What Rises When You Stop Pushing

Q: Do I need to be religious for this one?

Not at all. I use the Easter image because it is about something coming back, and you can take that as a story rather than a belief. Nothing here rests on the theology.

Q: What if nothing is rising for me right now?

Then your job is not to force it. Warmth reaching the soil is enough, and it takes as long as it takes. Being still in the ground is not the same as being finished.

Q: Is there a meditation with this one?

Yes, Find the Green Shoot, over on Inner Peace Meditations. You sit with a patch of winter earth and one small shoot, and you do not dig anything up to check.

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The transcript

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letting-go · change · nature · self-compassion

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Hello, and welcome to Stillness in the Storms. I'm Steven Webb and I help people find steady ground when life

gets hard. No gimmicks, no life hacks. Just honest conversation that will bring you peace when you need it most.

So happy Easter if you celebrate it. And if you don't, happy Sunday. Happy April. Happy. Clocks

have changed and it's light past seven. If you're in the UK, I don't know when the clocks change. Over

in the States or in Australia. So I want to talk about something that spring always reminds me of.

When the daffodils start appearing on the roadside. Especially in the places that I forgot they were last year. I

forgot the buds were just waiting in dormant all winter long. They just start appearing. It's like oh that's nice,

just give me that warm. And I love the fact that it's so bright and so yellow. It's such a

simple. And they give us such a life lesson that, hey, you know, I might be beside a roadside, I

might even be leaning on the pavement, but I'm gonna bloom anyway. Yeah. I don't care what you say. I

don't care if my neighbour beside me is taller and brighter than me. I am gonna blossom anyway. And I

think that's we can Learn so much from just that alone. So when all these times when we look and

think things are done and things are over, you know, the daffodil comes up and says, I wasn't done. I

was just waiting. And I think that's what I want to talk about today. What rises, what comes back, what

returns to us, not because we force it, but because that's what life does when we stop standing in

its way. And because it's Easter and whatever your relationship with that is, whether it's a deeply meaningful to you

or just a long weekend off and some chocolate, you know, it is a mix of chocolate and a long

weekend and reflection. For me, there's something in the story that I think is worth sitting with. And even if

you're not religious, even if you It's not anything in particular. The central image of Easter is something about

coming back to life. Something that was dead, something that seemed dead or was buried, rising

again. And you don't have to believe in the literal resurrection to feel the pull of that idea, because

we've all experienced it. So think about it. Think about something in your life that you were sure

was over. Maybe it was your energy, even. Maybe just through a period of illness, grief or burnout

or depression, whatever it Was. And you genuinely thought, do you know what? I'm not going to feel myself again.

That's it. I'm never going to feel better. There's times when I felt that in hospital last week. And there's

times when it's really cold outside. I'm like, do you know, is summer ever going to be here again? Are

we ever going to hear the birds again? And we do. We do think those things at times it's only

human nature. And it must have been a morning where you woke up and you. And the dread. Wasn't there

an afternoon where you caught yourself laughing and thought, oh, there I am. There you are.

So maybe it was even a relationship. Maybe it has gone cold or distance maybe it was a friend or

something like that that just suddenly called you out of the blue because they were doing something that reminded you,

or they just sent you an emoji whatever it is, and it just cracked open again. A conversation, a crisis

a moment of unexpected honesty. You know, all these things just have a tendency to suddenly

come back. Some of them great, some of them celebrated, some of them not so perfect, and some of them

not like before, but alive nevertheless. Or maybe it was curiosity, that feeling of being

genuinely interested doing something wanting to learn to read and explore. It goes away sometimes, doesn't it?

Sometimes I'm reading books and I cannot put a book down. Other times I think, I haven't picked that book

up for months. I suddenly get back into it. Music. I was listening to music the other night, and I

was listening to Don't Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult. And I didn't know they said Reaper. I I thought

don't fear the reburst And now I heard it on Tv and it had the subtitles and it said Reaper.

And I'm like, oh, wow, how obvious is that? Now I cannot unhear it now. I just hear Reaper. Now

it's correct. But, yeah, it's. These things just suddenly come back and we enjoy them. We sit in them. These

things remind us of things. And a distant memory. And Alan Watts and, you know, I like listening to Alan

Watts. He's another one that I don't listen to for months and years and suddenly go back and I cannot

put his teachings down. And he talked about this rhythm rhythm constantly. He saw it everywhere in nature, in

psychology, in the way human beings actually live when they're not trying to control everything. I think

this is important. When you stop controlling,

life has a way of. I I don't drive along the road and go, where are those daffodils? Come on,

Pop up. I don't look at the bare tree and go, where's your leaf? Come on, what you're doing. I

just trust that spring will come along eventually. And

they use the image of waves. A wave rises, crests and falls. And if you're watching just one wave,

you might think, well, that's it, it's gone. But of course another wave comes in and another. The ocean doesn't

run out of waves it's just It just doesn't work that way. Whether it's in our own lives, whether it's

in our own spiritual journey and we're in more compassion or a country or anything when it comes to progress,

I think it's much like the tide coming in. You get a one big wave and it's like, wow, this

is new, this is amazing. And then the tide comes out get back out and it readjusts and it comes

back in and it comes back in slightly further. And then for each wave it advances slightly more. But it's

never perfect. And then I'm really milking this metaphor now, but I'm going to carry on. It's my podcast, I'm

allowed so and And then you've even got the tides themselves. It's like everything humans do, like whether it's

the Internet or whatever we do, when the telephone first come out, everybody panics and Ai now people are panicking,

people are thinking, the end of the world. Or we've had things for the last 80 years that will destroy

mankind. I have a trust that we will sort it out, but it'll be messy. It's gonna mess up the

beach, it's gonna mess up some people that weren't ready for it, that didn't realise the waves were coming in.

And it's not going to be good, it's not going to be pretty. But eventually a tide will come in

and we'll go, we're okay with this now, we've got it soiled we've got some rules.

And yeah, I'd say that we're really heavy heart at the moment because I think as Margaret facture said if

you don't have international law, you then have nothing left. And I'm starting to worry about international law at the

moment. I always thought the western countries would always abide by international law, but hey, here we are, that's a

different story. So going back to Alan what's great insight. I do have to keep coming back to year after

year and it is not separate to the rhythm. We are that rhythm, the rising and folding of energy, of

mood, of hope, of creativity. It's not a simple problem to be solved. It's not like, oh,

I need creativity. It's here. It's here forever. It comes and goes. Everything is in those waves. The trouble comes

when we get attached to the crest, when we think the high point is real and that's where we are

and that's where we need to stay. That moment of, I've got it now. I'm happy, I'm in that brilliant

place. Then we grip the good feeling and panic when it fades and

we fall off it and we fall off our surfboard, just to go even deeper on the metaphor, because of

course, it fades. Everything does. But fading is not the same as dying. It's just another

wave, another way of coming back in, another way of improving things. It's just another

chance. And at this point, I want to say something to anyone who's at a low point right now, anyone

who is in that falling part of the way, because I know some of you are.

And Easter can be a difficult time when you're struggling. All of this talk of new life and renewal and

fresh starts, it can feel like pressure, like everyone else is rising and you're still in the ground, still buried,

still waiting for something that doesn't seem to be coming. Especially if you had a particularly harsh

winter and maybe lost somebody you loved or something like that.

And I want to say this clearly as I can. You're not behind, you're not broken. You're

not failing to rise on schedule. The seed doesn't bloom just because someone stands over it and

says, come on, hurry up, it's spring. I know I'm really milking these metaphors this week, but I

like metaphors. They work for me.

Things bloom when they're ready, when conditions are right. And you

may not even be somebody that likes the spring in the winter because if something happened. That's okay. But

there is pressure.

And when the warmth reaches the depth, that is enough for you. That's it. But it

has to be individual. And that's the point of all these things. Not all trees bloom at the same time.

You know, you often drive down the road and most of the daffodils have already bloomed and out. And you

get one on the end just coming through going Hey wait for me. That's okay.

Your job right now is just not to force it. I just wanted to say that and make it clear

that just because spring comes along and everybody feels better. And then, of course, in the. Over in Australia, which

a lot of you are listening for, I love you guys over there, and you're going into winter so it's

completely different for you. So really, really, what you should do is not listen to my podcast for six months

and then start listening to them, and then they will make sense um Please don't do that. Please don't do

that. I need your support.

Anyway, talking about support, I want to stop here and say thank you. This podcast has no adverts, no sponsors.

It exists because of people like you. Treat me to a coffee. Those small donations pay for everything and they're

making my life a lot easier to produce more podcasts, as you noticed.

So a genuine, heartfelt thank you goes out to you guys this week. Rosie, a new monthly supporter greet Soja

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So. God, I feel my heart beating fast, like as if I'm really nervous today. Don't know why. It's like

as if I'm recording this podcast in front of thousands of people and I'm just talking of you, just me

and you. So what does it mean in practice? What does it actually look like to let things rise rather

than forcing them? Well, I think it starts with paying attention.

Really paying attention to what's actually happening, what's already happening, rather than what you think should be happening.

And spring is a good teacher here. Nobody tells the daffodils when to come up. Nobody schedules the dawn chorus.

These things happen because the conditions are right and life does what it does. Those chemical balances in the

trees that just sat there and waited.

And if you actually watch spring, not as scenery, not as a background, but as something to pay real good

attention to,

you've started to notice that renewal is not dramatic. It's not a sudden explosion of colour and energy that we

seem to think it is. It's slow, it's gradual, it's one bud at a time. Some of them come out

early and that's it, they're done. Because they misjudged it. I think. I shared two weeks ago, a week ago,

the Scandinavian Proverb that winter returns in spring seven times before summer. Well, tell that to the

daffodil that shot up early or thing I

just go out and hear those bird songs at the moment. I still think they're genuinely arguing and they're just

doing what we're doing. Moaning about what's for tea, what we're going to eat next. And, you know, my brother

got bigger worms than I did and things like that. You know, the kind of thing that they'd be more

arguing about, you know. Well, if I live with my friend, he's got a nest that's higher up and he

can see the valley anyway. And

that's how it works in us too, I would say. The return of energy, of interest and joy and peace.

Whether. Whether it's spring in you, whether it's just really doesn't matter, but it creeps in it's sometimes without

even knowing it. And if you're not paying attention, you will miss it. You'll miss those little moments of compassion,

those moments of just understanding. And

I was reminded that Jun Po, one of my teachers,

one of the main teachers that I knew personally,

he passed away five years ago now. I was like, wow, I had no idea. I thought it was like

two years ago.

And he spoke about what arises out of the initial of any given moment.

And whether that's grief or anger or compassion or all these things just arise. And he says the first thing

that arises is always caring. After that, the noise creeps in the story, the things are

keeping and they turn that caring into anger or all the other things. Because if you're angry about something, you

care about it. I've never met an angry person that doesn't care they may not be caring about what you

care about, but they still care. And the one way of diffusing an angry argument, and I'm not very good

at this, remembering it when I'm in it, the one way of doing it is just looking up again do

you know what? You could be right. I can tell you really care about this. Explain to me why you

care

and whether that's a parking spot, whether or not that's something else. Anger always comes from a place of deep

caring. But again, it's that arising. It's that coming up. And I think that's so important to

pay attention to. And

there's a lovely poem by Tony hogland and it's called the Colour of the Sky. You'll have to look it

up. Maybe. I'll see if I can find a link to it or put it in the show notes. But

there's a line in that poem, it says the end turned out to be the middle.

Here's the thing. We don't know whether things will return. We don't know. And the Easter story,

we don't know at the point of Friday, they didn't know he was going to rise on the Monday. And

whether you want to take the story literally or take the story, it's just a story, it really doesn't matter.

And that's not the point. They will always come back and return in some form, in some way. And

if there's any way that Jesus did return it through compassion, through

saying on the cross, forgive them. They don't know what they do. The same as the Buddha, when he was

spat at in front of all his students, his students are really angry. And the Buddha says don't he he

didn't spit at me. He spat at his version of me. And when he come back and apologize the next

day, he said, that's okay. You didn't spit at me. You spat at yesterday Your version yesterday and me.

And that's what it is. I think

everybody's ignorant. I'm mixing stuff up now, but that's okay. Anybody regular to my podcast, you know I'll do

that anyway um That's what the mind does, and that's okay. But the end the end

turned out to be the middle. And I think that's a lovely Easter message, stripped of all its theology and

just lay bare the thing that you thought would finish the season. The energy, the part of yourself it

might just be in the middle. Not the end, the middle. With

more still to come. And who knows? So

I'm going to draw this close now. Running out of breath. I'm getting older. I can't talk this long constantly

for like 15, 20 minutes anymore. So here's your takeaway from today. And it's a gentle one. And it

feels right for a Sunday, I think. Pay attention to what's arising, not what you think should be happening, not

the transformation you're trying to force, just what's actually happening quietly beginning to show itself.

Maybe it's energy, maybe it's curiosity, maybe it's a willingness to try something you've given up years ago.

Maybe it's just a morning where you feel, for no particular reason, slightly more alive than you did yesterday. That's

the bud, that's the crocus, that's the way beginning to rise. You don't have to make it happen, just

have to notice it and stand and not stand in its way. That's important. Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for listening. I'm Steven Webb and the companion meditation for today's podcast

is going to be on inner peace meditation it'll be episode 97. It's called what Rises? A spring meditation, and

it takes everything we talked about today and it gives you the quiet space to sit with it. You can

find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at StevenWebb.uk. Take care of yourself, Stay curious,

keep an eye on what's arising. And I love you.

What Rises When You Stop Pushing

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The companion meditation

The transcript

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

What Rises When You Stop Pushing

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The companion meditation

The transcript

More honest conversations

One calm email. Every Sunday.

One calm email.
Every Sunday.