Steven Webb
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What Your Anger Is Really Saying

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

My teacher Junpo once said a line I have never been able to put down. I have never known an angry person who did not care. Sit with that for a second. Every time you have lost your temper, underneath it was something you cared about.

This one is for the person who snaps at the people they love, then sits in the guilt an hour later. Steven starts with a simple picture. Anger is a hammer. In the right hands it builds, in the wrong hands it breaks, and the answer is never to throw the hammer away. Without anger nothing would ever change. You would not be whole without it.

The trouble starts young. Don’t make a fuss. Calm down. So we learn to sit on it, and what we sit on leaks out sideways, a sharp word, a slammed door, a silence that strips paint. Steven calls anger the bodyguard. It is almost always the second feeling, stood in front of something softer, a hurt, a fear, a sense of not being heard. Drawing on Mondo Zen, the teaching of Junpo’s lineage, he names what tends to sit underneath. Fear, sadness, and a deep caring.

Then the line that stops you short. No one can make you angry. The reaction is yours. He is honest that even he argues with that one, and uses a real disagreement with his parents the night before to show how little space there can be between the spark and the fire. That space is the whole thing, and it is what meditation quietly widens.

There is a question that takes the heat out of almost any row, for the other person and for yourself. I can see you care. Tell me why it matters. You walk round the bodyguard and speak straight to what it is guarding. Steven takes it all the way into politics, sitting down for a cup of tea with people he disagrees with, and finding the caring underneath every single time.

He closes on another of Junpo’s lines. Your angst is your liberation. The tight, angry knot is exactly where the freedom is. So next time the heat rises, before you do anything with it, ask one quiet question. Not who is to blame. Just, what am I really trying to protect.

Why listen

  • See your anger as honest information and a guard over something softer, not a flaw to be ashamed of
  • Learn a simple question that defuses an argument, at home or with someone you cannot agree with
  • Understand why you snap fastest at the people closest to you, and how to find the gap before you react
  • A kinder way to hold your own temper, drawn from Steven’s teacher Junpo and the Mondo Zen tradition

Quotes

“I have never known an angry person who did not care.” (Junpo)

“It is not the hammer’s fault. You need that tool in your toolbox.”

“Anger is always the second feeling. There is always something softer underneath.”

“No one can ever really make you angry. The reaction is yours.”

“I can see you care. Tell me why it matters so much to you.”

“You cannot meet anger with anger and expect everything to be okay.”

“Your angst is your liberation.” (Junpo)

“Be kind to your anger. Don’t throw it out.”

Companion meditation

A short meditation goes with this episode, over on Inner Peace Meditations. A few minutes of practising exactly this, finding the gap and meeting the heat before it runs the show. Sit with it once or twice this week. It will do more than any amount of talking about it.

With gratitude to

Alyce, Kim up in the Yukon, Mayer, Ken, Linda and Michael for keeping the show advert free this time, along with a few kind souls who chose to stay nameless, including one wonderfully generous gift. To the regulars who keep it going month after month, Audra, Laura, Laurie and Stuart, and so many more of you. And a warm welcome to Sue, Jude, Jenna, Mia and Rita, who started supporting this month.

Morning: A lighter start to the day

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

A Lighter Start to the Day

Meditation teacher Steven Webb guides a gentle eight minute meditation to ease you into the morning. It is for anyone who wakes already braced for the day, and it helps you begin a little softer, one breath and one moment at a time.

Who this meditation is for

  • You wake with the day already feeling heavy before it has begun
  • Your shoulders are up and your jaw is tight before your feet touch the floor
  • You reach for the whole to-do list the moment you open your eyes
  • You want a calmer, kinder start before the rush takes over

Key benefits

  • A softer, slower way into the day
  • Less bracing in the body, looser shoulders and a softer face
  • A reminder that the day comes one moment at a time, not all at once
  • Three small morning intentions to carry with you

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

A Meditation to Quiet an Overthinking Mind

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

Meditation teacher Steven Webb guides you to a quiet railway station where each passing train is simply a thought. Instead of climbing aboard every worry and to do, you learn to stay on the bench and watch them come and go. It is a gentle way to step back from a busy mind and rest in the stillness underneath.

Who this meditation is for:

  • The person lying awake while their mind runs through tomorrow
  • Anyone caught in a loop of worry they cannot seem to put down
  • The overthinker who treats every thought as something to act on
  • Someone who wants a short, kind way back to calm in the middle of a noisy day
  • Anyone curious about what it feels like to watch their thoughts rather than be pulled by them

Key benefits:

  • A simple image you can return to any time the mind speeds up
  • Relief from the pull to follow every anxious thought
  • A felt sense of the quiet that sits between the thoughts
  • A way to meet a busy mind with kindness instead of a fight
  • A few minutes of genuine rest without needing to fix anything

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

The Mind That Will Not Be Quiet

You have somewhere between thirty and forty thoughts a minute, and you never asked for a single one of them. So why do we lie there at three in the morning treating our own mind like it has done something wrong?

This one is for the overthinker, the one who cannot find the off switch. The shift that changes everything is small and easy to miss. You are not the thought, you are the one who hears it. There is the thought, and there is the one who notices the thought, and they are not the same.

Steven uses the image of a quiet railway station. Every thought is a train pulling in. Some are loud, some are quiet, some you have ridden a hundred times out of habit. The bit we forget is that you do not have to get on. You can stay on the bench and watch it roll out again.

He also names the trap the spiritual crowd fall into. Watching your thoughts is not going cold, and it is not pretending nothing touches you. The one who watches still feels it. You can notice the storm and still be stood out in the weather getting soaked.

At the heart of it is the gap. The tiny space between a thought arriving and you reacting to it. That gap is where your whole life actually happens, and widening it is what meditation is really for.

So tonight, when the first train pulls in, try one sentence. Ah, there is a thought. That is it. You are already back on the bench.

Companion meditation

A short meditation goes with this episode, over on Inner Peace Meditations. Sit with it once or twice this week. It will do more than any amount of talking about it.

Become the Watcher: A Meditation to Quiet an Overthinking Mind https://innerpeacemeditations.com/episode/become-the-watcher-a-meditation-to-quiet-an-overthinking-mind

Links

Reach Steven, the newsletter and everything else: stevenwebb.uk Inner Peace Meditations: innerpeacemeditations.com Leave a review on Apple or Spotify. It helps more people find a bit of calm in a hard week. Keep the podcast advert free: buymeacoffee.com/stevenwebb

With gratitude to

Addie, Darren, Alice, Caroline and My Herb for keeping the show advert free this week, and to Sin, Annie, Laura, Adam, Dominique and Senga. A special thank you to Stuart, who hits two years as a monthly supporter this month. That is not a small thing.

Giving Space: Love Without Taking Over

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

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is stay close without stepping in too quickly.

This week I want to talk about one of the hardest forms of love: giving someone space. Not walking away. Not going cold. Not pretending we do not care. But staying close without taking over.

It came up for me while talking with my daughter, noticing how quickly I wanted to jump in with answers, advice, solutions and opinions. And I could see the same thing in myself, in council meetings, in family conversations, and even in the way I meet my own thoughts and feelings. Something arises and I want to fix it before I have really heard it.

But space is not neglect. Real space says: I am here. I trust you. Take your time.

In this episode, I explore why the instinct to help is not wrong, but why fixing too quickly can sometimes be about easing our own discomfort. We look at the small pause after a feeling appears, the gap between notes in music, the three seconds before we answer, and the strange wisdom that often appears when we stop crowding the moment.

Key topics:

  • Why giving space is not the same as walking away
  • The urge to fix the people we love, especially our children
  • How a few seconds of pause can let wisdom appear
  • Thoughts, feelings and body sensations that do not need an instant story
  • The gap between the notes, and why space gives life meaning
  • Council meetings, family tables, and the need to prove we know something
  • Asking whether we are helping or reducing our own discomfort
  • The three second rule for conversations, emotions and difficult moments

Companion meditation: IPM 105, Giving Space. A gentle Zen influenced meditation using the image of a closed shed and an open field to feel the difference between being crowded by what arises and giving it room to be seen clearly.

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

With thanks this week to: Cheryl, Nitya, Yvonne, Eleanor and Ryan, Karen, Lani, Jess and Stuart.

And thank you to the kind anonymous souls and everyone who supports the work quietly in the background. You keep this podcast advert-free. Thank you.

Create Space Around Your Thoughts

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

This is a gentle Zen influenced meditation on giving space to thoughts, feelings and body sensations.

Steven Webb guides you through the image of a closed shed and then an open field, so you can feel the difference between being crowded by what arises and giving it enough room to be seen clearly.

We begin by arriving just as we are. No forcing calm. No pushing thoughts away. No trying to fix every feeling that appears. A thought may appear, a feeling may appear, a pain may appear, or a worry may appear. The practice is to notice it without immediately following it, arguing with it, explaining it, or turning it into a problem.

Inside the closed shed, a thought or feeling can feel loud, close and urgent. It can seem as if it fills the whole space. Then the door opens. Light comes in. You step into a wider field with sky, air and room in every direction. The same thought may still be there, but now there is space around it. It is no longer the whole truth. It is something passing through.

This meditation is for anyone who feels crowded by their own thoughts, emotions, body sensations, worries or stories. It is also a companion practice for the Stillness in the Storms episode on giving space as a form of love.

Space does not mean distance from life. Space means just enough room to see clearly.

Who this meditation is for:

  • Anyone whose thoughts feel loud or crowded
  • People who want to stop fixing every feeling as soon as it appears
  • Listeners who find Zen helpful when it stays practical and grounded
  • Anyone learning to pause before reacting
  • People who need a little more room around worry, pain or emotion

What it may help with:

  • Creating a gap between awareness and reaction
  • Seeing thoughts and feelings more clearly
  • Softening the urge to fix everything immediately
  • Practising spaciousness through guided imagery
  • Returning to the body with more kindness and less pressure

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

For The One Who Carries Others

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

The carer. The parent. The partner. The friend who always answers the phone. The one who keeps going because other people need them to.

This meditation is for that person.

In this gentle loving kindness practice, Steven Webb guides you to set down the weight of carrying others, just for a few minutes. Not forever. Not because you no longer care. But because the one who holds everyone else also needs to be held.

Using three simple phrases, may I be held, may I be soft, may I rest, this meditation helps you turn kindness back towards yourself before offering it to someone you care for, and then to all those quietly carrying others.

This is not about pretending the responsibility has gone. It is about softening your grip around it, giving your body a little room, and remembering that love is wider than the weight.

If you are emotionally tired, caring for someone, or simply used to being the strong one, this meditation is for you.

The First 30 Seconds: Why Every Feeling Is a Gift

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

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.

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

With thanks this week to:

A warm welcome to Susan, a brand new monthly supporter.

And a special word for Stuart, who reached two years as a monthly supporter this week. That is not a small thing.

To everyone who supported the show across these past two weeks: Addie, Amy, Barbara, Michael, Karen, Laura, David, Jenna and Mia, and Johnny.

And the kind anonymous souls and everyone on Insight Timer. You keep this podcast advert-free. Thank you.

Evening Meditation: Letting the Day Settle Down

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

Meditation teacher Steven Webb offers a short evening practice for the moment when work is done but the day has not quite left the body. Around six minutes of quiet noticing for anyone coming home with the day still held in jaw, shoulders, and breath. Gentle, undemanding, and suitable for any seat, sofa, or floor.

Who this meditation is for

  • The commuter who has walked through the front door and still cannot feel home
  • The parent who has finished the day’s tasks and is still carrying the day’s noise
  • The remote worker who closed the laptop an hour ago and is still pacing the kitchen
  • Anyone whose shoulders are up by their ears at eight in the evening
  • The one who knows the day is over but cannot quite put it down

Key benefits

  • Releases the day’s residue from jaw, shoulders, and the small space behind the eyes
  • Marks a clear threshold between the working self and the rest of the evening
  • Settles the body without asking for any particular outcome
  • Three quiet wishes to let what was done, what came, and what is unfinished rest
  • Short enough to do before dinner, long enough to make a difference

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

Waking Up to Body Betrayal: How to Find Peace in the Pain

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

Waking Up to Body Betrayal: How to Find Peace in the Pain

Your body isn’t letting you down. It’s been carrying you all along.

Do you ever wake up and just know it’s going to hurt the second you move? I do. Most mornings. This week I want to talk about what to do with a body that feels like it’s letting you down, betraying you, or just isn’t what it used to be. About the soldiers inside you that have been quietly repairing you all night and why they get tired. About the difference between pain (the fact) and suffering (the story you add on top). And about an ancient violin, which turned out to be the image I needed for the body I’ve been carrying for thirty years.

We are in a partnership with this body. It is not the enemy. It is the only one we get.

Key topics:

  • The morning moment when the body hurts before you’ve even moved
  • The soldiers inside you who repair you every night, and why they get tired as we age
  • Why we treat the body as the enemy when really we are this body
  • The “where are you, really?” tennis-ball thought experiment
  • The difference between pain (the fact) and suffering (the story we add)
  • Treating your body like an ancient violin: more careful, more respectful, a different tune

Companion meditation: A Morning Meditation for the Body You Wake Into – a gentle, lying-down practice for that moment before the day begins. Find it on Inner Peace Meditations.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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

With thanks this week to (this is actually three weeks worth):

New monthly supporter: Sin.

Monthly supporters whose contributions came in this cycle: Ellen, Dominique, Adam, Annie, Joe, Sujata, Senga, Jack, Glenn, Denise, Laurie, Audra, Rosie, Laura, Kasia, Megan, Alison, Mallory, Elizabeth, Stefan, Barb, Cheryl, Katarzyna, Jill, Tracey, Hannah, Emmanuelle, Rita, Julie, Daniel, María.

And the kind anonymous souls and everyone on Insight Timer. You keep this podcast advert-free. Thank you.