"Is This All There Is?" Answering the Quiet Question in Your Heart

Q: Does asking this mean I am ungrateful?

No. It usually arrives precisely because things are fine, which is why the guilt comes with it. You can be grateful for everything and still feel the ache.

Q: Is it a midlife crisis?

I would not call it that. It is a transition, and the discomfort is the point at which something turns inward rather than breaks.

Q: What about God and the afterlife?

I do not know, and neither does anybody else, however confidently they say it. Whatever you believe happens next, the invitation is the same. Be here now.

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The transcript

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purpose · present-moment · spiritual-journey

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Hello, and welcome to Stillness in the Storms. I'm Steven Webb, and I want you to imagine something, just for

a moment.

A butterfly lands on a railing just in front of you, and its wings are impossibly detailed.

The colours you didn't even know existed. And it's just. It just sits there.

Still.

And for a second, everything else disappears.

When was the last time that that happened to you?

When was the last time something ordinary stopped you in your tracks and made you feel like you're seeing the

world for the very first time?

Because today we're talking about a question that I think almost everyone has felt, but very few people say out

loud. It usually shows up late at night or in the car on the way home or in the middle

of a particularly,

I don't know, perfectly fine Tuesday. And it whispers, is this all there is?

If you've ever thought that. And everything you've done in life and everything you've built, everything you've achieved but there's

that quiet ache underneath it all. This episode is for you. And

I want to tell you something. Right from the start, that question is not a sign that something's wrong with

you. It might actually be one of the most important questions you've ever asked.

So let me take you back to my hospital bed. I was 18 years old and I just broke my

neck. And I was lying in bed completely unable to move. At that time, I could not even move my

arms.

I couldn't feel any of my body below my neck. And I had 15 pounds of weight hanging off the

top of my head. I had a tracheotomy, so I couldn't even speak out loud. The only communication I would

have is the way I would look at a nurse or whoever was helping me. And I would do one

tut for yes and two tuts for no. And

when you're in a situation like that, you

have a lot of time to think. And I mean a lot of time to think. I was either sleeping

or thinking or just really trying to work out life.

There's no phone to scroll. This was so long ago I had There was very little I could do you

had the four channels on Tv that I could see in a little mirror.

So there was a lot of time to think about. And it's just you and your thoughts. And two questions

started rattling around in my mind, going around and around and around. And the first one was, who am I?

Who am I lying here? Who am I in the bigger picture of things? And the second was, is

this it? What if this is it not Just on the basis of being paralysed. Is this it? I'm gonna

spend the rest of my life in bed, but is this the whole of life?

Now that who am I? Question felt quite profound. It felt deep and philosophical and quite important.

But is this it? That one was almost embarrassing because it felt like I was selfish. It

seemed shallow And is this all there is? Is this all that I am? Is this

really what life comes down to? And those questions wouldn't leave me alone, so they kept circling.

And

is this it for humanity? Is this that the planet? Is this the universe? Just it? What is there beyond

the universe? What is there before the universe? All these questions. Did we really evolved from nothing?

Is there a God? If there's a God, why am I lying here? All these really deep questions just kept

rattling around. And given the fact that I was 17, I should have been out getting drunk. I should have

been having fun. I should have been planning my material life. I was stuck with these deep questions. And

those two questions, they don't haunt me today, but they're still there. And the fact that they're still there

means that they're decent questions. They're good questions. And I'll come back to what I discovered. But

first, let's talk about why this question visits so many of us. And especially, I think, especially in midlife.

So here's the thing with Is this all there is? It tends to arrive at the most inconvenient

times. Not so much when your life is falling apart because you're busy just trying to keep things together. Nope.

This question sneaks in when things normally are fine. You've already raised your family, you've done all the things, and

you've lined up half of your ducks, so you're doing better than you thought you would. And that's what makes

it so confusing, I think. And because on paper, everything is fine, maybe even good. But inside, there's

that quiet restlessness, a sense of something is missing. And because life looks fine on the

outside, you feel almost guilty for even thinking it. You might even tell yourself, which I I do as well.

Now, I've been ungrateful. You're being ungrateful. Thinking you might push the feeling away and get on with your day.

You might even look at other people are going through and think, what right do I have to feel this

way? So if you're feeling this question right now, or you have done the last few weeks, I want you

to hear what I'm going to say something really clearly. You are not ungrateful. You're not Broken. You are not

having some kind of crisis. You are asking the question that I think human beings have asked for thousands of

years. Philosophers, monks, poets, scientists I'm crazy people, everybody. I think this question is as

old as consciousness itself. And the fact that you're asking it means something is waking up inside of you, perhaps,

or something is not shutting down. I

really think when you're younger, you're building, you're climbing, you're collecting, you're building your career and your

relationships, your home, your children, you've always got something that your promotion, there's something you're working

towards next. And there's always a goal, there's always a milestone, even if it's just to have a break, there's

always something around the corner that you're looking forward to. And that forward momentum carries us for so many years.

And that's fine. That's kind of what we do, that's what humans do. But

somewhere around midlife or something starts to shift. The kids grow up the career plateaus or

changes, the body starts to remind you that it won't do this forever. And then suddenly the forward momentum just

slows right down and just enough for you to look around and ask what is this really all there is?

What

is this all for? Carl young talked about this so adequately and he said about the first half of life

is about building the ego, building in your place in the world, but the second half is about turning inward.

It's about meaning, it's about the soul, if

you want to use that word or what whatever word you want to call it, that's something inside. And the

transition between those two halves. That's where this question is. Is this it?

It's not a crisis. I just think. I think it's an invitation and

At this point, I just want a pause and say something important. This podcast has no adverts, there's no sponsors

nobody's paying me to sell you anything. The only reason I can keep doing this is because stillness in the

storms and inner peace meditations exist because of kind people that treat me to a coffee. Those small

donations pay for everything, so they keep the podcast going. So thank you so much to all of them. So

a huge heartfelt thank you this week for this episode goes to

Angie, Helen, Suja, Suzanne, Lorna, Liz, Daphne, Sarah, Mikey, Jen,

and the monthly ones, Joe, Audra, Sin, Jack, Glenn, Barb and Venetia.

Thank you so much, guys. You are awesome. And I've also got to say a big thank you to my

wonderful supporters on Insight Timer, because they do donate as well, but I I'm not sure I'm allowed to bring

their names out here um Anyway But if this episode is helping you today, if these conversations

mean something to you, perhaps consider buying a coffee or share it or leave a review. That'd be amazing.

Thank you. The link is in the show notes. StevenWebb.uk Anyway, right, let's get back to it. So

I was there. 18 years old, hospital bed, two questions going around in my head. Who am I? And is

this it? And here's where something unexpected happened.

Over time, I sat there with those questions and I realised the is this it? Question wasn't shallow at all.

In fact, it turned out to be one of the deeper questions of the two

Because when you really follow that question, and you follow all the threads all the way down, you let

yourself sit with, is there. Is this all there is? And it doesn't lead you to despair or it didn't

lead me to despair. It leads me to this place of mystery.

And think about it. Is this all there is? Well, we don't actually know. We

really don't. And we don't know if we're alone in the universe. We don't know if what consciousness is.

We don't know what happens after we die. We don't know why there's something rather than

nothing. The biggest, most fundamental questions about existence, we haven't answered a single one of them.

I found that in just really exciting. Not all the time. Sometimes when it comes up, it freaks me right

out that's all It is. Other times and because it led to an opening, it

becomes a window. Sounds a bit corny, but it becomes a window. And the name of that window isn't ignorance,

it's wonder. And I love that because that's exactly what happened to me in the hospital bed. And it

happens to me quite regularly. The not knowing didn't become a wall. It didn't be It became a window.

And through that lens, I could see that life was way bigger than I could ever imagine. And when you

think you know, the world shrinks. It becomes predictable, routine, gray. But when you genuinely sit

with the fact that you don't know when you really let that land, the world cracks wide open.

Suddenly you're seeing the world through beginner's eyes. And

this is what I want to share with you today, because I think it's the key to everything, especially when

it comes to seeing the bigger picture and those little bits of joy. The

13th century poet Rumi put it in six words I think are worth more than probably entire

books. He said, sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Think about that for a moment. When we spend our whole life trying to be clever, trying to know,

trying to have the answers, trying to understand the categories that explain everything, putting everybody in a box.

What Rumi's saying, gently, with all his cleverness, is actually getting away from all of that.

What we really need is be realdomen again we We need to be astonished, to

stand in front of life with our mouths open again, like children. And like. Just like we did when we

were four years old and we suddenly seen. I

heard a story about a girl, she was about three and a half, and she was staying in a caravan.

And she looked out through the window, and

suddenly she realised what she was seeing out the window was

the same as outside the door. And she'd run to the door and look, and she'd run to the window

and look, and she was, like, amazed. And in that moment, you're truly alive.

And there's this beautiful idea in Zen Buddhism that captures this perfectly. A teacher shonro Suzuki said that in

beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in an expert's mind, there are a few When

your mind's empty of all the things you think you already know, it's open to everything, it's ready for everything.

But the moment you decide that you've got it all figured out, the world gets really small. I

know. Especially in my 30s, I thought I had religion all figured out. Now it's all a mystery. I have

no idea. It's way above my pay grade, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with not knowing. And

when you look at the world through these innocent eyes, these children's eyes, everything is new. The first

time a child sees a butterfly land in front of them, it's magic to them. Absolutely magic. The

colours, the movement, the possibilities, the delicacy of the wings. The first time they see a rainbow appear across the

sky that whole face lights up. And they look at you because they want you to share that same amazement.

Look. And

then you if you're not in the right frame of mind, you might look back. Yeah, it's a rainbow. And

they're like, no, it's magic. It's mystery. It's like, wow, this is, like, phenomenal. Because

they have no framework for it yet. They have no knowledge of it they They haven't closed their minds to

it, because it's the first time they haven't filed it away as just a butterfly or just a rainbow. It's

all brand new.

It's all Miracles and bewilderment. And that's what we got to sell our cleverness for.

It's available to all of us. And somehow along the way, we lose that.

We categorize everything. We label it, we file it away, we move on. We stop seeing, we stop wondering.

And when the wonder drains out, that's when we ask, is this all there is? But

I don't think it's a dead end. I I really do think it's a doorway. It's a time in your

life when you can really start flipping there building your empire to opening your empire, opening your heart, opening your

eyes. Because here's the truth. Our eyes can only see a tiny fraction of a light spectrum.

Our ears can only hear a narrow range of sound. Everything we know about the world, we only know through

these incredibly limited bodies. We're sensing the universe through a pinhole, and

yet we walk around as if we've got everything sorted so we can see the whole picture. Let's

be honest, we haven't got a clue.

There are colours we will never see, sounds we will never hear, dimensions perhaps, that we can't even imagine.

Some people who are blind and deaf develop senses that the rest of us can barely comprehend. And

the world is so much bigger, so much stranger, and so much more extraordinary than any of us can

realise. And

when you really, truly take that in, when you genuinely let yourself feel the weight of

just how much we don't know, I think something shifts.

That question. The question is this all there is transforms into

some kind of source of wonder. Is

this all there is? No, absolutely not. Not even close. So

how does this help you to. On Tuesday afternoon when you're feeling a bit flat and wondering at that point

is all this is. Here's what I would suggest next time the question visits, the next time you feel a

little. Is this it? Don't push it away, sit with it. Don't feel guilty about it. And don't try to

answer it with logic or try to do a to-do list or a new hobby and build stuff. Instead,

try this. Just go outside or look out the window and pick one thing, just one. A tree, a cloud,

a bird, and

just look at it as if you've never seen it before, because

in a very real sense, you haven't.

This exact moment, this exact configuration of light shadow has never been there before

and it would never be there again. I went for a meal at the Headland Hotel a couple of three

weeks ago, and I said to who I was there with, I said, look at those Waves he went Yeah

I said, that wave will never happen again. Like that but yeah it's a wave. I said, no,

not just a wave. It's that wave. And you've seen it. You were there to witness it, witness that moment

in all the universe, in all the configurations. It will never happen again. Every

single moment is just so unrepeatable. Every single moment is brand new. And you know I'm really labor in the

case here, but it's really true. And

the only real reason we don't feel the magic of what is because it's because we've stopped looking. We filed

everything away as it's just a wave. We've convinced ourselves that we already know what the tree looks like, what

the rain sounds like, what the air smells like after a storm.

And this is where? Is this all there is becomes, I think, the most beautiful question in the world.

Because the honest answer is we have absolutely no idea. And if that doesn't wake you up to something,

the mystery, the knowledge, and I'm talking about afterlife and God and religion and your religion

or no religion, it's all still a mystery. It doesn't matter which. I

want to say one more thing about this because I know some of you'll be thinking about the big questions.

What happens if we die? Is there a God? Is there an afterlife? And is there anything beyond what we

can see? And

I want to be honest with you, I don't know.

And neither does anyone else, no matter how confidently they may speak. Nobody has the

answers to those questions. But here's what I've come to feel lying in the hospital bed as a teenager

and through all the decades since. Whether you believe there's nothing after this or whether you have faith

in something beyond the invitation is the same. Be here now. See the wonder now, feel the

mystery now. Because the magic isn't waiting for you somewhere else. The magic is in not knowing.

The magic is in the fact. Right now, in this moment, you are a conscious being

in an incomprehensibly vast universe, and you have no idea why. And

to me, that's not depressing, that's breathtaking. So

here's what I'd love for you to take away from today's episode. That quiet question, is there all there is

not a sign as ingratitude or failure. It's a sign that something inside of you is reaching for more.

Not more stuff, not more achievements, but more depth, more wonder, more presence, more

nourishment.

And the answer to the question is this. We don't know if this is all there is. And

that's not a problem. That's that's a gift.

See the world with fresh eyes today, even just for a moment. Because when you do, you'll realise the question

was never really is this all there is? The question was always am I paying attention?

Thank you for being here with me. I'm Steven Webb, and if this episode meant something to you, please share.

Please give it a like or a star and please leave a review.

And if you do have the ability to treat me to a coffee, that'd be amazing. And I say thank

you to all of you that do. On behalf of all of you that cannot.

The link is in the show notes. StevenWebb.uk until next time, take care of yourself. Please stay curious

and I love you.

"Is This All There Is?" Answering the Quiet Question in Your Heart

In this episode

With gratitude to

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

"Is This All There Is?" Answering the Quiet Question in Your Heart

In this episode

With gratitude to

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

More honest conversations

One calm email. Every Sunday.

One calm email.
Every Sunday.