0:10 So you think you can control your thoughts.
0:14 It's a nice idea, isn't it? And everybody tells you to think positive or to stop to think a certain
0:20 way. Stop thinking negative.
0:24 What a nice thought if it was just able to be done. You know, just like putting the telephone on
0:29 mute.
0:37 Wouldn't that be lovely?
0:39 But I'm going to give you some bad news. You're not in control of your thoughts. In any way. Now
0:46 then, let me explain.
0:55 Welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the podcast by Steven Webb, your host, yours truly. And it's a podcast that
1:03 just helps you to see life a little bit different. And hopefully, in the meantime, get a little bit of
1:08 inner peace and calm from the result. So I want to talk about our thoughts and how the mind works.
1:16 But first of all, I want to tell you a little story.
1:19 I was the person that, you know, you imagine this person that had been through difficulty.
1:26 And he broke his neck and he was always happy and he was always like this happy-go-lucky, always seemed to
1:34 be on the positive side, always thought positively. And whenever anybody would be negative around him he's oh just think
1:40 positive, be happy. You know, you've just got to look on the bright side, flip it around, turn it around.
1:46 I was that person. And then I hit my rock bottom.
1:51 And it happened a few times, but when I really hit my rock bottom... I don't know if any of
1:57 you know the story, but I'm going to tell you, just in case you haven't heard it um I was
2:03 I found myself single. My partner just left and I had no money. Everything was going wrong and
2:11 my my life was completely snowballing.
2:15 I was in the doorway to Boots and my chair just broke down. It's like a supermarket for well-being stuff.
2:22 A wire had caught around the wheel and that was it grinded to a halt I sat there and I
2:29 just burst out in tears. Here was a 40 year old fully grown man, crying. And it
2:37 wasn't just tears I could hold back. I was literally bawling my eyes out. I'd had enough. You know, if
2:44 anything could go wrong in my life, it was then and it had. And it all just, I don't know,
2:50 just, it was the perfect storm. Everything. And I was in a wheelchair that I couldn't, I had no money
2:56 to repair. I was single I My credit cards were to the hill. I felt lonely. I felt just, oh,
3:03 that was it. My whole life was, my whole life sucked. And the security guard that was just stood on
3:09 a little platform a few feet away, stepped down off the platform, walked over to me and just squeezed my
3:15 shoulder. And
3:17 it was that quiet moment it's like I
3:22 gotta sort my life out, but I just didn't know how to. And it was at that point, I think,
3:28 that my mind just started coming back with all the thoughts of everything that was going wrong.
3:36 Just a couple of weeks before that, somebody who I was dating for about 18 months had finished with me
3:44 completely out of the blue. I had no idea it was going to happen. I thought the relationship was perfect
3:48 you know I thought I was the best boyfriend. I took her an Indian a few days before. You know,
3:54 what kind of what kind of boyfriend does that? I was the ultimate boyfriend. I had no idea, you know
4:01 it wasn't it wasn't all sunshine and roses. But I was this positive thing, see all the good side and
4:07 all that all the time. And then she let me know that she wanted to move on. And when
4:14 I say move on, not to find somebody else, but just at the time I thought she was good. I
4:18 thought she was gonna see somebody else. But that was just hurting. That was just painful thoughts. But she left.
4:24 She let me know and uh and come over and picked up her stuff. And that was the moment where
4:30 all my thoughts left me. All my soul left me. It's like my ego had said, do you know what
4:35 Stevie? I've done everything for you all your life. You're on your own now mate. And I just felt nothing
4:41 for about two weeks. I was in a... I felt no good. I felt no bad bad I
4:49 didn't have no drive. I had no, I had nothing. There was nothing there. And if I didn't have carers
4:56 to get me out of bed and I
5:00 I don't know what I'd have done. I think I'd just got in bed and done nothing. And I just,
5:06 that was it. I had no thoughts and it was really, really weird. It was like as if I was
5:12 on my own, but I didn't exist. And
5:16 I I think they call it the dark night of the soul when, you know, it's just I've had enough
5:20 I'm done. I'm done with you, Stevie. But there's no Stevie. Just done. That's it. And then a
5:28 couple of weeks later when I started to get back on my feet metaphorically, that's when everything really went wrong.
5:35 My wheelchair broke and my credit cards were to the hill. And sat in that doorway bawling my eyes out.
5:42 I had to get a friend to come down and help me into the van and Took me home. And
5:47 that was when all of my thoughts started to come back in my mind. All the thoughts of, ah, they're
5:54 having an affair, they're doing this, they're seeing that. You know, they're doing all the things that I wanted to
6:00 do. But it wasn't only that. Everybody was having a better life than me.
6:06 And suddenly for the first time in my life, really in a deep way, I found myself only thinking negative.
6:13 Every
6:16 thought was bad and it was so painful I had no idea how painful it could get but it was
6:22 just horribly painful. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I felt sick all the time
6:28 and all I wanted to do was shut my mind off and like I said for the first time I
6:35 really experienced what it was like to not be that positive person and
6:41 then after a while and I was drinking to get myself to sleep and things like that. But after a
6:48 while, I started reading a book and it was As A Man think of by James Allen. And it gave
6:53 me the thoughts that I am what I think.
6:57 And it separated me from my thoughts. So I recognise that there's thoughts. Ah, there's a thought. And I could
7:05 be aware of that thought. So if you think of, I don't know, of a flying pink elephant right now,
7:13 you're a person sat there. Thinking of and been aware of that thought.
7:21 Okay, bear with me a minute because this will have meaning in a minute. You know, when you first introduce
7:28 this, you're like, what? Okay, but just bear with me for a minute. Open your mind and just enjoy the
7:35 journey just for the minute. So so we have thoughts. I have thoughts. I started watching those thoughts in
7:43 meditation and every book told me I could meditate or I should meditate. That was the answer. I disagree with
7:49 every book because like no, I can't meditate. I think too much. But after 10 books, every single one of
7:56 them telling you you ought to meditate or give it a try. At some point you gotta go okay, these
8:02 are all people that have turned their lives around and they you know they're telling me to do something. And
8:09 here I am, my life's a mess, telling them I cannot do the one thing they're telling me to do.
8:15 So at some point you got to listen to someone that's already sorted their shit out. So
8:22 I started meditating, or I just started sitting there and observing my thoughts. And I realised one thing. I wasn't
8:29 in control of my thoughts.
8:32 Now think about that for a minute. If you're in control of your thoughts,
8:37 what is your next thought?
8:42 Come on, you can tell me, you can just tell me now. What is your next thought going to be?
8:46 The mind goes blank. Because
8:50 you're not in control of what your next thoughts are. They come subconsciously out of your mind. Your mind, you
8:58 haven't got exclusive access to it. I know it's crazy, but you haven't you know It's in your head, it
9:05 is you, but you don't have exclusive access. You don't have the ability to tune into that back door
9:13 and choose what's in there you know The sounds that go in. There's not a lot you can do about
9:21 it. Your ears are open all the time.
9:23 So the thoughts that come up, just like sounds that come up, they're there all the time. You you cannot
9:29 choose.
9:32 So now you're thinking, okay, brilliant. So now I can never think positive. I can never change my life because
9:38 I'm not in control of my thoughts. What am I in control of?
9:42 Good question and And that's the wise question. What am I in control of? Well, you're in control of what
9:50 you do with the thoughts.
9:53 That's like eating a donut. Now then, if you've got, if you're told you have to eat that donut, you
9:59 don't have any choice of where it goes on the body. We don't even choose where a donut goes on
10:04 our body. Think about that for a moment. Okay, this is a terrible analogy. I don't know even know why
10:09 I went to this analogy. But you'll get the point that we're not in control. Oh, you know me. You've
10:17 listening to this podcast long enough I go on enough tangents. Forget the donut. Forget that analogy. But
10:26 you are not in control. When a thought arises, it's already there. You can't do anything about it. It's like
10:33 a child running up to you and giving you an ice cream. This is a bare analogy. A child runs
10:39 up to you and says, here's an ice cream. Well, you've got the ice cream then. What we want to
10:43 do is we want to change the ice cream into something different because we don't like it. Perhaps he gives
10:48 us a banana ice cream. Who has banana ice cream? You do know.
10:55 So he walks up with banana ice cream and you're like, you don't want the banana ice cream. So we
11:00 jump up and down we get teasy and someone comes and tells us, well, just change the ice cream. You
11:07 cannot just change the ice cream because it's already there. It's present. It's already formed. But what we can do
11:13 is we can help the child understand that we don't like banana ice cream and to help the child by,
11:20 well, I'm not so keen on that one, so I'll put it in the bin. When
11:25 you've got a mint chocolate chip ice cream, bring that one to me. And then the child will go, oh,
11:31 really? You like messed up my game. The next time it'll bring a chocolate chip one. And you go, thank
11:38 you. That's brilliant. That's amazing. And then the child's like, ah, that's the response I wanted. Your subconscious
11:46 mind is like that child. It's giving you thoughts. It's giving you all kinds of thoughts. They're not good nor
11:53 bad. They're just thoughts. It's what we do. It's how we determine what those thoughts are. So
12:01 if we go, oh, that's a bad one, we tend to focus on it. If we go, that's a good
12:06 one, we tend to not really give much weight to it so The subconscious mind does not know what thoughts
12:12 to give you. So it's literally the mind thinks shit up all the time.
12:19 All the time. It just does it. It just drives down the road and thinks, what would you do if
12:23 you drew it drove over the wall? What do you do if you run into those people? What do you
12:29 do if you ended up pouring that drink on your head? Now the mind's just thinking of scenarios to protect
12:35 you. The mind's just, you know, and you know the good ones when you're sitting there and someone quite sexy
12:42 is in the room and you go, wouldn't mind. Might not be appropriate,
12:48 but we've all done it. Doesn't mean to say we have to act upon it and do anything with it,
12:53 but we've all done it. And then we try to get rid of that thought as well. So the mind
12:58 just thinks of thoughts up all the time. It's just what it does. But
13:05 we actively know whether or not to get on them or not now when you're driving down the road it
13:11 comes up with a thought of doing something in the car that is clearly going to endanger lives, we go,
13:17 no, I'm not going to get on that thought and I'm not going to do it.
13:22 But why do we get on these thoughts that are not necessarily damaging right then, but they are damaging over
13:29 time? Thoughts of when I found myself single and rock bottom. I thought that my ex was with
13:37 someone in an intimate position at that time. And that would hurt like hell. So why did I focus on
13:43 it so much but it gave me a deep feeling. Now, my subconscious mind doesn't mind what the feeding is
13:49 It just cares that it gave you a deep feeling. Just the same as the child. Doesn't matter whether the
13:56 attention is good or bad. It still wants attention.
14:01 So now it's starting to build a picture now of you're not in control of the thoughts, but you're in
14:07 control of which thoughts you get on. So
14:10 that's how you can turn your mind around to be more positive or to be more healthier. Because I don't
14:17 like the positive and negative, the good and bad. I don't think that helps because a negative thought doesn't necessarily
14:24 mean it's bad. It just means it's trying to protect you. We need negative thoughts. And I've done a podcast
14:31 about that, and I will link to it below in the show notes. You know, a negative bias is a
14:37 good thing. If we didn't have a negative bias, most of us would end up killing ourselves by the time
14:42 we're 10. And for one, I would have done dumb ass things if my mind wasn't coming up with scenarios
14:49 saying, don't do that. You
14:52 know, we have to almost think of the bad in order to prevent us doing it. Unfortunately, the subconscious mind
15:00 doesn't look at good or bad as good or bad. It just looks at it as a habit. So what
15:07 is a healthy mind? How do we replace this? Think positive, which doesn't work for very long either because you
15:14 think of all these people that think positive and happy and oh, it's all great. Life's just a bowl of
15:19 wonderful love and fun. You know, we all know these people and I've tried to be them. It
15:26 all comes crashing down about every three weeks and two days.
15:30 You bump into them on the street. How's it going? Oh, no, you wouldn't believe what's just happened. Well, last
15:35 week, you were like the bundle of love and all the trees were, you know, and
15:40 trust me, I'm not knocking. I'm like, I think that I think this is a brilliant segment to growing
15:48 up. I think it's we have to go through that realisation in order to realise that that's not sustainable. All
15:56 humans are doing these things all the time. We realise that it's not 100% healthy so
16:02 But we have to try it. We have to do it. So what is a healthy mind? What would a
16:08 healthy mind look like? What would a healthy mind do? Well, the healthy mind would, it's slow enough it's going
16:15 It's going at the right pace. And this is through meditation and mindfulness that a thought arises
16:22 and it can be aware of the thought instead of just becoming the thought. So instead of having a thought
16:28 and just going with a habitable response that you've always done, you've got that little gap.
16:34 So a thought happens and you can go, hmm, is this a productive healthy thought? Or is this an
16:42 irrelevant thought? Is this a helpful thought
16:46 um Is this something that is not is really quite helpful, although it's negative, but it's not relevant to this
16:53 moment. So you can become aware of what the thought is and you can make a wise choice what to
17:00 do with the thought.
17:02 And that's where the wisdom is that this is where This is where the gold is. This is where the
17:06 enlightenment enlightenment is. And this is where my life is no better now, really, than when I was at my
17:14 rock bottom. It might seem like it is. My finances are about the same. I'm still single
17:22 um You
17:25 know, I still spend as much time alone um okay
17:30 I'm mayor of truer which is pretty awesome. But that comes with more pressures I said again so That comes
17:36 with more pressures. I've almost got more problems now than what I had then.
17:41 So going back to our thoughts. So they arise. Wisdom. Enlightenment. Healthy.
17:48 What is the thought? Do we have to go over it or not? And you slowly train the subconscious mind
17:56 what you want to think about. So you slowly become not so much a positive thinker, not so much a
18:02 negative thinker or um you Well we do this anyway. All of our lives we're teaching the subconscious mind what
18:10 to do. The only thing is you're doing it consciously rather than subconsciously. Your mind has always been learning what
18:18 you want to think about. Hence the law of attraction. When you think about debt, you have more debt. When
18:23 you think about being a victim, you're more of a victim. When you think about positive things, you become more
18:28 positive. So
18:31 what you can do when you have, say, a gratitude of something When you lose something, instead of just going
18:38 down that oh I've lost it. I can't believe I got nothing left and they've left me and I've just
18:43 lost my Louis
18:46 baton um bag or whatever whatever it is you lost. And you think it's the end of the world. You
18:52 can go, wait a minute. That's just a thought. Yes, I've lost that, but I've still got this, this and
18:57 this. So you can actively think that little gap. You can choose what to do with the
19:05 thought.
19:08 That's it. That's the answer. And you can literally, and I'm reading a book at the moment called The Choice
19:15 by Edith Egger um She was a young girl and she went to Auschwitz and on the day she got
19:21 there, she lost both parents. And it was really the almost awful of circumstances. And at
19:29 that point, she realised that she still had her sister. So instead of thinking, I've lost this and
19:37 this, I've lost my home and all that, I've still got my sister. And she was able to, she said
19:44 the phrase, it's what you focus your attention on. So if you focus your attention on what you lost or
19:51 focus your attention on what you still have. There's the answer.
19:56 That's the answer to feeling miserable or not. That's the answer to being a victim or not.
20:05 It's where you focus your attention on. So a thought comes up.
20:10 What do you want to do with it? Do you want to dump it in the bin? Do you want
20:14 to go with it? Do you want to grow it? Do you want to... So doing it consciously. But don't
20:21 try to change the thought. And this is the point. Going right back to the beginning of the podcast, I
20:26 said you're not in control of the thoughts. And you're not. You're not in control of the flavor ice cream
20:32 that that child brings you because you've subconsciously trained the child to bring you a certain ice cream. Now you're
20:39 going to consciously train the child, train the child as a tongue twister, to bring you the
20:47 ice cream you want.
20:48 Okay? Forget the donut metaphor. That's for a different podcast. That's about stoicism and what
20:56 you're in control of. And you'll be surprised. You're in control of very little. One thing you're in control of
21:03 is what you do with the thought. So stop trying to change a thought Stop being annoyed with your mind
21:09 for the thought. Every thought your mind is coming up with is one you've subconsciously trained it to do already.
21:16 You
21:18 haven't consciously taken over. And I don't all the time. Don't get me wrong. Not every thought that arises, I,
21:24 oh, let's sit down and analyse it. I'm still going with the habit 99% of the day. But that 1%
21:31 changing is making all the difference. It really does. So
21:36 I never, no longer preach to people think positive. I don't tell people how to think. I invite people to
21:43 to respond to their thoughts I Hope that makes sense. If that helps. So
21:51 I said I would release a podcast this week, whether it's good or bad, but this is the podcast. Hopefully
21:56 you enjoyed it. Hopefully it will make a difference. Hopefully it will give you a different way of looking at
22:02 your mind. And let me know in the reviews and the comments um what you think of the podcast.
22:09 Let me know if, what kind of topics you'd like me to cover. Ask me questions
22:17 um Send an email to me, StevenWebb.uk. It's got all the links. So that take care. Have an amazing
22:25 month and I will see you next week. And remember, stop trying to change your thoughts but
22:32 you are in control of what you do with them. Love you and have a good one.
