What does inner peace actually mean? It is what is left when you are not suffering. It is already there, and mostly we just forget it is.

I did not need somebody to fix anything. I needed somebody to sit there. Inner peace is always present, the way a drink is already on the table as you get older and realise you can just reach for it. Thoughts arrive as trains and you choose which to board. Happiness is an experience that comes and goes. Peace is the thing underneath that does not.

One thing to try: When the cold hits your face, try just noticing it is cold rather than needing to fix it.

In this episode

• (0:03) What inner peace means, and what it does not
• (2:30) We are at peace when we are not suffering
• (4:52) I did not need fixing. I needed somebody to sit there
• (7:36) It is always present. I just remember it more often now
• (12:00) The train station, and choosing which ones to board
• (17:04) Happiness is an experience. You cannot park there
• (18:46) Cold on your face, and whether it needs doing something about

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Thank you for listening.

Steven

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

• Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
• Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Stillness in the Storms. On this episode, I want to talk about inner

peace. And what does inner peace mean and what does it mean for me. I'm paralysed from a neck down.

And I'll answer the question is, how did I find inner peace when I ended up paralysed after breaking my

neck at the age of 18?

And then I'm going to go through five myths of inner peace and I think this is really important because

it was all these five things that I tried to find, realising that none of them are true.

But before I do that, I want to do probably the most important thing, and that is I want to

thank my donators. You know, Brian and Joy, thank you deeply from the bottom of my heart. You made a

huge donation and I hope you're both doing well. And I'm going to put that towards my new chair because

this chair is literally falling apart and the the left motor just needs replacing

and not quite sure how to do all those things. So I'm going to put that aside for that. And

I'm going to thank Rosie, Kim, Nick, Alice, Caroline, David and Jocelyn. You guys are awesome

and you keep this podcast free along with my monthly donators.

You know, just. I'm always humble when people donate, because you don't need to. But I also love podcasts that

don't have adverts. Anyway. Right, let's get on with today's show. So I'm going to start with the main question

is how did I find inner peace? And I'm gonna. I'm not gonna talk primarily about how did I find

it after my accident. I'm gonna talk about in general, in life, because I didn't find inner peace in any

given one moment. I didn't find inner peace as a child. I don't have inner peace now. A lot of

time, as after years of meditating and years of having teachers. But I have inner peace more often

than I used to, probably more often now than I did on a daily basis last year. And if you

go back each year. But what I will say is one thing that really did trigger my journey towards me,

reducing my suffering. Because that's the flip side of it. We are at peace when we're not suffering

or when we're doing something we enjoy. They're the two things. So if there's an absence of suffering,

we seem to be at peace. If there's a. If we're doing something we enjoy. It's like when people say,

I want to stop thinking, no, you don't. You just want to stop having thoughts that you don't want. You

don't mind having nice thoughts, unless of course, they're relentless and you're trying to go sleep, that's a different story.

But in general we want pleasant stuff. We want more joy, we want more comfort. And

that's why we we're seeking in a peace What we're actually doing is we're trying to seek less suffering. And

I think that's an important way of looking at it because. And of course, what's the age-old Zen saying, you

know, suffering is optional, pain is inevitable all the other way around. And really

suffering is optional. You know, you're going to have the odd suffering, but it's whether or not you're going to

prolong it and it's going to stay and whether or not you're going to become a victim in it. So

how did I find inner peace? Well, I hit rock bottom when just after my 40th birthday when my

wheelchair broke down. It was in the doorway of a local supermarket. I just cried.

My credit cards were absolutely to the maximum. My electric wheelchair broke. And without my electric wheelchair I have

nothing. I, I say I have nothing, of course I have. But looking it through the lens of today. But

then I thought I had nothing. There was no way. I had to go home. I didn't even know how

I was going to get home. The tire had burst and the wire from the tire just went all in

amongst the um motors and everything. And this security guard walked over to me, he's on a little higher of

plinth As he looked over, he walked over to me and he just squeezed my shoulder and he just said

ah.

And I said, he didn't really say nothing but his just squeezing my shoulder was like, I don't know, some

kind of man-to-man kind of moment I I have no idea. But it was exactly what I needed. I didn't

need someone to fix. I didn't need someone to, you know, come over and say what do I need? I

just needed someone to just come over and just know that I wasn't alone. And that's what he did. And

a few minutes later I, you know, picked up my phone. I phoned my friend Alan and. Oh, Alan, he

passed away a few years ago. Miss him. I often think, what would he think of 3d printer he was

an engineer and he used to repair my chair a lot and yeah, what would he think of the world

today?

Incredible. So I phoned Alan and he went and got my van with the carer. They come down and they

nursed the chair into the back of the van and I think I borrowed some money and I got the

chair repaired after a few days, but it was just awful. I just, I hit completely rock bottom. I was

single at the time. I felt like I had nobody. So there I was paralysed. It was 19 years after

my accident and it was a I don't know, about 10 years after my shop had gone bankrupt. I'd lost

my friend there's loads of many things that built up to this one day that I hit my rock bottom.

And over the coming weeks that I started drinking just to go sleep. I started doing all these things that

were just so harmful to me.

And in the end I had to say, you know, I'm suffering so badly here. So I started reading books.

And every book told me I had to meditate. And every book I said, I can't meditate, my mind doesn't

shut off, so that's impossible. So I kept turning the pages, looking for other solutions. And here's the thing where

if one person comes and tells you, you know, it's raining, you can go, yeah, maybe. If two people come

and tell you it's raining, you can go oh it's pretty, maybe it's pretty likely. But if everybody, if every

book, if everything tells you the answer is meditating, you've kind of got to take notice and go, okay,

they all cannot be wrong and I'm the one that's right. So I sat down, I tried to meditate and

my mind wouldn't shut off. I couldn't not think for more than about half a second. And that's still exactly

the same now. I've been meditating now, what, 12, 13 years and I still can't shut my mind off. And

all that which is good, that's part of it. The mind is designed to think or evolved to think. That's

it. That's perfectly normal. So what is my inner peace now? My inner peace is just returning

to the fact that this moment is okay.

I'm remembering that. And I remember it more often now. And I think that's the main thing about it. It's

not. The inner peace is always there. It's always present.

A peaceful, quiet world is always present. Even in the most dire circumstances.

It might be hard to see. It might it'd be hard to become aware of it. Now, I'm not talking

if your life is a threat or anything like that. I'm saying in every day going there's the ability to

just step back and go, okay, in this moment, things are okay.

And when you Realise that. You realise that inner peace is always there, underlying all the thinking

and the noise and all the hassles of life. Inner peace is right there underneath it all, underneath the

noise of life. So how do I find inner peace now? I remember it's there. I

don't always remember. I don't always become aware, but I'm more and more becoming aware. So when I get frustrated

in a council meeting, or frustrated because the carers wound me up, or somebody else, or I've read something I

don't want to read, or I look at something with Trump and I get a little agitated or frustrated, sometimes

I go off on one, but very often now I step back and go, okay, can I do anything about

it? No. Is it really affecting me? Not in this moment. Okay. I take a deep breath and

realise there's peace again. And the more you do that, the more it creeps up, the more peace is there,

the more you recognise it's there. It's like growing up with a drink and water right next to you, but

you can't see it. And you're always thirsty and you always want that drink, but you cannot see

it next to you. And sometimes you still cannot see it. This is a terrible analogy, but I'm going to

stick with it I'm Trying to think of a better analogy. But as you get older, you realise the drink

is there. Just have a drink. But you don't always see it. Sometimes you've got to actually become aware and

turn around to see it. Okay, I've. I've milked that analogy too far by

now. So milk, water. Right, okay. So what are the five myths of inner peace? Number one, inner

peace means never feeling pain or discomfort. I think this is really like one of the main ones.

Do I still have pain? Do I still have discomfort? Yeah, nearly all the time. Do I wake up in

the morning in a lot of pain? Yep, most mornings. Do people still pee me off? Yes. Is my life

any different than what it was when I didn't have any inner peace? In actual fact I got a lot

more in my life that doesn't give me inner peace. Now, being on the Cornwall Council and being a politician.

Yeah, politician. Nowadays, that's a job that is thankless, but it's a job that's really

important, that we can make changes, but it's really difficult. So I've got all the things that

seem to stop the inner peace, but I have more inner peace. So it's like a paradox. Inner peace doesn't

mean the lack of everything, it

doesn't mean the absence of suffering. It just means in that moment, you can choose to go to where the

inner peace is, or you can choose to go to where the suffering is. Very similar. You can choose to

get on a thought or not get on a thought. You know, suffering is a choice. You can sit there

and complain that something's going on, or you can realise it's not in your control. Or if it is in

your control, you can do something about it. I

know that's a simple analogy of it, but that's the reality. Myth number two, you must control your thoughts to

be at peace. I got news for you. You're not in control of your thoughts you're not you're You have

very little control of your thoughts now I'm going to elaborate on that slightly. So I

often talk about, like, your train of thoughts. So imagine you're sat in a train station and the thoughts come

in as trains. You can choose which ones to get on. If you become more aware, and you're hearing this

a lot in this podcast about the awareness, if you're aware, if you're present and aware, you become aware of

the thought coming in and you can choose whether to get on it or not.

If you get on it, the mind will go, oh, I I won That was a good thought. If you

don't get on it, the mind will go, oh, okay, maybe I'll try better next time. Your mind is like

a subconscious four year old that is trying to bring these thoughts to your attention and it wants your attention

all the time, you know, so it's like when you're really suffering and you're going through a breakup and you

may be missing somebody, or you're in a lot of pain or something's really annoying you, or you've got

a fancy for a red car that you just seen. It's like, wow, I really want one of those cars.

The subconscious mind will bring that to your attention all the time do you Have you ever noticed, like, when

you buy a really nice new top and you think that's really unusual, and then you suddenly, over the next

few weeks, you see it everywhere because your subconscious you've given your subconscious mind an important thing to look out

for. So your subconscious mind will bring it to your attention all the time. And that's the reality. So choose

which thoughts to get onto. You won't stop your mind. You're not in control of it, but you can influence

what thoughts come up next. So that's myth number two. You must control your thoughts to be at peace. Nope.

But you can influence them. So myth number three. You Find peace once life calms down. And the Zen

master would laugh at that all the time and say, life never calms down. It's the student that learns to

be still while the world keeps spinning. And that that's true, because no matter what happens, you've still got,

you know, all those monkeys up there that are typing out all the fate in the universe. And of course

I'm joking about this, but there's so many things that we think about that the universe has good and bad

luck. For example, you might have three things that happen to you. Bad luck. And you go right I'm okay.

Things come in threes. Well, the universe just really isn't changing the whole of the universe just for you because

you have three bad things. The universe is not keeping score. No one's taking any notice if you think you've

had all the bad bucket and it's all going to be good bucket from now on. No, it doesn't work

like that. But what you can realise that you cannot wait until life calms down. You won't

be able to have peace once life's sorted or once you're richer or once you've got that pay rise, or

once things happen or you get that job promotion and things like that, or whatever thing you think

is down the road, that once that happens, I will have inner peace. No, your inner peace is already there

right now, as we've already discussed. It's something that you just become aware and you can sit in it, because

even in moments of real turmoil, when your life is just not in a piece at all, you realise you

can be sat peacefully. And sometimes in those moments, you can have more inner peace than you would normally happen.

And I bet you you can probably go back to a time in your life when things really did suck.

And then you suddenly found that inner peace in that moment, in amongst all of that. So don't wait until

life calms down. It's just not going to happen. And myth number four, inner peace is a permanent state.

Oh, no, no. You don't suddenly wake up and suddenly realise you are not your thoughts. You have thoughts.

You are not your depression. You are not all these things. You're not the victim that's stuck in the cage

with the cage door closed. You suddenly realise you do have control of the way you see the world and

the way you experience the world. You do take a step back from your ego and you enjoy all the

different experiences. You realise that happiness is an experience. It's not something you can have. And then suddenly

you're happy. The Rest of your life. Happiness is like a low level part

of a real exciting enjoyment. It's like a lower level version of going to the concert. But we all want

to be happy. Well, what does happy mean? Happy is above the mundane, above the normal. When

you're just sat in peace, you're not necessarily happy, you're not joyous, you're just at

peace, you're just at rest. Happiness is an experience beyond that. When

something pleasant happens, I feel happy. But you're not going to get to that happy and stay there forever. You

wouldn't recognise it if you did.

So it's not a permanent state. It just doesn't happen like that. And your life is still going to be

exactly as it is. Just like I said about the buckets, you you don't exhaust the bad bucket and then

you've got a good bucket from then on. And then the final myth. And there's loads of myths, but these

are the five I came up with. Peace means detachment from life, and I think it's quite the opposite.

It doesn't mean disconnection, it actually means being fully present. It means without clinging and

without that grasping. Very often we're clinging to a certain time in our

past or something we want in the future. It's like, once I've got that, I'll be happy, or once I've

got that, I'll be peaceful, or as soon as I've got rid of that in my life, I would have

more peace. What inner peace really is, it's just a step back and seeing the world, seeing your

life, seeing your thoughts and your feelings for what they are, just experiences. When you have a

thought, experience it where You don't have to do anything with it. When you have a feeling, you don't have

to do anything with it. When you have a pain, you don't necessarily have to do anything with it.

And that's what it is. It's like when you're outside and you feel some cold on your face. You can

either go, ah, that's cold on my face, or you can go, I don't want that cold on my face.

I need to fix it, I need to do something with it but if you're too cold, maybe I've always

just experienced it So inner peace is not about detaching and getting rid of everything, setting up everything

and becoming living off the land in the middle of nowhere and never ever coming across people and living a

peaceful hermit's life. It's not. It's about finding that peace in amongst everything else that's going

on and just going, ah, that's why the laughing Buddha. So there's two types of Buddha. There's Siddhartha, which

is the slimmer one that left the riches, and he just found inner peace by less suffering. Suffering was

optional. When he chose not to suffer, he chose not to stay there for many reasons and it was through

non-attachment But it isn't through getting rid of everything. It's just realising that everything is temporary and it might not

happen like you're happy when the kettle works in the morning, but don't become too attached because one day it

might not. So therefore you're not. So, oh, the kettle's got to work. It's okay if the kettle breaks or

doesn't work

because it's not the end of the world and we can fix it and we can do something with it,

or we just learn to drink a colder drink, maybe not coffee. I didn't think that through but you know

what I mean um And then there's the other Buddha, the one that's fat with all the riches and all

the things, and he's laughing because he's got everything and it never made him happy. It's a joke, it's not

real, it's irrelevant. Everything is temporary and he sees through it all. That's what that

symbolizes. Well, that's the way I interpretate Anyway interesting fact for you. Just before we go, those

little things on Siddhartha, the sixth Buddha, that we always look at as the main Buddha, his little

things in his hair that look like little beads or something like that, they're actually supposed to be snails because

he sat there for the 40 days and 30 40 days and 40 nights that nature climbed all over him

and they were supposed to be snails, but I think over the years gone by that they've tidied them up

a bit and the snails have got a little bit more organized on his head. I just thought I would

share that look. That's it for today. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Steven Webb, your host. And if

I can leave you with one thought. Inner peace is always there and present. It's just whether you're aware of

it. That awareness comes and goes. So if you really do want inner peace, just every hour, just spend

one minute going, ah let's take a deep breath and let's just breathe and let's just be at ease with

whatever's arising and recognise you don't have to do anything with it. And then you'll have more inner peace than

you did yesterday. And if you keep doing that each day you'll have more and more inner peace. Take

care and thank you for your donations. Thank you for your support. If you want to listen to the inner

peace meditations, just go to StevenWebb.uk you can donate Treat me to a Coffee. You can join

my weekly Calm newsletter, which is more like fortnightly or every three weeks calm. So I'm

working on it. I'm working on life and what else I'm gonna say Yeah, and just most important of

all,

thank you and I love you