you ask these questions, it brings you to the present moment because it forces you to
17:46Steven Webb: answer the question. You know, you cannot, what can I hear outside right now and not be present to what
17:54Steven Webb: the sounds are outside. Not the sound 10 minutes ago or a week ago. It's the sound right now, whatever's
18:00Steven Webb: going on right now
18:02Steven Webb: um You can also download three meditations that I recorded. To help you find a little calmness very quickly.
18:09Steven Webb: One's five minutes, a peaceful place. And you just literally take a few breaths and you're straight there and You
18:16Steven Webb: can head over to connect with Steven and there's a button right in the middle of the screen. So you
18:20Steven Webb: can download and listen to them anytime, completely free
18:27Steven Webb: um Apart from that you know we can open our hearts and live a genuine
18:34Steven Webb: freedom. And when we live like that, it opens us up to whatever's happening as opposed to the way we
18:42Steven Webb: want things to be. And I'm going to talk about expectations in the next podcast because expectations, very
18:50Steven Webb: often we say that we should get rid of all expectations, but no, we shouldn't. Some expectations are healthy. Some
18:58Steven Webb: expectations are not healthy. Some of them are you down. Some of them, yeah, people need to bloody respect and
19:04Steven Webb: have, you need some expectations of some people um So we'll be talking about that in the next episode. But
19:12Steven Webb: until then, head over to connectwithsteven.com. There's a link there to my Patreon page. And that's a way you can
19:20Steven Webb: support this podcast. So you can help me to get more You can help me to edit it. Apart from
19:26Steven Webb: that, thank you. Your time is the most valuable thing you have and you spent it with me today. So
19:31Steven Webb: I'm really deeply humbled and honored with that
19:37Steven Webb: So So let's just have a little stillness and we'll sit together now and The easiest way of doing
19:45Steven Webb: this is we bring our attention to our breath and we move our attention from our mind and our thinking
19:52Steven Webb: down through our body. And
19:56Steven Webb: during this practice I urge you to keep your eyes open, wide open in front of you because we want
20:03Steven Webb: to establish this stillness in life not only when we can close our eyes.
20:12Steven Webb: It's no good every time we're triggered when every
20:16Steven Webb: time we feel like reacting, we have to close our eyes for like five minutes and just breathe. They
20:24Steven Webb: do that on the comedy shows. Whereas
20:28Steven Webb: we need to do it and stay calm in the midst of that storm. And
20:35Steven Webb: we do it like this.
20:41Steven Webb: So if we just do this now, if you take a deep breath in and put your arms above your
20:45Steven Webb: head.
20:47Steven Webb: Now as you let your arms down beside you, just... Breathe out slowly in a controlled way
20:54Steven Webb: and place your arms down next to you so they're just relaxed. And
21:00Steven Webb: now just recognise that you're breathing in and
21:05Steven Webb: you're breathing out.
21:09Steven Webb: And you can even breathe in the word calm and
21:14Steven Webb: breathe out the word relax.
21:18Steven Webb: Breathe in calm and breathe out relax.
21:24Steven Webb: And notice how your body just relaxes around every breath that is released. Notice how when you're
21:32Steven Webb: exhaling your breath,
21:35Steven Webb: notice how when you're breathing out, your body naturally relaxes. You
21:41Steven Webb: don't have to make it happen.
21:53Steven Webb: Just stay been aware what's happening in this present moment. You're breathing in and you're breathing out.
22:00Steven Webb: If your mind wanders and it thinks about anything else, just smile and bring it back to your breath. Say
22:08Steven Webb: thank you for the thought, but we're just breathing at the moment.
22:21Steven Webb: And you may notice a calmness. Everything just suddenly starts to get a little quieter around you. The body just
22:28Steven Webb: lets go a little bit. And your mind just humors at the moment and just says okay let's just
22:36Steven Webb: I'll focus on the breath.
22:45Steven Webb: And what we notice is the gaps between the breathing and the gaps between the thinking.
22:52Steven Webb: See, there's no such thing as no thinking.
22:56Steven Webb: It's a matter of focused awareness.
23:00Steven Webb: And that's where the stillness is, this focused awareness.
23:21Steven Webb: And you recognise that softness.
23:25Steven Webb: There's not the harshness in the body of when you're uptight or stressed or anxious. There's a
23:33Steven Webb: softness of letting go.
23:37Steven Webb: And this is what stillness is about is about letting things be. Nothing
23:42Steven Webb: is different in this moment than what it was a few moments ago. Apart
23:48Steven Webb: from you're aware and alert and relaxed.
23:55Steven Webb: Thank you.
24:01Steven Webb: And I hope you get time to subscribe to this podcast and you can head over to my website
24:09Steven Webb: connectwithsteven.com. and download some more meditations completely free that
24:16Steven Webb: will help you to create this stillness quickly when
24:20Steven Webb: you have it least and you need it most. Thank you.
24:27Steven Webb: So till next time, take care, love deeply, strive to understand and above all be kind to
24:34Steven Webb: yourself.
24:36Steven Webb: Take care. Namaste. And
24:40Steven Webb: don't forget to subscribe. Hit the review button if you heard enough that you like the podcast. Give me an
24:46Steven Webb: honest review. Give me some feedback if you would like me to change it up in any way. And if
24:53Steven Webb: you can, head over to connectwithsteven.com. You can go to the Patreon site and support the podcast. And
25:01Steven Webb: that'd be amazing. Thank you. Take care.
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