Episode 168
The First 30 Seconds: Why Every Feeling Is a Gift
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The First 30 Seconds: Why Every Feeling Is a Gift
Your body's fear response is not a fault. It is thirty seconds of something brilliant.
You hear two cars crash outside your door, or a horn behind you, or the word "bear" round a campfire, and before you have thought a single thought your body has already moved. This week I walk through what actually happens in those first thirty seconds, a bit of it borrowed from David Ji's book Destressify. The adrenaline, the heart, the sugar your liver lets go, the hands that go cold so a cut would bleed less. None of it a malfunction. All of it the body doing the most competent, protective thing it knows.
Then I want to go further than the science. Fear is a gift. So is anxiety, alertness, even stress. We are taught to get rid of them, and I once sat on a show whose whole aim was to delete fear for good. I spent every break arguing the other way. The trouble is never the feeling. The trouble is when it takes over, when it runs eight hours a day, when it stops you doing the things you want to do. So we keep the whole stick, the joyful end and the hard end, instead of chopping the bad bits off and ending up with nothing. We hear the feeling, we understand it, we let it be there, and then we decide. Hear it, then decide. That is the whole thing.
Key topics:
- What really happens in the body's first thirty seconds, step by step
- Why none of it is a malfunction, and why the calm ones round the campfire did not survive
- Fear, anxiety, stress and alertness as gifts, and the show that wanted to delete fear
- The healthy and unhealthy version of every feeling, including the misread "everything is just thoughts" version of Zen
- The stick you keep chopping, and why you end up unable to tell the joy from the pain
- Only ever seeing three colours, and what we miss when we numb the spectrum
- The five second gap, and hearing the feeling before you decide what to do
Companion meditation: IPM 104 on Inner Peace Meditations. [insert IPM 104 title]
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's Stillness in the Storms. I'm Steven Webb, your host, and this is the podcast
Steven Webb:that helps you find a little peace in difficult times.
Steven Webb:It's the time when you have it least and you need it most. And this podcast has helped with a
Steven Webb:bit of wisdom then.
Steven Webb:So, just before I start, this episode is going to be about the first 30 seconds and why every
Steven Webb:feeling is a gift. I've just been doing my workout and I haven't done my workout for a long time,
Steven Webb:if not probably 12 months. And what this is what my workout looks like. So you imagine you're at an
Steven Webb:airport and you look down the Runway and you see these really small people waving their arms around with like,
Steven Webb:ping pong bats. Yeah, that's my workout for like 10 minutes. But I've. I've got a challenge coming up I
Steven Webb:would like to do in September and I need to be a whole lot stronger than I am, especially in
Steven Webb:my shoulders and my arms. And I've just done it for 10 minutes and my. Wow, that was hard. But,
Steven Webb:yeah, I'm doing it anyway. Just before we actually get on with today's show, I just want to thank because
Steven Webb:it's been two weeks, so there's a couple more names. So addy Amy Barbara, Susan, Michael, Karen, Laura, David,
Steven Webb:Jenna and mia and Johnny. Thank you. You are all awesome. And yeah, you guys keep the podcast
Steven Webb:free from adverts. So on that note, I'm very aware that you don't want me dribbling on early on the
Steven Webb:podcast. You came here for podcast? If you want to contact me, you can always go over StevenWebb.uk find my
Steven Webb:other links. So what am I talking about? The first 30 seconds. This comes from a book I read a
Steven Webb:number of years ago now by David G. He's another meditation teacher and he wrote a book called de-stressify
Steven Webb:Really easy read. It's one of those books that just explains the world in the simplest terms.
Steven Webb:So in the book, David explains exactly what happens when we get frightened or,
Steven Webb:you know, we all sat around a campfire and you hear a big grizzly bear. I'm sure you've all experienced
Steven Webb:it on a regular weekend or you're. Or you hear a car bump. Like, me and Kemba was just outside
Steven Webb:of our front door the other day and I heard two cars crash into each other. Like, what's that? Instantly,
Steven Webb:that fear? Or someone beeps that horn behind you. Anything that just frightens us, our body goes into this
Steven Webb:really quick 30 seconds of preparing for the worst. So what happens? David explains
Steven Webb:that your brain spots a threat before you do. A small alarm in the head. The amygdala flags it and
Steven Webb:wakes the body. And it doesn't alert you at this point. And within a second or two, the adrenaline floods
Steven Webb:in. Your heart speeds up. It drives blood to your big muscles, ready to run or stand your ground. Your
Steven Webb:breathing quickens and your airways open, putting in more oxygen. Your liver releases stored sugar
Steven Webb:into the blood for instant fuel. Your tiny vessels in your skin and fingers tighten so
Steven Webb:a wound would bleed a lot less. That is why your hands go cold and a little numb it's why
Steven Webb:your feet also do the same thing. You don't want to feel a cut on your foot if you're running.
Steven Webb:The blood itself gets readier to clot. It's the same reason the
Steven Webb:pupils widen, your hearing sharpens, the world seems to go in high definition and time seems to slow down.
Steven Webb:The digestive system completely switches off. No point in digesting lunch if you're going to become
Steven Webb:lunch. And all of that before you've even decided anything. That's before the fight, flight
Steven Webb:or freeze. You
Steven Webb:know, this isn't the body malfunctioning. This is the body with a brilliant response. You know, we're all seeing about
Steven Webb:Ai and robots. Robots aren't going to have this for way, I don't know, decades, decades yet.
Steven Webb:Okay, they might need it. So it's a bad example, but you get my point. But very often we've had
Steven Webb:ancestors over the years that this has evolved because they needed to. And we all the
Steven Webb:people that didn't have these brilliant responses, all the people that the
Steven Webb:body didn't react with fear and react with all these different evolutionary feelings, just didn't
Steven Webb:survive. You know, you imagine being in a forest all sat around a campfire and you're all playing music
Steven Webb:and then suddenly somebody says, shush, what's that? That bear. And you've got people that are frightened and you've
Steven Webb:got one person, ah, don't worry about it, it's all going to be fine. And half you go, nope, we're
Steven Webb:out of here, we're going to run. Now then they may run prematurely, they may get it wrong, but they're
Steven Webb:going to survive over the millions of years with that fear inside of them a lot more often than the
Steven Webb:people that, ah, don't worry, everything's fine. Now then we can go on about how it's misfiring or in a
Steven Webb:different podcast. That's not what this is going to be about. What I want to talk about is these feelings
Steven Webb:are not Malfunctions, the feeling of fear and anxiety and all these feelings that
Steven Webb:we look at as
Steven Webb:undesirable because they don't feel comfortable. We're very often taught to get rid of, to reduce.
Steven Webb:I went on to a podcast years ago, and the host titled the podcast, today we're going
Steven Webb:to get rid of fear, kick it out of the park. And during every break, after a segment that we'll
Steven Webb:be talking about I'll be like, no, let's not get rid of it. Let's use it and let's embrace it
Steven Webb:and listen to it here we go anyway, when we come back, we're gonna get rid of the fear. We're
Steven Webb:gonna totally get rid you're not going to feel fear ever again in your life. And I just thought that's
Steven Webb:totally the wrong way to be. Because fear is good. Anxiety is good, alertness is good, Stress
Steven Webb:is good. It's just not good when we're there all the time. You imagine if your body is constantly doing
Steven Webb:that 30 seconds, that's where it makes us ill. That's where it makes us not survive quite as long as
Steven Webb:we probably could, not into old age if we're constantly on that fight or flight. But the balance and the
Steven Webb:middle way, like I talk about the middle way all the time. It's about the balance. We need some of
Steven Webb:those feelings. We need the joys you cannot live in. You know when you fall deeply in love and you
Steven Webb:have that, Like Mark Twain says, love is blind. Well, it is. Well, lust is blind. In the first three
Steven Webb:months, they can literally leave the toilet seat up. They could eat you out your house and home, and you'll
Steven Webb:be like, ah, it's fine. They're so awesome. It's so nice to have them around. Three months and two weeks,
Steven Webb:they leave the toilet seat up. And you're saying to your friend, I can't believe it. He leaves the toilet
Steven Webb:seat up. And I can't believe he. He finishes my sentence when I haven't even got halfway through what I'm
Steven Webb:saying. He cuts me off and vice versa, the other way. So you cannot live from that. Love is blind
Steven Webb:because that's just adrenaline. That's just a feeling of euphoria and desire that evolved
Steven Webb:brilliantly. So we can look past our differences, so we have offspring. So evolution carries on. So you
Steven Webb:imagine how humans would have probably died out years ago if it meant that every single time to have children,
Steven Webb:we had to wait till we got on perfectly and we matched every energy in every feeling. Imagine if you
Steven Webb:Expected every person to put the Lucy down before there was a chance of evolution continuing. What's going to happen?
Steven Webb:As always, I go off topic.
Steven Webb:But what I want to talk about really is embrace all of it. None of these feelings are
Steven Webb:something we need to totally get rid of. We need to hear them, understand them, embrace them.
Steven Webb:We shouldn't delete them, we shouldn't try to remove them. But if they control us, if that stress is there
Steven Webb:eight hours a day or that fear is stopping us do the everyday things we want to do, then it's
Steven Webb:taking over. And the same thing is if that lust and desire is causing us to do things we shouldn't
Steven Webb:do in a moral society according to virtues and laws, then that we shouldn't do
Steven Webb:that That's then the unhealthy version of it. So there's a healthy version of stress, anxiety, fear.
Steven Webb:There's an unhealthy version of
Steven Webb:enlightenment. Some would argue, well, that's not enlightened. Well, maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But if
Steven Webb:you're literally, well, nothing is real and the universe doesn't really exist and thoughts are just thoughts and there's no
Steven Webb:and
Steven Webb:we can do what we like and we can ignore laws and all that, well, that's a really unhealthy version
Steven Webb:of Zen Buddhism. It's not really what Zen Buddhism actually says when we connect back in. But I
Steven Webb:think you get my point. And I think we try to deny feelings way too much as if they are
Steven Webb:a problem and we can liken it to you. Imagine getting to the end of your life and someone
Steven Webb:comes along and says, oh, by the way, you know that your favourite band that you've been listening to, you've
Steven Webb:only been listening to one of their albums, they had another five albums. You'd be like, what? Why
Steven Webb:didn't anybody tell me? So my whole life I've only been. I'd be like getting, I don't know, 60. And
Steven Webb:someone says to you, oh, by the way, you've only been seeing three colours. We've been seeing in 60 and
Steven Webb:the same way as just experiencing life, all of these are just experiences. Fear and anxiety. They're
Steven Webb:an experience that if we step back and pause, listen,
Steven Webb:we
Steven Webb:don't have to know what to do with it. We don't have to be that wise guru that knows exactly
Steven Webb:what to do with every feeling coming up. But if we just pause, just stop,
Steven Webb:you know, find the lay-by stop the car,
Steven Webb:just take
Steven Webb:a little time out. And very often when things are arising, you don't have to do anything with it anyway.
Steven Webb:And nowadays that fear and anxiety is misfiring all the time. It doesn't
Steven Webb:know that car horn, you know, 500 yards up the road, isn't a bear gonna eat you?
Steven Webb:That's the reality. The subconscious mind, that amygdala right at the base of your head
Steven Webb:has no idea in no idea. The concept of the world we're living in now, that fear when we walk
Steven Webb:in the room, when the energy is different than the energy we come in with and we automatically jump to
Steven Webb:conclusions,
Steven Webb:you know, that feeling isn't wrong, but we can understand that we're jumping in the story. And that's where it
Steven Webb:very often goes wrong, I think.
Steven Webb:And how many times have you been feeling a little stressed or feeling anxious? And we go to
Steven Webb:the doctor and we always want to get rid of it. Now and I'm not saying if we suffer from
Steven Webb:any of these things on a regular basis that we shouldn't go to the doctor and speak to the doctor.
Steven Webb:Absolutely. I am not a trained person in any way.
Steven Webb:So don't take my advice for medical in any way. I'm just saying if
Steven Webb:it temporarily pops up,
Steven Webb:we don't always have to listen. We don't always have to allow it to take over our lives.
Steven Webb:And I wouldn't like to live a life that I've never experienced fear. I wouldn't like to live a life
Steven Webb:that I've never experienced a little anxious anxiety or
Steven Webb:a little jealousy or a little guilt or shame,
Steven Webb:because I think they're the opposite ends of the same stick that I talk about. You know, we have a
Steven Webb:stick and one hand is the happiest and the wonderful things and the entertainment and the joys we get out
Steven Webb:of life on the other end is the horrible experiences we have. And what we do is we keep trying
Steven Webb:to chop off the end of the stick with the bad bits. And what do we get? We just get
Steven Webb:a shorter stick and you don't chop the end off with it, you just bring the the stick shorter.
Steven Webb:That's a tongue twister. And then you end up with, in the end, you end up with a stick that
Steven Webb:is so short that the joys in life and the undesirable feelings in life are the same part of the
Steven Webb:one inch stick, and we can't tell the difference anymore and we're just in a mess. You
Steven Webb:know, keep the stick as long as possible. Stop trying to chop the stick
Steven Webb:take that five seconds gap and I think next week I'm going to do a podcast about when we take
Steven Webb:that five seconds gap, what can we do? We're very often that gap. We ask what the world can do
Steven Webb:for us now. What do I need help with instead of asking what the world needs from me now to
Steven Webb:show up? So I think that might be next week's podcast. Let me know by messaging me if that would
Steven Webb:be helpful in last week's podcast. Plus it will tell me if you actually listen this far that'd be interesting
Steven Webb:Look, I think I'm gonna stop the podcast there I just want to thank everybody that does donate. You guys
Steven Webb:are absolutely awesome You're enabling me to do more podcasts. You're enabling me to do more inner peace meditations on
Steven Webb:inner peace meditations podcast. And I'm just so grateful to you. I'm so grateful to you for feeling all your
Steven Webb:feelings for being here, showing up, sharing, reviewing, leaving comments and just being you.
Steven Webb:I
Steven Webb:wouldn't want to change any of you. You're all awesome. Thank you. Don't forget to go over to StevenWebb.uk and
Steven Webb:sign up to the Weekly Calm. I'll be sending out the newsletter in about an hour's time because I'm going
Steven Webb:to go and write it now
Steven Webb:and I just want to end with, your body would do the 30 seconds thing again and it'll do it
Steven Webb:today and it'll do it tomorrow and do another day. When it does, know that it's not your fault. It's
Steven Webb:a gift. It means the body's working. That's fine. Just pause after, you know,
Steven Webb:do I need to run? Do I really need to fight? Hear
Steven Webb:it, then decide. And that is the whole thing. Include everything. Take care. Have a wonderful
Steven Webb:week. And I'm Steven Webb and I love you
