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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.

This week I want to talk about one of the hardest forms of

love, and that's giving someone space.

Not walking away, not going cold, not pretending we don't care, but

staying close without taking over.

And I mean this for ourselves as well.

It's that urge to step in and try to fix and help.

I'm Steven Webb, and welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the podcast that helps you

have a little peace when you need it most.

How are you doing?

And sorry I missed last week, but I have a lot going on in my life at the moment.

I have a bedroom that's totally tore up because we had a leak under the floor for

a long time, and we're trying to dry it out, so my wood floor's been ruined and

my skirting boards are now off, and yeah, I'm just a bit overwhelmed by it all.

And I have… 'Cause I have carers and because I have lots of people in my

life, everybody's telling me all their expert views and sometimes I'm like,

"Just leave me go." So space, that's what I wanna talk about this week.

But just before we go onto that, I want to thank awesome people that donate, because

it's you guys that keep the podcast free.

It's you guys that make sure that you only hear my voice and somebody

isn't trying to sell you something.

So thank you very much to Cheryl, Nitya, Yvonne, Elena, Ryan,

Karen, Lana, Jess, and Stuart.

You guys are awesome, and I always miss somebody, but I'll

catch up with you next week.

Just a huge, warm thank you.

Hand on my heart, really appreciate you, and I know my listeners do as well.

If you cannot donate, always leave a review, share the podcast.

It all helps somebody.

Somebody out there needs to hear it, and you might be the

only conduit to passing that on.

So I was talking to my daughter recently, and I realized that virtually everything

she said, whether it was on the phone or in person, I wanted to jump straight

in and answer and give her my thoughts.

And I'm really trying not to do that.

I've been trying not to do that for about four or five years now, and I

still find it very difficult, especially when we're so close to them because

we want to solve their problems.

We don't like seeing them suffer.

But what I've realized is if we just pause and give space, that space is so

much opportunity, not only for them to think through the solutions, because

very often we know the solutions.

We know what we should be doing.

We just need that someone to give us space to be able to calculate and work it out.

And I also think this is the same for our own heads and our own feelings.

And very often in meditation, I say, "Whatever arises, do nothing with it."

And what I mean by that is just have that bit of space after it arises,

and sometimes that thought or that feeling and emotion, just disappears

by itself without any lasting story.

We don't have to go down some kind of deep rabbit hole or deep story

like we do think all the time.

That's just evolution trying to protect us in the future.

If we can make sense of the thought, make sense of the emotion, make sense

of what our friend is going through, or that driver that chops us up, or

that person that shouts, or whatever is happening, that two-year-old crying.

If we can just give that a little bit of space, afterwards, we can

look at it and go, "Ah, that's what was happening." But it is really

difficult when we really care, and we wanna fix it, and we wanna help.

It's really difficult when it's ourselves and our own thought

because we wanna step in.

We wanna criticize the thought like, "Well, that's dumb.

That's stupid.

That's ridiculous." Or we're like, "Yeah, that's a good idea.

I'll go with that one," thinking, how is it gonna work out?

So just space, and very often just enough pause for maybe two breaths or

just one breath sometimes is enough

Sometimes the musician needs to go quiet because it's the, the gaps between the

notes and the gaps between the words are just as important as the words.

With no gaps and no space between thoughts and space between feelings,

everything becomes so blurred.

And with a bit of practice, we can all do this, and I think it's one of the

most profound things we can learn to do.

Just give it three seconds after your friend finishes talking.

Just give it a couple of seconds after that emotion arises.

When you look at an item, don't jump to a story of, "I wanna buy that,"

or, "Why is that here?" Or, "Who put that there?" Just see the item

Just become aware of the thought.

Just become aware of the breath, the feeling.

You know, even if you just have an itch on your body, just, "Ah, there's an itch."

I'm not saying in a couple of seconds' time you don't have to itch it, but it

gives us that space to do it mindfully.

And I genuinely believe, I believe this really in my whole bottom of my

heart, that if we have enough wisdom within ourselves, we've had million

year- millions of years of evolution, we've got so much experience within

every atom of our body, that when we do give it space, things often solve

themselves or didn't need solving

And it's even in council meetings, I sit there sometimes and emotions coming

forward or something's happening and I'm like, I wanna stick up my hand.

I always go with the intention of not saying anything.

I'm gonna be the wise one in the room that doesn't say anything.

But I'm always that, "No, I wanna prove to people that I'm intelligent, that I

can see this, that I've got the answer to this. That I can see something

that perhaps none of you can." But when I sit there and shut up, very

often the council come to their own conclusions very much in the same way

as I might have wanted to do anyway.

Or I can change my mind because someone says something and I go,

"Oh, that's, that's interesting. I didn't see that." And you also give

the opportunity for others to shine.

It's the o- one of the things I enjoyed about being mayor was You

could not have an apolitical opinion.

You had the final casting vote if it was ever tied 50/50,

and you had a vote anyway.

You just hope it never went down to the 50/50.

But it's not your job as chair of the council to put your opinion.

It's your job to make sure everybody has a firm voice, everybody's said their bit,

and it's debated to the length that needs to be to come to an informed decision.

If only we could do that in our everyday life with our families.

Just imagine sitting around that table at a barbecue or at the Christmas

dinner and going, "Right, we all just come to this informed, wise decision."

Not gonna happen in my family.

We're all too way opinionated.

We're all too way trying to prove to each other that we're

the ones with the knowledge.

Please see me.

See me.

I'm here.

I know this.

That's why we argue with our family so much, 'cause we're trying to prove

to our family that, "Hey, look, I have grown up to this wise person.

I do know this. I do know more than you," 'cause we're trying to compete.

It's a good evolutionary thing to do, to compete with your

family in a safe container.

But do we always have to do it?

Do we always have to compete?

No, we don't

And the instinct to help is not wrong.

It's, it's a nice way of being, and sometimes we do need to step in and help.

But nothing's harming in just giving that bit of space, that little bit of pause.

Says, says, "Can I step in at the right time when I need to?" Because

if we allow our minds or our feelings or someone else's minds or feelings or

their dilemma, if we allow them to solve it, if we allow them to come to the

conclusion, very often it's more powerful.

It's like when someone decides to give up smoking or give up alcohol

or a bad vice, it's so much more powerful when they decide to

do it rather than someone else trying to convince them to do it

But fixing something very often, when we're trying to fix

something, is our own discomfort that we're trying to get rid of.

If we're sitting with someone with problems, we're uncomfortable because

the fact that they're suffering spills over onto our discomfort.

So if we fix it, we then don't feel so uncomfortable.

Then that's a not such an obvious one to see

Very much sometimes that can be really disguised if we

don't have that self-awareness.

And I don't see it a lot of time.

I don't think, well, what someone else is going through is really, doesn't

affect me, I'm just trying to help them.

But it does affect me in that moment, and it does affect me if

I leave there thinking I haven't done my best to try to help them

And we don't wanna feel powerless.

We don't want them to make a mistake.

We don't wanna sit back and see them go down in the wrong direction because we

think we've already seen that direction.

And sometimes from the outside, yeah, we can see more, but sometimes

we definitely cannot see as much as what they can see, if only we

give them a little bit of space.

And you may feel sometimes that giving them space or staying

quiet is like abandoning them.

It's like as if we're being cold.

But it's not.

Giving space is not walking away.

It's not coldness.

It's not neglect.

You know, it's not the silent punishment.

Real space says, "I am here and I trust you.

I trust your wisdom.

I am listening to you.

I recognize that whatever you're going through is not the same as what

I'm going through, although there may be similarities." It's hearing

them, which is very often important.

How often do we not feel heard?

And just by giving that few seconds space, that really does help them to feel heard.

And why does this matter spiritually and really on the practical level?

So meditation tells us to sit with our own inner world, whatever's arising, and

the same skill should apply to the outside world, the current situation, the room

full of people, the room with the animals.

Even our animals need that bit of space to… Have you, if you've ever

spent much time with a cat or a dog, you have to really give them time.

You say something, and you have to give them time to turn their head on

the side to really hear what you said, to give it real careful consideration,

instead of just repeating it.

And then with this space, we can also choose whether or not help is

actually needed or whether or not that space is just the deeper help itself.

We let whatever it is on our minds to breathe.

We let the body to feel.

We allow it to happen.

The body is way wiser than our minds are, and our minds have access to way

more wisdom than we think it does.

Very often when we're moaning to somebody else, we either just wanna be heard

or we want someone else to hear our calculations, our thought patterns,

and see whether or not we're justified

So here are three practical things, questions that you can ask yourself

that if, if you ask it before you approach a person or when things

are happening is, am I helping or am I trying to reduce my own comfort?

Am I trying to prove to them that I know an answer?

Have I listened long enough for their own wisdom to appear?

And what would it look like if it had more space in it

What would love look like if it had more space in it, more acceptance?

Space is a form of accepting this moment, and it's like saying, "I am here.

I trust you.

Take your time.

I am here.

I trust you.

Take your time." So where does this not apply?

Now, of course, we're no therapist.

You know, if you are a therapist and you are fully trained in

this, please trust your training over mine every day of the week.

I'm not a therapist.

I'm just someone that has suffered a lot and found ways to reduce my suffering

and found ways to accept and love the people around me a little more.

But it doesn't apply if someone's unsafe, vulnerable, or in situations

where things are dangerous.

You know that.

You know there's a big difference.

You don't have to give space in those moments.

But most of the time we're not in anything like that.

Most of the time we're just in a conversation that needs space.

That conversation in our heads, that conversation of what

happens when a feeling arises.

And if we do give space, it stops us spiritually bypassing, and I've

spoken about that in the past.

We can talk ourselves out or into how brilliant we are spiritually, how

brilliant we're doing, how much work we've done, and how wonderful we're doing.

You know, I've, I've yet to find anybody that's done all the work.

I've yet to find anybody that's enlightened and doing brilliantly all

day long and never makes mistakes.

So yeah, you're in good company if you're only enlightened about 30 seconds a day.

You're doing well . You're doing better than me, I would say.

So, okay, Slowly rewind it back.

Isn't it important just to give your feelings, your thoughts, the

moment, your group, your friend, your relative, your animal, whoever,

just that little bit of space?

Even if it's only three seconds.

Have a three-second rule.

I'm not talking about toast falling on the floor.

I'm saying, "Have I given this three seconds?" 'Cause most of our problems,

most of the things we think about, most of the problems that our friends

sometimes want to share with us, there's already solutions to them

or they don't need solving at all.

We just need to give it space.

Just like the gap in the music, just like the space at the

top and bottom of the breath.

Space, that's the word this week.

So I don't know if you receive my weekly Calm Newsletter.

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So thank you so much to each and every one of you.

Take care, guys, and have a wonderful week, and I love you