How to Suffer Less Embracing Change on the Spiritual Journey

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Welcome to episode 94.

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I can't believe 94 episodes.

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It only feels like I've done 20.

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Anyway.

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Welcome to episode 94 of Stillness in the Storms.

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I'm Steven Weour host, and it's the podcast that helps

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you to find the little inner piece when you need it most.

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And on today's episode, we're talking about how to suffer less.

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Embracing change, especially on the spiritual journey.

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And I think the spiritual journey sometimes gets a bad rep, and

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I think it's misunderstood.

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So I'm going to explain it from what the spiritual journey meant

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to me, what it means to me when I say we're gonna suffer less,

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but we might feel more pain.

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And we'll just look at about building resilience and, and we'll also go.

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And talk a little bit about spiritual bypassing, what that

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is and why it's not a good idea.

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So just before that, I want to give you a little bit of news.

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100 episode is coming up and I've got something quite nicely

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planned for that episode.

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But I wanna say thank you to everyone that gives me a virtual hug, which is

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effectively treating me to a coffee, donating and helping with the podcast.

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Thank you guys.

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It's really deeply appreciated.

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Now then this week I did something a little bit different.

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There was a homeless guy that I've known for quite a while, and he's

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finding it difficult to see his screen on his little phone, so, With your

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money I bought him a tablet, which is going to be delivered in the morning,

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and I'm gonna take it down to him.

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So that's what I've done with your money this week.

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So I haven't been on social media.

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I'm not gonna take a picture.

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I'm not interested in any of those things.

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I just simply wanted to say to you, that's what I've done

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with your money this week.

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So thank you, you know.

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It really does make a difference when you donate to this podcast.

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Not only does it help me, not only does it help me, I'm trying to save

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up for my camera thing, but it also, I, I want to reduce suffering, and if

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I can reduce suffering in some way, helping the guy see as I player or

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watch bbc, things like that, instead of just squinting on his phone.

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Know, that's reducing suffering.

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You can reduce suffering in all kinds of ways.

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It doesn't have to be deep and powerful and meaningful.

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It can be a little way, you know, any other way.

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But let's get on with today's show, let's talk about how to

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suffer less embracing change on the spiritual journey.

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Now then, first of all, I'm gonna share a bit of my story.

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And the reason why I say that we can suffer less, but we feel more, when I

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started on a spiritual journey, I did not know it was a spiritual journey.

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I'm not religious.

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I don't believe in a deity up there, a God.

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I don't really, I don't know what I really believe in.

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I just, I'm very much a science-based person.

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Just because I don't know it, just because I cannot prove it,

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doesn't mean to say it's not real.

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So I'm not gonna argue with you, but I do like to have some kind of tangible

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reason for believing something so, And, but if I feel something

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deeply, then I'm not gonna deny it.

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I'm not gonna run away from it.

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So my whole practice really turned out to be Zen and Buddhism, and that's

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because I just like mindfulness.

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I like to stop and smell the roses.

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So to use a phrase that's probably well overused, but that

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is really, really important.

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When I'm driving down the hill, I look at a leaf, I look at the color

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and go, wow, look at the color.

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How did that leaf fall there?

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How did it get that journey?

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How did, and it just reduces my suffering because in the

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current moment, we are very likely not to be suffering.

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Right now you are listening to this podcast.

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You are not really suffering.

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You know, if you are really suffering and you are burning, or something's

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really going wrong in your life right now and you are taking time out to

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listen to the podcast, something's not quite right, but we feel like we're

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suffering all the time, and we want to get rid of that suffering now.

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Then when I set off on my spiritual journey, I wanted to get rid of

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pain, and there's a difference between pain and suffering.

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You know, just to get rid of all the pain.

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I didn't wanna feel anything anymore.

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I was, I went for a particularly, I'm gonna say nasty, split up,

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but it wasn't a nasty split up.

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The split up was clean.

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They didn't cheat or anything.

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There wasn't any kind of bad thing like this.

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It was just unexpected.

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And it did, it hurt really, really badly.

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And because they didn't prolong it, they didn't keep coming

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back to me and things like that.

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They basically cut off all ties and I could not contact them.

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It was really painful and I didn't wanna think about it.

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I didn't want to think about what they were up to, what they

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were doing, and that was my pain.

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I, I literally couldn't sleep.

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I started drinking alcohol.

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I just, I was doing anything to avoid pain.

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To the point that yes, I did contemplate suicide, I

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contemplated not so much taking my life, but I contemplated

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reducing my suffering to a point.

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I wanted to get rid of the pain.

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Luckily, something stepped in and stopped me and gone, you know, maybe

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the pain won't be there tomorrow or the next day or next year.

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Maybe.

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The wisdom I had for my teenage years and feeling a lot of heartache

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brain, I kind of knew down the road that it wasn't permanent.

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But it feels like it's permanent when we're in it.

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Right?

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Really does feel like it's permanent.

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So I, all I wanted to do was reduce my pain and I ended up reading a

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book that was on my iPad, which is really unusual because I don't read.

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I was diagnosed dyslexic when I was about nine years old by

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wonderful, wonderful teacher, Mrs.

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Hoban.

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And.

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Incidentally, I've met up with her since when I become mayor.

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She contacted me and said, and when I got that email through, in the email

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said, I think I used to teach you.

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And I, and I went straight to the teacher name at the bottom.

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Of course you do.

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Cause you wanna know who it is.

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It's just emailed you.

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And they said, Mrs.

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Hoban.

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I was like, oh my God.

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Yes you did.

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You were the one that made such a massive difference in my life

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and I just bald my eyes out.

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I couldn't even read the email.

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I'm wondering whether it shed the story, but basically I

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just got to a new school.

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I was pretty much bullied in that school.

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I didn't fit in.

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I used to sit at the back, very quiet.

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And the teacher did something new that wasn't happening in my other

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school, and they would write on the board and when they got to

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the bottom, they would scrub out the top and I could never keep up.

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So I was writing it word for word.

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I could never keep up.

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And I was writing not what she was writing on the board and.

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Having just been away in London or something.

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She told me this story when we met up just last year.

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She said having been away in London or she knew a friend

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from London or something.

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They talked about this dyslexia and she said, I think you are dyslexic.

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And of course I am.

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I can read.

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So when someone says, read that out to me, I can read it to you,

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but I dunno what I just read.

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My brain cannot read it and understand it.

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So I can literally read a page and it might mention the character and

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they might be going on a canoeing trip down the river and someone

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said, well, what's the character's name and what were they doing?

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I'd be like, I don't know.

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It took all my focus just to read it.

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So I'd tell you this story because I found a book on my

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iPad called As a Man Thinker.

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It was only about, I dunno, 40, 50 pages, but it was all about.

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You're not what you think and you have control over

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what you do or your thoughts.

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So this book gave me a profound, deep insight while me having to read

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each paragraph 20, 30 times, which was brilliant because I fell asleep.

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So not only did I need to hear this about 20 or 30 times, I

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needed something to fall asleep better than whiskey or alcohol

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that I was drinking at the time.

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Southern Comfort, it was.

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Ugh, whiskey.

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Who drinks that?

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Okay.

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If you drink whiskey, I'm fine with you drinking whiskey.

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I just don't like it.

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It's a bit strong for me.

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Southern Comfort and Coke, that's mine.

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Nice and sweet.

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You know, I don't drink anymore.

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I don't drink anything anyway.

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You know me.

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I keep going off.

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So that was the start of my spiritual journey.

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I didn't know it was a spiritual journey.

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All I wanted to do was reduce my suffering and

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while reducing my suffering.

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It gave rise to my seven year old self to be able to care more about others,

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to open my heart, to just have more compassion and empathy for others.

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Suddenly I was starting, I was starting to feel the

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pain of everything in the world, you know, a new story.

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It cost the other side of the world was really debilitating me.

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It's like, how can we live in a world like this that these

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kind of things are happening?

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And then the spiritual journey went on to be less

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empathy and more compassion.

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So, Compassion is about what's happening with them as opposed to us.

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Empathy, very much, and I speak about this on a few other

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podcasts, if you search through my podcast, empathy is about us.

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It's like what I'm feeling for you, it's about me.

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Ironically, we think it's about them, but it's not.

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It's really about us, what we are feeling for them.

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So empathy is someone comes over to you and says, do

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not, I'm really tired today.

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I cannot cope anymore.

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I need, and they look up and go, yeah, I'm the same.

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So immediately flip it around.

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It's about them.

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What they think they're doing is giving you like comfort.

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They, they think they're matching your feelings and all of that, and

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they think they're giving you empathy.

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But they're feeling what you are feeling, but they're not

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actually having compassion for what you're feeling.

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It's kind of complicated and I probably don't explain it very well.

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Let me know if I do in any of the comments.

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Email me, let me know.

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If I do go to steven webb.com and there's a contact me if

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this makes sense or do I need to elaborate on it a little bit more.

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But anyway, going back to the compassion thing, suddenly I

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add more compassion for people.

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I had a lot of deep empathy, but I wasn't being pushed

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around by the empathy.

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It wasn't affecting my life quite so much.

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So if someone said to me, and I'm not always like this, don't get me wrong.

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If someone come and said, I'm tired, and I'm tired as well, sometimes

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I'd go, yeah, I'm tired too.

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So I'm not always this saint with compassion and all that.

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In actual fact, very rarely I am.

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And this is why I'm working on it.

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You know, you may see me as my life is all sorted, I'm all calm and

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think, no, it's, this work is ongoing.

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It's, you know, it'll never be done.

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You never get there.

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But that's a whole different show.

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So I try to have a little more compassion with it without

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the empathy pushing me around.

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Doesn't always work, but that's the genuine spiritual journey,

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is having compassion without having to make it about ourselves.

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So what does compassion look like?

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And this is where Brene Brown sums it up brilliantly in one of her books.

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You know, if you have empathy, you sit back, sit down with them and

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go, yeah, I'm feeling the same.

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Compassion is, yeah.

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That must be tough.

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No, there's the difference.

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Just imagine if you came over to me and said to me, oh, I broke my leg.

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And I, and I look at and go, yeah, I broke my leg once.

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It's like, how does that feel if you come over to me

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and said, I broke my leg.

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It's really painful.

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And I went, yeah, that must be rough.

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How are you coping?

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Boom.

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The difference is huge.

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One's empathy, one's compassion.

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And this is where the genuine spiritual journey has to drive

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us more towards compassion and understanding for others as opposed

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to the first part of the spiritual journey, which is about ourselves.

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And you have to go through these levels.

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You cannot just jump to one, and you'll fluctuate, you'll do all this.

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But my spiritual journey, I wanted to reduce my suffering,

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but in reducing my suffering, I felt things deeper, way deeper.

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So I just misunderstood the spiritual journey.

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And that's my explanation.

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That's where I am suffering a whole lot less.

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I do suffer sometimes, but I suffer a less, do I feel pain?

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Yeah.

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I feel huge amount of pain when I hear about terrible things that are going

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on that boat that sunk with what?

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300 people?

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How horrible.

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Imagine that.

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Imagine being one of them.

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You're setting off on the most, one of these exciting

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but treacherous journeys.

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And then suddenly you're seeing everybody around you

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dying and you go in the water.

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How horrible.

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And the people in the submarine, all of these things and the people

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in Ukraine we feel for it all.

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But do we let it debilitate us?

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Do, do we let it paralyze us in what we can do?

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No, there's nothing I can do about that thing right now.

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And it's not a fight that I'm choosing to take on.

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I cannot take on every fight.

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You cannot take on every fight.

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So you choose what fight to take on.

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That's the genuine spiritual journey, and take on your own first, reduce

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your suffering, and then you won't put your suffering onto others.

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Does that, that's really important actually.

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I never thought about that.

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That wasn't even in my notes.

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So deal with your pain, deal with your suffering, and then

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you'll still deal with pain.

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You'll feel it so much deeper, but you are able to help others.

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You are able to hold space forever.

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Others, it's not a matter of fixing their pain.

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Someone comes to me with a broken leg, I'm not a doctor.

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I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll fix that.

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No, they just want someone probably to go, yeah, that sucks.

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How are you coping?

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That's healing itself.

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Hope that makes sense.

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So the spiritual journey is about deepening your emotional spectrum.

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You feel things on the other side much better.

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You feel more joy, you feel more excitement.

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The enlightenment, the heart.

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Orgasms.

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It was called One Day to Me, you know, have you ever had a heart orgasm?

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I was like, no, that's interesting.

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What's that?

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And they said, it's when you are sitting or you're driving

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somewhere, you're doing something and you feel that amazing, and

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you feel this radiant light coming from within and you feel warm and

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you feel comfortable, and it's just, everything's in place and

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you're in tune with the universe, and the energy is just perfect.

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I was like, yeah, normally when I'm out in the car or listening to

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my favorite music and reminiscing and you see a butterfly and

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you just feel absolutely great.

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Yes.

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So apparently it's called a heart orgasm.

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Who knew?

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But yeah.

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Have you ever had a heart orgasm?

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That's one way of like actually starting up a conversation.

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You just go up to someone.

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Oh, by the way, how's your spiritual journey going?

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Have you ever had a heart orgasm?

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That'd be funny, wouldn't it?

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If you ever bum into me in person, ask me that.

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That'd be so funny.

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A, I'd know you listening to my podcast, and B, my face

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would probably just like, Okay.

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You know, our chimp in our minds always go to that place, don't it?

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You know?

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Always does.

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Well, mine does.

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I'm projecting now.

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But anyway, so what else is about the spiritual journey?

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So we deepen our emotion.

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We build a spectrum of more joy, more pain, but we

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don't stay there very often.

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So we also build resilience.

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And the resilience is, we know things will change, so we're okay with it

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because we know we've already got it.

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We know we've already dealt with it.

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We know down the line things will be okay and it's not permanent.

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You know, I'm paralyzed just below my neck.

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And one of the things we're paralyzed is your body

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functions don't always work.

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And one of the most difficult things I go through probably

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once or twice a month is when my.

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Now then, I'm sorry to give you this image, but Well, my bowels and all

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don't work properly and the worst case scenario, and I'm lying on

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my bed and the carers have had to clean me up several times and it

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is an absolute bloody nightmare.

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And I'm lying down and I'm in pain.

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I got massive headache.

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It's just the worst case scenario.

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And if my life was that, I, I dunno if I'd like to live, but I know.

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I have the wisdom because of the spiritual journey, because of all

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these things that my life isn't that, that's parts of my life.

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I ex, that's an experience in my life.

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It's not my life.

Steven Webb: 00:17:27

So I know by lunchtime or by tea time, I'll be up in the

Steven Webb: 00:17:31

chair and things will not be that bad, and it's that simple.

Steven Webb: 00:17:36

Okay?

Steven Webb: 00:17:36

I dunno if it's that simple, but certainly more

Steven Webb: 00:17:39

difficult for my carers.

Steven Webb: 00:17:41

But yeah, sometimes when I'm in pain, sometimes when life is really,

Steven Webb: 00:17:45

really tough, I've gotta remember that this isn't permanent and

Steven Webb: 00:17:50

that's that emotional resilience.

Steven Webb: 00:17:53

So what is spiritual bypassing?

Steven Webb: 00:17:56

Spiritual bypassing is a concept by John Wellwood, and what

Steven Webb: 00:18:01

John says is ba, basically it's denying their emotions.

Steven Webb: 00:18:06

Denying these deep emotions.

Steven Webb: 00:18:08

I don't wanna feel them because I wanna feel joy all the time.

Steven Webb: 00:18:11

So I'm gonna get rid of my pain.

Steven Webb: 00:18:13

And I often come across these people that will hug trees and

Steven Webb: 00:18:16

I'm love and I'm this spiritual person that just feels happy.

Steven Webb: 00:18:21

And how long does it last you think to yourself, how many times have you

Steven Webb: 00:18:27

done it that you are in a good place and you think that's it, and then

Steven Webb: 00:18:32

suddenly, boom, what bottom again?

Steven Webb: 00:18:35

Because it will always, it will always come up, you know,

Steven Webb: 00:18:38

sure as hell as taxes and government will do dumb things.

Steven Webb: 00:18:44

You're gonna hit rock bottom again and again, and it may

Steven Webb: 00:18:47

not be bang on rock bottom.

Steven Webb: 00:18:49

The spiritual journey just makes us bounce a little higher and a

Steven Webb: 00:18:54

little quicker, you know, instead of tumbling along the bottom.

Steven Webb: 00:18:58

That's a good analogy for the suffering.

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So suffering is when you hit the bottom and you bumble

Steven Webb: 00:19:03

along, scraping and hurting.

Steven Webb: 00:19:05

The spiritual journey is you bounce off the bottom and you come back.

Steven Webb: 00:19:09

I love it.

Steven Webb: 00:19:10

That works, doesn't it?

Steven Webb: 00:19:12

You know, I feel like I need to change the title of the podcast now.

Steven Webb: 00:19:16

You know, the bouncing ball of the spiritual journey.

Steven Webb: 00:19:20

I just love it.

Steven Webb: 00:19:21

It's brilliant.

Steven Webb: 00:19:21

It works.

Steven Webb: 00:19:23

But yeah, you can see what I mean though.

Steven Webb: 00:19:25

The spiritual journey is not about less suffering, and if you're

Steven Webb: 00:19:30

trying to deny those feelings and you are trying to deny

Steven Webb: 00:19:33

these feelings of deepness, you won't get the feelings of joy.

Steven Webb: 00:19:38

It's like taking antidepressants and I've, I taken

Steven Webb: 00:19:42

antidepressants twice in my life.

Steven Webb: 00:19:43

I am not against them.

Steven Webb: 00:19:45

I, I think they're right.

Steven Webb: 00:19:48

With a doctor.

Steven Webb: 00:19:49

If a doctor offers them, I think you should take them.

Steven Webb: 00:19:53

I think it's part of getting over a, a moment in your life.

Steven Webb: 00:19:59

I think I'm not against them when I hit rock bottom with my bankruptcy.

Steven Webb: 00:20:07

I took antidepressants for a year and it really helped me out.

Steven Webb: 00:20:10

But what they do is they, they dule your feelings, they dull

Steven Webb: 00:20:14

your pain, and they dule your joy.

Steven Webb: 00:20:16

So, You know, you ain't gonna have those heart orgasms if

Steven Webb: 00:20:19

you are on antidepressants because you don't get there.

Steven Webb: 00:20:22

You don't have that rush and vice versa.

Steven Webb: 00:20:25

You don't have to think.

Steven Webb: 00:20:26

So it keeps you in that spectrum in the middle.

Steven Webb: 00:20:29

So the spiritual journey is about opening up and experiencing all

Steven Webb: 00:20:33

these, and the problem is the sp, the bypassing, the spiritual journey will

Steven Webb: 00:20:37

mean you either fall into it deeply.

Steven Webb: 00:20:40

And you'll find it really hard to get out because you

Steven Webb: 00:20:43

haven't built the resilience, you haven't felt it properly.

Steven Webb: 00:20:46

It will come up.

Steven Webb: 00:20:47

Or you go into that joy part and you try to cling onto it so hard

Steven Webb: 00:20:52

that you cannot you're so fearful of letting go because you're in

Steven Webb: 00:20:56

this wonderful moment of joy.

Steven Webb: 00:20:58

Yeah, I know friends that literally find it really difficult to go in

Steven Webb: 00:21:03

amongst the most difficult times because they haven't built the

Steven Webb: 00:21:06

resilience to be able to be there.

Steven Webb: 00:21:08

Now, if you can be with your family, if you can be with the

Steven Webb: 00:21:12

most difficult people in your life, I'm not saying my carer's the most

Steven Webb: 00:21:15

difficult people, they're not.

Steven Webb: 00:21:18

But I've got people that are around me nearly all the time that I wouldn't

Steven Webb: 00:21:22

overly choose to be around that much.

Steven Webb: 00:21:24

You know, I love them to bits, but they're not my partners that they're

Steven Webb: 00:21:29

not people that you overly choose.

Steven Webb: 00:21:31

They're paid to look after me and be around me.

Steven Webb: 00:21:33

So they're my bodhisattvas . They're people that teach me constantly that

Steven Webb: 00:21:39

you know that life is in that middle of not always sunshine and roses.

Steven Webb: 00:21:45

That little bit of friction.

Steven Webb: 00:21:47

Teaching me it's not always perfect, and what it gives me is that

Steven Webb: 00:21:51

ability to be with them and still be in a place of happiness with

Steven Webb: 00:21:56

that happiness line in the middle.

Steven Webb: 00:21:58

And the happiness line is not above where it's all joy and happy.

Steven Webb: 00:22:02

It's not.

Steven Webb: 00:22:02

It's in the mundane, it's in the doing the who ring.

Steven Webb: 00:22:05

It's in the conversations that I'm not that exciting.

Steven Webb: 00:22:09

It's in the normalness of every day.

Steven Webb: 00:22:13

That's where the happiness is because, If you are there and then you suddenly

Steven Webb: 00:22:17

have a bad day and you go below it, you'll suddenly realize, oh, I

Steven Webb: 00:22:22

just wanna get back to the mundane.

Steven Webb: 00:22:24

I long for the day when I can just pick up the

Steven Webb: 00:22:26

Hoover and Hoover my house.

Steven Webb: 00:22:29

Think about it.

Steven Webb: 00:22:30

How many times have you just wanted to get back to doing the dishes

Steven Webb: 00:22:32

when something goes badly wrong?

Steven Webb: 00:22:35

Yeah, and that's what it's about.

Steven Webb: 00:22:36

It's realizing that happiness is in the mundane, that you'll feel

Steven Webb: 00:22:40

things deeply both ends and you'll suffer a whole lot less because

Steven Webb: 00:22:44

you won't be scraping along a bottom like that bouncing ball.

Steven Webb: 00:22:49

I hope that helps.

Steven Webb: 00:22:52

If this podcast helps you in any way, please subscribe.

Steven Webb: 00:22:55

Please leave a review.

Steven Webb: 00:22:57

Let me know.

Steven Webb: 00:22:58

That makes what I'm doing well, what I'm not doing well, and.

Steven Webb: 00:23:02

Yeah, I've got another podcast, inner Peace Meditations, and just

Steven Webb: 00:23:07

search for it on your favorite podcasting platform, apple or Spotify.

Steven Webb: 00:23:12

And if you wanna support me in what I do, bring in less suffering to

Steven Webb: 00:23:16

the world, more joy, more deeper feelings, then you can always head

Steven Webb: 00:23:20

over to thankyousteven.com and all my links are there and you

Steven Webb: 00:23:26

can treat me to a virtual hug.

Steven Webb: 00:23:28

You are awesome.

Steven Webb: 00:23:29

Thank you.

Steven Webb: 00:23:30

And.

Steven Webb: 00:23:32

Talking about the feeling things deeply.