Deep Wisdom: The Power of Knowing Yourself and Nurturing Inner Compassion

Q: Is reading a lot of books not going deeper?

Not on its own. A hundred books read and nothing done with them is span, not depth. One book you actually live is worth the shelf.

Q: Is thinking of yourself as the hero narcissistic?

I do not think so, and it never lands well when I say it. The inner dialogue is always you battling through and doing alright. That is optimism, not vanity.

Q: Where do I start?

With why you do one thing you have never questioned. Mine was lateness. Find yours, follow it down, and the rest of it opens up behind it.

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The transcript

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self-compassion · mindfulness · ego

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So, welcome to this week's podcast. I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms. And I want to

talk about going deeper rather than building on the surface. And this is a subject that's

close to my heart simply because it's another thing that's made a big difference in my life. I'm going to

start with one thing that's come up really recently. I was late for everything. And if I wasn't late, I

would get there just on the right second. And this has been my whole life. And it

wasn't until in the last probably three months that I realised why. And it's because

I have a real a brain that just loves... Doing something. It loves the instant

gratification. So if I've got two minutes, I just want to watch YouTube video for a moment or I want

to just do something just for that two minutes and I would calculate my time precisely to the point

where I would go, right, if I leave the if I leave my house, it takes me about four minutes

to get down the bottom of the hill, two minutes to get across town. Not... Putting into place anywhere where

I might bump into someone I'll talk to someone or something goes wrong and I've got to take shelter from

the rain or anything. So the days I get there on time, I'm lucky. And this was right to the

point where we had cathedral services with all kinds of dignitaries with the Lord Lieutenant and the High Sheriff of

Cornwall and all that. I would literally, they'd be looking around for me and Lionel, I'd turn cry I said

don't worry it'll be it it'll be it And I would literally creak the door open with my feet, the

side door, and like 10 seconds to go. And where am And I would pop in and then start walking.

How rude and how irresponsible was I? Because it is rude. I

let people down all the time. And when I realised that it's because of that

getting to know myself deeper, I realised that why I do the things I do. And I haven't been late

for anything for a while. I actually get there a bit earlier. I opened the toilets with the mayor the

other day. I was there five minutes beforehand um I did something with Lionel the other day and he's like

um you're here. You know, have I got the right day? And it's purely because there's 15, 20 minutes to

go. And I'll go, no, I'm not gonna start that because I will be late.

And getting to know myself, and this is what this podcast is about. Once you truly get to know yourself,

then you'll start to thrive. Then you'll start to have a deeper wisdom. You'll start to be a more caring,

empathy person. You'll start to open your mind to new ideas. You'll learn stuff. There's so much

potential just when you start opening up and knowing yourself better. And one Zen reflection that everybody always uses yeah

To know oneself is the first step towards inner peace.

To know oneself is the first step towards inner peace.

So before we actually start, I know there's a bit of a long intro. Before we actually start, I want

to thank everybody that donates to the podcast.

I say this every week, I know. But really, it's expensive to do these things.

Hosting and editing and doing it all with equipment and all that. So I want to thank you. And I

want to thank a small group. I've wanted these headphones for ages. And they help me because I

can listen to audible books and all that. And I can dictate to my computer all at the same time.

And when the carers talk to me when the door goes, I can still hear that. And they make a

real difference to my productivity. And if you're what if you're listening to these podcasts online.

I'm actually uploading this podcast to YouTube so you can see when I was holding them up. But you know,

I put out my wish list this week, $199, like within about 20 minutes, you guys sent the money and

I was able to order them that night. And just deeply thankful um

I don't know why you guys do it, but I'm just incredibly grateful for you guys for doing

it. But I won't go deeper on that because I'll get emotional. Because that's where the feelings are, deeper. Not

the superficial ones you cannot control.

So we want eternal wisdom. Let's get on with the show. We want eternal wisdom. We want to know everything.

We want um inner peace we We want plenty of friends. We want to reach out. We want recognition.

We want people to realise who we are, what we're doing. And I don't meet anybody, even the introverts that

go, do you know what? I'm not really that worried. I don't care how many friends I got. I've got

my two good friends right When you have a deeper conversation with them, it almost gets to the point just

below the surface where they do care about their legacy.

They do care about what people think about them. And all these people say, no, I don't care what anybody

thinks about me. Yeah, you do. You care about what your family think. You care about what your children think

about you on a deeper level. And I believe you should. You

know, it's important for the community and for humans as a species to be interdependent on each other. Because we

are, whether you like it or not. You didn't come in this world alone. And you didn't get through the

first few months alone. Someone had to help you. Someone had to feed you. Whether or not you like that

or not, whether you are this person that's independent doesn't need anybody, doesn't need to look up or answer to

anybody, that's fine. But at some point in your life, you needed someone to help. We all it

And I think essentially when we go out of this world, we still also do. And I think that's when...

Going a little bit deeper, we realise there's a there's a kind of soul just below just above the zen

emptiness that really does care.

And that's good. I don't see a problem with that. I think we need to nurture that a little bit

more. But the problem is we think we can get that deep nurturing from the surface level.

And this is where Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these things come in. And even on the

council, what we're doing and where we're showing up. We almost, we're on that boat and we want everybody

else to see exactly what we're doing. And we're doing okay. And, you know, if we're having a struggling year,

we like paddling along. I'm okay. Don't worry about me. You know, I'm strong. We're doing that um

hero's journey in our own mind because if you think deeper when you get to know yourself, you always frame

yourself as a hero. Now whenever I say that, that always comes across. And it doesn't land well. So if

it hasn't landed well with you, that's fine. It may land well because it did not land well with me

the first time I heard it so You always think you're the hero of the story. I'm like, no I

don't. No, not at all. I always praise other people. I don't by myself. We do. We we frame ourselves

as the hero um The inner dialogue is always us battling against the world, us doing okay. We're fighting. We're

doing all that. And I don't mean on a victim sense, although that is there. You know, we're all victims

at times um And we're all genuine victims sometimes as well. So let's clear that up for a moment. But

we do frame everything as, I'm doing all right, you know? And you see in the street when you come

across somebody there how you doing? Yeah, I'm doing all right. Could be worse. In other words, you could be

drowning, but I'm not. You know, again, the hero mentality. But we don't like to be called that because it

feels narcissistic narcissistic What's narcissistic about caring about your inner self? About feeling that you're doing all

right?

Having that courage to go, hey, I'm doing fine. Well, I'm I'm battling It's not easy, but I'm doing all

right. That's not narcissistic. That's a little optimism you know I I don't see a problem with that.

And it doesn't matter whether I see a problem with that. I I just think society sometimes sees a problem

where I don't think we should see a problem with someone that's that's doing okay, that thinks they're doing okay

um But we want that. Wisdom. We we want to know So we read as many books as possible.

We consume as much information as possible. And in today's world, we consume blog posts. We consume 30

second videos We're consuming headlines at a massive rate. But we're not digging deeper on anything. We're not

digging to the meaning of anything. So we're just building the surface. And the problem is with that

surface is it'll break. It's not solid. You know, the real

foundation. So if you're on the surface if something goes wrong, you're going to have a turbulent time. You know

someone throws a huge stone on the surface, you're going to be bumping along trying to stay in the boat.

It's if you're a little deeper. No

see you see what I mean? What a brilliant analogy, going deeper in the water so And

you see on films, I was watching the um not

pearl high but Dunkirk the other day when they dropped a bomb or something on the water and all the

water was on fire. The guy had to dive down and go below it and that's what I'm saying we

have to go below these things sometimes. And it is like a paradox. You want more books, you want more

of the surface, but you have to go deeper. And if you don't go deeper, you end up with millions

of friends on Facebook, you end up with loads and loads of people, and they'll all blow your trumpet, don't

get me wrong. There's no end of people that go yeah, you're right, you're amazing, you're awesome. But

how many people will say, yeah, you are right, but let's explore this a little deeper?

They're the people you want. They're the people that I'd go, but you know what? I like it on the

surface, but let's grab our snorkel and let's just, let's explore this a little bit more. And that's what I

think we should do more of. I don't think we're doing it

um We don't have time to do it. We're so busy going from job to job. And this is where

meditation steps in. Meditation is not a way of making the outside world calmer.

It's a way of... Settling the inside world so we see the outside world and the inside world as it

is.

Ah,

that train going by isn't there to annoy me just a train going by. You

know, that air conditioning that's noise in the background wasn't placed there by someone to get on my nose

It's

just a machine doing its job and keeping you cool maybe. So

when we start seeing these things in a different way. They start making sense. And

the problem is, if we don't go deeper, we end up with it's

going to go to my little list a minute. It's

another little list of

um when we don't go deeper. We assume things. From the surface, we assume what's below. We

assume there's monsters there or what kind of animals all that that It's not necessarily true. But

we'll argue it. I know what's under the water. You don't have to tell me. So we become ignorant we

become intellectually ignorant where we're

building up a range of knowledge that isn't necessarily got any foundations. We're building up our biases,

what we think it should be, what we think it is. And on the surface, you'll always find somebody else

that'll agree, like I said.

We end up closed-mindedness, but we think we're over-minded I've I've never spoke to anybody that thinks

they're closed-minded.

Consider that for a moment. Never. Including myself.

I was closed-minded. I was massively closed-minded. Because I I I knew I didn't know everything, but I

felt like I did know everything. I would argue And when Google come along, oh my god, that just reinforced

my biases. Because it depended on how I would ask the question. I

said in a council meeting the other day, well, a few weeks ago now, I said, look, I could go

to any electorate and depending on the way I frame something, they could be for or against it.

Depends on what I tell them. Depends on the question I ask

um Do you think troni is more for sports facility sports facilities? Yes, they'll say. It's

highly unlikely that they're going to say no. Do you think people should go and be more active? Yes. And

now if I say, do you think that we should put a sports facility in a place that is going

to create more traffic jams and not overly green and not going to be good for the wildlife? They're going

to go, no. I've loaded those two questions. And by doing that, I'm not being open-minded. I'm not allowing them

to be.

I'm going slightly off topic, but I'm making the point that we don't know we're closed-minded And you might be

open-minded on one thing. And closed-minded on another.

But you don't know you were closed-minded until you become open-minded, then you realise you can see it that you

were. It's like saying a box and someone comes along and pulls you out the box you go, I didn't

know I was in the box. I can see the box now

it's the same as um on the surface you lack accountability because you disown it. Well,

I did have that thought, but, you know, I don't want to back it up. Don't need to.

So you cannot have that deeper conversation. You cannot have that awareness of how things

really are. You

lack empathy. You lack a deeper understanding of other people.

And I challenge you. I'm asking you now about, do you know yourself? I'm asking you to go deeper on

yourself.

Most people don't know themselves. I don't know myself.

And if you think you deeply know yourself in every kind of way, go deeper.

Yet we think we know our partners. We think we know our children. I have no idea.

I have no idea what kind of partner my daughter is. I don't know what kind of work colleague she

is. I don't know what kind of mum she is. I know a fraction of her life and the only

bit I know is what kind of daughter she is when she shows up in my life as my daughter.

She doesn't know those other things about me, what kind of partner I am, what kind of child I was

you know And those are just surface things goes way deeper than that. Then

her partner would know her deeper than me. But her partner um on her whims and her angers and things

like that, is not going to know her fully as much as she knows herself. And they don't know themselves.

Sorry,

compared to bringing into this example um But that's the reality. When

we're on the surface, we think we can see everything. It's like it's almost shiny that we can't see beyond

it. But we don't want to really because we know going deeper it's hard work. But

what is it like to know yourself deeper? What

is it like to

consider who you really are and how you see things? You have more empathy towards others because

you suddenly realise that your version of events is different to theirs. You

you realise that you can have your pain and you can understand their pain, but you you cannot fully

understand their pain because it's not going to be the same as yours. So

when someone comes along and sits down with you and you're on the surface and they go, do you know

what? I broke my leg and I'm really struggling and I'm really, really don't know what to do in my

life. I'm out of work and I'm like, don't know how to pay my bills. From the surface we go.

I

was like that about 10 years ago when I broke my arm. I couldn't pay my bills. I couldn't do

all that. That's not helping them. That's turning it onto you because you don't have the depth to hold their

pain.

Then if you are a deeper person and you've gone deeper, you'll sit there and go, ah, that must suck.

Tell me why that sucks.

And let them explain it.

Big difference. Big difference. And you can grow emotional intelligence from going deeper. The deeper you go, when

you get more emotional intelligence, so you have a feeling it crops up and you go, ah, there's my anger

coming up That's because of my dad. That's because of my grandmother. That's because of my um first job I

had. That's because my first partner I had. So we know why it's occurring. So we can intercept it and

go oh we're not going to go there today. Whereas on the surface, it's, oh, I'm angry and I'm gonna

splash out. I

like what I did that splash shout I love this analogy. It's brilliant um Not very often

you can milk an analogy from beginning to the end of a podcast, but it makes you more resilient because

under the water you know when things go wrong, you're already ready to prepare for it because you've got the

depth. You've got your foundations. I've seen several podcasts saying, who are you under the surface? You

have more passion and purpose because You

have to fight harder to get through the deeper water. Okay, I'm milking the analogy now. But you do. You

have more authenticity, more self-compassion, more understanding of yourself. You realise that your memory is flawed.

Most of your memories are not true. Your

memories from your childhood are a rough thing of your childhood. You don't remember the event. You remember the

last time you recalled the event. I'm

going to repeat that because that's really important. You don't remember what actually happened. You remember your last recall of

what happened. That's why when you go back to a place, it's not quite the same as you remember. And

that's why you can have an experience with another person. Sometimes a conversation or an argument or a heated debate.

And then you come back three years later or two years later or three weeks. And you look up and

say, no, you said that. And they go, no, I didn't. And you've got the tape recording in your head

of what they said and what you said. But so have they. And they're not the same.

Boom. That just like blows your mind to realise, wait a minute. So my recording of what happened is

not the actual event. It's a version of it. We

suddenly stop arguing. From a depth of wisdom, suddenly there's an ease. So

how does all this bring you inner peace? Well, it's quite simple. When you know yourself,

you'll argue less. You'll have a bigger heart. You'll be able to open up to others. You'll have less self-criticism

because you'll laugh about it. You

won't mind isolation because you'll spend time with yourself because you're just like, oh okay yeah

You're no longer playing the victim. The inner inner turmoil just fades away

because you know yourself. You know in that situation how you're going to come off, how you're going to come

out. So,

that's what I want you to consider. Are you building your span? Are you building your surface or you're building

your depth?

You know, don't just see how many books you can read. Really read a book you know You can read

100 books in a year. If you aren't going to actually read the book and actually do something from the

book, what's the point?

From the white man can jump when they're listening to jimmy Hendrix in the car. And Wesley snide said puts

on the radio and Jimmy Hendrix come along And Woody arison says yeah, I love Jimmy Hendrix. I like listening

to Jimmy Hendrix. And he goes, you don't listen to Jimmy Hendrix. You feel Jimmy Hendrix. And he's like, oh,

don't be silly. You listen to it. You know, I love it. I feel it. No, you don't you gotta

feel it. You're with him you're And I'm not a Jimi Hendrix fan, so I'm not quite sure where they're

going. But I know from a deeper meaning, you know, the music you love, really feel it.

You know um it'll

mean so much more to you and your life, to your legacy, to how you handle things. Just go deeper

in everything you do. Instead

of asking the person how you're doing, ask them how you're doing and what you've been up to this week,

doing anything exciting or recently. But only do it if you're genuinely interested. Don't do it just to

pretend to be a deeper person.

You know, if you're not going to care about how someone answers, don't ask the question.

That's the whole point of going deeper is you become more authentic. You become more caring. You become more understanding

about this. And it improves your outside world while not changing anything. Because you see it more for what it

is. That's the whole idea of meditation.

And a couple of tools, because we're really pushing that thing for this podcast now. A couple of tools you

can journal. Journal how you're feeling. Journal how the day made you feel what insights. And

do it every day because you'll forget. Keep a journal with you. Do on the phone, whatever you do um

meditate so then Just sit. Listen.

Listen. What's

going on inside? Just similarly, if you're sat in a boat, imagine sat in a boat and you're not

allowed to see inside the boat, inside the water because you don't have that luxury. I cannot cut myself open

to see what's going on. So I have to feel what's going on well when you're in the boat, feel

what's going on below the surface.

Notice the way the boat's moving.

Notice the way your body's moving. Notice the breathing.

And you can find out what's going on deeper without cutting yourself open. Sorry to give you that image.

Yeah, Lao Tzu says, knowing others is intelligence. Knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. And

that's the reality. Forget the others. Now come along. Sort yourself first. Go deeper.

Read that book. Listen to that music. You know, go deeper in that forest. Find out what's really there. Find

out where your feelings come from.

Find out what your intuition, your gut really is. You

know, find out who you really are before you start thinking you know others.

It'd be quite profound. And

again when you get there Now, if there's anywhere to go to, let me know. Because I'm working on it.

And I'm only probably a page ahead.

You know, it's easy to have the philosophical understanding. It's not so easy doing.

You know, like anything. I know how to swim. Can swim though.

You know, knowing something and doing something is two totally different things.

So I'm going to leave it there. If you want to support the podcast, well, you can, go to StevenWebb.uk.

Thank you very much. This is Steven and... This is Stillness in the Storm, the podcast that helps you to

get through life's difficulties by building the foundations of your deeper self, perhaps.

One of the things we can do. And just thank you to all the supporters. StevenWebb.uk. Take care, guys,

and I love you.

Deep Wisdom: The Power of Knowing Yourself and Nurturing Inner Compassion

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

Deep Wisdom: The Power of Knowing Yourself and Nurturing Inner Compassion

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

More honest conversations

One calm email. Every Sunday.

One calm email.
Every Sunday.