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Two words I have said roughly 25,000 times. Most of them on autopilot.

Description

Two words. Probably the most common two words spoken in the English language. Two words I say almost every single morning, and you probably do too. I'm fine. In this episode I work out that I have said it about 25,000 times to my carers over the last 35 years, and almost none of those times did I actually stop and think about it. I want to look at why we say it, what it costs us, and what happens when we don't. There is a Brené Brown quote, an old Zen master story I have always loved, a Thursday afternoon last week where I cried for 20 minutes and then bought a book on Amazon, and a small image about letting go before your hand hurts. You don't have to stop saying I'm fine. You just have to notice when you do.

Key Topics

• 25,000 mornings, two carers, and the most automatic answer in my life
• Why "I'm fine" is armour, and why armour is not always the wrong thing to wear
• The three reasons we wear it (and why "just think positive" is the worst advice in self help)
• The cost of saying it on autopilot, especially to the people who actually want to hear you
• An old Zen story about a master on his deathbed who said the most enlightened thing he could have said
• Brené Brown on numbing emotions, and why you cannot block only the bad weather
• A real Thursday afternoon I sat here and cried for 20 minutes, then immediately bought a book
• The hand metaphor: I let go a little earlier than I used to, before my hand hurts

Companion Meditation

When Anxiety Visits (IPM101). Five minutes. You sit down, you say hello to whatever is actually here, and you ask it why it came. It is the practical opposite of saying "I'm fine." Available on Insight Timer, Aura, and the Inner Peace Meditations podcast.

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

Supporters

Alex, Nina, Zoe, A Ma, Kevin, Katarzyna, Deborah, Christopher, and Ariel for recent coffees and PayPal donations.

Special thanks: MumMik's Cleaning Services for buying a course this week.

You keep this podcast advert free.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Steven Webb.

This is Stillness in the Storms, and this is the podcast that helps you

to find peace in difficult times.

No fluff, no quick fix.

It's just honest down to earthwards from someone who

tries to live every single day.

So today I want to talk about so huge thank you to Alex, Nina, Zoe

A Ma, Kevin, Katarzyna, Deborah, Christopher, Ariel for supporting

me with a coffee or PayPal donation.

Recently, a special thank you goes out to Mum Mix Cleaning Services.

Bought a course this week and yeah, it all helps.

You're amazing.

You keep this podcast completely advert free.

And if you'd like to join them, you can find me at StevenWebb.uk.

So today I want to talk about two words, probably the two most common

words spoken in the English language.

Two words that I say almost every single day, and you probably do too.

I'm fine.

Or maybe I'm good and I want to look at why we say it and what it costs

us and what happens when we don't.

So the core question is what are we actually doing when we say I'm fine?

So for the last 35, 34, 35 years.

I've had two carers come in and get me outta bed now then if I was poorly, they

may have just washed me and sometimes on the, when I was 12 months on the

spinal unit, it may have just been one.

So the amount of times I've said I'm fine or I'm good, or a variation of

it, given there's two of them is, and I did do a quick calculation.

It's probably 25,000 times by the time I've probably said it more

times during the day as well.

When the changeover that is 25,000 little encounters that maybe probably

1% of them I might have said, no, I'm struggling today, or Now I'm

tired, or something different.

But in general, the conversation goes the same way every single morning.

I have five main carers and some of them have been with me 30 years,

and some of them have been with me on and off for 20 years, and others

have been with me for several years.

But what's really interesting as the more time goes on, the more I meditate

and the more I try to take notice, and it only happens about one in 20

times that I actually take notice.

But every single carer and every single encounter, however benign we think it is.

Good morning.

How are you doing?

Yeah, I'm fine.

Whoever initiates that is different with each carer.

It's, some of them don't speak first.

Some of them I've almost always gotta say hi first.

Other ones, they're saying hi on the way in through, and some of

them when I say, how was your day?

They'll pause and think about it.

Others would just go, yeah, it's fine.

Yeah, it's good.

And it's really interesting and it isn't always the same.

Some of them will just stop and think.

Some of them don't even hear you and I can really tell the difference

in whether they're there, whether they're really thinking about it.

Whe whether they're okay.

Even if they say the words, I'm fine or I'm good.

'cause you can just tell when you slow down.

But with that said, most of the time it's still automatic.

Nearly 90, 95% of the time, it's automatic.

I go through town, yeah, I'm fine.

Yeah, I'm good.

And when I encounter people, especially open social times, I'm good.

And sometimes you might carry on the conversation.

So more and more recently I've been thinking about it and.

I think of all the opportunities that are missed that we could

just connect with someone, even an always complete stranger or someone

we haven't seen for a long time.

Where we just stop and go and they go, how you doing?

You go, do you know what?

I'm really struggling.

You don't need to do anything with it.

But I'm really struggling at the moment and it opens the door for

them to go, do you know what?

Me too.

Because I dunno.

Anyone that isn't struggling with something, I dunno.

Anyone that wouldn't like to.

Just share just something they're going through and we wear the, I'm fine or

I'm good, as like armor, it protects us.

It doesn't let anybody in, and it also allows us to show up.

It keeps the day moving.

There's nothing wrong with this armor and sometimes I'm fine is the best

answer because there is conversations I don't wanna have with someone.

And it might be that particular person.

It might be why I'm feeling it could be, and I might even be not feeling good

and I might jazz it up a bit and go, yeah, no, I'm really good at the moment.

Anyway, I'll see you again as I drive off because it is a useful tool.

It's not something we should write, never say I'm fine.

Again, block those words from our vocabulary.

And I think I've heard someone say about that on a podcast at some

point for the next three weeks.

I want you to never say I'm fine.

It's just not practical.

It just doesn't work.

I struggle with advice, things like that, but it's a good tool.

But if we use it wisely, again, it's like I say to everything.

Everything has a healthy and unhealthy version.

If you are on autopilot all the time, and that's your go-to answer

no matter what and with everybody, then it's quite unhealthy.

But if you choose to do that with certain people and you choose to stop

and pause and answer it honestly because.

Sometimes when I ask the carers in the morning, sometimes

I'm not of the mood to care.

I don't care about their answer.

I care if their legs fall in off or something bad happened, but I'm not that

worried if they got into traffic on the way in or they've had a rough weekend.

People look at me as a really caring person.

I'm really not.

I'm working on it, but I'm really not.

So sometimes when I ask the question, how are you doing?

It's quite shallow.

Other times I ask the question after I've meditated and after

I've slowed down a little bit, I go, anyway, how was your weekend?

I genuinely wanna know.

I'm really interested.

And it's not just conversation.

And those times I do hope that they pause and they think about it.

So there's three main reasons we don't want to burden other people

with it, especially when someone who especially cannot fix it.

And especially if we know they're going through problems themselves.

We don't want that person, the one who is always struggling to know,

and we genuinely believe that.

If we say it enough, it'll be true.

We'll believe it.

If we go around, just think positive, be on the positive side of life.

I personally think that's bollocks.

Just think positive is just an absolute worst bit of advice in

spiritual and in self-help and books.

It's terrible.

And I've got several podcasts, what to do.

Changing the way your subconscious mind gives you more positive thoughts

or more thoughts that you genuinely like because it's not the fact that we

don't like our thoughts, it's just the fact that we don't like the thoughts,

we don't like, we don't mind our thoughts when they're nice thoughts.

No one wants to get rid of them unless they're in a bit too

much and it's a bit awkward.

We all know that scenario.

I think there's a cost to, I'm fine and I think it's a heavy cost because

even if someone you're relatively close to and they say, how are you doing?

And listen to how they do it.

If they look up and go, hi, so how are you doing?

That's a genuine question.

If you open the door and go, how are you?

That's not a genuine question.

Not always.

People talk differently.

I'm no expert on how people talk, but you can tell when someone looks at

you and actually stops what they're doing and asks you, how are you?

That's your cue to go.

Do you know what?

Gimme a moment.

Thank you for asking.

This is how I'm feeling.

That is a real connection.

That's a real opportunity.

And the thing is, you can even tell them that you don't

need to do anything with this.

'cause I get the impression that you've got enough on your plate as well.

But thank you so much for listening because we're not listened to.

We want the world to hear us.

We want the whole world to see our suffering.

We want the whole world to see what we're going through.

And I'll be honest, we do.

Let's be honest about this, and we also want the whole world to know

how much of a hero we're being, because I've done this as well.

I spoke about this and I normally get quite a reaction when I say about this, is

we all do believe we're a hero in our own lives, whether we are going through a hard

time, we have that dialogue in our head.

Do you know what I'm doing?

All right?

Despite everything I'm fighting, despite everything, I'm still here.

We have got that hero's journey in our head, and of course we have it.

We have to have it because we wouldn't really function, we wouldn't

really see any point in life.

We would lose all kind of hope if we didn't have that.

Even when we're the most victimized part of our life.

Victimized is that word.

Even at that most time when, and we're all victims at time or our own thinking, we

can still think of ourselves as the hero.

And we tend to tell the story from that perspective.

We don't wanna say it out loud because we think that's arrogance.

We think that's, but it's not.

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance and being honest and being

proud of who you are and what you do.

As always, I'm going off topic,

but when someone does ask you a, just see if that's that little pause.

See if they're taking the question seriously.

And it is just a way of saying, I'm here for you for a moment.

And I don't think enough people are honest.

I don't think people are honest nowadays.

I think we're so full of the chaos of life that we don't want to sit

down or we don't think we have time.

And the cup of tea that we have with a friend, we almost want it to be a

lovely, positive, upbeat conversation.

I'll tell you what, A honest conversation over a cup of tea for 40 minutes

saying, I'm struggling because of this, and the other person says the

same, that's the best conversation you of all day because the old adage was

that problem shares a problem halved.

I don't know.

I dunno quite where that comes from, but it certainly feels better

to have been heard, to be seen.

And I dunno where this fits on the spiritual journey or anything like

that, but there's a twofold to this.

There's the listening.

If you ask a question, pause, look at them, genuinely hear it.

And remember, you don't need to fix it.

You don't need to jump in.

If they've had a bad day, just listen.

And do what my nan does.

Whenever anybody used to come in, moaning to my nan and whatever happened.

I remember going in one day, moaning about a couple of people

and about what they thought of me.

I was like 17 at the time, and my nan just looked up and goes, well, I'm sure

they thought very highly of you as well.

Would you like a cup of tea?

And God, she was like a zen master that was like cut to the bone.

It's like, yeah, they probably thought the same about me actually.

And yeah, a cup of tea.

Fix everything.

More tea in that.

An old English thing.

More tea.

Vicar.

I have no idea what that's about.

Swift.

It's got bad connotations.

I apologize now I have no idea.

I love one.

One of my favorite quotes is by Brene Brown, and if you haven't read her books,

read her books about vulnerability.

They're so easy to read.

Thank you Brene Brown for your vulnerability and your honesty.

She said "we cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the

painful emotions. We also numb the positive emotions." So going

back to that conversation with a friend over a cup of tea.

You have to have both conversations,

and if someone's trying to avoid it, just allow them to avoid it.

If they do say, I'm fine.

And you just say, are you sure, I can listen.

And they go, no, really, I'm fine.

Leave it at that.

Don't push.

And just to drive home the honesty, A great zen master was on his deathbed.

His students gathered around him expecting wisdom.

They expected him to die the way he had lived.

Calmly, peacefully, accepting.

The end is natural.

They had studied with him for decades.

They knew his teachings on impermanence.

They knew his teachings on deaf.

They were waiting for the final lesson.

And the master opened his eyes.

He looked at them and in a small voice, he said, I don't want to die.

Then he died.

The students were shaken.

Some were embarrassed by their teacher.

They had wanted some noble exit.

They felt cheated.

They felt like it would be the ultimate lesson.

But one of them years later understood the master had given them the final teaching.

Even then, the teaching was the truth.

He didn't perform peace.

He didn't dress up his fear in robes.

He told them what was exactly the true at the moment, I don't want to die.

That was the most enlightening thing he could have said.

Because it was honest.

Because it was honest then okay, the astute among you are gonna go.

Yeah, but that's the ego.

Yes it is.

'cause that's what dies.

It's the I that dies.

And he deliberately said, I don't want to die.

And that was the ego being honest.

The ego's not a bad thing.

The ego is what it is.

The ego is your stories.

It's who you are.

It's the roles you play.

It's technically not who you are, but it's who you.

It's what we use to be able to experience life through, no, that's not even

correct, but that's a different podcast.

I know that story.

You may have heard that story.

He is told in many different traditions and there's a particular zen master

that apparently said it, but it is an old story and it fits with any anybody.

I think the honest answer is, and the honest answer might not be that either,

and I think honesty is treated as a flaw.

It's worth saying that.

I think most of us just feel fear of being honest.

What if I actually tell them I'm having a really crap day?

What if I tell them I want to cry?

So Thursday afternoon, I was sat here about two o'clock.

I felt really emotional and I don't know what it was.

I really don't.

But I felt so overwhelmed.

I felt so tired and.

I just cried.

I cried for about 15, 20 minutes and then I think I fell asleep.

'cause my head, I suddenly woke up with my head, like just

leaning forward in a chair.

My neck nearly felt like it broke and I was so sore.

But boy did I need that.

And I don't really remember what it was about now, but I messaged one of

my friends and said, you know what?

I'm feeling really emotional right now.

And she listened.

And you know what I did?

I did my normal A DHD thing just before I actually fell asleep.

I bought a book and because that book solves everything, and I

messaged her and said, guess what?

I've got gone and done.

She said, go on.

So I bought a book.

She said, of course you have.

And I laughed.

That made me laugh so much.

Of course you have.

'cause that's what we do.

We reach out to try to fix our problems in that moment, I went on to Amazon.

I bought a book.

I'm probably not even gonna read it, but it was a step in the right direction to

fix my life in that moment because I felt like my life was spiraling, but it wasn't.

It was just a moment of emotion.

So just before I go, just let me say this clearly and I am as messed up as you are.

I'm still struggling every day.

I don't even like meditation half the time, to be quite honest.

I don't think I ever like meditation.

I still get caught up in my thoughts.

I still say I'm fine or I'm good when I'm not.

I think the only difference between me now and 10 years ago, or perhaps me and you,

is I suffer slightly less and not because I've stopped having thoughts, I haven't.

The thoughts still come.

Luckily they just take hold less.

They clinging to me less.

I go with them less or maybe more accurately.

I let go before my hands hurt to take it to a metaphor.

That's the only difference

I let go before my hands hurt.

You don't have to stop saying I'm fine.

It's a useful piece of social fabric, so to speak.

Sometimes it's the right answer, but once a day, just maybe with

the right person, maybe just even with yourself in the mirror.

Try another answer.

Actually, today's a hard one.

See what happens.

See what room it gives you, and just open that hand a little earlier.

And of course, you know what I mean by opening your hand just.

Accept it, let it go perhaps.

And I've done a companion meditation with this and the meditation that goes

with this is called when anxiety visits.

It's a five minutes, you sit, you say hello to whatever is actually

here, and you ask it why it came.

It's the practice of the opposite to, I'm fine, you can find it on.

Insight timer, aura, or wherever you listen to Inner peace meditations,

and I will link to it below.

So I'm running out of energy, as you can probably tell by my voice.

So I'm gonna go now and I'm gonna say thank you.

Take care of yourself, stay curious, and I love you.