It’s been a busy week. I’ve had a bit of a cold, and I just haven’t got around to recording the new talk. It’ll be out next weekend.
There’s a certain moment when you realise you don’t have to fight this. Whether it’s a struggle going on inside you, or just a thought.
Years ago I saw a meme on Facebook: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” It’s a bit like that. (It’s Polish, apparently. Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy.)
Or it’s like that moment on a roller coaster when you realise you didn’t die. That’s the buzz every adrenaline junkie is after.
There’s a spiritual version of it too. It’s the moment you realise you don’t have to fight. You don’t have to fight your thoughts. You don’t have to fight some battle going on the other side of the world. You don’t even have to fight your body, or your breath.
This moment is as peaceful as it gets, if you just stop fighting it.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about awe. This feels close to that. It sits somewhere between serenity and acceptance, so I’m going to coin a word for it. Serenence.
I looked it up, and as far as I can tell nobody’s used it before. Buddhism doesn’t have serenence, but it has something close. Upekkhā, an old Pali word we usually translate as equanimity. Its root meaning is “looking on”. You see the thing clearly. You just don’t pick a fight with it.
It’s that moment of, “Ah. I don’t have to do this.”
You don’t have to fight your anxiety. You don’t have to fight your four year old. You don’t have to fight your ambitious self. You don’t have to keep fighting the words a parent said thirty years ago, the ones that weren’t very kind.
You just lay down arms.
Jun Po, one of my teachers, had a simple way of showing this. Hold your fist really tight. What does that feel like? Now just let it go. Open it up.
The struggle is still there. You’re just no longer fighting it. And in that moment, you have space.
It’s like that moment when you let your shoulders drop. So much of the body is braced for a fight nowadays. It’s ready for combat from the moment you wake up.
Try it now, if you like. Squeeze a fist as tight as you can and hold it for a breath. Then let your fingers open. Or just picture it. Then let your shoulders drop, and notice what changes.
I want to do a whole podcast on this. For now, the word this week is serenence. Have you ever had that feeling, the moment you stopped fighting? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
Much love, Steven
P.S. For you all: I’ve updated my free book, How to find your Inner Peace. The 2026 edition has a new look and the same five practices. Download it here. There’s something new too. The five practices are now online, a page for each one, with a short video, the practice to try and a meditation. They’re at stevenwebb.com/practices, and the password is stillness.
Inner Peace Meditations 117, Mind Full, Hands Full: A Meditation for Overwhelm. New this week. For when your mind is completely full and both hands are already carrying too much. We walk out to a wide clearing, put things down and let the ground carry them for a while. About 12 minutes, with music underneath. Listen here or on Apple Podcasts.
Stillness in the Storms 159, When Letting Go Feels Impossible, Try This Instead. From March. Why being told to “let go” can make things worse, the day I finally gave in and tried an electric wheelchair, and a tiny practice that sits right beside this letter: open your hands, palms up, and say, this is here, I’m not going to fight it today. Listen here or on Apple Podcasts.
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