The Art of Letting Go Without Losing Grip: Mastering Life's Balancing Act

Q: So how loose is loose enough?

Loose enough that it can move, tight enough that you have not dropped it. There is no number, and the drumsticks are the best test I know for finding it in your own hand.

Q: Is this what Buddhism actually says?

As I read it, yes. The Buddha tried renouncing everything and found more suffering waiting. Give it all away and even the self trying to be enlightened has nowhere left to stand.

Q: Does holding loosely mean not caring?

The opposite. It is the only way I have found to care about something for a long time without it grinding me down.

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The transcript

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letting-go · acceptance · self-compassion

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Welcome to the philosophy of holding things lightly.

It's just something that I've been thinking about a lot recently and with what I'm currently going through, it's

really important that I hold things lightly at the moment and I will explain in a minute. Welcome to Stillness

in the Storms. I'm Steven Webb, your host. And I'm just basically going to tell you some of the things

I'm going through at the moment and why I really tend to stay happier the most simply because I hold

things lightly. And whether that's my spiritual journey, whether it's my a touching of Buddhism,

my politics or the 500 mile journey that I'm about to set off on. I just,

I don't hold it so tightly that... It's rigid that my, you know, just to take the metaphor really

far, that I'm just really grabbing hold of it so much that my hands are hurting. And I love the

metaphor of holding the drumsticks just right. If you hold them too loosely, they fall when there's no music. You

hold them too tightly and it's the rigid the music's rigid. There's no longer a joy to listen to. Just

hold them enough that the music can flow through you. And I think you've got to do that with life

to a degree. The body knows what it's doing. The mind knows what it's doing. The subconscious mind somewhat has

your back. And the universe, I believe in that instance, has your back as well.

The problem is we try to get involved and we try to control it We try to control the world

outside and we try to control the world inside. And it becomes a hot mess within a minute. So in

life, it's about finding that balance between attachment and detachment. And

the main points in which I, with me with this comes up is, you know, in love and in

dreams and goals, even in my frustrations and anger. Just the whole philosophy of these

points in these areas apply to whether it is love and dreams, your anger, your frustrations.

It doesn't really matter what aspect or what you're thinking about, but if you hold it too tightly.

And love is a perfect analogy. If you hold love too tightly, it's like if you love a butterfly, you

want to let it go and fly. If you hold it way too tight, you kill it. And that's whether

that's romantic love or whether it's just acceptance. And it's the same as when even we try to love ourselves.

Just trying to be so rigid. I need to love myself I gotta love myself. At all cost I gotta

love everything about me ah Doesn't it become a chore? The

same as our goals we really If we really lean into our goals and we gotta get our goals at

all costs, we'll end up not liking them. We'll end up being so attached to the outcome and we won't

enjoy the journey.

And as I like analogies, it's like climbing a mountain and you're attached to the route. Then halfway up the

route changes and you're like, no, can't do that. I've planned this and it's got to be this way. Well,

you're not going to enjoy it that much and But that's what we do with life. We try to control.

We try to control the narrative inside. We try to control every aspect of it. We try to control everybody

else. We try to control the government and apply that Okay, technically the government do throw us a few like

little bits that make us think that we can control them, but not really. You know, we get a vote

every four years and we can nudge the direction, but it's very, very slight. That's the same with us. We

can nudge the direction of where the donuts go on our body, but we can't decide where. You know? And

it's just like the bow and or the archer. They can spend months and months and months and years practicing

and practicing. They're not in control. Once they leave go of that bow and the arrow flies, they're no longer

in control. They're at the mercy of everything they've come to that point. They're then at the mercy of the

weather, the bow, all the other things. At that point they gotta let go

and pray for the best. And not even pray. You just pray You prepare enough that you don't have to

pray. Sometimes you're going to pray. Although I'm not religious. Pray is just just hopeful and it's having

faith, I suppose. That's what prayers is. And it's a way of contemplation. But our frustrations, hold them

lightly. Laugh at them. Smile with them a little bit. And the same as the anger and the benefits of

holding these lightly, just... It serves and nourishes us rather than prevents us and drags us down. You

know, and then we have the flexibility of growth rather than the dangers of the extremes. You let go of

everything and you hear it in the philosophy and memes all the time. Let it go. Just let it go.

That famous old song from um Was it Frozen? Which I've never seen. I've still not seen the film

Frozen and I'm going to be determined. I met somebody the other day and they haven't watched it either. So

I'm trying to be the determined one I get through my whole life without watching the film Frozen. And I

haven't watched um Lord of the Rings either. And I've never finished Game of Thrones. So you're in good company

if you haven't done any of those things. But go and watch Frozen, just so I can say I'm the

only one that hasn't. But the film, let it go, just let it go. How do you let go of

something you care about?

But the other side, don't hold on to it too much that

whatever you care about, you end up killing it or whatever you care about ends up an obsession. You

know, if you literally let go of everything, it can lead to despair nihilism and a feeling of just

a wasted life. You're not believing in anything at that point. But

then if you're holding things too tightly, it leads to rigidity and it leads to missing the beauty of changing

in the world where just

finding that balance just If you go for a walk and you're expecting a certain kind of weather and you're

expecting to see certain butterflies or flowers and you don't see them, you're disappointed. Just...

When we hold things loosely, we allow life to be what it is. And when we allow life to be

what it is, we start seeing the beauty in it. And I said I was going to share with you

why this is really on my mind at the moment. So I'm lying awake four o'clock in the morning, most

mornings at the moment,

because some crazy idea of mine about 12 months ago, I decided I wanted to go back and do John

and Go to Land's End. In my electric wheelchair. I never got to complete it last time in 2005.

So I wanted to go back and do it I went and spoke to my friend Clive. I said, I

want your honesty.

Should I go back and do John and ghost Lands End next year? And he goes, no I got something

better.

He said, I've got a map of Cornwall. It's 500 miles all the way around the outside, including the Devon

and Cornwall border. And it's accessible routes. It's a road all the way around. Do you want to do it?

I was like, oh my God, yes. So first of September, marking 33 years since I broke my

neck, I'm going to be setting off in my electric wheelchair. It's going to take me 20 to 28 days,

25 to 30 miles a day in my electric wheelchair. I know. Yeah, I know.

Talk about do crazy things. And we're planning the route and we're doing all these things and we've got some

real great people backing us and we're going to raise money for the air ambulance to save lives. But if

I hold it so tightly that I have to raise 20 000 pound I have to complete it by this

day and I have to do so many miles a day, I'm not going to enjoy it. I'm not going

to... I probably won't complete it because I will ground myself down that much because it won't work like that

the

The universe has other plans. The universe will literally throw so many things in the way that,

yeah, it just doesn't work like that. And that's just the external world. Think about the internal world, all those

conflicts and the fighting internally and all the different voices. You know, you can do it faster, slow down. You

need to make sure you raise this money a day. Who is it sponsoring? Who are you meeting? All those

other things. All those things are coming out four o'clock in the morning. My mind is like yep get out

of bed, do all these things. I'm like, yeah, you do know I'm paralysed and you do know it's four

o'clock in the morning. And the mind's like, no, I don't know what time is. Get up, do it. So

I was five o'clock this morning, sat up in bed watching a Zoom call with the Aura app

where all the teachers get together and they discuss the changes.

It was a good call. There's nothing wrong with that. And if you want to know, my meditations are on

Insight Timer or or if you want to go to them. It's also on the free Inner Peace of Meditations

podcast if you want to listen to that as well. But I'll put all the links below. But ultimately, if

I get really annoyed that I'm waking up that time instead of going, okay, mine, yeah, you got me. There

is a few things. I'll take a list. I would end up just poorly running myself down, running myself ragged.

So yeah, that's why I'm just... And it's the same with your spiritual journey. If you hold your spiritual journey

so tightly that I've got to be enlightened and I've got to be peaceful. Every person I come across, I've

got to, you know, hello my friend and deep bow to them and I've got to respect I've got to

honor them and I got to love them and accept them for everything they are. They are my brother. I

am their brother and all that. That's exhausting.

But if you try your best... And just go, do you know what? I'm trying to show up. I'm trying

to be open. I'm trying to be loving and accepting. You

know, it's easier with other people. It's not so easy for their own voices inside. You know I I say

it's harder to love and accept ourselves. And I don't try to love myself. I just try to accept myself

for being the 100 human I am. I can't be anything else. And humans are deeply awesomely flawed and

brilliant and all these other things I'm just accepting the fact that I'm human. Accepting the fact that I'm

trying to hold things in a way that I'm trying to be in control of everything. And yet, I know

I'm not in control of everything. And same as this podcast. If I was in so control that this wasn't

just a rambling podcast, I

would be re-recording. I'd be restarting I'll be doing all those things. Does it matter? You're

still there watching, right? Well, if you're on Youtube, you're watching. You're still listening if you're listening to it on

the Stillness in the Storms. So

what is the takeaway? The takeaway is just hold things loosely but not so loose that you

drop it.

You know, if you're having a bad day or having a rough day or an unhealthy day or you're making

some choices that are not optimum, just go, okay, all

right.

Take a deep breath and take a step back and look at it and smile.

Because, you know, the universe is just doing what it does

and you're just a small part but an awesome part of it.

And when we do start just taking things loosely, we we end up smiling more. We end up

accepting ourselves more and accepting others a little bit more. And isn't accepting things and just holding things

with a balance way better than trying to do the other things. And I think this is what the Buddhism

say about, they don't say about give away everything to a point where you've got nothing in life. The Buddha

tried that. You know, he he was walking down the road one day and I think the story goes, if

you meet me, kill me. Which he was talking about me, the ego, the eye. So he was trying to

get rid of the eye so much until the point where even the eye could never be

enlightened because the eye is just a story. It's just a thing that's coming up in any given moment. So

that thing that has to come up in the moment to keep you alive, to want food, to do all

these other things, hold it lightly because it'll be gone in another moment. It'll be gone before you even know

it. Before you realise it's there, it's gone and moved on. When you realise a thought, the thought's like, oh,

here's the next one. And that's that's the reality of life you know By the time you're aware of the

thought, it's already happened you

know You didn't do it. You just become aware of it. It had already risen at that point.

Everything you ever see or everything you ever feel everything by the time it's there, it's already happened.

It's just whether you choose to stretch it out a little bit and keep it there for a minute.

And like I say, just letting go of everything to a point that the Buddha tried leads to nihilism leads

to a feeling of lost and a risk of wasting your life by not believing in anything,

you know. And that feeling of

lost and that feeling of risk of wasting your life is

probably a lot worse feeling than trying to hold on.

Just by not believing in anything

makes it difficult to even live your life

um and

again holding on too tightly leads to a rigidity that

You're missing the beauty of the changing world, the finding the balance. It's just not realistic

to let go of everything and it's not healthy to cling on to everything. The

middle ground allows your life to be an engagement without overwhelming. And

I love the analogy of, you know, you imagine a river and the banks either side are a meter tall

or so and they're just outside of your reach.

And the water's flowing at a nice, calm, peaceful way. Where the flow of the water

is life as movement That's time. And the bank's either side is what's happening to you. They're your experiences.

And you're in a boat in the middle and you've got a couple of oars and every now and again

you can look towards the bank and you can experience and enjoy it as you go by. It's going to

keep moving. You can't stop the boat. We try to grab all of the boat when we fall in love

or when we go to a wonderful concert and we're like, no, no, no, keep it, keep it. And you

end up stretching your arms or so much that you're dragging the bank and you're dragging the boat and it

becomes not enjoyable. Just enjoy the experience while it's lasting because the water is going to keep flowing.

And the same as when the bank's something, the experience that you don't want. And then we try to speed

up the boat. We're trying to row it as fast as we can we want to get out of there.

We want to move on. Or we're wallowing wallowing in it and we're going, oh, I don't want to stay

here. I don't want to see this. Cover my eyes. Just leave me go. Just tell me when it's over.

It's going to be over just as quick as it's over. You know, you're not stuck in it.

And I think that's the that's

the joy of just recognising you can ever have everything in balance. And

I think that's my secret to life is that I

get frustrated. I get annoyed. I've got carers, 24-hour care. They literally have to wipe my bum. They have to

shower me. They have to make my toast. I talk about making toast a lot because there's like seven billion

ways of making toast which every person on earth would make toast a different way.

And they very often don't make it the way I want it, but I've had to let go and go,

do you know what that's That's pretty good. It's not bad. Okay, sometimes it's terrible. But every carer does

things slightly different because they're different people. They see the world differently. You can sit next to someone and say,

hey, look at that train going by. And both of you will recall different parts of the train. Both of

you see it from a different angle. And that's the same as the whole of life. Every person has a

different way of doing things. And when you've got people that clean your home um literally do everything for you

that they're your arms and legs,

they will do things different to you. And that's okay. That's okay. And I've learned to

I've learned to let go of that to some degree because

I'm not in control of it. I can influence them. I can nudge them in the right direction. But not

really in control of it.

It will be what it is. And

also, they have something to bring to the table as well. Everyone has something to bring to the table. So

they might have better ways of doing some things. So if I'm so rigidly stuck into my mind is the

only way, I might miss better ways. I will be honest, it doesn't happen very often. I say that

jokingly, but you know there's a little bit of a little bit of honesty there's a little bit of truth

in every joke and I think you know But that's fair enough it's okay. As long as we

don't grab hold of it. And going back to that analogy, yeah there might be there might be a big

waterfall coming up and you're gonna boat's gonna go over it and everything's gonna go wrong well I tell you

what, the boat's gonna get there anyway. You ain't gonna stop it.

The idea is to hold the boat loosely so that hopefully you stay in the boat.

Okay, the analogy is taking a bad turn now but you know what I mean. You

know what I mean. And our expectations of um future experiences, you know, you're not in

control of what comes up. You can influence it, just like the archer and the bow and the arrow. You

know, you can somewhat plan. I can somewhat plan this 500 miles. I've worked out the days. I've worked out

what days I'm going to be doing. I've worked out some of the days who's coming with me and what

we're doing, who I'm meeting. But, you know, I'm not in control of the weather. I'm not in control of

traffic I'm not in control of the potholes. Do you call them potholes in the States? They're not really potholes

here anymore there's so many government cuts. They're more like swimming pools on a rainy day and, you know, sinkholes

on a dry day. I'm gonna have to avoid them at all cost um But yeah, I'm looking forward to

I'm looking forward to that solitude and getting out. And hopefully I'll do some podcasts while I'm on the road.

So it's been a lot of organizing and that's why I've been a little quiet on the podcast in front.

So I'm just going to say, look, I love you and thank you for sticking by me. Thank you to

all of you that are still donating and treating me to a coffee. You are awesome um During

September, anybody treats me to a coffee or anybody donates, I'm going to give that to the air ambulance um

ah Just

thank you for holding me loosely and not holding me to account for everything. But

thank you for not dropping me completely. Thank you for listening to the podcast and being there. So to recap,

it's pretty simple. Have

a balanced life. Hold things gently. But don't even go completely to let it go is bollocks.

And the hold on to stuff is equally bollocks. So I just swear. Hopefully there's no kids listening. You

know um But

yeah. So that's what I'm doing now. That's what's on my mind that The philosophy of holding things lightly that

Thank you to all of you. If you want to donate, if you want to get involved, you want to

message me, go to StevenWebb.uk. That's about a V and just StevenWebb.uk. You are awesome. I want

you to have an amazing week. And don't forget to check out my other podcasts Inner Peace Meditations.

And if you want to find out about my challenge, go to the

cornwall500.com You'll find out all about it there. It's going to be epic. It's going to be awesome.

And I just can't wait. I think. Maybe. Let's see. Let's see four o'clock tomorrow

morning. Take care guys. And I love you.

The Art of Letting Go Without Losing Grip: Mastering Life's Balancing Act

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.

The Art of Letting Go Without Losing Grip: Mastering Life's Balancing Act

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.