The Mind That Will Not Be Quiet

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So you have between 30 and 40 thoughts per minute. You do not ask for these thoughts, they just appear.

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And then usually around 3 in the morning, one of those thoughts gets their hooks into you and you're gone.

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Replaying that thing you said, rehearsing the thing you have to say tomorrow. Building a whole future out of

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the worry that, let's be honest, probably never happens. We lie there and we think. The problem

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is the thinking. We try to stop. We try to stop thinking, it just leads to more thinking.

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It is like trying to cull water by slapping it down. That is what today's podcast is about.

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The mind that will not be quiet. Hello, I'm Steven Webb and Welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the podcast

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that helps you find some firm ground, that inner peace when you don't have it. No fluff, no quick fixes,

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just honest down-to-earth wisdom from someone who's lived it every single day.

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So before we get into it, let me say a proper thank you to the people who keep the podcast

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This week. It's Addy, Darren, Alice, Caroline and a company called MyHerb. I don't know their

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you have got an idea for meditation and you just want to reach out, just go to StevenWebb.uk it's in

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the show notes. Let's talk about the noise in your head. I want to talk to the over thing, the

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one who cannot find the off switch. Yeah, you lie down at the end of a long day and your

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body is done and your mind goes, ah, brilliant. She's finally listening. Party time. I know that one well.

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And if I'm honest, that is me. On the nights I have let things slide. The mind does not care

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that you're tired. It has got a list for you to go through. So here's the thing, and it's the

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thing that most of us get backwards. The mind is built to think the way the heart is built to

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beat blood around your body. You would not lie there at three in the morning furious at your heart for

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beating, would you? You would not call Yourself a failure because your lungs kept breathing, especially without your permission.

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No, but that is exactly what we do with the thinking. We decide the goal is blank, silent

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mind. And then the trains keep coming and we feel like we've. We have failed at the one

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thing we're trying to do. Just a bit peace of mind. But you've not failed. You've just signed up

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for the wrong job. The mind thinks that is its job. It is not going to stop.

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And the good news, the actual good news is that it was never supposed to. So the goal is not

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to stop thinking what it is. Here is the whole episode in one sentence. You are not the thought,

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you are the one that hears it. Sit with that for a second because it is easy to nod

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at and miss. There is the thought and there is the one who notices the thought.

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And they are not the same thing. So the thought says, you always mess up. And

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something in you hears it. Well, who is that? Who is the one listening to the thought? Because

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if you can hear the thought, you cannot only be the thought. There

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is you underneath it, quietly listening to the whole thing. This is the one who watches. The

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moment you notice that even for a second, something loosens, something just frees up. You do not get rid of

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the thought. You just stop being the thought. You have thoughts, but are not those thoughts.

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You took one small step back and now you are holding the thought instead

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of the thought is holding you. I hope you're keeping up with this. Now, I use a wonderful metaphor for

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this. So if you've heard me on the podcast before, you would have probably heard me say this before.

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So, imagine a quiet railway station, not a busy one, a calm, almost empty platform. And there's a

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bench. And you're sitting on that bench. The trains come in, one after the other. Some are loud, some are

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quiet, some you've ridden a hundred times and you know exactly where they go. So imagine a thought is a

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train pulling into the station. And here is the bit we forget. You do not have to get on the

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train. A train comes in. Ah, there is a train. You can just look at it and its own time.

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And in its own time, it pulls away again. You do not climb aboard. You stay on the bench and

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just watch it go roll out. So I think most of our suffering is not the trains. It's not the

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thoughts itself. It's how much we get on the train. It's how much we go with the thoughts. And normally

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we're going with the thoughts. And we hate the thought. We're going with oh this again. I can't believe it.

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Okay, I need to deal with it. And it all goes around in our heads constantly. And it really is.

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You do not have to board every train. You do not have to get on every um thought that comes

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along. Some you can just let pass. And when you visualize sitting on the train station and just allowing the

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thoughts to come and go like clouds coming and going, many meditation teachers talk about, I like trains because I

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like the train of thought. I think it just um It just works. I just like it. Maybe I just

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like trains. I don't know and When you get really good at this and it does take a while, you

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can even drive the train and take it where you want to. You can choose which thoughts to get on

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to. You can choose the nicer the gratitude, the more positive thoughts. And the more you choose to get on

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a train, the more your subconscious mind will give you a certain type of train. If you always get on

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the blue trains, your subconscious mind will give you more blue trains. Just like the child giving you sweets. You

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know, if you tell a child once to give you a green sweet, when you bump into that child when

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you're. When the child's 20, he'll still give you that green sweet. But there is, and I have to be

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honest with you, because there is a way to get this wrong, and the spiritual crowd get it wrong all

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the time. Watching your thoughts is not going cold. It's not standing back from your own life

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with your arms folded, pretending nothing touches you. It's not the illusion of being stoic

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like we think. Oh, nothing ever, you know, touches me. I have met people that. I'm just observing it as

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a very calm way of never feeling anything that is not peace, that is hiding. That, I think

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is stepping into the spiritual bypassing, which I spoke about before. The one who watches still feels it. You can

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notice the storm and still be standing out in the weather, getting absolutely soaked. Watching is not a wall

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you put up. It is a room. That is the difference. The feeling is still there. The grief, the

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fear, the anger, all of it is still allowed. You are just no longer drowning in it because there is

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now a little bit of you on the bank watching the river instead of being swept in. I'm mixing

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metaphors up completely today. So you're not aiming to feel less. We are aiming to be less owned.

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What we feel by what we feel. And I think that's really important. And this brings me to the most

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important part, the gap. I've often spoke about this between A thought arriving and

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you reacting to it. There is a tiny space. Most of the time is so small that we do not

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even know it's there. The thought comes, the reaction fires, and it all feels like one thing,

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but it's not one thing. There is a gap. And the gap is where your whole life actually

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happens. Genuinely so, for example, someone cuts you up in traffic, the thought and the heat

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and maybe the anger, it all arise together. And in that little gap, you either lean on the horn

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and carry it for the next hour, or you take a breath and you just respond. It's the

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same event, two completely different days. And the only difference is whether you found the gap and you

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chose to respond. That is what meditation really is for. Not bliss, not not empty in your

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head it It trains that gap. It widens that little space between what happens

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and how you answer it. That is the whole game. Everything else is just details. Everything else is

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just nuances of it. So let me give you something to actually do, because I am not interested in

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the idea. That it stays as ideas. There's no point in how many books have we read and we haven't

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actually done anything with them. That's me. I should have just sat on the books originally and meditated rather

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than reading them. I've watched umteen Youtube videos. I've listened to so many teachers. Very few teachers have actually made

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a difference in my life because. Not because the teacher, but because I didn't actually go and do anything with

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it. I thought, that's a brilliant idea, but I didn't do anything. So tonight, when you're lying there and the

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train first pulls in, do not fight it. Fighting it just makes it bigger. Instead, try one sentence,

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just ah, there is a thought and that's it. Name it as a thought

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and notice you're already back on the bench. That is it. Name the thought and when you

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notice it, you're already back on the bench. The very act of going, that's a thought means a

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part of you stepped back and watched it arrive. You found the gap. That gap will change your life. It

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will give you two different outcomes. You did not have to empty the station. You just had had to remember

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you're the one sitting down.

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Some nights, you will do it once and drift off. Although this podcast wasn't about falling asleep, you can use

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this anytime. But some nights, you'll sit on the bench and see your thoughts and drift off to sleep. Other

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nights, you'll lie there for an hour and a half, getting on every single train. It's just that's the reality

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and that is fine and that is normal. That is what being human with a human mind is like.

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Because here is the last thing and I want to leave you with. And it is the thing that takes

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all the pressure off. The forgetting is not the problem. We all get swept off. We all get on the

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train We all aboard the wrong trains. You know, probably tonight I would do the same thing. Forgetting is not

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a failure halfway down the line and go, oh, I'm on the train again. Just step off, get back on

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the bench and smile. Laugh about it. Laugh at your humanness. Laugh at the mind that's evolved for millions of

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years because you've got one of these intrinsically wise minds. That is incredible. That's evolved for millions of years. Yep.

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Every one of us. It's not about staying on the bench forever. It's about leaning and training your subconscious mind

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with the thoughts that you want and times where you don't need thoughts. And eventually there'll be more gaps between

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the trains. You are not the thoughts that come and go all day and all night. You are the quiet

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one on the bench who has watched every single one of them arrive. And normally you just get on them

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because that's what you've always done. You always were sat on the bench. You just didn't know you didn't have

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to get on the train. So, right, I've recorded a short meditation to go with this one. It is over

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on Inner Peace Meditations and it is called Dealing With Overthinking. Watching the Trains. No clever

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visualizations, just you, a bench and the trains coming and going. Sit with it once or twice this week and

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it is only a few minutes and it will do more than any amount of me talking about it, just

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experiencing sat on that bench. So that is the one who watches. It goes much deeper than that. And there's

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many more things we can talk about the Watcher. But that's the brilliant start and it'll take you further than

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most of the other things. Anyway, I'm Steven and thank you everybody who keeps this going. If you can please

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leave a review, especially on Apple and Spotify, makes a huge difference. Follow the show. Leave a review on one

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of those two because genuinely, it helps more people find a bit of calm in their hard week. Thank you

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