If I could give you one piece of advice, what would it be? You cannot change this moment, so what are you going to do with it?
Six months flat on my back, no voice, one blink for yes and two for no. If somebody had come and given me the best advice in the world I could not have replied. So I have thought hard about what I would have wanted to hear. Not positive thinking. Just this. Accept exactly what is, then ask what you can do with it. Fear included. Everybody wants rid of fear and fear is brilliant. It is information. What you have to drop is I wish. I wish I was, I wish I had, I wish I did.
One thing to try: Swap one I wish for one what can I do with this.
In this episode
(1:23) What could my life actually teach you
(4:11) Lying in bed, working out what I needed to hear
(5:31) One touch for yes, two for no
(6:29) Waking up is not denial
(7:32) Fifteen minutes in a chair, then twenty four hours asleep
(10:27) Twelve pounds raised, and a campaign that never happened
(11:41) If it happens, ask what you can do with it
(13:49) Fear is information. Use it
(15:05) Get rid of I wish
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Thank you for listening.
Steven
The story behind this one
If this were the last episode I ever made, this is what it would be about.
Six months flat on my back in Salisbury. A halo bolted into my skull above the eyes and ears, on a string with fifteen pounds of weight hanging off the head of the bed. A mirror on a drip stand angled at forty five degrees so I could see the nurses' station and the television, because those were the only two things in my field of view.
And a tracheotomy in my throat, because my lungs kept filling with fluid and I had no intercostal muscles to cough it up. So I could not speak. One touch for yes, two for no.
I have thought a great deal about what somebody could have said to me lying there that would have made the most difference. Not something comforting.
Right. You are paralysed. What are you going to do with it?
I would have wanted to swear at them. I could not have, which is fortunate. And it would still have been the best advice available.
What it taught me
The first time I got out of bed I lasted fifteen minutes, having confidently promised an hour. Then I slept for twenty four hours straight.
Not long after, three of us with similar injuries were asked to speak to a room of student nurses. Me, Alan and Jason, all in manual chairs, all with paralysed hands, going through one door into a tiered lecture room. Alan stopped, I went into the back of him, Jason went into the back of me. Then we tried to turn to face the audience, one at a time, extremely slowly, with Jason laughing behind me. If we had planned it as a comedy routine we could never have got it that right.
I talked about how people break their necks and how it might be prevented. Afterwards somebody came down to the ward and said they had all had a whip round and raised twelve pounds towards a campaign.
Nothing much came of the twelve pounds. What came of it was the feeling that I could do something with this.
You cannot change the present moment. So what are you going to do with it?
And to be clear, this is not the airy version where nothing is good or bad and we all love the world. That will bite you soon enough. It is much plainer. This is what is. Now what?
Fear included. Everybody wants rid of fear and fear is superb. It is information and it is trying to save you. The question is not how to remove it, it is what you are going to use it for.
What has to go is the wishing. I wish I was slimmer, taller, richer, still with them, in that job. If I had spent those twelve months wishing I had not dived in, I would have been exactly as paralysed at the end of it, and twelve months poorer.
Questions people ask
Is this about positive thinking?
No, and I am blunt about that. Nothing about my situation was positive and no amount of thinking would have changed it. Accepting exactly what is, and then asking what can be done with it, is a different move entirely.
What if the present moment is unbearable?
Then it is unbearable, and wishing it were not will not shorten it by a second. The only question available is what you do next, and that one is genuinely yours.
Why would this be your last episode?
Because if I only had one thing left to hand over, it would be this. Everything else I talk about is a variation on it.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
In this episode
purpose · values · gratitude
Read the transcript
So I was on a call earlier on, and I was just, after that call I thought, well, how would
I like them to remember me?
How would I like them to. What Takeaway from me being part of their call? Would I like them to
remember?
And it really got me thinking, what if I did? What would my last podcast be?
What would I talk about? So this podcast is. If this was going to be my last podcast
I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms. And hopefully this podcast will give you a little more
inner peace in life especially when you haven't got it and you need it most. And in this time, 2020,
you know what a crazy year it is and it doesn't seem to be getting any less crazy as the
year goes on.
So, you know, a podcast that gives you a little more inner peace from the inside rather than trying to
expect the external world to give you the inner peace cannot harm anybody. Right?
So what advice would I have? What could my life teach you? What could. Whatever
I've learned in my life, what could I teach you to give you a better or a more improved life?
The one bit of advice that I think I would leave you is that you cannot change this present moment.
That's, you know, it seems obvious, but yet we spend so much of our time fighting the present moment.
I remember when I, shortly after I broke my neck and after I come out of intensive care
and I spent a good part of six months lying on my back in hospital. And while I was lying
on my back in hospital doing very little, you know, we had the routine. They would come in and turn
the lights on in the morning and they would get the people up out of bed that had to go
to physio and different things. And then the people on bed rest that were basically still too acute to get
out of bed but they would then be washed and they would come over and they'd wash me and they'd
roll me onto one side, wash my back, roll me the other way, change the sheets, and I'll make me
comfortable for the day. The physio would come a couple hours later. And apart from that, it was a pretty
uneventful day. The most eventful things were, you know, perhaps what's happened on the telly or something like that. And
we didn't have loads of channels then. It was like four channels and a portable Tv with a video slot
underneath side the bed. We didn't really have an awful lot to entertain ourselves. So I spent most of the
day either sleeping or contemplating and thinking about the future. I didn't spend an awful lot of time thinking about
my accident and whether I like regretting it, thinking, I wish I hadn't done that. I was really looking at
the other patients in the mirror. And this mirror was on top of a drip stand, and it was angled
at 45 degrees so I could look in the mirror and see the nurse's station. I could see the tv.
And that was about it, because my I was flat on my back. And on top of my head was
a halo that was bolted in above my eyes and above my ears to keep my neck straight. And it
was attached to some string that was attached to the top of the bed that had 15 pounds of weight
hanging off the top of it. So there's no way I could move my neck forgetting the fact it was
broke at the time as well. Probably wasn't a good idea. And for the first few weeks, I couldn't even
move my arms until the swelling went down a little bit and I could. I got a little bit of
moving in my arms, and for the first time, I could scratch my face, but I still didn't get the
feeding or movement back in my hands. So that was the level of what I got back. So I was
lying in bed. And I often think, what would be the best piece of advice that someone
could come and give me in that moment? And
I think the advice I would like to have heard in that moment was, and I would not have liked
this advice. In actual fact, I'd have probably wanted to um give him a few choice words. But the fact
that I had a trachea in my throat um if you see this video on Youtube, there's a hole in
my throat, and anybody sees me on my lives, you'll see that I got a hole in my throat. That's
where a tracheotomy was put in. Because my lungs filled up so much with fluid from the swimming pool that
they had to keep putting. I couldn't cough it off. I did not have my intercostal muscles to cough it
up. So my lungs fill up with fluid. And of course, when your lungs are full of something, your body
naturally builds more fluid to get that fluid off. Kind of drowns you, really. You know, the body's quite wise,
but it isn't always brilliant um So they would put little plastic, like
straw things down through that hole to just suck off some of it when I couldn't cough it. But the
problem with that is I couldn't talk. So even if someone come and give me this advice, the best I
could do is look back at him. And go one touch for yes or two touch for no. So so
I I wouldn't have been able to tell him to F off or anything like that anyway. But the best
possible advice I could probably have got, and it would have had the greatest impact on my life, would have
been, say you're paralysed. What are you going to do with it?
And if you think about it, every single moment is what it is. What are you going to do with
it?
It's no good being on the spiritual journey and going, yeah, well, everything is what it is and we can't
do anything about it. And we just need to accept everything and be happy in love and love the world.
Whether it's good and bad None of them exist. Oh, my God, get out of that bullshit You know, that's
not a spiritual journey. That's not improving yourself. Waking up, that's living in some kind of denial, you know, and
trust me, it'll bite you on the ass soon anyway. But. But if
we look at the present moment as exactly what it is, and we accept that, we cannot change the present
moment.
I couldn't change the fact I was lying in bed paralysed. I couldn't do anything about it no all the
willpower in the world, all the meditation, all that oh wouldn't have done shit to change in that really wouldn't
have done. So it's the intention of what you do with it.
So therefore, one of the things I did do shortly after I got out of bed, it sounds like I
just got out of bed. Believe me, that day, getting out of bed was one of the hardest days of
my life. I was out of bed for 15 minutes and I said, no problem, I'll do an hour. On
my first day, no chance. I'd done 15 minutes. And I was like, yeah, I'm ready to go back to
bed. And they said, you'll sleep well. I was like, maybe asleep for a couple hours. I slept for 24
hours. First time I got out of bed in six months, 15 minutes, I was sat in a chair. They
put me back on the bed, and I slept for 24 hours. Never woke up. Whoa. But anyway
I I'm going off topic. So the one of the first times I got out of bed, I had the
opportunity to talk to a group of nurses in training and me, Alan and Jason. It
was like a comedy sketch. It really was. It was hilarious. You got this room full of seats that they
went up in tears and there was only one door in and one door out. And because I was still
in the spiny and I had no electric wheelchair. So it was like a manual chair and I could only
push it along the flat and it was very, very. It just wasn't pretty, it wasn't elegant like a
normal paraplegic would be, because my arms are paralysed and I did not have my triceps at the time I
had an operation later on to have my triceps
reattached in. In a different kind of way, but that's a whole different show. And so I was pushing the
wheelchair and the three of us were similar tetraplegic at similar levels. We broke our necks in a similar way
and Alan was first and I was second and Jason was third and he pushed through the door and I
he stopped and I went into the back of him and Jason went into the back of me and then
Alan went further forward a little bit and then Jason nudged me forward. Ah, and then trying to turn around.
It wasn't this synchronous like swimming act where all three of us went in the same way and all three
of us turned to the audience? No, it really wasn't. As Alan started turning around really slowly, I could
barely turn around. Jason was behind me laughing. And this was the first time we were ever talking in front
of anybody being paralysed. And ah, it was just it's you know, if it was a comedy routine,
we would never have pulled it off so brilliantly, you know, I wish we had it on film I wish
I wish cameras existed then. And then someone come up with it one day and say, this is what you
did. But I spoke about swimming and about how we can prevent people breaking their necks and breaking their backs
and things like that. Normally breaking necks in swimming pools um sports and um other sports normally breaking
backs like horse riding and stuff. But normally a swimming pool, diving, it's normally normally one of your c um
cervical bones in your neck and I spoke about that and when I left that room one of them came
down to the ward a couple hours later and said that we've just had like a little whip around. We've
raised like 12 pounds because we want to help you start your campaign when you get home to. To stop
other people breaking their necks and put up some kind of signs in swimming personal Well it kind of didn't
happen, you know, I didn't come out for about another six months. I'm not quite sure what happened to the
money or whatever, but this was 30 years ago. Don't judge me don't judge me It probably went to a
good use don't Get me wrong, I've done plenty of good since then. Okay? What it did give me, it
gave me A sense of feeling. I could do something with this. I
could use my disability, my position. I could use this moment to make a difference. So
that advice by somebody coming in and stood next to the bed and going, do you know? Yeah, you're paralysed.
What are you going to do with it
you have those defining moments in life where we're knocked on our ass we're you know we're really dumped
in trouble, whether it's bankruptcy, whether it's losing your job, whether it's been cheated on, whether it's you know
been abused or anything like that. And please don't get me wrong, I don't wish any of these things on
anybody. But what I'm saying is, if something happens, look at it as what
can I do with this? What can I use it for? How can I use it as the fuel and
the motivation to do something about it in life? And
I think that's what my last podcast would be about it's that You cannot change the present moment.
There's nothing you can do about it. The present moment's already here. It's like asking something to do magic. It
doesn't exist. It doesn't happen five-year-old children want you to do magic. Change the colour of the t-shirt change the
flavor of the ice cream.
We're older than that.
So when we when we realise we cannot change the present moment, we then we then take away
all that um or we we then gain the power back from the present We
gain everything we need from the present moment and use it as the motivation. Use it as the beginning of
your legacy you
know If something bad's happened, what can you do to stop that happening to somebody else? What can you do
to drive you To make sure you don't go back there again?
What can you do if you're in a bad relationship to stop the children being in a bad relationship?
See, moments don't have to repeat, but you cannot change the present moment.
And I think that's what I would like everybody to know it's Stop fighting with the present moment. And I
don't just mean the situation outside you, I mean internally. If you're feeling lonely in the present moment,
okay, if you're feeling depressed or feeling anxious, okay, ask
the question, why am I feeling like this? What
can I do with it?
Fear. Everybody wants to get rid of fear. Why? Fear is amazing. Fear is brilliant. It's information
It's saving your life. So
what you can do with it is go, ah, I'm fearful. How can I use it? How can I use
it as a catalyst to improve my life? You know, how can I use it as a driving force so
whether it's a thought, whether it's a feeling, an emotion,
a situation outside of you, whether it's a situation with somebody else, what can you do in this moment with
intention to improve it?
That's what I would like you to remember. That's what I would like you. Because I think that's the one
thing that will change your life more than anything else is stop fighting with the present moment. You're gonna
lose. Not most of the time, you will lose every single time if you're trying to change the present moment.
And what I mean by trying to change the present moment is wishing it was not the way it is.
I wish I was slimmer, I wish I was taller. I wish I was prettier. I wish I had more
money. I wish I lived there. I wish I was still with them. I wish I had that job. I
wish I did this, I wish I did that. Get rid of those. I wish I had. I wish I
did. I wish I was. Get rid of those
because none of them will serve you in any way. If I lied in that bed for 12 months and
I said to myself every single day, I wish I hadn't dived into that pool.
I wish I was able-bodied I
wish I wasn't in this bed, what would that have done? What would that have done for my life?
I would still be wishing I wasn't paralysed well guess what? I still paralysed,
I'd still be paralysed, I'd still be in that bed, I would still be in that position. Even if you
wish, even if you sit there and praise the gods and you do all their chanting and law of attraction
and everything, you do all of those things, you're still not going to change the present moment. That's
the reality.
So instead of trying to change the present moment or wishing the present moment wasn't the way it is, what
can you do with the present moment? How can you use it to your advantage? What can you do differently?
If you don't like the present moment, what can you do differently to prevent it? If you do like the
present moment, enjoy the present moment. Because trust me, it's going to be gone. That's one thing for sure. Nothing
freezes,
everything changes.
So whatever, you cannot change the present moment. I'm Steven Webb. This is still in the Storms and this was
if it's the last podcast I ever do, this is what it would be. You cannot change the present moment.
What are you going to do with it? That's my question. To you
click on the follow click on the subscribe. If you can leave a review for this podcast, that'd be put
in I want this podcast to be huge and I want everybody to listen to it. And I want everybody
to know the wisdom and the advice in this podcast because, hey, I'm a little biased.
Take care guys. I love you guys. Thank you for listening and see you next week. Bye.
