Explore every episode of the podcast Stillness in the Storms
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| We're All Terrible Meditators: The Art of Doing Nothing on Purpose | 20 sept. 2026 | 00:17:11 | |
Are you bad at meditating? So is everyone. The mind wanders because that is its job. Meditation is not quieting it, it is noticing you have gone and coming back. Support me with a coffee and join my Weekly Calm every Sunday: stevenwebb.uk When I started, I thought meditation was sit down, be quiet, no thoughts, pure bliss. It lasted about 30 seconds. Then a teacher gave me the only instruction that ever worked: just sit and do nothing. His version had four letters. Your body knows how to breathe and your mind knows how to go quiet. The job is getting out of their way. Think of a snow globe. To settle the snow you do nothing, you just watch, and life will shake it up again anyway. Every time the mind wanders it is a happy accident, as Bob Ross would say. Smile, say thank you mind, and come back. One thing to try: Get somewhere five minutes early and just sit in the car. Each time you catch the mind off in a story, smile, say thank you mind, and come back to what you can hear and feel. Five minutes, twice a day. In this episode
With gratitude to Jess, David, Angi, Jeroen, Jose and Jill, Helen, Tracey, Carol, Hayden, Sarafena, Cheryl and Strength from Within Yoga, and new monthly supporter Rowan The companion meditation: Nothing to Get Right: A Peace Meditation With Little Instruction Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| What Will I Miss? My Story for World Suicide Prevention Day | 10 sept. 2026 | 00:18:29 | |
What would you miss? This episode is about suicide, my granddad's and my own, and the one question that kept me here. If you need help right now, the numbers are just below. If you need help right now
I was 12 when my granddad went missing from the farm. The next morning Andy woke me and said they had found him. At 18 my heart was broken and I tried to end my life, and later that year I broke my neck and lay in a hospital bed thinking I was better off not here. Years on, at rock bottom again, I wrote a note, printed it, left it face down and went out in my chair with a plan. I sat there for two hours. What stopped me was my stepdaughter Kember and one thought: I wonder what she will become. I did not want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop, and I think that is true of almost everybody who says they do not want to be here. Around the world 727,000 people a year die by suicide, one every 43 seconds. Three in four are men, and the men most at risk are 50 to 54, which is right where I am. So this is the conversation. One thing to try: If you are anywhere near that door, ask one question. Not what will I lose, not what will I gain. What will I miss? Then hang on for a few more weeks. And if it is someone you love, ask them: just for a moment, tell me what you would miss. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Gates, Not Thorns: Are Your Boundaries a Prison? | 06 sept. 2026 | 00:18:30 | |
Support Steven's work. Treat him to a coffee stevenwebb.uk Are your boundaries keeping you safe, or keeping you stuck? I have never liked the word. This week a reader called Katherine gave me a better one: gates, not thorns. I have carers in my life 24 hours a day, so I could not build walls even if I wanted to. I had to grow the strength to let the world in instead, and that is where I stand on boundaries. A red line between two people is healthy. It is an agreement, not a wall. A rulebook the whole world has to obey is not, and the old Buddhist texts do not even have a word for it. What they have is sila, your own conduct. Rules for you, and nobody else. A boundary that never comes down was never protection. It becomes a prison. One thing to try: Next time you go to defend something, ask one question. Is this a gate or a thorn? Protecting something tender until it is stronger is fine. Refusing the world is not. In this episode
With gratitude to Cheryl, Susan, Jane, Ankita, Dan, Cassie, Melanie, Joan and Reishin Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| There Is No Steven in Here: What I Learned at the Bottom of a Swimming Pool | 22 août 2026 | 00:20:24 | |
Who are you, really, behind all the roles? Sit properly with that question and no answer comes. That is the answer. Open me up and there is no Steven in there. In deep sleep there is no Steven either. We wake up and we come online and we boot the roles: dad, councillor, host, meditator. Each one needs a different set of skills, and you can only run one at a time. So who is watching the breath when you meditate? Ask whether you are aware of your left toe and you were not, and then you were. In that gap before the answer, there is nobody home, and that is not terrifying. It is the most freeing thing I know. One thing to try: Ask yourself, are you aware? Then notice the moment before you answer. In this episode
With gratitude to Yuva, Karin, Sue, HJ, Anita, Lorraine, Brandy, Jane, Sergio and Irma Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| If This Were My Last Podcast | 11 août 2026 | 00:19:03 | |
If this were my last podcast, what would I want to leave you with? Let everything happen to you. No feeling is final. That is Rilke, and it is where this one started. No script, just a cup of coffee. You cannot change the present moment. You cannot grow your hair, lose weight, get younger or stop the rain in this second, and yet we spend enormous energy arguing with what has already arrived. Imagine a rainbow with only two colours in it. That is a life lived in a narrow band of feeling. Watching the film Albatross and hearing the ending changed how I think about all of it. One thing to try: Ask one question today. What small colour can I let into my life? In this episode
With gratitude to Senga, Jess, Anita, Sue, Evelyn and Glenn Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Happily Never After | 02 août 2026 | 00:18:23 | |
What if the thing you keep chasing is the exact reason you cannot catch it? There is no happily ever after, and that is good news. Picture the ox with a carrot on a stick fixed above its own head. Every step forward moves the carrot forward. That is happiness as most of us run it. And it is not a design fault, it is evolutionary genius, because if you settled the moment you got something you would never go further. The man who loses everything is miserable on day one and fine two years later. Happiness is an emotion. It arrives and it leaves, like all the others. It was never going to move in. One thing to try: Catch yourself saying I will be happy when. Pause there and notice how much of life you just skipped. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Part of You Doesn't Want the Pain to Stop: Here's Why | 26 juil. 2026 | 00:20:59 | |
Why does part of you not want the pain to stop? Pain is inevitable. Suffering is the second arrow, and you fire that one. The first arrow lands and it hurts. Then we load the bow ourselves. Every replay in your head, every post, every phone call to a friend, is another arrow into the same wound. And here is the uncomfortable bit. The suffering loop feeds us, because it makes us the hero of our own story. Nobody wants to hear about the good day and the view over the ocean. Everybody leans in for the battle. I have been the victim hero for the last few weeks and I know exactly how it works. One thing to try: When a painful thought comes back, ask one question. Is this taking me anywhere? If not, it is the second arrow. In this episode
With gratitude to Adam, Alison, Anna, Diana, Dominique, Dova, Ellen, Fran, Jenna and Mia, Jennifer, Jude, Kellee, Kylin, Marcie, Rita, Simon, Stefan, Steven and Sue Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| What Your Anger Is Really Saying | 28 juin 2026 | 00:21:31 | |
What is your anger actually saying? My teacher Jun Po told me he has never known an angry person who did not care. Sit with that one. Anger is the bodyguard. It steps in to put something right, to stop it happening again, to defend what matters. Throw the hammer away and you have thrown away an emotion that evolution spent a very long time building. A child is furious about a red T-shirt when they wanted green, and to them the world just ended. When you are in a life where things go wrong fast, the gap between the spark and the fire shrinks. But it is a gap, and it can be widened. One thing to try: Instead of arguing, say six words. I see you care deeply. Why? In this episode
With gratitude to Alice, Kim in the Yukon, Maya, Ken, Linda and Michael, the regulars Laura and Stuart, and new monthly supporters Sue, Jude, Jenna and Mia, and Rita Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| The Mind That Will Not Be Quiet | 18 juin 2026 | 00:14:46 | |
Why does your mind pick 3am? You have thirty to forty thoughts a minute and you asked for none of them. The mistake is deciding the goal is a blank, silent mind. Set that as the target and the trains keep coming and you feel like you are failing at it. You are not. Here is the whole thing in one sentence. You are not the thought, you are the one listening to it. Because if you can hear it, you cannot only be it. There is a tiny space between the thought and the reaction, usually too small to notice, and that gap is the thing that changes everything. One thing to try: Let one train in tonight and stay on the bench. You never had to empty the station. In this episode
With gratitude to Addie, Darren, Alice, Caroline and My Herb. And Sin, Annie, Laura, Adam, Dominique and Senga. A special thank you to Stuart, two years a monthly supporter. The companion meditation: A Meditation to Quiet an Overthinking Mind Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Giving Space: Love Without Taking Over | 07 juin 2026 | 00:16:42 | |
What is the hardest kind of love? Giving somebody space. Not walking away, not going cold, not pretending you do not care. Space that still says I am here. We argue with family most because we are trying to prove we have changed. See me, I am here. Real space is not silent punishment and it is not neglect. Before you step in, ask honestly whether you are helping them or reducing your own discomfort. Have you listened long enough, or are you just ready with the answer? One thing to try: Before you speak, give it three seconds. Not toast on the floor. Three actual seconds. In this episode
With gratitude to Cheryl, Nitya, Yvonne, Eleanor, Ryan, Karen, Lana, Jess and Stuart. The companion meditation: Create Space Around Your Thoughts Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| The First 30 Seconds: Why Every Feeling Is a Gift | 31 mai 2026 | 00:16:14 | |
Where does a feeling actually come from, and what happens in the first thirty seconds of it? The amygdala flags something before you know it. A second or two later the adrenaline is in, the heart is up, the blood is heading for the big muscles. That is not your body malfunctioning. That is your body being brilliant. Picture a campfire and somebody says, what was that. You want the person who feels the fear. Every feeling has a healthy end and an unhealthy end of the same stick, and we keep trying to chop the stick in half. One thing to try: Take five seconds between the feeling and the reaction. Not to fix it. Just to let it finish arriving. In this episode
With gratitude to Addie, Amy, Barbara, Susan, Michael, Karen, Laura, David, Jenna and Mia, and Johnny Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Waking Up to Body Betrayal: How to Find Peace in the Pain | 17 mai 2026 | 00:16:19 | |
Is your body letting you down, or have you been sold that story? Mine is not the enemy. It has always told me exactly what it needed, and I did not always listen. Every morning is like this for me at the moment, so I do feel it. But we have been handed a story where the body is the opposition. It is not. It is the mind, the body, the toes, the fingers, the knees, all in it together. We ignore the soldiers doing the work, then get angry the moment anything goes wrong. Thank you for being my companion. One thing to try: Say thank you to one part of your body that has been doing its job unnoticed. In this episode
With gratitude to Sin, Ellen, Dominique, Adam, Annie, Joe, Sujata, Senga, Jack, Glenn, Denise, Laurie and Rosie. Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| "I'm Fine": When It's Armour, When It's Honest, and How to Tell | 03 mai 2026 | 00:21:38 | |
When you say I'm fine, is it armour or is it honest? Both, depending on the day. And sometimes fine is genuinely the right answer, because not every conversation is one you want. Every carer, every encounter, however small. I take notice about one time in twenty. There is nothing wrong with the armour. My nan had a way of dealing with people who came in moaning. And there is the master whose final teaching came years later, once the student was ready to hear it. Try a different answer once and see what room it opens up. One thing to try: Answer once today with actually, today is a hard one. See what happens next. In this episode
With gratitude to Alex, Nina, Zoe, A Ma, Kevin, Katarzyna, Deborah, Christopher and Ariel. And MumMik's Cleaning Services, for buying a course this week. The companion meditation: When Anxiety Visits: A Quick Meditation for Anxious Moments Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| 8 Billion Minds. Why Meditation Doesn't Work for Everyone (And What You Can Do About It) | 26 avr. 2026 | 00:22:49 | |
Why does meditation work for some people and not others? Eight billion minds. You can only write the book from the altitude you are actually standing at. My chair broke and I could not do anything. That is a lifeline gone, and a friend had to come and push me out to the van. In the weeks after I read a hundred and twenty year old book by James Allen saying you are not your thoughts. Sometimes I need to think something through and I will go into a story deliberately. Other times there are gaps between the words. One thing to try: Stop asking whether you are doing it right. Ask what works at your altitude. In this episode
With gratitude to Suzanne, Maria, Michael, Tiffany, Ellen, Kathleen, Edyll, Nicola, Jess, Lynette, Linda, Laura and Yavuz. Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Demystifying Meditation: What You Need to Know | 18 avr. 2026 | 00:29:52 | |
Does meditation actually help in real life, off the cushion? That is the only place it counts. In the car, in the queue, and the second before you snap at somebody. You cannot switch off a taste you dislike, so expecting to switch off a thought is the wrong ask. You choose which train to drive rather than stopping the trains. Little and often beats forty minutes on a Saturday. You do not need a lotus position, though a straight back helps. Three deep breaths connect the mind and the body and that is the way in. One thing to try: Take three deep breaths before the next conversation you are dreading. In this episode
With gratitude to Sin, Margaret, Annie, Melike, Helen, Laura, Adam, Dominique, and a special welcome to Linda. The companion meditation: Peace Right Where You Are Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| The Dignity of Being Tired: Give Yourself a Break | 11 avr. 2026 | 00:16:21 | |
Why is it so hard to say I am tired? Tiredness is not a weakness. It is your body telling you something honest, and ignoring it was never a strategy. When I was Mayor of Truro there were days I had nothing left at all. I cannot feel anything from the chest down and I have autonomic dysreflexia, so my body signals things differently to yours. I took a couple of days and genuinely stopped. That beats soldiering on and taking three days over a one day job, every time. One thing to try: Sit and ask one question. What do I need right now? Then actually act on the answer. In this episode
The companion meditation: Permission to Rest: A meditation for time out Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| What Rises When You Stop Pushing | 05 avr. 2026 | 00:20:30 | |
What rises when you finally stop pushing? Something usually does, and it is rarely the thing you were forcing. Easter, and all this talk of new life can land as pressure when you are still in the ground. Not all trees bloom at the same time. Drive down any road and most daffodils are out and one on the end is only just arriving, and nobody thinks that one has failed. The tide does not come in cleanly either. It goes out, readjusts, comes back slightly further. There is a Scandinavian proverb that winter returns in spring seven times before summer, and that has been about right this year. One thing to try: Stop pushing one thing for a week. Then notice what came up on its own while you were not looking. In this episode
The companion meditation: Find the Green Shoot: A Meditation for Quiet Renewal Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Finding Inner Peace: Do You Need to Be a Buddhist? | 29 mars 2026 | 00:19:48 | |
Do you need to be a Buddhist to find inner peace? I am not one, and I do not think you need to be either. I am recording this three days after an operation and on painkillers, so bear with me. I collected the statues and the pictures and the apps and books I never read. What I was after was for the calm to rub off. But the practices do not need the beliefs. Meditation, awareness, compassion for yourself and for others, sitting with what is rather than fighting it. None of that asks you to believe in reincarnation or karma. Jun Po taught me that all of it starts at one point, and that point is caring. One thing to try: Take one practice, not one belief. Sit with what is for two minutes and leave the rest. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| "Is This All There Is?" Answering the Quiet Question in Your Heart | 15 mars 2026 | 00:23:13 | |
Is this all there is? If that question keeps visiting you, it is not a fault. It might be the most important one you have asked. I was young, flat on my back, with four TV channels I could see in a little mirror and nothing else to do but think. Two questions arrived and they have never fully left. Life looks fine from outside, so you feel guilty for asking, and you tell yourself you are being ungrateful. Carl Jung said the first half of life builds the ego and your place in the world, and the second half turns inward. The question did not lead me to despair. It turned into a window. When you think you know, the world shrinks. One thing to try: Next time the question visits, do not answer it. Look at one thing as though you had never seen it before. In this episode
With gratitude to Angie, Helen, Sujata, Suzanne, Lorna, Liz, Daphne, Sarah, Mikey and Jen, and the monthly ones, Joe, Audra, Sin, Jack, Glenn, Barb and Venetia Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| When Letting Go Feels Impossible, Try This Instead | 06 mars 2026 | 00:20:33 | |
What if letting go is the wrong instruction? Every time somebody says it, your mind grips the thing tighter. In 1992 I sat with a manual wheelchair I could barely move, triceps paralysed, hands paralysed, and I spent days trying to prove I was not disabled. The moment I accepted it, everything changed. Telling your body to forget something it built to protect you is a losing argument. It is quicksand. The more you struggle the deeper you go. So swap the word. Acceptance is not passive. It is the only thing that actually loosens the grip. One thing to try: Find a quiet moment and say the true thing out loud. This is how it is. Then stop there. In this episode
With gratitude to Ruth, Nina and Ray, Skila, Cheryl, Krysia, Penny, Jenna and Mia, Angie, Sean and Stefan Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Who Are You When No One Needs Anything? | 26 févr. 2026 | 00:12:07 | |
Who are you when nobody needs anything from you? One day you are wanted everywhere, and then almost overnight you are not. The role becomes the identity. The one who holds the family together, keeps the plates spinning, gets the three in the morning call. Then it stops. Redundancy, a divorce, the youngest leaving, the year ending. Everyone tells you that you should be grateful, and you are, and gratitude and grief sit side by side quite happily. You cannot pour from a cup that has been empty for years. You also deserve to know who you are outside what you give. One thing to try: Ask yourself the question and answer it honestly. What would I do today if nobody needed anything from me? In this episode
With gratitude to Tiffany, Fran, Caroline, Ruth, Mazdak, Cara and Sujata Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Apricity and the Calm After the Storm | 17 janv. 2026 | 00:16:56 | |
How do you stay calm through the strongest winds Cornwall has ever had? You watch the news enough to know what is happening, and then you stop watching it. Officially we did not break a hundred, which I am glad about. I check in on the news every four and a half seconds because you never know what is coming next, and that is exactly the habit worth breaking. The world is noisy. My word this year is to simplify, and this podcast is part of that. We are not even in control of where the weight goes on. One thing to try: Check the news once today and then leave it alone until tomorrow. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Forget Resolutions: Why One Word Is All You Need This Year | 03 janv. 2026 | 00:14:30 | |
What would your one word for the year be? Forget resolutions. One word does more work than a list you will have abandoned by February. Mine came out of simplifying. Take away what you do not need and it goes right down to the complicated things. If you love something you accept it rather than trying to change it. Embrace the anxiety, because it is the seven year old saying watch out, last time this was rubbish. My word is curiosity. Open, and asking what is happening now. One thing to try: Pick your one word for the year. Just the one. Say it out loud and see if it holds. In this episode
With gratitude to Jessica, Laura, Katherine, Joan, Ulysses, Lisa and Audra. Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| When Jesus and the Buddha Sit at the Same Table | 16 nov. 2025 | 00:24:15 | |
Do Jesus and the Buddha actually disagree? I do not think they do. You write the book for the audience in front of you, and that explains most of the difference. Most religions come down to something similar underneath. Buddhism differs in asking you to believe in yourself, and that the hard times are not as solid as they look. I am not aware all the time. My depth is nowhere near what people assume. My seven year old self is still there, and now I just have a chat with him and give him a hug. One thing to try: Have one word with your seven year old self today. Ask how he is doing. In this episode
With gratitude to Kelly, Trish, Addy, Kerry, Maybelline, Greet, Tracy and Birdie, and a shout out to Verne. Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| The Truth About Inner Peace: 5 Myths Debunked | 30 oct. 2025 | 00:22:51 | |
What does inner peace actually mean? It is what is left when you are not suffering. It is already there, and mostly we just forget it is. I did not need somebody to fix anything. I needed somebody to sit there. Inner peace is always present, the way a drink is already on the table as you get older and realise you can just reach for it. Thoughts arrive as trains and you choose which to board. Happiness is an experience that comes and goes. Peace is the thing underneath that does not. One thing to try: When the cold hits your face, try just noticing it is cold rather than needing to fix it. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| In a Hard World, Your Softest Skills Are Your Strongest Asset | 20 sept. 2025 | 00:20:02 | |
What cards were you actually dealt? I never finished school, I was kicked out of sixth form, and I have never passed an exam beyond GCSEs. You play the hand. You cannot change the cards, only how you play them. The powerful hold hard power, military or influence, and it looks unbeatable from underneath. The good hands are the ones you work for, with time and courage and honesty and self awareness in them. Those are not handed out. Run through the soft skills and count how many you are already holding. One thing to try: List your soft skills honestly. That is the hand, and it is usually better than you think. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| How to Be Your Own Loving Parent | 05 sept. 2025 | 00:15:59 | |
Who is parenting you? Most of us need somebody to say put your shoes on and get out of there, and there is nobody doing it, so it has to be us. Short videos are junk food for the brain and I keep thinking the next one will help. What a good parent would say is not get a grip. It is be a bit kinder to yourself in the journal tonight. There will never be one episode that sorts your storms out for good, and I would be lying if I pretended otherwise. One thing to try: Say to yourself what a kind parent would say. Not what your critic would. In this episode
With gratitude to Laura K, Stewart and Mariette. Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Empathy vs. Compassion: What's the Real Difference? | 05 août 2025 | 00:20:57 | |
What is the actual difference between empathy and compassion? Alan Watts called compassion the cosmic wink that says I see you, fellow player. That is the whole of it. Judgement is when we look up and decide she is lazy or he is attention seeking. Then somebody lists everything wrong with their day and we cannot stand it, usually because we do not like seeing our own mirror. When you let compassion in, you let in all your own flaws with it. The heart opens both ways or it does not open. One thing to try: Next time somebody lists their troubles, notice what it stirs in you before you judge it. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Attachment Isn’t the Enemy. The Struggle to Let Go Is | 27 juil. 2025 | 00:23:27 | |
Is attachment really the enemy? No. It is the struggling to let go that hurts. I smoked for the best part of thirty years. I am attached to pleasure, to hope, to feeling well. The Western version of this is that you must give everything up, and that is not it. Try pushing a bird off your hand and telling it to go. It leaves and it comes back. My council put a new kitchen in and I hated going in there for weeks, and then I did not. Stop chasing the carrot and it stops running. Just let the hour pass without the cigarette. One thing to try: Do not fight the craving. Let this one hour go by without it, then start another hour. In this episode
With gratitude to Senga, Michael, Dominique, Ulysses, Nick, Julie and Anne Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Forgiveness Begins When the Heart Breaks Open | 06 juil. 2025 | 00:18:11 | |
How do you forgive somebody who cheated on you? Not by understanding it. Something stopped me asking the questions, and that turned out to be the whole gift. I wanted to know how, and who with, and how long for. I did not ask. It took me a long time to work out that I was not grieving her. I was grieving the life, the freedom, the joys. Name what they did silently, as an object, and do not go down the story with it. Let the pain be there if it comes. Then it has nothing to do with them any more. One thing to try: Name the thing that happened in three words. No story attached. Just the object. In this episode
With gratitude to Mark, Annie, Will, Linda in Australia, and Judy Simpson. The companion meditation: The Freedom of Forgiveness: Letting Go For Yourself Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Overthinking Is Not Your Fault (But Here's How to Stop) | 08 juin 2025 | 00:20:24 | |
Whose thoughts are they, actually? Mostly your parents', your grandparents', your teachers'. Overthinking is not your fault, which is the good news and the bad news at once. At 40 I was single, out of money, on benefits, and my chair had broken. I would sleep ninety minutes and wake to thoughts that would not stop, and that went on for weeks. I was a terrible meditator and still am. You cannot turn a negative thought into a positive one by deciding to. You sit in the station and let the trains go past. One thing to try: Watch one thought arrive and do nothing about it. That is the entire skill. In this episode
With gratitude to Audra and John, and the monthly subscribers. The companion meditation: A Dharma Meditation Beyond Overthinking Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| The Truth About Anxiety & Imposter Syndrome | 01 juin 2025 | 00:18:35 | |
Do anxiety and imposter syndrome ever go away? No. Mine did not. What changed is that I stopped treating them as the problem and started treating them as voices. I sat there thinking people vote for me because they feel sorry for me, or because I am in a wheelchair. Then another voice comes in and says hang on, thank you for putting your nose in, but it was fine last time. That is the argument, and it never fully stops. The hard bit is doing it again and again. Hello, how are you today, like an annoying little visitor. One thing to try: When it arrives, greet it rather than argue with it. Hello, you again. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Self Acceptance – The Zen Way | 19 mai 2025 | 00:23:45 | |
What are you going to complain about once everything is fixed? If you sorted the entire world out tomorrow, what would you do with the rest of the day? Somebody told me what STFU stands for and it was not what I expected. We are handed a blank canvas and immediately want to paint it a colour. On the road I was bored and cold and fed up, and then I started seeing the lines in a leaf, and a car going past making them jump and settle. Two bears, one with a machete and one with donuts. Focus on the right one. One thing to try: Look at one ordinary thing until you see something in it you had not noticed. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| How Big Is Your Circle? Let's Talk Love and Acceptance | 30 avr. 2025 | 00:19:49 | |
How big is your circle, honestly? Not who you like. Who you would genuinely be there for. And most of us can accept a stranger more easily than our own brother. You move in and out of these levels during a single day. Give me a bad headache and mine shrinks fast. There are good reasons for countries and we are still all human. The strange bit is that the person driving you mad is usually the one closest in. How wide can you make it on a day when you are not feeling generous? One thing to try: Picture your circle, then try adding one person you find difficult. Just picture it. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Feel Deeply, Suffer Less: The Unexpected Power of Emotion | 07 avr. 2025 | 00:15:43 | |
Can you detach from pain without going numb to everything else? No, and that is the catch. Deny the hard feelings and the good ones go with them. There is the small mind that has problems and the big mind where nothing needs fixing. Trying to deny it all is like keeping a garden and never taking your shoes off. You never find out what the grass feels like. It is not nice watching somebody suffer, and if you have a big heart it is harder. I get lonely because I am wanting something I have not got, and solving it made it worse. One thing to try: Let one uncomfortable feeling stay a while without trying to solve it. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| How to Stay Calm in the Face of Anger | 29 mars 2025 | 00:17:43 | |
Why does a raised voice make you feel sick? Your nervous system is not overreacting. It learned that anger meant danger, and it is still doing its job. I was shouted at as a child, so some of it is that. Some of it is the person triggering something older. I get triggered by my daughter more than almost anybody, because I care and because I expected more. Nobody owns the road, and yet everybody wants to park in front of their own house. Anger is a hammer. It can smash a thing up or build something. One thing to try: When it lands, ask one question. Did I expect more from them than I would from a stranger? In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| The Art of Slowing Down: Spiritual Timeouts | 10 mars 2025 | 00:09:45 | |
Do you need an hour to reset, or would thirty seconds do it? Thich Nhat Hanh said smile, breathe and go slowly. I am hopeless at the going slowly. What I can do is use the small forced pauses. I left the phone at home to go and meet somebody, and I gave them my whole attention for the first time in ages. Alan Watts said muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. You do not have to clear it. You just have to stop stirring for a moment. One thing to try: At the next door handle, stand still for thirty seconds and breathe before you go through. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Enlightenment in 2 Minutes: How Micro-Moments Can Transform Your Life | 22 févr. 2025 | 00:25:52 | |
What is enlightenment, really? Waking up to what is true and suffering less for it. Not floating. And for me it started with a hundred and twenty year old book. I had a dream of a life that got ripped away unexpectedly. Then As a Man Thinketh told me I am not my thoughts, and that would not leave me alone. A sound reaches my head and my head interprets it and then tells me what it is. I am not in that loop. Two people never see the same colour, because both brains did the interpreting. One thing to try: When the next thought lands, notice it arrived before you had any say in it. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Finding Peace and Stillness in the Current Storms | 15 févr. 2025 | 00:12:37 | |
How do you stay steady when the news will not stop? Six weeks into the year and it is already relentless. I am fifty two, my body is paralysed, my immune system is not what it was, and this cold has taken a hammering out of me. On top of that the headlines keep coming and I keep going back for more. So I have started asking a different question. What if I wake up tomorrow and the kettle does not work, or the heating is gone? Suddenly the tea is a gift. And I have taken the iPad out of the bedroom and put two books there instead. One thing to try: Put the phone out of the bedroom tonight. Put a book where it was. In this episode
The companion meditation: Sunrise Gratitude: Welcoming a New Day Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Emotional Connections: The Moments That Shape Us | 07 févr. 2025 | 00:13:47 | |
What do you actually remember of your life? Not the years. Just the moments. I have done five hundred miles round Cornwall in my electric wheelchair this year, and what I have kept from it is moments. Everything is stored that way. I met a man who told me about being flown to Salisbury at eighteen, and I had been in that same tight space, chewing my knees, and suddenly it was like I had known him all my life. The ones that shaped me most are the rock bottoms. That is why I cry easily now, and I do not think that is a fault. One thing to try: Build one moment on purpose today with somebody. In twenty years it will matter more than the day did. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Navigating Life's Struggles: Acceptance vs. Avoidance | 29 janv. 2025 | 00:12:49 | |
Are you accepting your life, or quietly avoiding it? I wrote this at two in the morning and it caught me out. I teach acceptance. And the one thing I have never accepted is my own disability. That is the elephant in my world. Giving in to an electric wheelchair was one of the hardest days of the early years. I have spent my life dodging labels, dodging pity and dodging the story people hand to somebody like me, and I am not sure whether that is freedom or avoidance. There is no right way. Half a million self help books and not one of them has landed it. One thing to try: Name your elephant. You do not have to do anything about it today. Just stop walking around it. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Unveiling the True Self: Beyond Ego and Illusion | 08 janv. 2025 | 00:21:15 | |
Who is the you underneath the you? There is a self below the ego, and the ego is the part doing all the suffering. Ask who Steven is and the false self answers first. Podcast host. Councillor. Meditator. Man in a wheelchair. All of that is memory doing the job it evolved for, remembering where the bear was. Underneath it is something with no desires and no story, and you can find the edge of it right now. Are you aware of your left toe? You were not, and then you were. Now widen that until it is not pointed at anything. Not warm, not cosy. Just there, and it does not come and go. One thing to try: Be aware of your left toe. Then let the awareness spread until it is not aimed at anything at all. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Moments That Matter: A Heartfelt New Year Message | 31 déc. 2024 | 00:09:13 | |
Do you actually rely on anybody? I cannot put a jumper on without help, and it took me most of my life to stop saying no thanks. You rely on people too. Looking back at a year you do not see a line. You see moments. The lad who chased me down the street with a pound for the bucket. Everybody is climbing the same mountain from a different side, seeing something genuinely true and calling everybody else wrong. Nobody is a hundred percent wrong, and very rarely is anybody a hundred percent right. One thing to try: Accept one offer of help this week that you would normally turn down. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Navigating the Holiday Chaos: A Guide to Compassionate Mindfulness | 03 déc. 2024 | 00:21:14 | |
How do you find any peace at Christmas when everybody expects you to be upbeat? There is the noise, the money, the debates round the table, and underneath all of it the fear of losing people. You cannot control the dinner, the presents or your relatives. It is like getting in the sea and expecting the sea to move around you. What changed things for me was sitting back and saying, go on then, let me have it. Then I did not have to do anything with what turned up, my thoughts included. Lower the expectation and there is suddenly room for other people in it. One thing to try: Listen more and talk less for one gathering. When somebody finishes, wait before you fill the gap. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Vulnerability: A Pathway to Courage and Wisdom | 24 nov. 2024 | 00:16:01 | |
Is being vulnerable the same as being weak? Asking for help is the most vulnerable thing most of us ever do. I recorded this twice. The first time I talked about everybody else's vulnerability and it was not honest, so I binned it. I need people. When my body goes into dysreflexia I need somebody there, and there is nothing optional about it. But there is a difference between being vulnerable and feeling vulnerable. When you ask, you can ask from fear, or you can ask from courage and wisdom at the same time. Same words. Completely different person saying them. One thing to try: Next time you ask for help, notice which voice is asking. Then let a braver one ask instead. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Beyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Spiritual Insight | 13 nov. 2024 | 00:13:46 | |
What comes after mindfulness? Noticing the leaves is the start, not the finish. I was coming down the hill in my electric wheelchair looking at the leaves, and it struck me that plain awareness is only the doorway. It is simple and it is hard, and it is nearly impossible to explain to somebody who has not felt it. Awareness is not only outward either. What can the body teach me right now. And gratitude goes the same way: thank you kettle is the surface, and underneath it runs all the way out to caring about the whole world. One thing to try: Turn the attention inward once today. Ask what the body is telling you and then just listen. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Ego vs. Essence: Finding Peace Beyond Your Labels | 03 nov. 2024 | 00:19:02 | |
Who are you without your story? Take away the job, the labels and the roles, and what is left? You were born a blank canvas and other people handed you the colours. Parents, teachers, the lot. Everything you do today comes out of that. I put a photo of myself in an odd hat on Facebook and watched how quickly a label arrives. You have a thousand voices in there and some are braver, wiser or kinder than the one that usually speaks. Drop the story and you are not becoming somebody new. You are just allowed to pick different colours today. One thing to try: Go somewhere ordinary today and look at it as somebody with no history of it. See what you notice. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Why Letting Go is Hard and How to Make it Easier | 25 oct. 2024 | 00:15:59 | |
Why is letting go so hard? Because your mind evolved to hold on. This is about what comes after forgiveness, when there is nothing left to do but put it down. I say things in council meetings and then spend the evening asking myself why I said them. A tree lets a leaf die and fall and puts no weight on it whatsoever. For years we have lived as though a thought demands an action. It does not. If somebody throws a name at you, do not catch it. Start with the small stuff and work up. One thing to try: Next time somebody throws something at you, do not catch it. That is the whole exercise. In this episode
With gratitude to Eleanor, Josie, Senga and Beth. Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Transforming Your Thoughts: The Truth About Positive and Negative Thinking | 22 oct. 2024 | 00:20:49 | |
Is there really such a thing as a negative thought? By the end of this I do not think you will say yes. Wait for your next thought. You cannot make one. You do not know what it will be. So whose thought is it. Your subconscious has no idea what is positive or negative. A good haul is a positive thought to a burglar. It has no timeline either, no tomorrow, no last week. It hands you what it thinks you need right now. My mind is a twenty four hour committee meeting of about ten thousand voices arguing, and I have stopped trying to chair it. One thing to try: Sit three minutes and just wait for thoughts. Be the one who notices them arriving, not the one arguing. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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| Moments That Matter: A Journey Through Cornwall | 13 oct. 2024 | 00:16:04 | |
What do you take away from 500 miles in a wheelchair? A hundred and forty parishes, three hundred places, thousands of conversations, and one question that stopped me years ago. Four or five hours a day on the road at a snail's pace, and it never once rained where I was. The brain stores the day at the front and moves it to the back overnight, filing emotions with emotions, and it cannot tell whether it was a film or your life. This one also goes back to the day I left home heading for a river, and the question that arrived before I got there. One thing to try: Find one thing in this moment that gives you a genuine thank you. Only one. In this episode
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk Thank you for listening. Steven Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.
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