Imagine you are sitting on a bench beside a railway line. The trains come and go. Some are loud. Some are quiet. Some you almost climb on without thinking, and then you remember you don't have to. You can stay on the bench. You can watch them pass. You don't have to be anywhere else. The bench has been here all along.
You probably already know how to find peace. You just keep forgetting.
You meditate for a few days when life gets hard. You feel a little better. Then life gets loud again, you stop, you snap at someone, and the whole thing feels like another thing you're failing at.
I want to gently say something. The forgetting is not the problem. The remembering is the practice.
Meditation isn't about clearing the mind. Your mind cannot be cleared. It's built to think, the way your heart is built to beat. What changes is your relationship with the thoughts that arrive. You start to notice them, like trains pulling in. You start to choose which ones to ride and which ones to let pass.
The peace you're looking for isn't on the other side of years of practice. It's already here, underneath the noise. Meditation just helps you notice it. Two minutes counts. Five minutes is plenty. Standing at the kettle counts. The doctor's waiting room counts.
It is much simpler than we make it.
This week, pick one ordinary moment a day. Walking from one place to another. Boiling the kettle. Sitting in your car before you go inside. Anything that takes one or two minutes.
In that moment, notice your breath. Notice one thought as it passes. Don't try to do anything with it. Don't try to feel anything in particular.
That's it. That's the practice. Do it tomorrow as well.
When was the last time you let a thought pass without believing it?
And what might be different in your life if that was a thing you did, gently, every day?
This week, I will notice my thoughts without boarding every train.
New meditation: Inner Peace Meditations #99, Peace Right Where You Are. Five minutes. No cushion, no special place. Just breath and noticing.
New podcast episode: Stillness in the Storms #164, Demystifying Meditation: What You Need to Know. The honest case for meditation, from someone who has never enjoyed it.
I'll tell you the truth. I've never liked meditating.
I've never sat down and thought, oh, this is going to be lovely. My mind has never enjoyed it. My ego has never enjoyed it. Even the human side of me would much rather think about my stomach or scroll social media or replay something I said three days ago.
And yet I do it nearly every day. Because if I stop for four or five days, I notice. I get sharp with people I love. I say things I regret. I lose a little of my patience and my warmth, and I create more pain than I need to.
That's why I made this week's episode and meditation. Not to convince you that meditation is wonderful. It often isn't. But to convince you that it's worth it anyway. Five minutes. A chair. A breath. The peace that is already here.
You don't have to enjoy it. You just have to keep coming back.
Be gentle with yourself this week.
The peace you're looking for isn't somewhere else. It was here all along. You just have to notice.
Much love, Steven
Thank you to everyone who supported me with a coffee recently: Sin, Margaret, Annie, Melike, Helen, Laura, Adam, Dominique, and a special welcome to Linda who has just joined as a new monthly supporter. It means more than you know. And there are a few others, those who are anonymous and those on Insight Timer.
If you would like to support, listen to the podcast, or just say hello: stevenwebb.uk