Stillness in the StormsA podcast with Steven Webb Join Weekly Calm

Episode 118 · 31 March 2024 · 19:54

Using Breath as the Gateway to Personal Connection and Calm

Why is the breath the one thing always available to you? Because if it is not there you have a much bigger problem. It even works on a stage in front of ten thousand people.

Subject: How to Meditate

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Stillness in the Storms · Episode 118

Why is the breath the one thing always available to you? Because if it is not there you have a much bigger problem. It even works on a stage in front of ten thousand people.

Make them wait for one breath. In hospital I used to stop breathing deliberately just to set the machine off, which tells you how bored I was. Every out breath is a small act of faith that there will be more air, because you would not let that one go otherwise. It is the gateway to now, and you can count to ten if you want something to aim at.

One thing to try: Breathe in and out and count them. See if you can reach ten before your mind wanders off.

In this episode

  • (0:01) Returning to the breath, the simplest form of it
  • (2:10) Not even deep breaths. My body knows how to breathe
  • (3:20) Ten thousand people waiting, and making them wait one breath
  • (5:10) You always have access to it, or you have a bigger problem
  • (6:58) Stopping breathing on purpose to set the machine off
  • (10:16) The gateway to now, and what is going on right now
  • (11:45) Breathing in one, breathing out two, up to ten
  • (13:42) Every out breath is an act of faith in the next one

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

The question this answers

Why is the breath the one thing always available to you?

Because if it is not there, you have a considerably bigger problem than needing two minutes of quiet. It is the only tool that is genuinely with you everywhere, and I use it twenty or thirty times a day.

The heart of it

  • Do not manage it. Your body has been breathing without your help for decades and it knows how deep and how fast.
  • Every out breath is a small act of faith that there will be more air. You would not let that one go otherwise.

There is nowhere you cannot take one. They announce your name and ten thousand people are waiting.

Make them wait for one breath.

The doctor calls you in. The phone rings. Nothing is that urgent.

I learned to value it the hard way. Three days after breaking my neck, eighteen, in intensive care in Salisbury with fifteen pounds hanging off the top of my head and a tracheotomy, one tut for yes and two for no. I had no chest muscles, only my diaphragm, and I had to learn a new way of breathing overnight.

I was on a machine that took over if I stopped. So I used to stop deliberately, just to have a rest, and it would kick in and do it for me. It was wonderful. I did not even have to breathe.

The other thing from that stretch was the lemon sticks the nurses wiped on my lips, because I could not eat or drink anything for days. Heaven.

When you have next to nothing, the small things really do count.

The rest of it is straightforward. The body drops as soon as you notice it. It is a gateway into now, and in the actual present moment very little is usually going wrong. It is simple enough that you will think you are doing it wrong.

And it connects you outward. Everything alive takes the equivalent of a breath. The trees breathe in what we breathe out. They are the other half of our lungs.

One small thing to try

Breathe in and out and count them. See if you can reach ten before your mind wanders off.

That is the whole practice. If you want more, sit with a cup of tea made too hot to drink, and breathe until it cools. Fifteen or twenty minutes of that every morning will teach you how your own mind works.

And once you know how it works, you can play with it. A mechanic enjoys a car because they know what is under it.

Questions people ask

Should I be doing box breathing or counting to four?

You can, and it sometimes helps. It is not required. Simply noticing the breath you were already taking does most of the work.

Is something this simple really enough?

It is what every teacher I have met comes back to, monks included. The simplicity is why it survives contact with an actual bad day.

How long before it does anything?

The body eases within a couple of breaths. The deeper understanding takes months of short sits, and it arrives as knowing your own mind rather than as an experience.

Read along

The transcript

It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.

breath · meditation-how-to · mindfulness · gratitude

Read the transcript

Hello and welcome to this week's podcast. I'm Steven Webb, your host, and this is Stillness in the Storms. I

want to talk about returning to your breath. And it's the simplest form of meditation.

And just, ah, I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out. But does it really lead to

a profound insight? Does it really calm the body? Does it really have a massive impact on your life? Say,

you're going through some real trouble or is it just a bit of hocus pocus? Is it a little bit

of a woolly kind of thing? Just returning to your breath Seems so simple, yeah, is it? That's what we're

going to talk about on today's podcast, so welcome. But just before we get started on that, I just want

to say thank you to all my supporters, thank you to everybody that donates and again again really deeply appreciate

you guys. It makes a big difference and thank you for sharing the podcast and thank you for leaving a

review. I got a review on my inner peace meditations podcast and it just said you've changed my life profoundly,

and it was like I read it I was like, oh, I want to run away. I can't do that.

That's not me. But I just I sat with it, I sat in my breath and I was like okay,

thank you. So if you feel like leaving a review, it makes a big difference. So, thank you. So if

that's my ask this week, leave a review. That would be awesome. You know, it tells other people where to

go if they need a little bit of inner peace when they need it most. Let's get on with today's

topic. Today's topic is returning to the breath, and this is my go-to meditation

I don't even call it a meditation, I don't even go down that route. To be quite honest, like if

I'm really struggling, whether I'm sat in a council meeting, whether I'm stuck in traffic on the way down the

hill, or stuck underneath a bridge when it's raining and I'm feeling myself getting stressed out, or I find

myself mindfully just my mind's mindlessly wandering around I just okay, let's breathe. I

just take a few deep breaths and, to be quite honest, they're not even deep breaths. I just take breaths

because my body knows how to breathe. I don't really need to get involved. My body's I say this on

my meditations. My body's been breathing for I don't know 52 years and I and every time I get

involved I mess it up. So I allow my body right now I'm talking to you my body's breathing in

and out. It's putting me off now I'm thinking about it, but in and out the words. It knows when

to breathe, it knows how deep to breathe, it knows so I don't need to get involved. So if taking

deep breaths or slow breaths help and they sometimes do the box breathe in four four four four But

if you can just return to your breath I'm breathing in,

I'm breathing out

you instantly feel more at peace and you can do it whenever you're feeling a little anxious or stressed. There's

never anywhere that I can think of that you cannot take a moment to take a deep breath before

doing something. Even if they announce your name and you've got to walk out on stage and there are 10

000 people waiting for you, you can still just take a breath. Make them wait for one breath you know

A doctor calls you in the office. Just take a breath

you know If that phone rings, just take a breath

You know there's nothing that's that urgent that you cannot. Okay, I've got this.

So I'm going to go through seven ways in which it really does have a big impact on our lives.

Because what

do I do Several times a day, sometimes probably 20, 30 times a day. I'll just return to my breath

for just, sometimes only 20 seconds, and

it connects with the environment. It connects with everything around me. It allows my body to take a breather my

body, you know. If I'm like anybody else, my body's tense and ready and waiting for the catastrophe to happen

at any moment, or it's mindlessly doing something like browsing or doing those other things. Just taking that breath allows

my body to to relax. That's everything you do. Just allow your shoulders to relax. So why

is returning to of breath so important and why? What does it really have a real deep, profound

impact on your life? And it and it will, because it has with mine and it has with so many

people. There is deeper meditations you could do. There's all kinds of, there's a thousand different types of meditations

but there isn't anybody I know, even zen masters, british monks and even the people I talk to that seem

to have all their shit together compared to people like me and you.

They all use their breath at some point, so it's immediately there. That's number one. You

always have access to your breath. If you haven't got access to your breath, you've got a bigger problem than

sitting there meditating for the next two or three minutes. So even when I was on bed rest and I

had a you can't see it because I got my neck thing on but I had a tracheotomy for about

the first four months and I couldn't speak. I had to one tut for yes and two tuts for no.

And communicating like that while you're on bed rest about what food you like, what you wanted, how you're feeling

it's not easy

and but I, in that time I really grew to appreciate my breath and I've just jumped ahead at you

because I've forgotten about. So when I was in intensive care, I was on what's called a c-pack machine so

that they put it on your throat and it breathes if you stop breathing. So basically it's

continuous pressure, something, continuous air. I don't know c-pack it's called

and what it does is. So if I got too tired because I did not have any chest

muscles, I only had my diaphragm and instantly, overnight, I had to learn a new way of breathing, a new

way of um the body doing things, and now I was lying on the bed with 15 pounds of weight

hanging off the top of my head in intensive care, two or three days after breaking my neck 18 years

old and I was in Salisbury infirmary, intensive care, couldn't eat anything, couldn't drink anything because my body

just did not want to move or did not want to adjust to anything. And I would get the little

momentary rest and I would deliberately just stop breathing and I'd be there and I'd just stop and this machine

would detect it and go And

it was so wonderful, it was so relaxing, just oh, I don't even have to breathe, and it was just

so peaceful and I can remember doing that that The other thing that I really enjoyed during that time was

the nurses had these little lemon sticks and that because I couldn't eat anything, I couldn't drink anything. It was,

you know, I suppose, what they could kneel by mouth or something, and this went on for like days. They

used to wipe this lemon stick on my lips. Oh, that was heaven. So in between, just being able to

just relax and do nothing, just literally do nothing. I don't even have to breathe and the machine goes and

breathe for me. That was wonderful. And also those lemon sticks. I never forget those lemon sticks. Um, yeah, when

you have nothing, the small things really do count, and that's so, so true. We, we think we're

not happy when we have an abundance of nerdy everything wait Wait to see how much gratitude you have when

you really have next to nothing and all you do have is your breath for those lemon sticks and I

remember it very well, very vividly, but moving back. But so your breath is always there. It's one thing

that it's easy to

bring to mind, it's easy to go to, it's easier than say, going, what about to sound Or what about

to how the body's feeling or emotions? You know they come and go and all those things, but your breath

you

can almost guarantee if things are going

slightly above absolutely desperate, you've got your breath. I I don't know what

point when you don't have your breath, but you know I've been in real situations that, like I say that

I couldn't breathe that um so moving on, so you got the um the

physical impact. So the minute you just become aware of your breath and allow your breath to

be what it is, you have the um parasympathetic

nerves that come into play and the body just instantly relaxes. It gets better by the

moment. It becomes more calming, instantly your heart rate lowers, your, it eases tension, your physical

state supports a state of mental well-being and you've only got to do a couple of breaths for that to

start happening. Ah

you if you do that right now, just do a little sigh and allow that breath out. You know, breathing

in calm, breathing out relax and just allow your body relax you can instantly feel your body. Ah,

and you didn't know you're holding all that tension in your shoulders and everything. Because we don't, because this is

normal

and it's a real I'm Number three, it's a real mindfulness gateway. So it's that gateway to the now. What's

going on now? So you can, can you hold the breath in your mind as well as how warm is

the room, what's going on around me, what can I hear, what can I see, what can I feel?

And instantly that reduces the anxieties. It reduces many of the things that are causing us stress,

because in the present moment there's very rarely things that are actually going wrong. Most of the things we're thinking

about is in the past or the future. The present moment, things are normally okay. You

know, that thing that we're really stressing about hasn't arrived yet and

if that thing has arrived, you're probably not thinking about going to your breath anyway.

And it's simple.

Number four it's simple. It's not complex in any way. You know you it's so simple you'll think

you're doing it wrong meditating your breath. Okay, sit, breathing in, breathing out,

And repeat Breathing in, breathing out, repeat

And you might find it hard to keep the focus on your So count the out breaths. So breathing in

and then breathing out. One

breathing in

breathing out Two, see if you can get to 10 I challenge you um when this

podcast's over See if you can get to 10 and if you head over to a link in the show

notes the Inner Peace Meditations podcast. I've recorded and uploaded a returning to your breath meditation

just to help you with this concept and what I know you know this concept. I know you've returned to

the breath. You've you've been in a situation before where you've sat down you put your head thing and you've

just took a deep breath. So you've done it you know It's not something alien to us, but mindfully doing

is a different thing and the breath is a symbol of life. Number five. You know, to take a breath

means you're alive. There isn't anything alive on earth that doesn't take the equivalent to a breath. You know, as

we breathe out the trees breathe in. As we breathe in, the trees breathe out. You know they're not separate

to us, they're the other half of our lungs and that's the whole of nature, the whole of the breath

cycle. You know, whether you're in the sea, whether you're a group of whatever it is, it's

all life. You need breath, you need that transition.

And the other thing that I find every breath is it's a sign of letting go, a sign of release.

So you wouldn't take a breath if you didn't have the faith that another breath would come along. And

every breath is a step into the unknown. I'm going a bit deep here, or maybe a bit far

but if you think about You're breathing in and then you're letting that breath out. You wouldn't let that breath

out if it was your last one or if you didn't have faith there was more oxygen or more air

for you.

So every breath is just a letting go. I can let go of this moment because a new moment is

going to come along

And that's so simple. And

then, finally, number seven it's it's a connection to the world. You

know, like I said, there isn't anything else in the world that doesn't take a breath

And you're connected to everything. Everybody needs to take a breath. That connection with the universal

experience. You know nobody's nobody will look up and go yeah, I don't know what you mean to take a

breath, because we all need to do it. We all know the importance of it.

It's you know the same as your heart beating or the same as your mind thinking or your lungs breathing.

You'll do your whole life. You might think you don't do these things when you're asleep. I know, you know

you breathe and are when you're asleep, but the thinking and all those things you're not aware of when you're

asleep, you do them all just you're not aware of them. You know I will shut the human off, we'll

take him offline for a minute, because it will just drive us insane. I I like that idea of my

um inner chimp, my subconscious mind, saying yeah, it's time to go to sleep, I'm going to shut you off

while I do some maintenance in the brain. I think that's so funny. Anyway, I digress. But

the breath, just

it's so simple but yet so important and can it lead to deep, profound insights. Not, yes,

sit with it long enough.

You know, if you, every morning, when you wake up, sit on the edge of the bed or go and

sit cross-legged or at the kitchen table, get your cup of tea or your cup of coffee, make it really

hot so you cannot drink it for like 10, 20 minutes and just sit there and wait for it to

cool down and while you're waiting, just breathe in and breathe out. Breathing in calm,

breathing out, relax. And if you do that 20 minutes every morning, 15 minutes, everyone it will

it will lead you to a deeper understanding. And the understanding is how does your mind work, how your body

work? Because once we understand all these things, we can end up playing with them a little bit more. That's

why a mechanic enjoys the car because they know how they work. They don't mind tinkering and playing around with

them. It's the same as me with the computer shop, my computer. I don't mind putting bits in and out

okay, getting other people to do it, because I'm paralysed and can't do it. But I don't mind installing software

and playing around with it because I know how it works. I know how to fix it. So when we

know how our body works, when you know how your body works,

it will give you a a deeper sense of play. You can enjoy it more. You know, and I don't

mean to make this well. I am going to make this an intimate thing. Didn't intimacy get better when you

started to discover and learn about your body? It's the same with your breath, same with your thoughts. The deeper

you go into understanding who you are and, more importantly, who you are not and I've got a podcast that

goes into that um, who you are not is vitally important because the more we get attached to who we

are and we realise that who we are is just a figment of our imagination. At best, you know At

worst it's none of those things either. And you know. Once you realise that on a deeper level, you can

start to play with it.

You know, in a similar way, a wonderful quote. What was it? Dance like no one's watching. I

always like to follow that first bit of the quote Dance like no one's watching. Use your words like the

whole world's listening. That's my butchering of the original quote, but I I like my version use your

words like the whole world's um listening because words are powerful and I'm here on a podcast talking

um But you know, when we return to breath, we start to play with ourselves, play of our body, play

with what's going on in our minds and play with the true self, the not true self, the face before

we are born, all those things, and we take them more lightly and we just suffer less.

That's

the important thing Is your spiritual journey leading you to suffering less.

It's working, as

long as you're not putting your suffering on somebody else just just for the small print there that I'm Steven

Webb and you can find out more about me or support the podcast. Go to StevenWebb.uk leave a review, just

you know. Contact me if you want to, if you want me to cover any specific topics or anything like

that. If you have any questions for me or anything like that, just head over to StevenWebb.uk not only can

you donate a coffee to support the show, you can message me directly and you can see my other podcasts,

you can see my blogs and you can also find my Youtube channel and things like that, and you can

follow me on social media. Look, just return to your breath.

Enjoy the gaps between the thoughts, between the speaking between the things, because your breath's always there.

Take care and I love you.

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