What is the difference between letting go and letting things be? One is a shove. The other is what actually works, and it took me a long time to tell them apart.

People kept telling me there were other pebbles on the beach. I would sit listening to lonely songs until the emotion overwhelmed me. Some things you fully influence, some things partly, and some things not at all. The weather is not yours. A little scepticism is healthy as long as it stays in proportion. If you like a thought, enjoy it. If you do not, let it move on.

One thing to try: Put the thing bothering you into full influence, partial influence, or none. Then act only on the first.

• (0:13) Accepting things, and letting them be rather than letting go
• (4:51) People telling me there are other pebbles on the beach
• (6:33) Lonely songs, and being overwhelmed by them on purpose
• (9:03) Not being able to get up without somebody having a go
• (10:51) Paralysed, bankrupt, cheated on. I could list them
• (13:15) The phone rings and you are on the toilet. Murphy's law
• (15:37) Full influence, partial influence, and none at all
• (19:56) You need a little scepticism, but keep it in proportion

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Steven

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Is your knowledge worth anything if you never use it? I have a confession, and it involves a shelf of unread books.

We buy the salad with good intentions and throw half of it away. We buy the book that will change our life and flick through the first few pages. Knowing how to be compassionate is worthless unless you are compassionate. Everybody knows the carrot beats the chocolate. I am dyslexic. I would read a page and not know what I had read. As a Man Thinketh took me three months and it is forty pages. That reading counted, because I did something with it.

One thing to try: Take one idea you already know is true and do it once today. One is enough.

• (1:46) The salad we buy and throw away
• (2:50) The book that was going to change everything
• (3:49) Knowledge you never practise is worthless
• (5:01) The wheelchair broke and I had no idea what to do
• (6:43) Reading a whole page and knowing none of it
• (7:39) Three months for forty pages
• (10:13) Knowing how to be compassionate is not being compassionate
• (11:19) Everybody knows chocolate is not a carrot

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Steven

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What does it look like when the person who teaches calm is the one having the panic attack?

I had no idea what this episode was going to be when I pressed record. I was sitting here anxious, stressed, feeling like the whole world was going wrong. I had stopped opening my emails. I was not even reading them, just bringing them up and looking away. The reason I help people with anxiety is that I have it. So here is me, on a bad day, being honest instead of pretending. Me and my carer Sasha have a mantra: things always work out, and if they do not, you are dead and you will not know.

One thing to try: When it hits, do one constructive thing, however small. It does not have to fix anything.

• (1:39) I help with anxiety because I have it
• (2:48) Avoiding my emails without even opening them
• (5:26) You will think I am not like this. Today I am
• (6:33) How fast the mind jumps to we are going to die
• (7:56) Recording this has already made it better
• (9:21) Sasha and me, and our mantra
• (11:34) Nobody I know is free of it. It is what we do with the load

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Steven

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Can you think positive when your brain is built with a negative bias? Just think positive is the worst advice I ever gave, and I gave it for twenty years.

Information hits three minds. The instinctual one asks if you are about to die. The subconscious one checks what you did last time and repeats it. Only then does the human mind get a look in, and by then the decision is often made. Your subconscious is not being negative on purpose. It is repeating patterns because they kept you alive. It is why the person who takes the threat seriously survives the forest and the one who shrugs does not.

One thing to try: Treat thoughts like trains at a station. You do not have to board every one. It takes about ten refusals before the mind gets it.

• (2:57) Two types of electricity, and why that matters here
• (4:07) Fight, flight, freeze, or make a mess of it
• (5:20) Ask me the capital of England and watch the relay
• (6:48) When the subconscious gives up and passes it on
• (9:04) The unique thing in the shop that three people are wearing
• (10:09) Focus on a negative thought and it repeats the pattern
• (11:45) The one with the machete comes before the doughnuts
• (14:13) Thoughts as trains, and choosing not to board
• (15:17) About ten times, like training a puppy

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Steven

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What has actually been stopping you asking for help? For me it was shame, and I had no idea until somebody put the word to it. The truth annoys you first, then frees you.

I never knew how to ask, or rather I knew how and could not stand doing it. Somebody said something that made me want to argue, so I sat with it instead. I read two of Brene Brown's books on shame. I did not know I was about to have the challenge of my life the moment I dived into that pool. Then I asked for help with the wheelchair, and so many of you gave.

One thing to try: Ask for one thing this week that you would normally go without.

• (0:05) A realisation that gave me more freedom than anything
• (2:40) Never knowing how to ask for help, or hating it
• (4:55) Agitated, thinking you are so wrong, then sitting with it
• (7:39) Not knowing what the moment I dived in would cost
• (9:31) The truth will annoy you first and then free you
• (11:40) Two books on shame, and not seeing it in myself
• (14:14) Asking for the wheelchair, and what happened next

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Steven

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Do you actually remember it, or did you build it? Every memory is based on a true story, and the gap between those two things ends most arguments.

We store fragments and then construct the rest. We are terrible listeners and brilliant at waiting for our turn. A woman of ninety could not remember what she had for dinner but could tell you about decades ago. It protects you, which is why you never drink the thing that made you ill at fifteen. So stop arguing that you remember it exactly. Your conversations get softer.

One thing to try: Next time you are certain about what was said, allow that you built some of it.

• (0:04) Based on a true story, and what that phrase really means
• (2:40) Being a typical seventeen year old, and not treating her well
• (4:40) That is Claire, and she knows who she is
• (7:30) We store fragments and build the memory from them
• (9:29) Ninety something, and remembering decades but not dinner
• (11:40) Why you never drink that again after being ill at fifteen
• (14:25) Stop arguing that you remember it exactly
• (16:26) The softness that arrives once you stop needing to prove it

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Steven

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If I could give you one piece of advice, what would it be? You cannot change this moment, so what are you going to do with it?

Six months flat on my back, no voice, one blink for yes and two for no. If somebody had come and given me the best advice in the world I could not have replied. So I have thought hard about what I would have wanted to hear. Not positive thinking. Just this. Accept exactly what is, then ask what you can do with it. Fear included. Everybody wants rid of fear and fear is brilliant. It is information. What you have to drop is I wish. I wish I was, I wish I had, I wish I did.

One thing to try: Swap one I wish for one what can I do with this.

• (1:23) What could my life actually teach you
• (4:11) Lying in bed, working out what I needed to hear
• (5:31) One touch for yes, two for no
• (6:29) Waking up is not denial
• (7:32) Fifteen minutes in a chair, then twenty four hours asleep
• (10:27) Twelve pounds raised, and a campaign that never happened
• (11:41) If it happens, ask what you can do with it
• (13:49) Fear is information. Use it
• (15:05) Get rid of I wish

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Steven

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What is your body trying to tell you, and why can you not read it? Mine speaks a language I had to learn from scratch.

I am paralysed just below the neck, so my body cannot point at the problem. It shouts instead. Blood pressure through the roof, blue lips, a headache that takes the day off me, and the cause turns out to be a sock with a crease in it or a shoe done up too tight. Yours is subtler and you still are not reading it. Cheese late in the evening and my sleep is gone. Eat wrong and by four in the afternoon I am asleep. That is not a mystery. That is a message.

One thing to try: Sit with one recurring pain for three minutes, twice today, and ask what it keeps trying to say.

• (1:15) Paralysed just below the neck, and what I do feel
• (2:35) My body tells me, but never subtly
• (3:46) Cheese late at night and the sleep is gone
• (5:25) Blue lips, a headache and no location
• (6:20) A crease in a sock can do it
• (7:35) Study your body like a mechanic studies an engine
• (10:10) What you eat is fuel and repair
• (11:22) I am not a doctor. See one. Then still sit with it
• (15:43) Three or four minutes, two or three times a day

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Steven

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What if today is the last day you can walk, or go to the toilet on your own? Mine was Sunday, 1 September 1991.

I have rebuilt that morning in my head hundreds of times. Waking up. Stretching. Lowering myself onto the toilet without a thought. Showering, drying myself, wrapping a towel round me and walking back to the bedroom. That was the last day I had superpowers, and I had no idea. Twenty nine years on I am not asking you to be frightened. I am asking you to notice that you can talk, taste your food and feel the cold on your face, and that none of that came with a guarantee.

One thing to try: Do one ordinary thing today slowly enough to actually notice you can do it.

• (1:18) Lowering myself onto the toilet without a thought
• (2:50) The last day I could wash myself
• (4:14) The last day I had superpowers
• (5:03) Live with gratitude, because there is no guarantee
• (6:37) Eighteen years old, and the dive
• (7:41) How would you live today if you knew
• (9:03) We eat in front of Netflix and never taste it
• (10:41) Too afraid to sit in gratitude in case it fades

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Steven

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Can you be angry and kind at the same time? The real question is how mature your anger is.

A man came into my home while the walls were being replaced and told me to move a van. I got stubborn. Later I sat with what my teacher Jun Po asks me. Has anybody ever made you angry? No. I chose it. I am angry because I care. Once you see that, you get to choose the response as well. Anger is not the problem. Immature anger is. Shouting about world hunger feeds nobody. Anger that moves something is worth having.

One thing to try: When anger arrives, name what you care about underneath it. Then act on that, not on the anger.

• (2:36) The Cornish unit and the walls coming off
• (4:06) The man at the door who wanted the van moved
• (5:02) Where I got stubborn
• (6:45) Jun Po asks: has anybody ever made you angry
• (7:33) No. I chose it, because I care
• (8:46) The first three months of love, and what changes
• (11:17) Good. Be angry. Now do something with it
• (16:27) Do not get rid of your anger. Grow it up

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Steven

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