Simplify Everything to Reduce Anxiety

Q: Is this saying my problems are not real?

No. Some of them are very real and this does nothing about those. It is about the second layer, the one you build yourself, which is where most of the anxiety actually lives.

Q: What if I cannot stop the story once it starts?

You do not have to stop it. Noticing that it is a story rather than the situation is enough on its own, and it gets easier with practice.

Q: Why does everything I try feel complicated?

Because we do this collectively, not just individually. We invented the internet and made it about the worst possible things. Overdoing it is normal human behaviour, so do not add a story about being bad at this on top.

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The transcript

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anxiety · overwhelm · mindfulness · meditation-how-to

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Whatever you do, we over complicate everything.

And I'm just going to share with you a couple of ideas and a

couple of examples of how we can simplify even things like meditation

and mindfulness to make a profound difference and reduce your

anxiety.

That's what I'm talking about on today's podcast.

I'm Stephen Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms, the podcast

that helps you to get through difficult times.

Don't you find that no matter what you do with humans, we overcomplicate

everything?

And I went to the scissors advice ball last night.

It was a blue and white ball.

And I was sat next to my daughter, the mayoress.

And the day before I went out and bought a nice new shirt and I

bought a tie and I thought, I'll get a darker color for a change

because I'm normally in my white shirt.

And I sat next to her and, and I was looking around at everybody.

It's looking really nice and well dressed up.

And then Jill, the person we were sharing the table with, turned

around and stood up and went over and started doing her speech.

And she said, so nice to see so many people in blue and white.

And I suddenly the penny dropped that I never realized that

the blue and white ball meant that we went in blue and white.

And now I was in a brand new green shirt and it just doesn't matter.

But my mind immediately went to all these complicated reasons

why, you know, it was a terrible idea and how it went wrong

and all these different things and the big story behind it and everybody

in the room would know and all that.

But the really is nobody really cares, nobody really minds.

I'm sure nobody's talking about me turning up in a dark green

shirt today.

It's one of those things that, yeah, we over complicate everything.

We make everything into a big, big story.

And it's really, really frustrating because we don't even

know we're doing it.

And it's with improvements now.

And while I sat next to Jill, we were talking about the budget

and we were talking about the way people struggle and different

things.

And of course it came onto politics.

And we were talking about the way life goes in these ways have

been improved and all that.

And I remember waking up with Trump becoming the president and

Boris and Brexit and things like that.

And I make no secret, I'm, I'm middle left wing.

You know, I don't agree with Brexit.

I, I fear Trump ideology and I'm not conservative and all that,

but I'm Pretty much in the middle, because I don't believe any

of the sides have all the answers.

And I think some of them have some of the answers, but nobody has

all the answers.

So we were talking, and she gave a wonderful metaphor of the

ocean, and she said, I'd like to believe that whenever things get

really bad, it's a way of, like, the ocean going right out and

doing a reset, and then we can come back and improve things.

And I think that's what she meant.

And, you know, perhaps I misunderstood, but that's what I

took from the conversation.

And I think Jill's absolutely right.

I think that's the way I see things.

You know, I don't like it when things go wrong.

You know, I don't revel in the fact that things go terribly wrong

sometimes, but I do try to see as quickly as I can.

And I talk about this in my last podcast about finding the gap

and then moving between what arises and how we deal with it.

So I tried to see, in difficult circumstances as quickly

as possible, the gift.

There's a gift in everything.

I genuinely believe that you've just got to dig deep enough

to find that gift.

And sometimes you see it really quickly, and it's really easy.

When things are a nice thing, when a change is something good,

like a pay rise or something like that, the gifts instantly there

and obvious.

If you give someone a present, the gifts instantly there because

you feel great.

But when things go wrong, you don't often see the gift very often

for some time later, until sometime later, simply because you're

not.

You've got your hair on, talons up, or whatever it's called,

I don't know.

But you're trying to deal with the situation, and you're not really

sitting back and thinking, well, do you know what?

How can I make this situation work for me?

And I often use the example of when I'm lying in my hospital bed

when I first broke my neck, if somebody came over to me and said,

so, Stephen, you're paralyzed.

What are you going to do with it?

First of all, I think at the age of 18 years old, I think I wanted

to punch them.

So.

But the reality was that would have been the best bit of advice

I've ever got.

It's a way of going, okay, so these things happen.

What do you do with them?

And I think life's like that.

You know, we have these real big waves at the moment in politics,

in our lives, with, you know, the war and Ukraine, which is just

horrible.

Such an unjust War, such an unneeded war, you know, it's okay.

I'm not going to go there about the details about the war,

but it's such an unjust war, I feel.

And.

But with the higher prices and the cost of living crisis and all

the other things that go on and on the back of COVID we haven't

really come out of it and we got recession.

So it's a pretty rough time for most people at the moment.

Then the budget comes along in the UK that virtually is a giveaway

for the richer people.

So we kind of feel at the moment we're very much hard done

by.

So how do we deal with it?

Well, we tend to go into this big elaborate story and complicate

things.

And it's not really that complicated.

It is just what it is.

And when we realize it is what it is, there's nothing we can really

do about it.

There's only how we can react to it.

Then we don't have to complicate it.

We don't have to make it into this elaborate big story.

And when we realize that story doesn't have to be wrote and we don't

have to keep going down that rabbit hole with the story in our

minds and the conversations with our friends and things like

that, we can just take a step back and we go, do you know what?

Okay, let's not overanalyze it.

It's just a thought.

It's just a feeling.

It's just what it is.

Now, just as a disclaimer, I'm not saying not been able to pay your

bills, not been able to heat your home, not been choosing between

heating and eating is okay, I'm not at all.

I think it's.

It's such a terrible situation we're in.

What I'm saying is we need to deal with that.

And I'm not in your circumstances, I don't know quite

how you would deal with it, but overcomplicating it and making

these things into this big elaborate story that the world's

against me or something like that doesn't help us.

And just in that moment, we get very anxious.

So moving on to the moment more now rather than the bigger picture.

But we overcomplicate even a thought.

We have a thought and then we think, well, what's in this thought?

Where did the thought come from?

What do we do with it?

That thought must be me.

That thought must be part of a big story.

It's not.

It's just a thought.

So the feelings.

The feeling, yes.

It May come from previous feelings, it may come from previous

experiences.

Very often it will.

Almost always, okay, almost always it will.

But that doesn't mean to say you have to do anything with it.

And that's the same as with bad news.

And the same as when things go terribly wrong on a Tuesday afternoon

at 4:00'.

Clock.

And we get that curveball.

Very often, let's just sit and go, okay, what's happening?

What do I have to do with it?

And very often the answer is nothing.

You can have a thought and do nothing with it.

You can have a niche and you can scratch it, or you do nothing

with it.

I'm not suggesting you sit there for hours and hours on end

going, I'm not going to itch that itch.

Just do what you need to do, but don't over complicate it.

Don't make it into something it probably isn't.

And we do this with meditation, we do this with mindfulness.

What's the big picture?

Am I doing it right?

Is it really benefiting me?

Am I, am I doing it right?

Is it giving me the benefit that I need?

Is it all these other things?

And I remember with Jimpo, my teacher, I used to ask him week after

week, this is what I'm doing.

Am I doing it right?

And he'd say, just sit down and shut the up.

Just do it.

Stafu, stafu.

S T F U S the fu so I'm giving you permission to not do anything

with what arises.

So this podcast right now is giving you some thoughts.

What if you do nothing with them?

What if you do nothing at all?

Just, ah, that's interesting.

Or ah, that's nothing.

And this feeling of not having to do anything with it gives you,

gives you this ability to create space.

And it's a meditation in itself.

Just, ah, the travel lights are red.

Okay, timeout.

I don't have to find the gift even just, ah, and that wonderful

realization that you don't have to do anything with it.

You don't have to react to every thought or react to every feeling.

You just simply just be okay with what is.

Whatever rises.

Love that, you know, not easy, but you know, it's possible.

You hear some amazing stories of people in the most, I just say,

diverse, in the most devastating, difficult positions.

And they still have a smile on their face, they're still happy,

they're still able to bring out the best in themselves.

Not easy.

Really, really difficult.

But we normally overcomplicate it with some big elaborate story

of victimhood or where we should be doing or what we should

be doing and all that.

No, just take a deep breath, you know, it is just what it is and

we can choose whether to do anything with it.

And in.

In choosing whether to do anything with it, consider whether

you have to do anything with it.

Do I need to react to this thought?

Do I need to react to this feeling?

You know, try it now.

I'll go quiet for just a second or so and be aware of the

next thought that comes up.

Something funny will happen the minute I go quiet.

You'll have no thoughts for a second and then you'll have lots

of thoughts suddenly come.

Because the minute you bring a spotlight to your thoughts, they

run away like, like as if spiders frightened of their air or

something like that.

I don't know what spies are find of the light or something, but

the minute you shine light on it, they'll run away.

Your thoughts do a similar thing.

So I'm going to go quiet and just observe your thoughts and just

imagine not doing anything with them.

Just, ah, there they are.

So you start thinking about, well, here I am, his thoughts, they're

coming back.

Oh yeah, there was a blank moment and all those different things

you'll start thinking about and it's just, you don't have to

do anything with it.

And what a relief, especially for anxiety or stress.

What, I don't have to do anything with this nagging feeling,

then if it is something that you should be doing something about,

do it and then you can move on from it.

So there's my advice for this week, really.

Just consider how many things in the next hour or so or how many

times things come up and ask yourself, am I over complicating

it?

Do I need to do anything with it?

And that really comes down to your thoughts and feelings as well.

Do I need to do anything with it?

And you end up becoming the observer of them and being entertained

and loving them.

It's like, oh, that's, that's an awesome thought, or that's a weird

one, or oh, I know where that feeling comes from.

Oh, what an amazing feeling.

Or not so keen on that one.

So you become the observer as opposed to the thought or the feeling

itself.

And then you take control of them.

And the more you take control of them, the more that the next ones

will come along will be more what you like.

And next week in the podcast, I'm going to talk about that.

I'm going to talk about changing the negative feelings into

more positive feelings, the negative thoughts into more positive

thoughts.

And it's not how you think it should be done.

It's not how you've been told it should be done as a child.

It's not a matter of just thinking positive, having more positive,

happier thoughts.

Far from it.

That does not work.

It's a very practical reason why it doesn't work.

You cannot change what you got.

It's like someone coming over and giving you a cup of tea and you're

going, well, I want coffee.

Then you can send that tea back and get a coffee, but you can't

change that tea into a coffee.

So you can influence the next one that comes along, but you cannot

do anything about the one you got.

Same with thoughts, same with feelings.

So next podcast is going to get a little bit interesting with

that about how we can really train our mind to start thinking

in a more positive, happier way.

But it's not done the way you think it should be done.

I often speak about it, but, you know, it's the one question I

get asked all the time.

The way you explain how to have a more positive mind really

does make a difference.

And thank you.

So it's about time I revisited that.

And I'll do that next week on the podcast.

But that's for this week.

My advice, just decide whether you have to do anything with it.

And are you over complicating it?

Just that you'll probably find the answer is no to doing anything

with it and yes to overcomplicating it.

Because that's pretty well normal human behavior.

And don't be down on yourself if you do it because it means you're

normal.

Means that's real.

That's, you know, we overdo things.

That's just humans collectively, we overdo things.

See what we've done with the Internet, this wonderful thing comes

along where we can communicate worldwide and we make it about the

worst possible things.

Half of the time, we exploit it in the most terrible way.

We get a wonderful invention called plastic, and we exploit it

in the most terrible way.

All of these things, we do it all the time as humans, you know,

and then we start using it in the proper way that is helpful to

mankind and things like that.

Sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes it's very short.

But, you know, we're reevaluating the Internet and the

use of plastics, all those things, you know, they'll be here

to stay, but they won't be here to stay in the way that we did

it initially.

So there's my thoughts for this week.

It's a bit of a ramble but you know, do you have to do anything

with it?

Hopefully.

Hopefully you get some little bits of nugget.

If you do email me, drop me a drop me an email on my website stephenweb.uk

you can also go to there and link to my medication, medications,

meditations, see my dyslexia coming in, my meditations and other

such things like my other podcast.

And you can get a guest pass to a brilliant app called Aura.

And I don't get paid for this podcast or anything like that, but

if you sign up with that guest pass after 30 days, if you like it,

no obligation but if you like it, I will get part of the money

for you signing up.

So a huge thank you to that but you can head over to stephenweb.uk

click on the link, choose to do it or not or just message me.

Did you get any nuggets from this podcast?

Did it help in any way?

Does my podcast help?

Do you listen to more of them?

Just let me know.

It'd be nice knowing.

Because the funny thing in the world of podcasting is we do a podcast,

we put it out there and we very rarely get any feedback.

I get the odd email but and I love getting them and I read them

all and I reply to them all.

So yeah, take care guys, have an amazing week and I will see you

next week about how to have a more positive feelings and thoughts

and everything else.

Take care, I love you.

Bye.

Simplify Everything to Reduce Anxiety

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

Simplify Everything to Reduce Anxiety

In this episode

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.