What are you actually looking for in other people? Look at who you are drawn to and you find out what you think you are lacking in yourself.
How many times have you heard somebody say get rid of the voice of fear? That voice wants you living a long and well fed life. It is not the enemy. The problem is we hand other people our light instead of shining it ourselves. You see it in groups too, including quiet Zen ones, where somebody is looking to be filled by the room.
One thing to try: Name what you admire in one person, then ask where that already exists in you.
In this episode
(0:01) Seeing life a little bit different this week
(4:32) Get rid of the voice of fear. Except you should not
(6:47) You see it in religious groups, and in quiet Zen ones
(8:52) Who you were drawn to, and what it tells you
(11:08) Handing other people your light instead of shining it
(13:20) What it looks like in your shoulders and your voice
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
What are you actually looking for in other people?
Look at who you are drawn to and you find out what you think you are lacking in yourself. This one follows on from the episode about the ten thousand voices, and it is about what happens when some of yours never got developed.
The heart of it
Every voice in you is valid and every one is worth developing. That includes the ones people tell you to get rid of.
Rely on somebody else to be the voice you never grew, and you are not complete when they are not in the room.
You are born a blank canvas and things get added. Opinions, ways of dressing, ways of talking. Adventurous, confident, charismatic, decisive, patient. Almost nobody ends up with a balanced set. Some are loud in you and some barely got started.
How many times have you heard somebody say get rid of the voice of fear?
That voice wants you living a long and well fed life. It is not the enemy.
The trouble is not having it. It is having it drowned out, or so loud you cannot hear anything else. Somebody can be a superb speaker and hopeless at empathy, and that is not wholeness, that is a lopsided set.
You find your quiet ones by looking at who you admire. I admired Bill Gates for the coding, because I wanted to be a better programmer. I admired Bill Clinton for the talking, because I wanted to be a better talker.
The problem is we hand other people our light instead of shining it ourselves.
You see it in groups too, including quiet Zen ones. Somebody who cannot settle at all uses the room to become calm, and cannot do it anywhere else. A church group where the group is caring and the individuals privately know they are not.
I put myself in that. People tell me I am caring and I am really not. I have a spare bedroom and I am not about to hand it to a refugee. I have spare clothes I have not given away because I might wear them. I do this podcast partly because it makes me feel good.
One small thing to try
Name what you admire in one person, then ask where that already exists in you.
Pick three to five people you admire or are drawn to. Write down one or two traits each. Then ask honestly whether you lack that, and whether you could grow it.
Then use your imagination on it, because the body does not know the difference. Picture yourself speaking well to a room and your shoulders go back and your voice comes up. Picture it going badly and you start sweating. Same room, same body.
Questions people ask
Does this mean opposites attract is wrong?
Not wrong, but it is a trap when it becomes a dependency. Two creative people beat one creative and one who outsourced it. Let a relationship complement you rather than complete you.
Should I get rid of a voice I do not like?
No. Grow it instead so you can hear it properly and then decide whether to listen. A poorly developed fear voice is more dangerous than a healthy loud one.
How do I actually develop one?
Notice when it is speaking, then rehearse it. Meditation, mindfulness, imagining yourself doing the thing you avoid. It is slow and it is the only route I know that leaves you owning it.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
healing · acceptance · self-compassion
Read the transcript
Hello and welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the podcast that helps you through difficult times by seeing life a
little bit different. I'm Steven Webb, your host, and on today's podcast, it's more of a follow-on, really, from an
episode I'd done in the 30th of November, and all the quiet myriad of all different voices inside of us.
Buddhism, I think they call it 10,000 Voices. But this is more about becoming whole and how do we complete
all those voices? And I talk about opposites attract and are we really attracted to the opposite to us and
things like that. So by the end of the episode, you'll know a bit more about what it means to
become whole as a human and why is it important and how much it will improve your life. But before
that... I want to apologize for not doing a podcast for a little while. It seems like I say this
more often, but I just I'm a little exhausted at the moment, so if my voice is a little labor
during this podcast, please forgive me. And it's just, I had an operation in December. Things have really improved
since then. But it seems to be in January that if there was a bug somewhere, my body would find
it. If there's a virus, my body would go, hey virus, come and jump on. We can have some fun
together. And I'm just tired. I'm really tired of, my body is reminding me not to do too
much too soon. My body's reminding me who's in charge because your body is in charge, whether you like it
or not. At some point, your head can overrule your body for a few days, weeks, but at some point
the body says, uh, no, time out. And that's what my body's been doing. I've been trying to
rush the recovery process and my body's reminding me who's in charge so
That's why you haven't heard from me for a while. But things are looking much better
um But I'm taking it easy. In other news, my other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations, has been downloaded over a
million times. How amazing and how awesome is that? I just gotta say thank you to anybody left reviews, anybody
shares it, anybody that falls asleep to my podcast and my sleep meditations. You guys are awesome and I
love you and thank you so much. And that extra special shout out to the donators that buy me a
coffee, that donates that help me with paying for the podcast, paying for the equipment, paying for the monthly charges,
because it all adds up. So look, just to everybody, thank you. I am so deeply grateful. But let's get
on with today's show. I'm not one of those ones that like long intros, so... Let's get on with today's
show. And if you want to support the podcast, there's a link below. And there's a link to my other
podcasts as well. Anyway, becoming whole. That's what today's podcast is about. So first of all, I'm going to say
about what do I mean by becoming whole? So when you're born, you're basically a blank canvas. And as
life goes on, you get more and more things put on the canvas. You get people's opinions. You get people's
ideas. You see how people dress. You see how people talk. You see different traits and personalities. Some are adventurous.
Some are confident. Some are zen-like. Some are charismatic. Some are strong leaders. Other
people are decisive. Some people are patient. These are all different traits that we see in other people. But very
rarely do we grow up having a balance and having all these traits in ourselves. But we have, some of
them are really loud voices. Some of them are really good at making decisions, being a leader, being talking, things
like that. Other people are really quite the opposite to that. You know, if you're not charismatic, you might be
um quite timid or you fear going on stage, things like that. So we very, very often...
So very often we lack some of these voices, or at least they're not loud enough for us. They're not
developed very well. And nobody I know develops all of the voices really well. Some people are doing better than
others. Other people are not. And very often these quiet voices are something that we're told to get rid of.
That we don't need them those voice of fear. You know, how many times have I heard get rid of
that voice of fear? Now, fear voice is like, it should be living a well It should be healthy. It
should be loud and clear. And then we should be able to know when to listen to it or not.
And this is the whole point. They're all valid. They all have a reason to be there. They should all
be developed as best you can. There's no point in developing one voice without developing the other voice. Because you
end up, you might be brilliant you You could be someone like Hitler that's brilliant narrator but an absolutely terrible
at empathy or understanding and caring about others um You know, it's no good having a brilliant one
and then a terrible other. And this is what it means about becoming whole because that's ultimately what the ego
wants. It wants to become more complete um As a human. And there's nothing wrong with a healthy ego.
It's just when the healthy ego has some really loud voices and the others are really quiet. So it's about
embracing those unheard, quiet voices.
So how do we discover what voices that are not very loud? Well, in our early relationships, you can see
by who you're attracted to. And if you look around, you'll see that Someone that may lack a voice of
patience and calm is attracted to Zen-like individuals.
And you can go right down for a list. I've put a link below to a blog post I put
up that has a list of these lacking voices and attracted traits and also a combined outcome, which is really
interesting. So someone that lacks, say, the logical and analytical thinking is attracted to someone that is creative,
intuitive thinking. And then the outcome is innative problem solving. So you see the way it complements.
But the problem is if the lack in voice that we look for in somebody else, rather than developing ourselves
we end up relying on the other person. We end up relying on society or the group that we're in
to be the voice for us rather than the voice within ourselves. And you very much see this in religious
groups and similar groups that... You know, in a Zen quiet group of meditators, you'll find that
you've got someone that is really loud and they cannot meditate on it anything like that. And they use that
group to bring out their calmness. But they cannot do it without the group. And very much like maybe a
Christian group is the group's really caring and part of the church. But as individuals, they know they're not really
that caring themselves. And I put myself there. Not that I'm a Christian, but... You know, I'm really attracted to
caring and deep individuals that really care deeply because I'm not that caring myself. And I know people say, yeah,
but you are caring, Stevie. I'm really not, okay? And what I mean by that is, you know I did
I do have a house that has a spare bedroom, but I'm not about to give that to a refugee.
I do have spare clothes. I haven't given them all away because I kind of like them and I might
wear them one day. And I have an abundance of stuff in my house. I haven't sold them or given
the money to charity. So as much as I do care about the planet... I'm still doing the things that
I shouldn't really be doing. So I'm not that deep caring. I'm really not working on it, but I'm not.
And everything I do, I do do it for myself.
You know, I do this podcast and I help you because it makes me feel good. If I if I
buy the big issue off one of the homeless guys in this country and I do it because it makes
me feel good. Did I really do it for them? Well, they get something from it, but I get more
from it because... I feel good. So yeah, I'm selfish. I do think about myself um
I don't know quite where that was coming from. Right, let's get back to the podcast and about wholeness. So
as we grow older, we just want to complete ourselves and how do we become more whole with these voices?
And how do we discover what we're lacking? So yes, that's what I was talking about. I remember now. How
do we discover what we're lacking? So if you look at who you're attracted to, especially as teenagers and in
our younger years, if you look at your first partners, you'll see that they had what you didn't have. They
were the strong voice where you weren't. And vice versa. You were the strong voice where they were lacking. So
this isn't a one-way thing. This is a good deal. But it's not really a good deal because when they
start taking away stuff, you end up missing your stuff because you realise you're not in control of that voice.
And there lies the problem in looking for in the external world. If we develop the voice ourselves, then
we're in control of that voice. Whereas if we're relying on somebody else to be, say, the artist or the
creative in our lives... You know, and we lack the creative expression in our voice, and we're relying on them.
When we've got to do something creative, we're like oh where are they to when I need their help? So
you see the problem in not developing our own voices. It doesn't mean not have relationships and be attracted to
things that look like opposite. It just means relationships then complement us a little bit more rather than complete
us, if that makes sense. So how do you work out exactly what we're lacking? Well, if you've done a
practical exercise now and you wrote down or thought of Three to five people that you are either
attracted to or you admire or you really do just think they're doing a really good job
in their lives for some other some reason And then think about what traits they have. So pick
one or two traits for each one of them. Perhaps write it down because it's going to be hard to
remember. And so, for example, I was really admired Bill Gates
um Because of his coding skills and all the other things, I was quite a geek and I wanted to
be a good programmer. I admired Bill Clinton. Trust me, it's not a Bill thing. But I admire Bill
Clinton because of his ability to talk. Because I wanted to be a better talker. And the problem is we
end up giving them our lights rather than shining on ourselves. And that's the problem when we're looking at other
people for it. I'm going backtracking now. But in the practical exercise, just pick one or two traits of three
or three to five people that you admire, you're attracted to, and then look at them and go, do
I lack them myself?
Could I develop them more in myself?
And I bet you'll find you probably could, or you want to, or you find it difficult to. So say
if someone's really good at making decisions and you're attracted to that as a trait, it's because you're probably not
very good at making decisions. So when we've discovered those traits that we either lack in ourselves or we admire
in others, how do we start integrating them? Well, first of all, it's noticing them. And then once we notice
them we whenever we hear that voice, whenever we it's quite quiet, we can recognise it and go, okay, how
do I develop this? And one way you can do it is use like meditation and mindfulness. And imagine yourself.
So if one of the things is you're not very good at speaking publicly and you you're frightened of saying
anything out when there's and more than three or four of you. Just imagine yourself talking in public in a
meditation or mindfulness and imagine it doing really well and they like what you say. Another thing is that maybe
you admire world travelers, explorers, people they get out there more and they're more adventurous. Just imagine yourself going on
adventures and doing more things the What is really magic about this kind of technique is that the mind doesn't
or the body doesn't know what the mind's thinking is real or not. So if you're sat there thinking about
talking to loads of people, the body will react exactly to that. So if you're thinking, oh, this is all
going terrible, you'll probably find your body will start sweating and get anxious. But if you think it's going really
well, they're enjoying my voice, they're enjoying what I'm saying, they love me being on stage, the chances are your
body will react in the... In a more positive way. I'm quite sure what that seems like. But your body
language and your shoulders would go back and your head would go up and your voice would be louder and
things like that when you're just imagining it. So you can do it by just practicing mindfulness and meditation. And
when you start integrating this in your daily life, you start to become more whole. You'll stop looking at other
people for what you're lacking. And you'll start to really make a difference and seep into all aspects of your
life. You won't be looking around behind you at work and all that, looking for the person to fulfill the
bits that you're missing you know I hope this makes sense. I feel like this podcast has really been everywhere,
and I'm not looking forward to editing it. So in conclusion, embrace your quiet voices, the
bits that you're lacking, rather than look for them externally. It doesn't mean you won't need and be
interdependent on other people, but it means you won't need them. It means they can compliment you. You know, two
good speakers on stage or two creative people are way better than one creative person and one not so creative.
So you can see how things start complimenting. You start enjoying being around people when you're very similar in the
ways and your your qualities and your traits are very similar. You don't really enjoy it when you're so opposites
but the opposites a trap because you need them. I hope that makes sense. Thank
you to you for donating and buy me a coffee. For you for writing a review and
sharing this podcast. You are absolutely awesome and yeah, you make a real difference and your support has
really been noticed in the last few weeks and I'm
just taking it easy but you will hear from me quite a bit more. I have some nice little gentle
plans. Because I always make big plans and struggle. I forget my body's in charge and
so I've made some gentle plans and I'm really excited about them and
yeah, until then, take care. I'm Steven Webb and I love you.
