Demystifying Meditation: What You Need to Know

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So on this podcast, I want to do some myth busting and I want to get back to the basics

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of meditation and why it matters in real life. Not just on the cushion. And I'm not talking about the

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kind of meditation that is sat down with some candles in the bath for some peace and quiet. If you're

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meditating for just a little bit of chilled out peace, that's not why I'm talking about this kind of meditation.

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And before I go any further, I will say I've never enjoyed meditating. My mind's never enjoyed it. The human

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side of me has never enjoyed it. If I'm sitting there thinking, I'm normally thinking about my stomach or Facebook

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or something I said a few days ago or something I need to do or an itch or for something

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there's always something I'm thinking about

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apart from the moments where I'm not thinking. And that's just a pause between the thinking before my subconscious mind

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gives me something else to think about. But what is the benefits of meditation? Why should you meditate? And

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how long do you meditate for? And the real signs whether meditation is working or not. That's what we will

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cover on today's Back to the Basics. Why Meditate? So hello, I'm Steven Weber and welcome to Stillness in the

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Storm. The podcast that helps you find some firm ground in difficult times. No fluff. no quick

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fixes, just honest, down-to-earth wisdom from someone who lives it every single day. So, like the Buddha said,

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to be alive is to suffer. So we're all suffering.

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Anyway, right, before I begin today's episode, let's have a huge thank you to the people who keep this podcast

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completely advert-free. And this week, that is Sin. Margaret, Annie, Maliki, Helen,

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Laura, Adam, I'm Dominique and we have a new monthly subscriber, Linda. Thank you, every one of

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you. You are awesome you'll help to keep the podcast free, the inner peace meditations advert free.

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And you can. Well, because of you we can get on with the show if you'd like to join them

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or you want to contact me. Ideas for any meditations or ideas for any podcast or just ask me a

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question. Just head over to Steven Webb got you it's in the show notes and I will answer within 24

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hours. So

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I'm talking to anybody that finds meditation hard, that somebody that dips in and out of it.

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You do it for a few days and you feel a little bit better because you know you're doing something

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about your suffering or you think it's something you ought to be doing. And then you end up giving up

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on it. And then you end up snapping at somebody or you end up cutting someone up, or someone cuts

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you up on the road and you shout. Or you're getting anxious and stressed and you're like,

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I know better, I can do better. Why am I doing this? And you end up blaming in the shame

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loop and you get anxious and overwhelmed and stressed. That's who I'm talking to. And I may as well be

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talking to myself because that's me. If I don't meditate for about four or five days, I end up snapping

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at someone. I end up with less compassion, less wisdom, less understanding

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and just more overwhelmed I end up dropping stuff. And that's the reality. So. So first of all,

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let's answer the question, why meditate? Now then, if you're meditating, to have a little bit of peace and quiet

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in that moment, I suggest run a bath on some incense sticks, get a good book or

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watch a lovely romance, I don't know, read a Mills and Boone book. Because if you're meditating for a bit

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of inner peace in that moment, it doesn't have long-term benefits Do it by all means, but don't expect it

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to have any kind of real profound change on your life. Genuine meditation, if you want it to reduce your

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suffering in life. It's about like a weightlifter going to the gym, lifting weights that are going to build

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up their muscles. If you're just doing it for inner peace, that's like going to the gym and chatting to

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the person behind the till for an hour about what you're going to do and then you leave without doing

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the workout. That's what meditation with an incense stick. And you're just sitting there enjoying it.

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That's not what I'm talking about We're not talking about contacting aliens. We're not talking about having some 3 or

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5d vision of the world. We're not talking about healing your body in a magic way

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or anything like that. You have many benefits of healing and many benefits of inner peace and all that. But

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we're talking about good old-fashioned weight lifting for the mind. So you end up more compassionate,

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more caring, you end up wiser and you end up creating less pain for yourself and others.

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Does that sound good? So before I actually talk about the practice and way that, the way meditation can actually

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help, these are the scenarios that meditation, the result of meditation can help with. You know

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when you're at that family barbecue or the Christmas dinner and you've got someone at the table that's winding you

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up, a relative or a family member, and you just. Your blood's boiling and you're getting anxious and you just

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want to just scream at them or you want to walk out, or you just can't stand the sight of

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them or anything like that is to be able to be in that presence But not wound up and not

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stressed and having a wiser, different view on it. Or when that email comes and winds you up

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and before you practice, you just react and you fire one off. And I fired off a Whatsapp message this

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morning in annoyance when I read something on Facebook and went straight into the Lib Dem group and fired

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one off and it's like I deleted it. These things happen. We're human. Meditation doesn't get rid of the human,

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doesn't get rid of the passion and the emotion when things go wrong or when things go right. Meditation

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helps when we have desires that are a little too overwhelming, and the same as when we're feeling a little

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too happy. You know, sometimes when things are going just amazing and we just like want to grab all of

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it and we want to. Like, we don't understand it and we get really stressed about the situation, but really

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we're really happy. You know, all these things that make us wonderfully human. And

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it can help us in the doctor's room when we're waiting, you've got two minutes we've got no cushion you've

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got no app and it's noisy, or it might be really quiet and you don't know what the results are

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going to be. Meditation can help with the thoughts that come and go in that moment, or thoughts that come

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and we end up going with the thoughts in that moment.

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And you're stressed with a colleague at work, or you're just stressed generally with the kids, Anything like that. There's

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that tiny little gap between the thought that arises and your reaction. That's the whole

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game. That's what meditation trains. You have feelings and emotions and you have

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thoughts that arise. Meditation increases the gap between what's happening

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in any given moment and what you do with it. And, you know, you've always.

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We've always regretted something five hours later and gone. I wish I hadn't said that. I wish I hadn't done

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that. I wish I hadn't picked up the phone and shouted, whatever we do when we make a mistake. And

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then five hours later, why did I do that? I wasn't thinking straight at the time. It felt like it

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wasn't me. Well, that's because there wasn't that gap of wisdom in the middle. Then if we just had that

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little bit of space, if we were that wise person at the end of the bar in those movies, when

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the whole room in the bar is fighting and you've got that guy or the female at the end of

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the bar, just really calm and they just drink their drink and they walk out with the end because they

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haven't got involved because they're really chilled or drunk maybe, who knows? But that's the game. That's what it's about,

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is creating that gap. So I want to do some myth busting before I actually get on to the practice.

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So is meditation about clearing all your thoughts? No. That's probably the number

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one and biggest myth. If you understand this straight away, you're probably ahead of many people already. You have a

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thought. The human mind has evolved to think. That's its job. It's designed to think.

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That's all it can do. It's like asking your mind not to think is like looking at a colored piece

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of art and asking your mind not to see the colour

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or being in a noisy room and saying to your mind, don't hear it. It's impossible. That's why we have

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to have noise cancelling headphones because if we could do it ourselves, that'd be easy. But expecting the mind not

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to shut out the noise or shut out a colour or not to see something or not

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oh I don't. So I don't like the taste of that food, but I'm going to eat it anyway, and

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I'm going to switch off the taste. It's impossible. You cannot do it. So expecting the mind not to think

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is like asking the heart not to beat or the liver not to filter your blood. It's not going to

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end well. So your mind has evolved to think. Awesome. Brilliant. It's what makes you human. That's what

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is brilliant about the mind. Here's the thing. When you have a thought arising, you're sat there and

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you're at a doctor's, and you might think about the test results, say, or you might think about the appointment

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because you're going in to see them, about a pain in the shoulder or something, or a lump or something

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like that, and your mind then goes to it and it starts to go on a story. Suddenly that pain

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in the shoulder is arthritis. And you're not going to be able to move in six months. And then six

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months later, you're going to be stuck in a bed or in a wheelchair. And then you're going to be

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in so much pain, you're going to be like your uncle that had arthritis and you're going to end up

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dying early. And before you know it, within about four seconds, you've gone from a painful shoulder to you're almost

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dead or in a wheelchair or the same with a lump and things like that. Then the problem is when

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you go into these stories, you don't know if they're true or not. And very often you get into the

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doctors and the doctor will say, yeah, you've pulled a muscle, should heal in a few days, or we'll get

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that scanned and it might be a benign lump. Who knows? The point is, you don't know it's necessarily bad

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and you don't know it's necessarily good. So what meditation does is you recognise the thought

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and then there's a little gap you go, okay, thanks for the thought. I don't know if it's true. So

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I'm not going to go with it. The same as my analogy of trains coming into a station. Thoughts like

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trains coming into a station, choose which ones to get on. You can even choose when you get really good

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in it. You can choose to be the driver and where that train goes

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you know I want this story. I like this thought. I'm going to go with this one. And we do

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that in like vision meditation and like imagery meditation. So I've got a

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meditation about being a peregrine falcon, my favourite bird when I was a child. So imagine sat there on a

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bench and you see a peregrine falcon flying above you. Well, imagine being that peregrine falcon and what the

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peregrine falcon can see, it's a way of taking another perspective, seeing the world from a different angle. That's

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going with the story. That's fine, that's thoughts. But you're choosing to. Just the same as when

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you're aware of your breath, that's a thought. You're giving your mind something to do. So you have

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thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. And because you're not your thoughts, you can choose what to do with

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your thoughts. So not about clearing the mind. If you want to clear the mind, go sleep or

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have drugs and toxins and all the other things. That's about clearing the mind, that's about avoidance.

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I'm not suggesting any of those things. I think we should meditate and take more control of how.

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What we do with the thoughts when they arise. So is meditation religious? No.

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Essentially, there's meditation or contemplation in nearly all the religions of some kind. There's

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prayer, there's, well, contemplation that They're all different forms of focus or

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concentration. Really all we're doing is noticing, simply a form of awareness, noticing your breath, noticing your

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thoughts. There's nothing you have to believe, you know, you don't even have to believe your thoughts. Now

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then there's religious practice like Buddhism where I have several techniques and try to guide you into it. But

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this is a form of sazen just sitting meditated and being aware. But you don't have to relate it to

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Buddhism because it isn't really it's Just sit and be aware. Have you sat in a doctor's surgery or you're

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sat in your car just before you go into an appointment or going to that busy cafe to meet a

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friend you haven't seen for a while. Just sit and become aware of how warm the car is. Become

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aware of how dirty the bonnet is, that you got to clean it soon and just smile at that thought.

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Become aware of your breath or the clouds going over. It really doesn't matter what you become aware of. Is

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that religion or is that just being in the present moment,

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just being here so You can draw on Buddhism and stoicism, it's all sorts, but it isn't

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a practice of religion. That's the thing. Then if you're praying you're kind of asking for something.

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Meditation is not about asking for anything. It's about just being aware of what is. So

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how long do I have to sit for it to work?

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Five minutes? Honestly, even two. The doctor's waiting room maybe two minutes or maybe 10

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minutes then how long you have to wait there. Just sitting there, being aware of whatever's doing helps. It gives

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an instant karma of without going into all the deep thoughts and stories, you're instantly having more peace.

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You're instantly not in planning autopilot mode. The thing is, but just

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like the gym, I mentioned earlier about weightlifting, if you go to the gym once a year and you work

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like hell five hours, or maybe you do 12 hours of weightlifting, how long is that going to

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last? That's not going to build your muscles up, it's just going to injure you. If you go to the

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gym, 30 seconds and just lift weights for 30 seconds three times a day for 12 months, that's going to

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do way more than 12 hours. So little and often is better than

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loads and not very often. If you sit down on a Saturday morning and meditate for 40 minutes great. It'll

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really help you on that Saturday, but it ain't going to do much for your Monday But if you've done

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five minutes every morning a couple of minutes at lunchtime a couple of minutes at tea time, and every time

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you think about it, whether you're at red traffic lights or going through a door or and just become aware,

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ah, what's going on right now? How am I feeling? What's the temperature of this room, what's my foot doing,

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what's going on around me? Just do that as often as you can. That will have an effect

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because it's not about when you're meditating, it's when you're not meditating and you're not aware and someone says

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something that triggers you. If you've practiced the muscle enough, you'll instantly jump into awareness

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and go, ah, they said something. That's them projecting. They don't really mean what they say, or they're ignorant,

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or they just don't know, or they haven't mind read me. It's amazing how much we think people can mind

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read us and how much we can mind read them. The amount of times that someone says to me, well,

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you knew I was going to do that. I'm like, how did I know you were going to do that?

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You knew you were going to do it. I didn't know you're going to do it. So the amount of

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times that we think we're mind readers or we think others should be mind readers or because we know things

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and slightly off topic now, but in all those situations, the more you meditate, the more you take your little

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bit of time out, the less you'll react and the more you'll have that wisdom and compassion about you. You

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have that in abundance. You have all the wisdom and compassion that have evolved

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for hundreds of thousands of years. Every book you've read, every experience you've had, you've learned

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your subconscious mind has learned. You have the answers to nearly everything within you. But you need to have enough

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time to look it up, think about it and be in control of the situation. I'll give you an example.

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When you're entering a place when your mind is full of thinking, your body is anxious, and

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it's racing,

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consider how much you're in control of that situation. When someone comes up and says hi.

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Now enter that room where your mind is a little clearer, you're not really thinking about anything. You're very aware

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of the people in the room, you're aware of the person walking over to you. You're aware of how you're

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feeling, whether you're feeling a little anxious, that's fine. It's not about not feeling anxious. It's about knowing you're feeling

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anxious and knowing why. That awareness. And when that person walks over to you and says hi, you're like,

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hi. It there's a totally different. Which one are you more in control of? The second one or the first

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one? The second one, of course. And we all do it. We're all capable of that

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deep, compassionate wisdom. How many times in your life have you done that and gone, do you know what? That

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was amazing of me? And how many times have you not done that and went, oh, my God, that wasn't

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me. So you don't have to. It's not about. If you do have a practice of 20 minutes

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every morning, that's going to have a profound effect on you. Within months, you will literally be able to handle

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or nearly every single situation. And if you develop a practice like that, then please become my teacher,

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because I'm not managing that. You know, sometimes the odd time, I can do it. I can have some background

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music and I can do it to help silence my mind to a very repetitive music that has

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the same eight chords. I can sometimes do it, or I can sometimes do it with stifu and just

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repeat that constantly. And my teacher said to me Steven just say stfu stfu

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stfu stfu I said to him, what is that? What is the feeling He says,

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shut the fuck up. And I'm like, why? What? He said, no, that's what it is stfu Shut the fuck

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up. Just sit down and shut up. I'm like, okay, yeah, but my mind thinks he said, yeah, then shut

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up. Yeah, but my mind goes into the story, then go, yeah, then shut up.

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Always bring it back. And that's the point, is always bringing it back. So do you need to sit in

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a lotus position? No, sometimes it helps to keep the back up straight, and it keeps you awake. It stops

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you falling asleep. But if you can only sit in a chair, like me, I'm paralysed. Sit in a chair.

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If you have to lie in a bed, lie in a bed. You know, if you're standing at the kettle

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or doing the dishes, just do them. You can meditate while doing dishes. Just do the dishes. Just do the

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one thing. The position is not really that relevant. If you're sat in a really strict position, you have an

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itch. Itch it. But do it mindfully. Do it. I have an itch I'm now going to scratch that itch.

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How does the itch feel? It's now gone. Okay. What was I focusing on? Just do

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it mindfully. That's the practice. That's the game. So so

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what if I'm bad at meditation because my mind wanders? Your mind will wander if

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your mind doesn't wander. Your mind's not doing what the mind does. The

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only thing is thoughts will come up. You don't have to go with them. The wandering mind is you going

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with the thoughts. Now then very often, sometimes when you're tired, or sometimes you'll catch the thoughts after a

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good few minutes into a story. Oh, I'm in story. Back to breath. Sometimes you'll catch it within seconds

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it Doesn't matter as long as you eventually catch it. Reward yourself in the back and go, well done. That

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was like you lifting a weight. Well done. You lifted it. Does it matter if take lifting the weight takes

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10 seconds or half a second? No, it matters. You lifted the weight, so it matters that you did bring

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the mind back. That's where all the reward is. Is it just the way to relax? No.

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So the body knows how to relax, and the same as the body knows how to breathe. And I know

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a lot of meditation teachers and there's a lot of information and a lot of pros on having

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certain types of breath, counting breath, different things. It's a way of keeping your mind

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busy, doing something in some way. It's a way of getting you into it. Taking three deep breaths connects the

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mind and body helps to relax. Personally, I think the body knows how to breathe better than I do. It's

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been doing it way longer than I have. And just the same, relaxing. If I try to relax, I can't

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relax. But if I allow the body to relax, it's really good at it.

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If I allow the body to breathe in those exactly how to breathe. So it's not just a form of

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relaxing. It's not something you have to physically do. It's something you allow it to do. And how

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soon will I see results? This is or instantly you'll see the results because you'll feel calmer. The

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results within days and weeks. Like everything, if you start to learn to play the piano or guitar, you'll

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see really good results really early on. And then those results will start plattering out. The better you become.

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Because there's that learning curve, I think 20 hours and you get really good at something. But the next 20

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hours, you only improve another 10%. Meditation is very much the same.

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But how do you know it's working? This is the key. It's working if you're more compassionate, you're listening to

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people more, you're understanding more the situation, you are regretting what you say and do more often,

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you're in situations with family or work colleagues and you're not being triggered. Okay, I'll rephrase

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that. It's not that you're not being triggered, because you'll always be triggered, but you don't react to those triggers.

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So someone will give you the trigger. Someone will do something, maybe even subconsciously, maybe you

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don't even know what triggers you have. And they'll come up. It's whether or not you end up firing the

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gun, so to speak. It's whether you end up snapping. It's whether you end up going into the other room

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and complaining to your work colleagues because someone said something. And you'll know when it's not working if you meditate.

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Give me an honest three weeks of meditating twice a day's five ten minutes,

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and then you give it up for a week I'll challenge you that on your third week of not of

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doing it, you are a lot more calmer than the week you gave it up. You'll notice when you're not

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meditating, and it's like very much like pills. It's very much um some tablets that

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bring conditions under control. On the tablets, you think you don't no longer have the condition because you're not affected

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by it. So you end up forgetting to take them, or you think you don't need them anymore, you stop

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taking them, and then you realise you do need them, you have to go back on them. It's very much

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similar like that. When meditation is working you don't realise it's working. But when it stops working

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because you're not doing it, you realise it worked, if that makes any sense whatsoever. But you'll

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see results instantly and over time. And the people around you will see results because you'll become wiser and more

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compassionate, or you'll use the wisdom within you and you'll be more compassionate. So the core message before

Steven Webb: 00:27:20

we hand off, because this has ended up quite a long episode, that peace isn't something you create. It's already

Steven Webb: 00:27:26

here underneath all the noise. Meditation just helps you notice it. It takes you out of all the noise. It

Steven Webb: 00:27:34

gives you control over your thoughts, whether to go with them or not. You don't have to do it perfectly.

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There's no perfect meditation. You will not enjoy meditation. You will not sit there and go, oh I'm loving this.

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The mind will always think. The mind will always come up with ideas. The mind will always try to wander.

Steven Webb: 00:27:53

That's what it does. Just sit down and shut up again and again and bring it back. Do that

Steven Webb: 00:28:01

weight lifting then I've recorded a quick five minute guided meditation to go with this episode.

Steven Webb: 00:28:09

It's Inner Peace meditations. It's number 99 and it's called Finding Peace right here. No visualizations,

Steven Webb: 00:28:17

just breath thoughts is exactly what I'm doing. Do this twice a day for the next

Steven Webb: 00:28:24

month. The 21 days is a myth. Do something with 21 days. Someone wrote that in a book about 40

Steven Webb: 00:28:31

years ago and it's repeated forever. A habit becomes a habit when it's a habit and for different people

Steven Webb: 00:28:39

and different things, it'll be more of a habit than you know. Sometimes people build habits in three times. Other

Steven Webb: 00:28:46

people build a habit over 20 years and it takes 20 years to become a habit. Don't worry about 21

Steven Webb: 00:28:52

days. Just do the meditation a couple times a day or just once a day. It's five minutes and I

Steven Webb: 00:29:00

think you'll see a difference. So that's why I wanted to get back to basics now. I'm Steven Webb and

Steven Webb: 00:29:07

thank you to everybody that helped. Please leave a review if you can. That'd be awesome. Especially if you're on

Steven Webb: 00:29:13

Apple or Spotify. Favourite it and follow it and leave a review on those two

Steven Webb: 00:29:20

platforms because that really does help. Let's get more people just meditate in a couple of minutes a day and

Steven Webb: 00:29:26

let's get more compassion and caring in the world. Let's bring out that wisdom that we have. We know we

Steven Webb: 00:29:32

have. Thank you very much and take care. Be kind to yourself and I love you.