I could not meditate for twenty years. Too fidgety, mind like a firework. If that is you, stay to the end.

A 23 minute talk, with a guided practice at the end.

I gave up at 27 after about three minutes. I started again at 40, at rock bottom, because every book I picked up told me to and I got tired of turning the page. Here I go through what meditation is not, the three kinds I actually use, focus, awareness and intention, and then we do all three together. Not once do I ask you to stop your thoughts. That was never going to happen.

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Steven

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Welcome to this week's podcast, How to Meditate Even If You Think You Cannot. Now then, this podcast

is... On both of my podcasts, Stillness in the Storms podcast, and also Inner Peace Meditations. So if you're

listening to this on Inner Peace Meditations, and you're expecting, as normal, a guided meditation, this is going to be

a guided meditation at the end, but only after I explain the first part about understanding meditation and the second

part, the three forms of meditation and then I'm going to give you a guided experience. And I want to

do this because So many people believe, just like I did for probably 20 years, that I couldn't meditate the

meditation is too hard for me because my mind's too active. I'm too fidgety. I just cannot shut off my

mind. I cannot focus on one object. Things like that. All those different things that used to come up into

my mind, I just want to get rid of some of those common myths and I want to prove by

the end of this podcast that anybody can meditate. So if you think you cannot meditate, stay till the end

and if you still think that, message me. Head over to StevenWebb.uk and message me. I want to hear

from you. I want to hear from you anyway. I love hearing from my listeners. I love hearing from you.

Anyway, just before we start, thank you to all my supporters, people that treat me to a coffee and donate

towards the podcast. That's the way in which they really keep going. They're not cheap to host. They're not cheap

to produce and edit and get done. But I do really appreciate I don't have a sponsor. I choose not

to because it's for you and you guys helped to pay for it. So thank you from the depth of

my heart. I really appreciate that. Let's get on with today's show. So demystifying meditation and making it

accessible. Really, I just want to tell you, firstly, meditation is not about silence in the

mind. It's not about some peaceful utopia. It's not about finding this inner bliss or

communicating with aliens. It's not about without I don't know, just becoming some magical lotus

flower or anything like that.

The real meditation is about a deeper insight. It's about understanding how you work, how your body works, how your

mind works and getting a deeper insight to what you are and what you're not. You know, going beyond the

narrative of the ego. But if you want to just do meditation to be relaxed and feel lovely and fluffy,

you know, run a bath, light some candles part on some good music. That's much more beneficial. And if you

want to use meditation as a self-help growth thing, buy some self-help books. But if you want to really use

meditation to have a little bit more inner peace in life... And to have a deeper insight, to understand how

the mind works, to have more control over how you respond and how you stop reacting to things and how

you stop making things worse in life. And you want to know how your how your emotions and your mind

and body and all connect. Then meditation is for you, really. Now then, I'm not going to judge the other

forms of meditation that... Try to communicate with aliens or do all those other things. It's just none of them

I find that helpful when it comes to finding real, genuine freedom from suffering. And that's what I set out

to on my meditation journey. Every single book that I read told me I had to meditate. That really annoyed

me because I couldn't meditate. I turn over another page. Right? We think you should meditate. Practice mindfulness. I was

like, no way. I can't do that. My mind does not shut off. And if you spend five minutes with

me or just 10 minutes with me, you'll notice that I go from one subject to another. I'm looking at

a branch in one moment and talking about the tree. And then I'm talking about council. Then I'm talking about

my mind is literally boom, boom, boom, constantly one thing after another. I don't mind that. It's fun.

It's entertaining sometimes. But it used to drive me insane. I just wanted some inner peace. I just wanted some

quiet. And especially when my thoughts were really intrusive and really leading to really

painful thoughts. And I just wanted to shut them off. The truth is, we don't want to stop all the

thoughts. We want to stop the thoughts that we don't want. And that's the truth. And the mind has evolved

to think. That's what it... Evolved to do. It's what it's going to do. Your heart is there to pump

blood around your body. Your liver is there to filter the blood. Your your muscles there to tense and let

go when it's needed. Your mind, your brain, the physical brain side is evolved to think.

It's evolved to protect you. It's done a really good job so far. It doesn't know right or wrong. It

just wants to protect you and keep up the same habit

and let you get through life in the best way possible based on what you've already done. That's the narrative.

That's the story. Then if you want your mind to really shut off, the only time that really happens and

it doesn't Actually happen. You just don't have no awareness of your mind thinking. That's in deep sleep. All the

other time, your mind's going to be thinking stuff up. Just the same as you think stuff up and then

you have the feelings arise. So meditation, that's all perfectly normal. So meditation,

what that gives us is a sense of control over that and what we do with it so The more

we sit down to meditate, the more we realise how chattery our mind is, how much our mind is like

monkey mind is sometimes explained. You know, if I sit down to meditate, immediately my my mind just

bombards me with thoughts. And they're not even that important that They're just annoying, like, what you're going to have

for tea? You're feeling hungry. What you're going to do next week? You haven't posted that card. You haven't replied

to that email. Just check Facebook. You need to do all these things. Oh, why don't you write a story?

Why don't you do this? And it comes up all these brilliant ideas and all these things you don't do.

And also the things that lead to feelings that we really do not enjoy. And the thing is, it's just

one after the other. The average person has something like 40 or 50 thoughts every minute. That's about 50. I'm

not doing maths in my head. It's 56 000 per day, apparently. Something like that anyway. I did not do

that in my head. I already knew that figure actually um Unless there's a mathematician listening and you know I've

got that totally wrong. But it's so many thoughts per minute. So meditation is not about getting rid of them.

It's about

becoming aware of the thoughts and what to do with them and whether to get on them or not. So

the three types of meditation. Number one, focus meditation. Now when I say there's three types, there's lots of other

types. But these are the main three types. I'm not going to cover mantra um transcendental or anything like that.

I'm going to cover the main three types that I use on the Inner Peace Meditations and the ones that

have made the huge difference in my life. And being paralysed, being... You know, overthinking I

I have Adhd. I have dyslexia. And trust me, my mind is like, you know, just on fire all the

time. Even trying to go sleep and things like that. So these are the three I use. It's a focused

meditation. It's concentrating on a single point, like a breath or a mantra. You could just go, right,

literally I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out. And you can count it or you can look at a candle or

you can just do anything that you're really focused on that one single point. And

the everyday application for this is practicing during routine activities like walking or um you know,

waiting in line or you want to bring back some focus and calmness to a present situation. Just, I'm going

to breathe. I want to calm this moment down. And the other one is awareness meditation the

Being aware of your thoughts and surroundings without judgement. So just taking a breath. You go, okay.

Focus on my breath. Now I'm just aware of my breath. Ah, there's a feeling. I'm aware of that. Ah,

there's a sound. I'm aware of that.

Ah, there's an I'm aware of that. And just becoming aware of it but without doing anything with it. That's

just awareness meditation it's almost It's very similar to mindfulness. You can be out walking and you're just seeing everything

around you and you're just aware of it but you know you don't have to do anything with it. And

you can practice this during anything like doing dishes or mopping the floor or going for a walk. Anything

really. Even just walking the dog. You can be really mindful like the dog is. We often think the dog's

mind form has got nothing in its head. Trust me. The dog's probably thinking about its food and everything as

well. You know, I want to get home. It's gold on food my food. So the third one is intention

meditation. And that's setting intentions for how you want to feel or what you want to achieve. And

I use this meditation to A, be productive sometimes. I pretend in the morning that I've got a table and

I bring the most productive people in the world and the ones I admire and the ones I really think

are doing a really good job. There's normally somebody like Gandhi or um a couple of really good politicians that

I admire, things like that um now some Mandela and people like that. And my doctor and people And I

go around the table and I say, what should I work on today? And I allow each one of them

to answer me. My doctor tells me to eat healthier, do some exercise. Gandhi says, you know, be a little

more caring. Open your heart a little bit more. It's nearly always the same answers. It's nearly always... But it's

really important to set that intention for the day um You can also have loving kindness intention where you're just

opening your heart to the suffering in the world by opening your heart and including someone else in your love.

You can imagine sat next to someone on a bench and that person's in the same bubble as you and

just imagine loving them um So that's like setting setting an intention. And they're the three main

meditations that I use. And in just a moment, we're going to do it. I'll do a guided meditation with

all three of those because nearly all of my meditations, especially on Inner Peace Meditations, normally have all three involved.

I always start off with a focus, focus on something and then open our awareness because the more open we

become, the more curious we become, the more playful and the more... We're able to absorb ideas and

learn more. And then just leave it with some intention, like may I be happy? May I be loved? May

I be at peace? And it just gives that intention for the next few hours or the day. So I

hope that makes sense, right so We're a good few minutes into this podcast I just want to settle down

and And the reason why I've done this podcast is because I get quite a few emails about I find

meditation really hard and things like that. I do as well. I find meditation really hard even now. And I've

been an avid meditator for, what, 10 years now? I started when I was first 27. I

did it for about three minutes and I gave up completely because my mind would not shut off. I started

it again when I was 40 and that's when I hit rock bottom. And every single book told me to

meditate and I was like, can't do it. In the end... Yes, I gave it a go. The thing is,

if one person comes and tells you, you should try this, you can go, okay, maybe there's something If two

people tell you, you can go, okay, there probably is something in it. But if every book, if everybody's telling

you that there's something in it, there must be something in it. So I had to give it a try.

So let's do a little guided meditation. And we're going to start off with focus, then we'll do awareness, and

then we'll do intention.

So, just allow your body to relax. Maybe wiggle your bum get comfortable. Wiggle your

shoulders and get comfortable. And

just become aware of your breath.

And focus on the air going in through your nose. The

way your chest rises.

And the way it changes direction and just falls. And the air comes back out.

And then it repeats.

Then bring your focus to your body. Allow your body to relax.

Allow your shoulders, neck and your face to relax.

Now I want you to really home in on sound. We're

going to focus completely on sound. You

can hear the sound of my voice. You

can hear my words. The gaps between them.

You may be able to hear some humming somewhere in the background in your house.

Perhaps you're out in nature and you can hear something.

Don't miss a single sound.

Really narrow down each single sound. The beginning, the middle, the end. But

don't do anything with the sound. Just allow it to happen.

And what this focus meditation does is just trains the mind to do one thing.

Just listen.

Just listen.

And the mind will want to

wander and go off into the story and do other things. And just bring it back. And the more you

do it, the more it will learn to focus. The

wandering is normal. That's perfectly normal. It happens all the time. If your mind didn't try to wander and do

something else, I would be a bit concerned.

And now open your awareness. Instead of really focusing on the sound, just allow the sound to come in.

Allow your awareness of your breath at the same time.

Open the awareness to the temperature of the room you're in.

And you're just allowing more and more to come in. And you're allowing this moment to be exactly what it

is. You're not changing or doing anything with it.

You're neither enjoying it, but you're not loathing it either. It's one of those things that you're just accepting.

And you notice you can be aware of your breath.

You can be aware of your thoughts

You can be aware of the taste in your mouth.

But you're not any of those. You're not the taste in your mouth. You're not your thoughts. You're not your

breath anymore and you are your feelings.

Because if you were any of them, you couldn't be aware of them.

And now we'll move on to intention intention So in a meditation with intention, we have something we'd like

to manifest or bring to our... Feelings or to the day ahead. So in the morning

we might have the intention of being grateful. Finding a couple of things to be grateful for. And we

can do that now. Think of something to be grateful for. Something in your life that if you woke up

tomorrow and it wasn't there, you would miss it.

Then imagine bringing that back into your life now. What it's like to have it.

And the feeling of joy in your body and the warmth.

And think of something else that if you lost it today and

it's not there, what does it feel like not to have it?

It could be something big like your house or your car or it could be just your pillow.

And again, imagine what it's like to have your pillow back or your house or your car.

And another way we can use intention is to hold an intention for the day. So maybe you've got a

hard day ahead of you where you might have to go to work or...

You've got the kids all day because they're off school. Whatever the reason for your hard day, you might say

an affirmation to. I've

got a tough day ahead, but I've got this.

I'm strong and I can get through today.

And just having a mantra like that or an affirmation like that sets the intention of belief.

And then we can do the loving kindness. May I be loved. And imagine what that feels like to be

loved completely.

May I be happy.

May I be well.

Then we go the other way around. May I be well.

May I be happy. And

finally, we'll end the intention with may I be loved.

And just bring your awareness back to your breath and

that's a real fast tour of the three different types.

Focusing singly on something or just opening your awareness to be curious to this moment

or setting an intention.

And it doesn't matter what you choose to do, when you choose to do it. You could pull up to

the traffic lights and you could go, just what can I hear?

You could be in a queue and just say, may I be loved? May I be happy? May I get

to the front of the queue? We can always set that intention as well.

So if you just shake your arms and open your eyes and if you had them closed and just become

aware of the room you're in and... I just want to thank you for listening to this podcast because I

know it's a bit different on Inner Peace Meditations. They're literally just meditations to help you with something

in particular. And Stillness in the Storms is a podcast that it's just me talking about different things

and how to get a little more inner peace when we need it most. And by uploading this podcast

to both podcasts Or this podcast episode to both podcasts.

Hopefully some people from, or if you've listened to one and not the other, you might cross over and listen

to the other. But I just wanted to let you know that you can meditate. Even with the most busiest,

craziest minds, you can meditate. And not one time did I try to get you to quiet in your mind.

Not one time did I try to get you to stop your thoughts. It's just not going to happen.

It's not going to happen.

So thank you. I'm Steven Webb and thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of this journey. And

I don't know if I'll do another podcast that jumps over both of them, but maybe I will. You can

contact me on StevenWebb.uk. Just go to that website there. You can support the podcast. You can see other links.

You can read my blogs. And again, you can contact me. Thank you. And I love you.