What do you actually remember of your life? Not the years. Just the moments.
I have done five hundred miles round Cornwall in my electric wheelchair this year, and what I have kept from it is moments. Everything is stored that way. I met a man who told me about being flown to Salisbury at eighteen, and I had been in that same tight space, chewing my knees, and suddenly it was like I had known him all my life. The ones that shaped me most are the rock bottoms. That is why I cry easily now, and I do not think that is a fault.
One thing to try: Build one moment on purpose today with somebody. In twenty years it will matter more than the day did.
In this episode
(1:26) Everything is stored as moments
(2:53) The dog and the gate he never forgot
(4:01) Eighteen years old, flown to Salisbury
(5:18) Two moments connected, and a stranger I had known all my life
(6:29) The afternoon with the toy car that will matter in twenty years
(7:35) The ones that shaped me were the rock bottoms
(8:48) Why I cry now, and why that is not a fault
(11:49) Collect the good ones. Learn from the rest
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Thank you for listening.
Steven
The story behind this one
I was doing an interview for ITV West Country and it had all gone quiet, and Steve came over and said he had somebody to introduce me to.
His name was Melvin. He was the paramedic on the helicopter that flew me to Salisbury thirty three years ago, when I had just broken my neck.
He had a little log book with him. I was on the bottom line. Eighteen year old male, flying to Salisbury.
He told me things I never knew. They needed special permission because the landing area outside the hospital was tiny, and the pilot had looked at it and said they were never getting down there, and then that they had to land between three white rocks. They had trained on new equipment the night before, practising getting a patient into the air ambulance the same way, because I was so ill.
I did not know how ill. He said it was touch and go whether I would get through the night, let alone whether they would get me the ninety minutes to Salisbury. They took off with a pilot, a paramedic and a consultant, which needed permission of its own.
I was stoic about it for about four seconds and then it all welled up and I cried a bit. Because between those two moments, thirty three years apart, nothing happened at all. They were joined. It felt like I had known him my whole life, though the only time I had met him I was chewing the bottom of his knees, because he is about six foot two and we were packed in so tight they half considered how to fit my feet in.
What it taught me
Your life is not a line. It is moments, and that is how the body files them.
I had been keeping a diary through the five hundred miles I did round Cornwall in my electric wheelchair, and reading it back, all of it was moments.
The filing is done by emotion, not by importance. My golden retriever, who was a dog for the disabled and helped me round the house, got barked at through a gate once on Carvosa Road and nearly landed in my lap. He relaxed and carried on. And for the rest of his life he slowed, went behind the chair, hurried past that gate, and then walked normally again. I got drunk on Guinness once at fourteen and I cannot smell it now without my whole body going back there.
The ones that shaped me most are the rock bottoms. The time I felt more alone than I ever have, which sounds odd, because I had family round me and a partner. The times I contemplated ending it, and the time at eighteen, about six months before the accident, when I took a load of tablets and did go and get help.
That is why I cry easily now, and I do not think it is a fault. Feeling things deeply came from those moments.
Questions people ask
Is this a sad episode?
Not really. It starts with a man handing me a logbook with my own eighteen year old self on the bottom line, and most of it is about how much of a life is worth collecting.
Why do the bad moments stick harder?
Because the body stores whatever carries emotion, and it keeps the painful ones to protect you rather than to punish you. It is doing its job, not ruining your day on purpose.
What do I do with a bad moment I cannot see any good in?
Sometimes nothing, and sometimes it takes ten years before you can see what it gave you. Resilience usually, though I would not force that reading onto something still raw.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
personal-story · healing · gratitude
Read the transcript
Hello, and welcome to Stillness in the Storms.
I'm Stephen Webb, your host, and I want to talk about moments
of just moments in your life.
And in the last 12 months, I've done 500 miles around Cornwall
in my electric wheelchair and I was keeping a diary.
And when I was reading back through it, I realized that the whole
of the journey was made up of moments.
And yesterday I was doing an interview for ITV West Country.
It's all going to come out anyway, but I can share it on this
podcast, so you get an exclusive.
Now, just after I finished doing the interview, it all went
quiet.
And then Steve come over and said, I've got someone to introduce
you to.
And it was a guy called Melvin.
This guy was the paramedic that was on the helicopter that flew
me to Salisbury 33 years ago.
And as stoic as I was, I just.
The feelings all welled up and I did cry a little, but I just.
It made me think about how my life.
And I want you to consider your life and how much of your life
is not a linear progression.
It's not no this and then that, but it's just moments.
Everything is stored in our brain and in our bodies as moments.
If you write a book or if you tell stories, you tell stories in
moments.
And with that, how do we make sure that these moments are important
to us?
By the amount of emotion they give.
Now, if you think back in your life of all the moments that mean
something to you in some way, or the moments that hurt you in some
way, they will all be for an emotional reason of feelings.
And this is the way the human body stores things, whether it's
for a moment of fear.
I remember walking my dog, golden retriever.
He was a dog for the disabled, so he would help me out around the
house.
And I was walking him up Carvoza Road, and just as he got
to one of the gates, another dog jumped at the gate and barked
at him.
Frightened the hell out of him.
He almost jumped up and ended up on my lap.
If there was mobile phones around then, I'm sure it would have
been a brilliant meme moment and shared all over the world.
But what was funny about it, he then relaxed and carried on walking
up the road.
But every single time that he would walk near that gate, he would
have the same feeling.
He would slow down, he would go behind a chair and he would walk
past the gate rather quick and then slow down and back to normal.
So he remembered that time as a moment, as a real big feeling,
just the same as when I got drunk on Guinness once when I was
about 14 years old.
I cannot even smell it now because my whole body feels the same
as it did in that moment.
So between my tummy rumbling and my labored breath, this podcast
isn't going to be hugely long and because I am still struggling
with breathing, I'm struggling with talking too much.
But I just wanted to share the most profound moment yesterday when
he came over and he told me about.
He showed me a little logbook and I was along the bottom line.
18 year old male flying to Salisbury.
He told me about the way they had to get special permission because
they had to land outside the city hospital and the room was very
tight to land and the pilot looked at him and said, see that
little green area down there?
Yeah.
Never going to land down there.
He said, not only that, we got a land between those three white
rocks, like, oh, it's so small.
But anyway, it's like it was a crazy land in there to train on new
equipment the night before, they had to practice getting a patient
into the air ambulance in the same way because I was so poorly.
I had no idea I was that poorly.
He said, you are really ill.
It wasn't just touch and go, it was touch and go whether or not
you would get through the night, let alone whether or not we
would get you all the way to Salisbury.
It was one hour and 29 minute flight and they had to get special
permission because they took off with just one pilot, a paramedic
and a consultant.
And so you think back 33 years ago and then yesterday in that moment,
nothing happened in between.
Those two moments were connected and it was almost like
I've known him all my life but I'd never met him beyond that day
when I was chewing on the bottom of his knees because we were
so compact in there.
They could barely get me in there without considering chopping
my feet off.
Let alone.
He was about 6 foot 2, I think, really tall, so it's no wonder
he was literally sat on top of me in the air ambulance.
These little small things, they're not like they are now.
And yeah, it's just life is about these powerful moments.
It's not about no linear every day and all these things.
So just when you have these moments, collect them, Collect them
like as if that's your whole life.
When you go and visit your mum, give her a hug.
When you go and spend some time with your grandchildren, give
them a hug and sit down and feel what you're feeling in that
moment.
Because that's a moment that you'll remember.
It'll go by so quick, 10 years will just flash by and then that
child or that grandchild will look up and go, do you know, do you
remember when you used to visit me?
And you'd go, yes, we sat there and you played with this car.
It may not seem like a moment today, it may not seem important
right now, but in 10 years and 20 years time it will be so important.
And I just want you to think back in your life the moments that
have shaped you, the moments that have made such a difference
in your life and the people that made a difference in your life.
Now then these could be good or bad.
The body doesn't choose to store good or bad.
It just chooses to store anything that gives emotion.
So bad experiences, it will store it to protect you.
It doesn't do it out of like I'm going to store those bad moments
so I'm going to ruin your life later.
It stores them in order for you to learn, you know, whether or
not we learn we're not very good at humans and who people still
do bad things and we have bad experiences.
And equally good feelings and emotions don't get stored quite so
well.
When I think back to my life, it's more about the moments that
I was hurt most, that I went through most, my rock bottoms.
The time when I found myself in a position where I never felt
so alone.
It's strange me saying that because I have family around me at
the time I had a partner, but I never felt so alone in my life.
And that might feel strange to someone that is alone, that doesn't
have many people.
But for me that was horrible time.
And other times when I went out and contemplated my life and
I even planned my suicide more than once.
I even took a load of tablets at one point.
Luckily I did go and get the help and I did end up having my stomach
sorted.
That was when I was 18 years old, about six months before my accident.
But all these moments have shaped my life, shaped how I deal
with things.
And it shaped me in the way I feel things deeply.
So when I shed a tear yesterday, when I cry for no reason
or what feels like no reason, it's because I've learned to feel
things deeply and that's not a bad thing.
And I've done it purely because of moments.
And I want that word to really sink in.
And I want you to think about your life and I want you to think
about going forward about all these different moments in your life.
It may not be good, or.
It may not be what you want or desire, but they will shape you.
They will make you who you are, they will have an experience,
and they will help you on a certain trajectory.
And that's just powerful.
You can learn to learn from them.
You know, every moment is a gift in some way.
You may not want that gift, you may not want that experience,
but it is a gift nonetheless.
And sometimes you gotta dig a little deeper to see the gift.
Sometimes it might take a decade before you can see the gift
in it.
And yeah, there's no real theme or topic to this podcast.
Just I want you just to sit down and spend a few minutes thinking
about the moments in your life, Some of the moments that have
shaped you for the good and shaped you what you may see as bad.
And if it does come, if your mind does remind you of bad moments,
just think what that bad moment gave you.
It might be a terrible experience, but it gave you resilience.
It gave you the strength.
And who knows?
The universe may have a plan.
It's above my pay grade.
I don't believe in this.
That doesn't mean to say it's not true.
The universe might have a real big plan.
It might have a plan involved for you.
And who's to say a bad experience for you or me breaking
my neck or something like that didn't have to happen to teach us
from that moment in order to say something or do something 20,
30, 40 years on, or even for you to say something, and then for
your grandchild or someone you know to then have that wisdom in
order.
We don't know.
That's the truth.
So let's presume for a moment that the universe does have a plan,
however much we might not like the plan.
We might hate the movie, we might hate the story, but maybe the
universe has no choice.
Maybe everything is what it is because it has to be that way.
I don't know.
That to me, sounds like it sucks, but who knows?
I don't know.
And the fact that I don't know and the fact that none of you really
know just sums up that.
Enjoy the moments.
Enjoy this time.
We are here.
We're here to experience.
This is our one opportunity to build moments, you know, collect
them.
Collect the moments that are not so good to learn from and collect
the moments that are really good.
But don't cling on to them, because if you click on to an old
moment, it's like going out and having a really, really good
time and then trying to recreate it week after week.
We all did that as teenagers.
We had an amazing night out on the town and then we say, oh, we
must do that again.
It'd be amazing.
And then you go out and do it and, you know, I bet you, I bet you're
thinking, yeah, that happened.
But you go out to do it again and it's nothing like it.
And you're like, not the same as last time because you cannot recreate,
but always be different.
Always be different.
Might be similar, but it'll always be different.
That's my podcast for this week.
And yeah, sorry it's a little shorter, sorry it hasn't really got
a deep topic, but I just wanted to record something but out
there and say thank you.
Thank you for your support.
You're awesome.
Thank you for keeping the podcast ad free from your buyer.
Me a coffee.
And don't forget the stillness in the storms course that many of
you have taken already.
The feedback is brilliant and just love to be able to help.
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