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.

• (0:03) Stages of development, from a personal angle
• (2:35) How many are genuinely in that circle right now?
• (5:06) You fluctuate in and out, even during one day
• (7:46) Countries make sense, and we are all still human
• (9:45) Accepting the stranger, but not the brother
• (12:13) The higher level of openness and understanding
• (14:49) How big can you make that circle?
• (17:21) We can still disagree, and still be human about it

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Steven

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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.

• (0:01) Small mind and big mind on this episode
• (2:28) The vast one where nothing needs fixing at all
• (4:45) A garden, and never taking your shoes off in it
• (7:24) It is hard watching somebody suffer when you care
• (9:58) And what about detaching from happiness and desire?
• (11:52) Feeling lonely because I want something I have not got

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Steven

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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?

• (0:02) The sharp email, the raised voice, and your stomach turning
• (2:48) Your nervous system is doing what it learned to do
• (5:10) Being shouted at as a child, and what it left
• (7:19) Nobody owns the road, and everybody wants to park on it
• (9:25) Triggered by my daughter more than most, because I care
• (11:57) You are not stuck in the past. Anger is a hammer

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Steven

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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.

• (1:31) It is messy. Good days and bad days
• (2:34) I left the phone at home and it changed the meeting
• (4:15) Every small reset buys you a longer fuse
• (5:02) Thirty seconds standing still is enough
• (6:59) Let it settle a bit, again and again
• (7:54) Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone

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Steven

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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.

• (0:02) What enlightenment actually means
• (2:29) The dream that got ripped away unexpectedly
• (4:37) As a Man Thinketh, and you are not your thoughts
• (6:59) Never writing what was on the board, and what that was
• (9:23) One book, then two, then ten all saying the same thing
• (11:34) A sound arrives and my head tells me what it is
• (16:08) Seeing the cycle, and whether you need to act at all
• (18:38) Two people never see the same colour

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Steven

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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.

• (1:24) Thanking the people who keep this free of adverts
• (2:31) Fifty two, paralysed, and this cold is winning
• (4:14) Why the news is relentless either way
• (5:14) Service is the part that is not a problem
• (6:19) What if the kettle does not work tomorrow
• (7:55) Pause, and let the breath be what it is
• (9:08) If you are tired, your body is telling you something
• (10:19) The iPad is out. Two books are in

The companion meditation: Sunrise Gratitude: Welcoming a New Day

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Steven

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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.

• (1:26) Everything is stored as moments
• (2:53) The dog and the gate he never forgot
• (4:01) Eighteen years old, flown to Salisbury
• (5:18) Two moments connected, and a stranger I had known all my life
• (6:29) The afternoon with the toy car that will matter in twenty years
• (7:35) The ones that shaped me were the rock bottoms
• (8:48) Why I cry now, and why that is not a fault
• (11:49) Collect the good ones. Learn from the rest

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Steven

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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.

• (1:18) Have I truly accepted my own reality
• (2:34) The one thing I have never accepted
• (3:51) Dodging labels, pity and the story handed to me
• (5:21) Living in the present, or avoiding the future
• (6:28) Half a million books and none of them got it
• (7:58) It is in the not doing and the not knowing
• (9:16) The gnarly branch finds the gap
• (11:00) You have an elephant too

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Steven

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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.

• (2:48) The false self answers first, every time
• (4:09) Memory evolved to remember the bear
• (5:35) It does not feel warm or cosy, and that is the point
• (6:18) Are you aware of your left toe
• (7:56) I cannot see beyond me. But I can experience it
• (9:16) Aware of everything and of nothing at once
• (11:17) The ego is the part that suffers
• (12:55) The only self that truly has your back
• (17:00) The passage, read aloud

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Steven

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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.

• (0:06) Thank you for the last twelve months, and happy New Year
• (1:15) The lad who put a pound in the bucket
• (2:23) Breaking your neck as a teenager, and relying on people
• (3:23) Not replying for days, because I do not know what to say
• (5:05) This is what I can see, and you are wrong
• (6:28) The Lion King, and crying at it
• (8:00) Very little we can do alone, and very little we cannot together

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Steven

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

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