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Today, we dive into a big question: what's holding us back? I’ve been on a journey where I realized that my attachment to outcomes was stopping me from writing my book and sharing my thoughts. It’s wild, but when I stopped worrying about how things should turn out and just focused on being present, everything started to shift. Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, and I’ve finally found some missing pieces. It’s all about letting go of the need for perfection and simply sharing my story, no matter how it unfolds.

If you want genuine freedom, and not just nice inner peace then you cannot settle for hugging your demons or your Dragons. You have to do something deeper something that takes courage and insight.

Takeaways:

• Sometimes, breakthroughs happen when we stop worrying about outcomes and just be ourselves.
• Letting go of how we think life should be can lead to amazing discoveries about ourselves.
• Hugging our troubles and making peace with our demons can bring us true freedom.
• Completing our own personal jigsaw puzzle requires us to accept life as it comes.
• Writing our own stories without the pressure of perfection can lead to genuine expression.
• We need to stop micromanaging our lives and trust the universe to guide us.

In a deeply personal and reflective podcast episode, the speaker shares profound insights about the journey of self-discovery and acceptance. They liken life to a jigsaw puzzle, where despite having most pieces in place, a lingering feeling of incompleteness persists. This episode focuses on the idea that often, what holds us back from achieving our goals—like writing a book or producing successful content—is our attachment to specific outcomes. The speaker emphasizes that true peace is found when we release this attachment and allow ourselves to create without the burden of expectation.

Throughout the episode, the speaker recounts their struggles with past traumas and the process of embracing their vulnerabilities. The global pandemic catalyzed a change in their approach to sharing their experiences, leading to daily live sessions that prioritized authenticity over viewer counts. This shift marks a significant turning point, highlighting the importance of showing up for oneself and others without the pressure of performance. Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their fears and consider the ways in which they might be avoiding important aspects of their lives.

The podcast culminates in a powerful message about the value of confronting and befriending our inner demons. The speaker articulates that true freedom comes from making peace with our struggles rather than battling them. This shift in perspective allows for a deeper understanding of oneself and a richer appreciation of life’s complexities. By the end, the episode serves as an empowering call to action for listeners to embrace their own stories, letting go of preconceived notions of success and finding beauty in the imperfect journey of life.

You know, some days you just.

Something happens, something breaks, and, you know, you've made a major breakthrough and it changes everything.

And today feels like one of those days.

It feels like my whole life I've been building a jigsaw puzzle and there's just a couple of bits missing.

And for a long time, I've been doing all right.

I found my peace, I found my quietness.

I've battled my demons, I've slayed my dragons, to use the metaphors.

And pretty much the jigsaw puzzle was looking good, but there was just something missing.

And that something was stopping me writing my book or completing my book.

It stops me putting out podcasts when I record them and then delete them.

And with going live every day at 2pm and just allowing me to be me without any outcome, when this COVID 19 Coronavirus arrived, I decided I would just go live every day at 2pm and I would do a meditation and I would help people at home, and I would do it with no agenda, no thinking how many viewers I wanted, no thought to how it would turn out.

And I'm still there now.

I'm not worried.

I'm not worried who turns up, how many turn up, what is important, I turn up.

So I'm no longer thinking about the outcome, and it just feels right.

And this is what was stopping me writing or finishing my book.

I'm so attached to the outcome of it, so attached to the outcome of the success of the podcast, the success of the meditation, the success of the blog post.

And I wanted everybody else to have peace.

And if they don't have peace, then I feel as if I haven't done my job.

But I spoke to Doshin today, one of my teachers, and I said to him, I'm stuck between wanting to write a world famous, brilliant book that's going to help loads of people.

Nothing wrong with that.

Very noble.

Understandable.

What?

What?

Little me doesn't.

You know what?

Little me doesn't want to have a famous book, make a difference, leave a legacy.

And then the other side of me knows that, or the other side is that it's not really that important in the scheme of things in the universe.

So therefore, I was like, paralyzed in the middle.

And I said to him, I found peace.

I've hugged my dragon.

I no longer have the demons that keep me awake at night.

I can deal with being paralyzed.

I can deal with being dysreflexic and pain.

I can deal with the heartbreak and whatever life throws my way.

I can deal with those Things, but I was still avoiding something and I was avoiding not being successful.

The failure of success, not in the way of money, but it is about that legacy.

And he said, we spoke and we've done some shadow work and my highest recommendations, I will give you his website, just brilliant genius.

And we've done some work.

And he said to me at the end, he said, you know, it's noble to.

These weren't his words exactly.

This is what I heard.

You know, it's noble and it's great to hug your dragons, hug your demons, you know, that's the hero's journey, that's brilliant, but it's riding them and that's what you got to do next and not worry about the outcome.

And I emailed him about an hour ago and just said, and this is the line that really sticks with me.

It's a line that I've done.

Not what he said, but it's what I've done.

And it's to give it a metaphor because I like metaphors.

I, I like to link an image to something.

It makes more sense to me.

Words and language make very little sense to me.

I, I don't get it a lot of the time.

And I said, you know, hugging your dragon will give you peace.

Taming and riding your dragon will give you freedom.

And just that alone today is just like, whoa, what a weight lifted.

And, you know, I just, I'm going to write my book, I'm going to tell you my story and that's what it's going to be.

I don't have to write the next self help Zenbook, I'm just going to write my story.

And if that resonates with people, brilliant.

If it doesn't, it doesn't.

So, yeah, what's holding you back?

What is it that you're fearing that you won't do, just in case?

And I can't remember who said the quote, but you know, they say, well, what happens if I fall?

Yeah, what happens if you fly?

The thing is, we're so frightened of putting ourselves out there doing something because we have in our head this image of how it's supposed to be.

We have this image in our head of how life is supposed to be.

And for some reason in this lockdown and in this time and especially the last 24 hours, there's been so many pointers towards this one thing.

And this one thing is I've got to let go of how I think it should be.

I think I'm someone that's done a lot of work in my life, you know, I've been cheating on.

I've been heartbroken.

I've sat on the steps in town on a Saturday afternoon and bawled my eyes out with a broken heart.

I've sat in a supermarket doorway with a broken wheelchair and credit cards up to the hole and had to call a friend because my chair broke down.

You know, I have been absolutely rock bottom.

I've been bankrupt.

I've.

I've attempted suicide.

I wrote the note and I left home to do it.

You know, I've battled the demons and I've won temporarily.

They're still there.

I hug them now.

I don't battle them anymore.

They're my friends.

They keep me company.

They keep me company.

Who would I be without them?

I wouldn't be the courage and strength I am today without them.

I've been paralyzed from just below my neck since 18.

And it wasn't rosy before that.

In my life, you know, that year that I ended up paralyzed, I also ended up taking a drug overdose.

It was a long year.

I ended the year September 1st with diving into a swimming pool, breaking my neck, and ended up paralyzed with very little arm movement and no finger or hand movement.

I'm still in an electric wheelchair today because of that.

So everything that's gone on since then has been with that as well.

I've also had a really amazing life.

I have partners.

I got my stepdaughter.

I've got so much in life.

I've got friends.

I got the most incredible friends and group of people around me.

I go out for a walk and I look out the window and I see the world for all the magic and glory it is.

You know, just looking up to a star, a photon lands in the back of your eye, and it's been traveling through the universe longer than this planet has been here.

And that photon dies at the back of my eye.

For me to be able to see that star, if that's not magic, if that's not a miracle, what is?

Of all the animals and species that have been on the earth, there's only 2% that are surviving today.

Out of all the species that have ever been and all of those, the only one that has genuine awareness and consciousness is us.

And if we don't go out and smell the flowers, see the beauty in the light, the trees, nature, the animals, it's only us that hears the birds singing and find comfort in it.

If that's not winning the most extreme, amazing lottery of all, you tell me what is.

Yes, life's not Perfect.

Yes, we suffer, but without the suffering, how are you going to see the amazing things?

I don't think I would see the world the way I do without my struggles.

I would still be wandering around complaining about the day in and day out chores of life.

So you want to know how you find real, genuine inner peace?

You hug your troubles.

You make friends with the demons inside.

And you got to remember, the battle is only with you.

It's not with anybody else.

Darth Vader, look, when he took the mask off, it was Luke looking at himself.

I think I've got that right.

But you know what I mean.

We are only ever in a battle with our past, a battle with our future.

And this was the battle I was in with my book.

I was battling something that hasn't happened yet because I wanted it a certain way, and it wasn't going that way in my mind.

So therefore, I was avoiding doing it.

Okay, this podcast has been all about me, and I don't know if I'll release it or not.

If you're listening to this, I have released it, so I hope I do.

Joseph Campbell once said, we must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Boom.

Just that there.

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Isn't that true about my book?

If I don't let go of what it should be, it'll never come out.

It will never be finished.

I've just got to write my story and allow it to be what it's going to be.

So take some time out this evening or today and ask yourself, what are you avoiding?

How much of your jigsaw puzzle is complete and are you still looking for the final pieces?

Well, I feel I found the final pieces.

I just now need to learn how to place them.

It's not the jigsaw that you're given that you can choose.

You don't choose the picture, but it's yours to complete.

And I think that's what gives life meaning for an individual.

It's becoming complete, becoming whole.

And in order to do that, we need to let go of what we think life should be like.

Nothing wrong with desiring, nothing wrong with wanting.

But get rid of the attachment to how that should be delivered.

Take a chance.

Let the universe do its job.

We're here, right?

You're listening to this.

The universe is doing okay.

We need to stop micromanaging it and allow the big mind the universe, the collective.

Well, I don't know.

I haven't got the words for it, and that's okay.

I'm Stephen Webb, and I'm your host of Stillness in the Storms podcast.

And this podcast might be a little bit different, but I hope you take something from it.

I hope you find some words of wisdom, and if you could give me a review, or if you would like to become a patron and support what I do, that'd be amazing.

StephenWeb.com spelled with a V. What was the website?

StephenWeb.com thank you.

Take care.

I love you.

Thank you for the time you spent with me on this podcast.

Sat.