Why does a small thought turn into a whole afternoon? Because it goes up a funnel, and the funnel widens as it climbs.
Everything starts at a single point. One thought. Then a feeling gets added, then a story, then another story, and by the time you notice it, you are living near the top of the funnel with everybody else's stuff poured in too. You cannot do anything with a thought that is already three storeys up. But down at the point of origin it is just a thought. Four seconds of silence on a podcast is nothing, and by the top of the funnel it is a broken radio and a career ending.
One thing to try: When you catch yourself halfway up, name it. That is a story. Then go back down to the thought it started as.
In this episode
(4:09) Why a funnel, and what widens as it goes
(5:12) One thought, then feelings, then the 3D printer
(6:27) Everything starts from a single point
(7:36) Living near the top with everybody else's pressure
(8:56) Halfway up the funnel and back to the point of origin
(10:16) The emotions near the origin are different
(11:21) Four seconds of silence and the story it becomes
(13:51) How you get back down: you watch it happen
With gratitude to
Laurie
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Why does a small thought turn into a whole afternoon?
Look around the room and let your eyes rest on one object for a minute. I did it with the camera in front of me. It is a camera. Then it is a camera filming me. Then I am nervous. Then I am not doing enough with my YouTube and I should be. That took about four seconds.
The heart of it
Everything starts at one point, and at that point it is only a thought.
Each thing you add makes it heavier: a feeling, then a story, then the past, then the future.
Everything in the funnel comes and goes. The point it rises from does not.
Picture a funnel standing on its tip. The tip is where every thought and feeling and emotion comes from, and down there nothing much is happening, which is exactly why everything is still possible.
Then it climbs, and it widens as it climbs, because we keep adding. It is like making a cup of coffee. Water. Then hot water. Then cloudy water. Then murky sweet water. Every layer gives it more taste and more weight, and you cannot get back to water.
The trouble is that almost none of us are living near the tip. We are up at the top with the boss and the family and the money and the time, and the past poured in with the future.
We're trying to get out the top of the funnel rather than go to the bottom of the funnel.
There is a small demonstration in the episode that I rather like. If I slow my words and leave a gap, but not too long a gap, you are simply awake and waiting. Leave it four seconds and it stops being a gap. Now the radio is broken, the phone has crashed, the download has failed. That is the whole funnel, built out of silence.
We think reality is sitting on top of the funnel with all the thoughts and all the stories.
And one detail worth having. Down near the tip, the first feeling that arrives is almost always caring, because you care about the thing. The guilt and the shame and the wanting all come later, further up.
One small thing to try
Catch yourself halfway up and name it. That is a story.
Then go back down to what it actually was before you decorated it. Here is a thought. Do I want to add a feeling to it? Do I want to add a story?
You will not stop the funnel. It is what a human mind does and it is why we survived at all. What you get, with practice, is the choice about how far up you follow it.
Questions people ask
Is having thoughts the problem?
No, and you could not stop them if it were. The problem is only that we live at the top of the pile and call that reality. The thought at the bottom was never the trouble.
How do I get back down to the bottom?
You sit and watch the funnel work. That is the practice. You see a thought arrive, you see the feeling being added, and the seeing is the thing that takes you back down.
Is this the same as the layers episode?
It is the same shape looked at from the other end. Here it is built upwards from one point. Later on I take the whole thing apart from the top instead.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
overthinking · mindfulness · overwhelm
Read the transcript
Hello and welcome to Stillness in the Storms. On today's podcast, I'm talking about how the thought funnel
shapes your reality and how to reshape it. But just before that, I just want to say thank you to
this week's donators, Laurie and there's a couple of others anonymous. So thank you guys. I don't have
a sponsor.
You make this podcast possible. It's as simple as that. So thank you very much. And if you want to
donate, if you want to support the podcast, you can go to StevenWebb.uk. The link's in the show notes. But
also I'm asking this week for questions from you. You can also go to a link in the show notes,
StevenWebb.uk. It's the same link. I want you to submit your questions and I will answer them all in one
podcast. If you're having trouble with meditation, if you're having trouble silencing your thoughts or trying to
calm that overthinking mind or anxiety or anything doesn't matter what you're having trouble with,
what you're struggling with. Send the question to me with some contacts. You can also say whether or not it's
anonymous or whether you are okay me saying the name on the podcast. And also you can send me a
private question. I won't answer on the podcast. I might answer it in a generic way, but I certainly won't
answer it in the way that you ask. But you can ask me anything as well. So ask me some,
I don't know, things about private life, things about my disability or things like that. Anything at all that you've
just been curious about me and the way I do things, feel free to ask those questions as well. So
I want to put a podcast together and... The most embarrassing thing is if I come here in two weeks
time and go, no one sent me a question. So there's no dumb questions. If you've got a question, you've
got something in mind, anything at all you think I might be able to help with or shed some light
onto it, please message me. Just go to StevenWebb.uk and you can message me. Anyway,
that's enough about that. Let's get on with today's show.
Today's show is another way of telling you the same similar things. And the reason why I do it
in so many different ways is because very often my teacher, Jun Po, would frame it in a different way.
The similar way to Alan Watts does. A similar way to other teachers and all that. Just frame it in
a different way. And I like analogies or metaphors. I'm not sure if they're analogies or metaphors. But I like
to see something in a way that... Makes Sense to Me. And this funnel of thoughts makes
sense to me. Now, I don't think it's a new idea I certainly don't think it's anything that I've come
across in a way that I explain it, but that doesn't mean other teachers and other people don't
explain it in a similar way. It just helps me to think of it in this way. So, the way
the funnel works, and I want you to visualize this because it will help you to understand how things happen
and how we end up in such a mess sometimes. And that is, the
funnel is like, right at the very bottom is you got your point of origin. It's just a little small
point where nothing's happening. But that's the whole point of, in that point, everything is possible.
Every thought, every feeling, every emotion rises from that point. And that's right at the bottom. That can be in
the bottom of your head. It can be anywhere. It really doesn't matter where that is.
And then out of that comes up all the thoughts, comes up all the feelings and emotions.
And it's like a funnel structure because the higher it goes, the more complicated, the more things we add to
it, the bigger it becomes. There's one example I can use and you can do this experiment with me
now. While you're listening to the podcast. And even if you're driving, you can do this. It really doesn't matter.
Just be be a little bit careful. But if you look around you now and look at any objects around
you and don't dwell on them, just look at them long enough to recognise what the object is and then
move off. So I'm looking around. I've got a fan. I've got a light. I've got a Buddha there. I've
got a 3d printer. I've got a mic in front of me. I've got a computer. I've got a camera.
And they're just objects when I look around. But if I stop on them and I look at the camera...
And that if I stay on it for a minute and then the cameras look at me, it's filming. And
now I feel nervous. And now I feel and I moved to the Buddha and I look at him and
he's cold when he's sitting there. And then feelings arise. My meditation wasn't very good this morning and he's doing
better than me. I'm not doing very well. And I moved to my 3d printer. It's like, oh, I've got
so many projects that I need to print out. And so instantly. When we dwell on anything, when a thought
arises, when we see a subject, we
automatically, within a few moments, instantaneously almost, it becomes a story. It becomes a
feeling, an emotion. And the more we stay there, the higher, more complex, the more things we add to it.
So with the camera, I... It's a camera. And then I add what it does. It films me. And then
I added how I'm feeling about it out of nervousness. And then I start adding the story of what I'm
not doing and I should be doing more to my YouTube. And before I know it, I'm in this like
a soup this wonderful pea soup that's so thick and gluggy that I can't move and I'm
paralysed and I'm... And it's near the top of the funnel and you've added so much to it that you
cannot think clearly. You cannot do anything with the current thoughts. And that's the reason why I like
this funnel analogy so much because all of our thoughts come from the single point. Almost everything starts with
a thought or starts with a view of something And then that
thought turns into what the thought is. You know, you're recognising something you're You're seeing it as
a subject. You're seeing it as an object. Then we jump to a feeling with it. And we add that
to it. And then we jump to a story with the feeling, with the object. And then we add more
objects to it. And then we add more stories then we add stories from our past to it. And then
stories from the future to it. And before you know it ah just give me a break and the problem
is most of us are not living In the point of origin, near that point of where everything comes out
of, ah, that's a fresh idea. This is the first time I've seen This is a new thought. We're living
somewhere near the top of the funnel with everything going on, with everything that people are
giving to us, the boss is giving to us, you know, in work or our family, our children, our
parents. All the pressures of life, the time, the constraints of the money and the history of the
past, as well as the future. Just even saying that is just overwhelming. And
that's where we're to. We're trying to get out the top of the funnel rather than go to the bottom
of the funnel that
makes any sense. We're trying to avoid the...
Pea Soup or the lake that we've so clouded with different emotions and thoughts.
And just imagine each thought and every story and is adding a colour to this wonderful, peaceful lake.
Now then what we can do is in meditation is we go back to the point of origin. And
the more we go back there, the more we see a thought arise. And then do we go with the
thought or not? Do we go with that feeling of the story? Suddenly, sometimes we find ourselves in story halfway
up the funnel and we go, no, let's get back to the point of origin. It's just a story. It's
just a thought. And then it happens again and it happens again. And this is what life is doing. Life
is a constant arising after the point of origin in the funnel. Nothing you can do about it. That's what
the mind does. That's what you've evolved to do. If you didn't do that, you'd probably, well,
you wouldn't have done because you don't live in a forest with bats. But humans would never have evolved if
we didn't evolve this ability to have thought, have feeling, have story.
If we didn't do all those things, if we didn't have the imagination to build the funnel, we wouldn't
have survived and evolved like we have done. It simultaneously kept us alive and kept us moving forward
while also creating more complex and more thick pieces like
I can't think of another analogy. I just love that analogy of just trying to wade through, like, I don't
know, alphabet soup or something like that it's just It's just too much sometimes. And
what is really interesting is... The emotions that come up closer to the point of
origin, the point of concept, the point that this moment arises in every single given moment.
Because it's always here.
What's really interesting with the funnel is everything in the funnel comes and goes. What doesn't come and
go is the point of origin.
Just that underneath the funnel. Just pure awareness before the thought.
What is there before the thought? If
I slow down my words now and I just
just make you wait just a moment between each word, if I leave it at the
right gap, it makes you
just be awareness because
you're waiting for the next word but you it's not long enough for a thought to creep in. Then if
I leave it too long...
Then it becomes awkward and thoughts are coming in and stories. And it's like you've left four seconds on a
podcast. It's like that's silent. That's not right we is Is the radio broke it's really a break Like you're
listening to this on an old Fm radio in a car. Maybe you are. I don't know and you
You just wonder if the phone's gone wrong. Is it still playing the Mp3? Is the internet broken? Things like
that. So we jump into all these thoughts constantly. But what is really interesting is, I keep saying that phrase,
one of the main points I'd like you to take away is...
Everything in the funnel comes and goes. The stories may not necessarily be true or real.
They certainly aren't real, but they may not be true in regards to how it happened or what happened. The
feelings come and go. They vary. They change. They get stronger and more solidified the higher
in the funnel we go. The higher into this drifting into... Beyond reality. See, we
think the reality is sitting on top of a funnel with all the thoughts, all the stories.
We think that's the reality. And the reality isn't. The real reality is just pure awareness
before the funnel starts creeping in.
That's the real reality. That's the permanent. That's always here. You may not be always aware that the awareness
is always here, but it's always here. Always was. Before you had the story, before you had thoughts, before you
had complex emotions when you were just, I was hungry or cold or I was uncomfortable thing. You know, you
didn't know all the other complex emotions you could have at that point. You didn't know all the desires that
you could have. You didn't know what mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes like at the age of two weeks
old. You know, you didn't know you could desire that at that point. So that wasn't an option in the
funnel. So your funnel was much simpler.
And can you see what I mean by when I say it comes and goes, all these different things in
there? So how
do we get back to the beginning of that funnel? Well, you meditate, you sit down, you take time out,
and you observe the funnel happening.
That is the key, is observing the funnel happening. So
you observe when the thought comes and you go, ah, here it is. And
you can, it's almost like you're watching it. You're experiencing it. You're aware of it happening. And then the thought
turns into a feeling or adds a feeling to it, adds a layer, adds some substance to it.
Just like you're adding sugar to a cup of tea, you have the water. At that point, it's just water.
Then you add the heat. Now it's hot water. And then you add the milk. It's now cloudy water.
Now you add the coffee. It's now milky, murky, dirty clouded water. But now it has
taste and Then you add the sugar. It's now sweet, murky, dirty clouded
hot water.
And as you can see, the more layers we add, the more things we add to it, the more joy,
the more joy it may give us. The more... Hassle or
anxiety or stress it may give us as well. It may overwhelm us. It may make us overthink too
much because we're suddenly then stuck in this, adding more and more to it. Do
you notice how coffee years ago was okay? Now you go to a coffee chain you've got all the cappuccinos
and lattes and cold coffee. What? What is it with cold coffee and cold tea?
What
are you guys doing to the world? See, I'm jumping into the funnel now.
So going back to the awareness in the funnel, the very interception of when thoughts
arise right at the base of the funnel,
what's the first feelings that comes in? Well, the first feelings are almost always loving and caring because
you care about the thought. And then the feelings get more complex and then the guilt and the
shame and the um hating and I'm not liking, the aversion and pulling and the desiring. All those things come
in later. But initially, the first emotion is nearly always caring.
First of all, you care about the thought you care about the story and care about the person or item
or whatever it is. And then the complex story comes in and it becomes way more complex and But
we don't have to make everything complex. See, you can choose to go on a storyline in the funnel. You
can choose what is added to it. And when you get really good at playing this game of awareness in
the funnel and awareness of mind, you see the joke behind the hole. You see that maybe
everything that in the past or certainly the future, it hasn't happened yet. Yet we're thinking about it like as
if it has happened.
Fascinating. So
there's my podcast this week is think about the funnel and think about how often you get in the funnel.
And if you're struggling with something, how high up are you in this funnel? Are you at the peace soup
level at the top or alphabet soup that you're wading through something that you cannot even enjoy
anymore because now you need a boat and then you need oars and then you need... Yeah. Oh, God. Just
the thought of it is just... Yeah.
Take time out. Just go to the base of the funnel and simplify everything to
here's a thought. Do I add a feeling? Do I add um a story to it?
Really interesting.
Anyway, that's my podcast this week. Again, thank you to Laurie. You guys are awesome. And there's a few other
anonymous donators this week um You do make the podcast happen. And don't forget the questions. But
you can do all this by going to StevenWebb.uk.
You can also sign up to the Weekly Calm newsletter. Just go to StevenWebb.uk.
The links in the thing. You can do everything from there. And take care.
You're awesome. Have an awesome week. And I love you.
