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The Dignity of Being Tired: Give Yourself a Break

Links to Steven Webb’s podcast and how you can support his work.

The Dignity of Being Tired: Give Yourself a Break

What if tiredness isn’t weakness? What if it’s the most honest thing your body is telling you?

In this episode, we talk about why we treat exhaustion like a personal failure instead of listening to what it’s actually telling us. I share what it was like being Mayor of Truro, running on empty, showing up to every event because stopping felt like letting people down. We explore why busyness has become a badge of honour, why animals rest without guilt and we can’t, and what actually happens in your brain when you don’t get proper rest. This isn’t about life hacks. It’s about giving yourself permission to stop before you have nothing left.

Key topics:

  • Why tiredness is not a weakness but honest information from your body
  • The culture of celebrating exhaustion as proof of commitment
  • What happens in your brain during deep sleep and why rest matters
  • Thich Nhat Hanh on how animals rest and heal without guilt
  • Practical permission to disconnect and stop being on call

Companion meditation: Inner Peace Meditations #98 — Permission to Rest

If this episode meant something to you, please share it, leave a review, or treat me to a coffee: stevenwebb.uk

With thanks to: Senga, Sujata, Jack, Denise, Glenn, Aileen, Joe, Laurie, Barb, Audra, Bronwyn, and Emily.

Permission to Rest: A meditation for time out

Stevens new course: Finding Peace in Everyday Life (you choose how much to pay)

Title: Permission to Rest — with meditation teacher Steven Webb

Description: A guided meditation for when you’re running on empty and stopping feels like giving up. Meditation teacher Steven Webb leads you through a gentle body scan and a peaceful forest visualisation to help you truly rest without guilt.

Who this meditation is for:

  • You’re exhausted but it’s not about sleep
  • You’ve been pushing through for too long and can’t switch off
  • You feel guilty about stopping or taking time for yourself
  • You’re overwhelmed and your mind won’t stop making lists
  • You need permission to just do nothing for a while

What you’ll experience:

  • A gentle body scan to release tension you didn’t know you were holding
  • A calming forest visualisation where nothing is needed from you
  • Permission to stop without guilt or judgement
  • A loving kindness moment with hand on heart
  • A soft return that leaves you feeling lighter and kinder to yourself

Companion episode: Stillness in the Storms EP163 — The Dignity of Being Tired

If you’d like to contact Steven or support his work, go to https://stevenwebb.uk

What Rises When You Stop Pushing

Links to Steven Webb’s podcast and how you can support his work.

What Rises When You Stop Pushing

An Easter Sunday conversation about what comes back to us when we finally stop forcing. Steven opens with daffodils appearing on Cornish roadsides and moves into a wide-ranging reflection on renewal — drawing on Alan Watts, Shunryu Suzuki, and Junpo Denis Kelly to explore why the things we thought we’d lost often return on their own. This one speaks directly to anyone at a low point.

All episodes of Stillness in the Storms are brought to you without adverts by the generous donations of listeners treating Steven to a coffee.

DETAILS

Level: All levels Type: Conversational podcast episode Duration: ~20:00 Companion meditation: Inner Peace Meditations EP97 — “Find the Green Shoot“

IN THIS EPISODE

  • Daffodils on roadsides and what spring actually looks like before it looks like spring
  • Alan Watts on waves and rhythm — the wave rises, crests, and falls, but the ocean never runs out of waves
  • Junpo Denis Kelly on what arises first: caring. Anger comes from caring.
  • Shunryu Suzuki and beginner’s mind — meeting the season as though you’ve never seen one before
  • A reference to Tony Hoagland’s poem “The Color of the Sky” and the line about the end turning out to be the middle
  • Steven’s own recent hospital stay and what it clarified about renewal
  • A direct word to anyone feeling behind or broken: you’re neither

WHO IS THIS FOR?

  • You’re going through a difficult period and need to hear that it doesn’t last forever — without being told to think positive
  • You’re curious about Alan Watts, Zen philosophy, or contemplative ideas but want them grounded in real life, not theory
  • You’ve been forcing yourself to recover, improve, or move on and it’s not working
  • You want a thoughtful Easter listen that goes deeper than chocolate eggs
  • You enjoy Steven’s conversational style and want something reflective to sit with over a cup of tea

WHAT YOU’LL TAKE AWAY

  • A different way to think about low points — not as failure but as the turning point of a wave
  • Permission to stop forcing renewal and trust that some things return on their own
  • A felt sense of being spoken to honestly by someone who has been there
  • Fresh ways into Watts, Suzuki, and Kelly that connect to everyday experience
  • The companion meditation (IPM EP97) as a practice to carry the themes further

ABOUT STEVEN WEBB

Steven Webb is a meditation teacher, podcaster, politician, and the host of Inner Peace Meditations. A former mayor of Truro in the county of Cornwall, Steven continues to split his time between politics and the contemplative work he is best known for. After a life-changing accident left him paralysed from the chest down, he found his way to inner peace through mindfulness, Zen philosophy, and the teachings of Alan Watts and Shunryu Suzuki. He now helps others find calm and resilience — especially those who find meditation difficult. Steven lives in Cornwall, England and shares his work at stevenwebb.com. You can also find his podcast on politics and public life, Stillness in the Storms, at https://stillnessinthestorms.com/

KEYWORDS

stillness in the storms, renewal, spring, Alan Watts, Shunryu Suzuki, Junpo Denis Kelly, beginner’s mind, Easter, inner peace, low point, waves

Find the Green Shoot: A Meditation for Quiet Renewal

Stevens new course: Finding Peace in Everyday Life (you choose how much to pay)

Find the Green Shoot: A Meditation for Quiet Renewal

A quiet, unhurried meditation for anyone feeling like something in them has been asleep for a while. This practice uses the imagery of spring — a green shoot pressing through dark earth — to gently explore what might be ready to return: energy, curiosity, joy, creativity. No forcing, no fixing. Just noticing what rises when you give it room.

All episodes of Inner Peace Meditations are brought to you without adverts by the generous donations of listeners treating Steven to a coffee.

DETAILS

Level: All levels Practice type: Body scan, Breath awareness, Guided imagery Duration: ~15:00 Companion episode: Stillness in the Storms EP162 — “What Rises When You Stop Pushing“

WHO IS THIS FOR?

  • You feel like you’ve been running on empty and something in you has gone quiet — energy, motivation, curiosity — and you’re not sure how to get it back
  • You’re coming out of a difficult stretch and want a gentle way to reconnect with yourself without pressure
  • You find it hard to meditate when you’re told to “just relax” — you need something more specific and sensory to follow
  • You want a short spring practice that honours where you are right now, not where you think you should be
  • You’ve never meditated before and want somewhere warm and unintimidating to start

BENEFITS

  • A felt sense of settling in your body before anything is asked of you
  • Space to notice what’s been dormant without needing to force it awake
  • A grounding connection to the season — spring as something happening in you, not just around you
  • A gentle return to wakefulness through a slow, guided count-back
  • A reminder that renewal doesn’t require effort — the seed doesn’t need permission to grow

ABOUT STEVEN WEBB

Steven Webb is a meditation teacher, podcaster, politician, and the host of Inner Peace Meditations. A former mayor of Truro in the county of Cornwall, Steven continues to split his time between politics and the contemplative work he is best known for. After a life-changing accident left him paralysed from the chest down, he found his way to inner peace through mindfulness, Zen philosophy, and the teachings of Alan Watts and Shunryu Suzuki. He now helps others find calm and resilience — especially those who find meditation difficult. Steven lives in Cornwall, England and shares his work at stevenwebb.com. You can also find his podcast on politics and public life, Stillness in the Storms, at https://stillnessinthestorms.com/

KEYWORDS

guided meditation, inner peace, spring meditation, renewal, awakening, beginner’s mind, body scan, dormancy, gentle meditation, beginner friendly

Good Morning: Breathing Together Meditation

Stevens new course: Finding Peace in Everyday Life (you choose how much to pay)

Good Morning: Breathing Together | Inner Peace Meditations with Steven Webb

In this week’s guided meditation, meditation teacher Steven Webb invites you to begin your morning with nothing more than your own breath. Starting with a simple body scan and breath awareness, Steven gently widens your attention outward: from your body to the room, from the room to your neighbours, and from your street to the entire breathing world. It’s a quiet, powerful reminder that every breath you take has been shared by other lungs, other leaves, other lives, and that you are never truly breathing alone.

Who this meditation is for:

  • Anyone who wants a grounding way to start the morning
  • People who feel disconnected or isolated and want to remember they belong
  • Listeners looking for a gentle, non religious mindfulness practice
  • Those who find it hard to feel compassion without forcing it

Key benefits:

  • Settle your body and mind before the day begins
  • Build a felt sense of connection to the people and world around you
  • Practise widening your awareness without overwhelm
  • Carry a sense of shared humanity into everyday encounters

If you’d like to contact Steven or support his work, go to https://stevenwebb.uk

Finding Inner Peace: Do You Need to Be a Buddhist?

Links to Steven Webb’s podcast and how you can support his work.

 

Finding Inner Peace: Do You Need to Be a Buddhist?

Host: Steven Webb Website: stevenwebb.uk

Have you ever caught yourself collecting meditation apps, lining up Buddhist statues on a shelf, and wondering if you’re doing peace wrong? In this honest Sunday morning episode — recorded while recovering from an operation and still on painkillers — Steven asks a question that quietly nags at a lot of seekers: do you actually need to call yourself a Buddhist to find inner peace?

Steven traces his own path from collecting the accessories of Buddhism to hitting rock bottom at forty, when inner peace stopped being a nice idea and became something he genuinely needed. What he found was that suffering doesn’t come from life itself — it comes from our relationship to it. The clinging. The resistance. The stories we tell ourselves about what should be happening instead of what is.

Drawing on Alan Watts’s famous reminder that “the menu is not the meal,” Steven makes a gentle but clear distinction: the label, the tradition, the institution — that’s the menu. The direct experience of stillness, right where you are — that’s the meal. He also explores Jun Po Denis Kelly’s Mondo Zen approach, where awakening isn’t reserved for monasteries but happens in ordinary, messy, everyday life.

Along the way, Steven touches on the different branches of Buddhism — Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan, Zen — and points out that the core practices of meditation, mindful awareness, and compassion don’t ask you to believe in anything at all. He shares one of his favourite insights: that every one of us interprets reality differently through our own senses and brain — and understanding that simple fact is where real compassion begins.

Steven’s conclusion? He’s not a Buddhist. Not really a Christian either. But the teachings of compassion, understanding, and love that run through all traditions? Those he agrees with completely. And the world, he says, could use a lot more of all three.

Key Takeaways

  • Suffering comes from our relationship to life, not from life itself. It’s the clinging and the resistance that create the pain, not the circumstances.
  • The menu is not the meal. Labels, traditions, and institutions point toward inner peace — but they aren’t the experience itself. Direct stillness is.
  • You don’t need to be a Buddhist to practise Buddhism’s core teachings. Meditation, mindful awareness, and compassion require no belief system.
  • Awakening happens in ordinary life. Jun Po Denis Kelly’s Mondo Zen reminds us that you don’t need a monastery — you need honesty and presence, right where you are.
  • We all experience reality differently. Understanding that each person’s brain interprets the world in its own way is the beginning of genuine compassion.
  • Enlightenment isn’t a permanent state. There are more enlightened moments and less enlightened moments — and that’s perfectly fine.
  • Compassion is the common ground. Across every tradition, the call is the same: more understanding, more love, more kindness.

Thank You to Our Supporters

New monthly supporters: Stephen, Kaylin, Allison

One-time supporters: Femke, Hannah, Andrew, Tracy, Helen, Tiffany Lynn, Gem, Ulysses, Anonymous, Suta, Jess, Leigh, Gerit, Cheryl, Krysia

Your generosity keeps this podcast going — thank you.

Stay curious, and I love you.

Steven

Awakening the Child Within: A Window of Wonder

Stevens new course: Finding Peace in Everyday Life (you choose how much to pay)

Title: Awakening the Child Within: A Meditation on Pure Seeing with Meditation Teacher Steven Webb

Description: Meditation teacher Steven Webb guides you through a gentle visualisation practice that reconnects you with the wide eyed wonder you had as a very young child. Inspired by Rumi’s timeless words “sell your cleverness, buy bewilderment,” this meditation invites you to stand before an imaginary window of wonder and rediscover the extraordinary mystery hidden inside everyday life. It is a companion to the Stillness in the Storms episode exploring the question “Is this all there is?”

Who this meditation is for:

  1. Anyone who has felt that quiet inner whisper of “is this all there is?”
  2. Listeners looking to reconnect with childlike curiosity and beginner’s mind
  3. People who feel stuck in overthinking, labelling, or needing to figure everything out
  4. Anyone drawn to contemplative practices inspired by Rumi and Zen wisdom

Key benefits:

  1. Reconnects you with the sense of wonder and awe you had as a child
  2. Eases the pressure of needing to know, understand, or fix everything
  3. Cultivates presence, openness, and beginner’s mind
  4. Offers a fresh perspective on the mystery of simply being alive
  5. Pairs beautifully with the Stillness in the Storms podcast episode for deeper exploration

If you’d like to contact Steven or support his work, go to https://stevenwebb.uk

"Is This All There Is?" Answering the Quiet Question in Your Heart

Links to Steven Webb’s podcast and how you can support his work.

Episode Description

You’ve built a life. You’ve done the things you were supposed to do. But underneath it all, there’s a quiet question that won’t leave you alone: “Is this all there is?” In this episode, Steven Webb shares the deeply personal story of lying in a hospital bed at eighteen, paralysed and unable to speak, wrestling with the two biggest questions of his life. What he discovered is that “is this all there is?” isn’t a sign of ingratitude or crisis. It’s a doorway to something extraordinary: wonder, mystery, and the breathtaking magic of not knowing. Drawing on the wisdom of Rumi, Alan Watts, and Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, Steven explores how we can trade our cleverness for bewilderment and see the world through beginner’s eyes again.

Who Is This Episode For?

This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at their life and felt that quiet ache of “is this it?”, especially when everything looks fine on the outside. If you’re in midlife and questioning what it’s all been for, if you feel guilty for wanting something deeper when you know you should be grateful, or if you’ve simply stopped seeing the magic in everyday moments, Steven Webb recorded this conversation for you.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Steven opens with a vivid image of a butterfly landing in front of you and asks when you last truly saw the world for the first time. He then takes you back to his hospital bed at eighteen, where two questions rattled around in his mind for months: “Who am I?” and “Is this it?” He explores why this question tends to arrive in midlife, when the forward momentum of building a career, a family, and a life finally slows down enough for you to look around and wonder what it was all for. Carl Jung’s idea of the second half of life as a turning inward sits alongside Rumi’s invitation to sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment, Alan Watts’ beautiful image of the unknown becoming a window rather than a blank space, and Shunryu Suzuki’s teaching on beginner’s mind. Steven weaves in a story about a little girl discovering that the world through a caravan window is the same world outside the door, and his own moment watching a wave at the Headland Hotel and realising that exact wave would never happen again. The episode closes with a powerful reframe: the question was never really “is this all there is?” The question was always “am I paying attention?”

Memorable Quotes from This Episode

“That question is not a sign that something’s wrong with you. It might actually be one of the most important questions you’ve ever asked.” — Steven Webb

“You are not ungrateful. You’re not broken. You are not having some kind of crisis.” — Steven Webb

“Not knowing didn’t become a wall. It became a window.” — Steven Webb

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” — Rumi

“In beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in an expert’s mind there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki

“The magic is in not knowing. The magic is in the fact that right now, in this moment, you are a conscious being in an incomprehensibly vast universe, and you have no idea why. And to me, that’s not depressing. That’s breathtaking.” — Steven Webb

“The question was never really, is this all there is? The question was always, am I paying attention?” — Steven Webb

Try This Today

Next time the “is this it?” feeling visits you, don’t push it away. Go outside or look out of a window. Pick one thing: a tree, a cloud, a bird, a wave. And look at it as if you’ve never seen it before. Because in a very real sense, you haven’t. That exact moment, that exact configuration of light and shadow, has never existed before and will never exist again. Let yourself be bewildered by it.

Supporter Thanks

This podcast is completely free and has no adverts or sponsors. It is made possible entirely by the kind people who treat Steven to a coffee. Every contribution pays for the podcast and supports all of Steven’s work.

A huge and heartfelt thank you to this episode’s supporters: Angie, Helen, Suja, Suzanne, Lorna, Liz, Daphne, Sarah, Mikey, Jen, and Venetia. And to the monthly supporters: Joe, Audra, Sin, Jack, Glen, Barb, and Venetia. Thank you also to the wonderful supporters on Insight Timer.

If this episode helped you, please consider buying Steven a coffee. Even one makes a difference.

About Steven Webb

Steven Webb is a meditation teacher, former Mayor of Truro, and C5 tetraplegic. He has spent decades learning what it means to find peace in the most difficult circumstances. Through Stillness in the Storms, he offers honest, warm conversations to help people navigate life’s hardest moments. Through Inner Peace Meditations, he provides guided meditations as companions to each episode.

Find out more and explore all of Steven’s work at stevenwebb.uk

Connect

Website: https://stevenwebb.uk

Listen, subscribe, and leave a review on your favourite podcast app. Sharing this episode with someone who needs to hear it is one of the best ways to support the show.

When Letting Go Feels Impossible, Try This Instead

Title: When Letting Go Feels Impossible, Try This Instead — with meditation teacher Steven Webb

Description: Meditation teacher Steven Webb guides you through a practice that challenges one of the most common pieces of mindfulness advice: “just let go.” Instead of forcing difficult thoughts away, Steven shows you how acceptance creates the space that resistance never can, using a powerful open hand visualisation.

Who this meditation is for:

  1. Anyone who feels frustrated when told to “let go” but can’t seem to do it
  2. People carrying persistent worry, tension or unresolved thoughts
  3. Those new to acceptance based meditation looking for a practical way in
  4. Experienced meditators wanting a fresh perspective on working with difficult emotions

Key benefits:

  1. Learn why forcing yourself to let go often strengthens the very thing you’re resisting
  2. Experience the physical difference between resistance and acceptance in your own body
  3. Discover a simple visualisation you can use anytime stress or tension arises
  4. Build a more compassionate and sustainable relationship with uncomfortable thoughts

If you’d like to contact Steven or support his work, go to https://stevenwebb.uk

When Letting Go Feels Impossible, Try This Instead

Links to Steven Webb’s podcast and how you can support his work.

When Letting Go Feels Impossible, Try This Instead

Stillness in the Storms with Steven Webb

Episode Description

Everyone tells you to “let go.” Let go of control, of worry, of the past. It sounds lovely, but how do you actually do it, especially when it feels like you’re holding everything together? In this episode, Steven shares a deeply personal story about stubbornness, disability, and the moment he discovered that freedom doesn’t come from letting go at all. It comes from acceptance.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Steven opens with the story of his first years after leaving hospital with a spinal cord injury, and the nearly two year battle with his own stubbornness before accepting an electric wheelchair that transformed his life. From there, he explores why the phrase “let go” can actually create more suffering, not less, and offers a powerful alternative: acceptance. The episode includes a simple practice you can try today to step out of the tug of war with whatever you’ve been fighting.

Key Themes

Identity and stubbornness: how pride keeps us stuck

Why “letting go” can become just another thing to fail at

The difference between letting go and acceptance

The quicksand effect: the more you force, the deeper you sink

The butterfly analogy: opening your hand without expectation

How acceptance creates space for life to move

Freedom as a result of acceptance, not force

Memorable Quote

“Freedom is not about letting go. Freedom is about acceptance. When you accept something, truly accept it, you take away its power over you.”

Try This Today

Find a quiet moment. Think about something you’ve been trying to force yourself to let go of. Instead of pushing it away, open your hands, palms up, and say to yourself: “This is here. I’m not going to fight it today.” Notice the gap between struggling and stillness. That’s where peace lives.

Support This Podcast

Stillness in the Storms is completely free with no adverts. It is made possible entirely by the kind people who treat Steven to a coffee. Every contribution helps pay for the podcast and supports all of Steven’s work.

If this episode helped you, please consider buying Steven a coffee. Even one makes a difference.

About Steven Webb

Steven Webb is a meditation teacher, former Mayor of Truro, and C5 tetraplegic. He has spent decades learning what it means to find peace in the most difficult circumstances. Through Stillness in the Storms, he offers honest, warm conversations to help people navigate life’s hardest moments.

Find out more and explore all of Steven’s work at stevenwebb.uk

Connect

Website: https://stevenwebb.uk

Listen, subscribe, and leave a review on your favourite podcast app. Sharing this episode with someone who needs to hear it is one of the best ways to support the show.