"I'm Fine": When It's Armour, When It's Honest, and How to Tell

Q: Should I stop saying I'm fine?

No. Somebody once told listeners to ban the words for three weeks, which is not practical and does not work. It is useful social fabric. Just do not let it be the only thing you own.

Q: What if I open up and they cannot handle it?

Say the thing and add that they do not need to do anything with it. Being heard was the point. Most people can manage that.

Q: Is there a meditation with this one?

Yes, When Anxiety Visits. You sit, say hello to whatever is actually there, and ask it why it came. It is the opposite of saying I'm fine.

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The transcript

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vulnerability · people-pleasing · self-compassion

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Hello and welcome. I'm Steven Webb. This is Stillness in the Storms. And this is the podcast that helps you

to find peace in difficult times. No fluff, no quick fixes. Just honest, down-to-earth wisdom from someone who tries to

live it every single day. So today I want to talk about two words. Probably the two most common words

spoken in the English language. Two words that I say almost every single day. And you probably do too.

I'm fine. Or maybe I'm good.

And I want to look at why we say it and what it costs us. And what happens when we

don't.

So the cool question is, what are we actually doing when we say I'm fine?

So huge thank you to Alex, Nina, Zoe, Amak, Kevin, Katazina, Deborah, Christopher, Ariel

for supporting me with a coffee or PayPal donation recently. a special thank you goes out to mummix cleaning

services that bought a course this week and yeah it all helps you're amazing you keep this podcast

completely advert free and if you'd like to join them you can find me at StevenWebb.uk So for

the last 35, 34, 35 years. I've had two carers come in and get me out of bed

now then if I was poorly, they may have just washed me and sometimes on the, when I was 12

months on the spinal unit, it may have just been one. So the amount of times I've said

I'm fine or I'm good, or a variation of it, given there's two of them is, and I did do

a quick calculation. It's probably 25 000 times by the time I've probably said it more times during the day

as well. When the changeover

that is 25 000 little

encounters that maybe probably one percent of them I might have said, no, I'm struggling today,

or Now I'm tired, or something different. But in general, the conversation goes the same way every single morning then

I have five main carers and some of them have been with me 30 years,

and some of them have been with me on and off for 20 years, and others have been with me

for several years. But what's really interesting as the more time goes on, the more I meditate and the more

I try to take notice. And it only happens about one in 20 times that I actually take notice. But

every single carer and every single encounter, however benign we think it is.

Good morning. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm fine.

Whoever initiates that is different with each carer.

It's, some of them don't speak first. Some of them I've almost always got to say hi first. Other ones,

they're saying hi on the way in through, and some of them when I say, how was your day? They'll

pause and think about it. Others will just go, yeah, it's fine yes good And it's really interesting and it

isn't always the same. Some of them will just stop and think. Some of them don't even hear you and

I

can really tell the difference in whether they're there, whether they're really thinking about it whether they're okay.

Even if they say the words, I'm fine well I'm good because you can just tell when you slow down.

But with that said, most of the time it's still automatic. Nearly 90, 95 percent of the time, it's automatic.

I go through town, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm good. And when I encounter people, especially open social times,

I'm good. And sometimes you might carry on the conversation. So more and more recently I've been thinking about it

and. I think of all the opportunities that are missed that we could just connect with someone, even an always

complete stranger or someone we haven't seen for a long time but we just stop and go and they go,

how are you doing yeah do you know what? I'm really struggling. You don't need to do anything with it.

But I'm really struggling at the moment and it opens the door for them to go, do you know Me

too.

Because I don't know Anyone that isn't struggling with something, I don't know Anyone that wouldn't like to

to share just something they're going through and

we wear the, I'm fine or I'm good, as like armor, it protects us. It doesn't let anybody

in, and it also allows us to show up. It keeps the day moving. There's nothing wrong with this armor

and sometimes I'm fine is the best answer because there is conversations I don't want to have with someone. And

it might be that particular person. It might be where I'm feeling it could be, and I might even be

not feeling good and I might jazz it up a bit and go, yeah, no, I'm really good at the

moment. Anyway, I'll see you again and as I drive off because it

is a useful tool. It's not something we should write, never say I'm fine. Again, block those words from our

vocabulary. And I think I've heard someone say about that on a podcast at some point for the next three

weeks. I want you to never say I'm fine. It's just not practical. It just doesn't work. I struggle with

advice, things like that, but it's a good tool. But if we use it wisely, again, it's like I say

to everything. Everything has a healthy and unhealthy version. If you're on autopilot all the time, and that's

your go-to answer no matter what and with everybody, then it's quite unhealthy. But if you choose

to do that with certain people and you choose to stop and pause and answer it honestly.

Because yes,

Sometimes when I ask the carers in the morning, sometimes I'm not of the mood to care. I don't care

about their answer. I care if their legs falling off or something bad happened. I'm not that worried if they

got into traffic on the way in or they've had a rough weekend. People look at me as a really

caring person. I'm really not. I'm working on it, but I'm really not.

So sometimes when I ask the question, how are you doing? It's quite shallow. Other times I asked a question

after I've meditated and after I've slowed down a little bit, I go, anyway, how was your weekend? I genuinely

want to know I'm

really interested. And it's not just conversation.

And those times I do hope that they pause and they think about it. So

there's three main reasons. We don't want to burden other people with it, especially when someone who especially cannot fix

it. And especially if we know they're going through problems themselves. We don't want that person, the one who is

always struggling to know.

And we genuinely believe that. If we say it enough, it'll be true. We'll believe it. If we

go around, just think positive. Be on the positive side of life. I personally think that's bollocks. Just think positive

is just an absolute worst bit of advice in spiritual and in self-help and books.

It's terrible. And I've got several podcasts, What To Do.

Changing the way your subconscious mind gives you more positive thoughts or more thoughts that you genuinely like because

it's not the fact that we don't like our thoughts, it's just the fact we don't like the thoughts, we

don't like, we don't mind our thoughts when they're nice thoughts. No one wants to get rid of them unless

they're lingering a bit too much and it's a bit awkward.

We all know that scenario but

I think there's a cost to, I'm fine and I think it's a heavy cost because even if

someone you're relatively close to and they say, how are you doing? And listen to how they do it.

If they look up and go, hi, so how are you doing? That's a genuine question. If you open

the door and go, how are you?

That's not a genuine question. Not always. People talk differently. I'm no expert on how people talk, but you can

tell when someone looks at you and actually stops what they're doing and asks you, how are you?

That's your cue to go. Do you know what give me a moment.

Thank you for asking. This is how I'm feeling. That is a real connection. That's a real opportunity.

And the thing is, you can even tell them that you don't need to do anything with this because I

get the impression that you've got enough on your plate as well. But thank you so much for listening because

we're not listened to but We want the world to hear us. We want the whole world to see our

suffering. We want the whole world to see what we're going through. And I'll be honest, we do. Let's be

honest about this, and we also want the whole world to know how much of a hero we're being, because

I've done this as well. I spoke about this and I normally get quite a reaction when I say about

this, is we all do believe we're a hero in our own lives, whether we're going through a hard time,

we have that dialogue in our head you know what I'm doing? All right? Despite everything I'm fighting, despite everything,

I'm still here you know We have got that hero's journey in our head, and of course we have it.

We have to have it because we wouldn't really function, we wouldn't really see any point in life. We would

lose all kind of hope if we didn't have that. Even when we're the most victimist part of our life

victimist is that a word Even at that most time and we're all victims at time or our own thinking,

we can still think of ourselves as the hero.

And we tend to tell the story from that perspective. We don't want to say it out loud because we

think that's arrogance. We think that's, but it's not.

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance and being honest and being proud of who you are and

what you do.

As always, I'm going off topic,

but when someone does ask you out just see if there's that little pause.

See if they're taking the question seriously.

And it's just a way of saying, I'm here for you for a moment.

And I don't think enough people are honest. I don't think people are honest nowadays. I think we're so full

of the chaos of life that we don't want to sit down or we don't think we have time. And

the cup of tea that we have with a friend, we almost want it to be a lovely, positive, upbeat

conversation I tell you what,

A honest conversation over a cup of tea for 40 minutes saying, I'm struggling

because of this, and the other person says the same, that's the best conversation you'll have all day

because the old adage was it problem shares of problem haft I don't know. I don't know quite where that

comes from, but it certainly feels better to have been heard, to be seen. And I don't know where

this fits on the spiritual journey or anything like that, but there's a twofold to this. There's the listening. If

you ask the question pause, look at them, genuinely hear it. And remember remember you don't need to fix it.

You don't need to jump in. If they've had a bad day, just listen.

And do what my nan does. Whenever anybody used to come in, moaning to my nan and whatever happened. I

remember going in one day, moaning about a couple of people and about what they thought of me. I was

like 17 at the time, and my nan just looked up and goes, well, I'm sure they thought very highly

of you as well. Would you like a cup of tea? And God, she was like a zen master that

was like cut to the bone. It's like, yeah, they probably thought the same about me actually. And yeah,

a cup of tea. Fix everything. More tea in that old english saying More tea. Vicar. I have no idea

what that's about so if It's got bad connotations. I apologize now I have no idea. I love One of

my favourite quotes is by Brené Brown, and if you haven't read her books, read her books about vulnerability. They're

so easy to read. Thank you brenny Brown for your vulnerability and your honesty but She said we cannot

selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions. We also numb the positive emotions

So going back to that conversation with a friend over a couple of tea. You have to have both conversations,

and

if someone's trying to avoid it, just allow them to avoid it. If they do say, I'm fine. And you

just say, are you sure, I can listen they go, no, really, I'm fine. Leave it at that. Don't push.

And just to drive home the honesty, A great zen master was on his deathbed the

students gathered around him expecting wisdom. They expected him to die the way he had lived. Calmly,

peacefully, accepting. The end is natural. They

had studied with him for decades. They knew his teachings on impermanence. They knew his teachings on death

They were waiting for the final lesson. And the master opened his eyes. He looked at them

and in a small voice, he said, I

don't want to die.

Then he died. The students were shaken. Some were embarrassed by their teacher. They had wanted

some noble exit. They felt cheated. They felt like it would be the ultimate lesson.

But

one of them years later understood the master giving them the final teaching. Even then, the teaching

was the truth. He

didn't perform peace. He didn't dress up his fear in robes. He told them what was

exactly the true at the moment, I don't want to die. That

was the most enlightening thing he could have said. Because it was honest. Because

it was honest then okay, the astute among you are going to go Yeah, but that's the ego. Yes it

is because that's what dies. It's

the eye that dies.

And he deliberately said, I don't want to die. And that was the ego being honest. The

ego is not a bad thing. The ego is what it is. The ego is your stories. It's who you

are. It's the roles you play. It's technically not who you are, but it's who you.

It's what we use to be able to experience life through, no,

that's not even correct, but that's a different podcast. I know that story. You may have heard that story is

told in many different traditions and there's a particular Zen master that apparently said it,

but it is an old story and it fits with any anybody. I think the honest answer is,

and the honest answer might not be that either, and

I think honesty is treated as a flaw. It's worth saying that.

I think most of us just feel fear of being honest. What if I actually tell them I'm having a

really crap day? What if I tell them I want to cry? So

Thursday afternoon, I was sat here about two o'clock. I felt really emotional and I don't know what it was.

I really don't. But I felt so overwhelmed. I felt so tired and. I just

cried. I cried for about 15-20 minutes and then I think I fell asleep because my head,

I suddenly woke up with my head, like just leaning forward in a chair. My neck nearly felt like it

broke and I was so sore. But boy I need that. And I don't really remember what it was about

now, but I messaged one of my friends and said, you know what? I'm feeling really emotional right now.

And she listened. And you know I did? I did my normal ADHD thing just before I actually fell asleep.

I bought a book and because that book solves everything, and I messaged her and said, guess what? I've got

gone and done. She said, go on. So I bought a book. She said, of course you have. And I

laughed. That made me laugh so much. Of course you have because that's what we do we We reach out

to try to fix our problems in that moment, I went on to Amazon. I bought a book. I'm

probably not even going to read it,

but it was a step in the right direction to fix my life in that moment because I felt like

my life was spiraling, but it wasn't. It was just a moment of emotion. So

just before I go, just let me say this clearly

and I

am as messed up as you are. I'm still struggling every day. I don't even like meditation half the time,

to be quite honest. I don't think I ever like meditation. I still get caught up in my thoughts. I

still say I'm fine or I'm good when I'm not.

I think the only difference between me now and 10 years ago, or perhaps me and you, is I suffer

slightly less and

not because I've stopped having thoughts, I haven't. The thoughts still come. Luckily they just take hold

less. They cling to me less. I go with them less or

maybe more accurately. I let go before my hands hurt to take it to a metaphor. That's

the only difference

I let go before my hands hurt.

You don't have to stop saying I'm fine. It's a useful piece of social fabric, so to speak.

Sometimes it's the right answer, but once a day, just maybe with the right person, maybe just

even with yourself in the mirror. Try another answer. Actually, today's a hard one.

See what happens.

See what room it gives you, and

just open that hand a little earlier of

course, you know what I mean by opening a hand just. Accept it, let it go perhaps.

And I've done a companion meditation with this and the meditation that goes with this is called

when anxiety visits. It's a five minutes, you sit, you say hello to whatever is actually here, and you ask

it why it came. It's the practice of the opposite to, I'm fine, you

can find it on. Insight timer or wherever you listen to Inner peace meditations, and I will link to it

below. So I'm running out of energy, as you can probably tell by my voice.

So I'm gonna go now and I'm gonna say thank you. Take care of yourself, stay curious, and I love

you.

"I'm Fine": When It's Armour, When It's Honest, and How to Tell

In this episode

With gratitude to

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The companion meditation

The transcript

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

"I'm Fine": When It's Armour, When It's Honest, and How to Tell

In this episode

With gratitude to

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The companion meditation

The transcript

More honest conversations

One calm email. Every Sunday.

One calm email.
Every Sunday.