What would your one word for the year be? Forget resolutions. One word does more work than a list you will have abandoned by February.

Mine came out of simplifying. Take away what you do not need and it goes right down to the complicated things. If you love something you accept it rather than trying to change it. Embrace the anxiety, because it is the seven year old saying watch out, last time this was rubbish. My word is curiosity. Open, and asking what is happening now.

One thing to try: Pick your one word for the year. Just the one. Say it out loud and see if it holds.

In this episode

• (0:01) Happy New Year, and what this one is about
• (2:37) Too much junk television, and it not shifting
• (4:52) Simplify. Take away what you do not need
• (7:14) If you love something, you accept it as it is
• (9:48) Embrace the anxiety. It is telling you something
• (11:41) Curiosity, and using it in sentences every day

With gratitude to

Jessica, Laura, Katherine, Joan, Ulysses, Lisa and Audra.

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

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 Stillness in the Storms. I'm Steven Webb, and this is your podcast that helps you through

difficult times. And Happy New Year to you all. I haven't been recording for the last few weeks because

I have had a dreadful cold cough and, dare I say it, man flu. Although there's some truth about

that, but that's a different story. Because I'm paralysed and my chest muscles are paralysed. I have really struggled to

fight off this cold flu thing. I ended up having to have an ambulance out on the Sunday before Christmas,

and they gave me a whole bottle of oxygen in the space of an hour just to get my SATs

level back to 90. And they wanted to take me in hospital but because I was lying in bed, and

if I went into hospital, I would have still been lying in bed for most of the day waiting for

my steroids and antibiotics.

But I wanted to get up. I wanted to be able to get in my chair so I could lean

forward and cough properly. Because I only breathe and cough with my diaphragm, this is turning out a way longer

story than I thought it was going to be. But I'll tell you the story anyway. And because no chest

muscles, so my cough is quite pathetic. And I find it really hard to cough anything off. So what the

body does so beautifully is it floods the lungs with liquid in order to help you cough it off. It

has no idea that I'm paralysed, and it really is not a good idea. So it ends up drowning me

in it. So I need to be able to lean forward in the chair to cough. So I said to

the ambulance and paramedics could I refuse to go in this time I've never done that in my life. And

if I get out of bed in the space of the next hour, because my carers were then here, the

one was here overnight, but the second pair of hands turned up so they could get me out of bed.

So then I said, look, if I'm still bad in an hour, can I call you back? And they said,

yep, no problem. So they wrote up the notes, they got hold of a doctor, they put out the prescription.

So I got out of bed after a few hours and taking the steroids, I was feeling better. I could

breathe, I could cough it off my chest. But I spent the next week taking steroids, sat up in bed.

I spent nearly every night just sat right up in bed because I couldn't lie down, because if I did

I'd just coughed all night. And shallow breathing, just, yeah, not take a deep breath. And then watching

tv, I've watched so much junk Tv at night, but yeah, and then after Christmas and all that, it just

wouldn't go. So I went on to the second. Lot of antibiotics and steroids, different type this time. And yeah,

it's just gone. And I forgot what it's like to be. To have a bit of energy. So, last couple

of days. So I'm recording in this podcast, but this podcast is going to focus on one thing, One simple

thing, one word. So thank you to so many of you that have donated over Christmas, and that is Jessica,

Laura katherine Joan Ulysses and lisa and a few more of you and Joan and Ulysses.

40 coffees. Wow. Also Carrie. And I'm trying to think off the top of my head. It's so many of

you that just Thank you so much. And of course there's Laura and Audra and all those that donate monthly.

And we've got a new person that's just signed up to monthly um Absolutely incredible. You're all brilliant. Thank

you so much. I'm going to put a list of my monthly donators at the bottom of the page just

to say thank you, you are awesome. And you keep it ad free so we can get on with it.

So I'm going to do that right now um I want to.

I try to pick a word every year and I'm not very good at sticking to it and really thinking

about it, but I want to do it this year. So my word this year is simplify. Simplify. And what

does that mean to me? Well, to simplify means to take it down to its simplest form. So

if I'm recording a podcast, how can I do it in the most simplest form let's not complicate it Let's

not set up everything that's not Let's not put obstacles in the way. If I'm going to meditate, what does

that look like? Just a simple meditation. Just sit down and shut up.

As Jumpo would say stfu stfu I said, what's stfu mean it's

s-t-f-u you know, shut the fuck up sorry I swear hopefully you haven't got kids

in the car while listening to this and. But yeah stuffoo stuffoo just simplify it. Just take away

what don't we need. And it really goes down to the most complicated things we have to do. What do

I have to do right now? I don't have to do the whole process. I just have to talk. I

just have to recognise that thought as a thought. I just have to phone somebody. I just have to book

that in or so simplify everything. You know, if that folder doesn't need to be there. Delete it.

If the side is busy, get rid of a lot of it So that's what I'm going to try to

do this year. I'm going to simplify as much as possible. So your job this week is to

consider what word you're going to have this year. And it seems dramatic to have a whole year with one

word, but it really does work. And Daicho, one of my teachers, does it every year.

And you can choose anything. It can be compassion it can be love, it can be overwhelmed Maybe you want

to choose overwhelmed and recognise the overwhelm. It can be family. It really doesn't matter.

It's just a word that you're going to go really deep on now. Then by the end of my year,

I'm not going to spend every day studying the word simplify. But I will look up where it come from,

what it really means, and what does it mean for me. So I think I know what it means. But

in a month or two months, I might look up and go, well, yeah, simplify was way more than I

thought it would be. It's way deeper, it means way more. What does it give me? And when you think

about things like, I don't know, a compassion, what does compassion mean? What does it mean to have compassion for

myself? What does it mean to have compassion for others? What's the difference between compassion and empathy? I did a

podcast on that if you want to look it up um Or

the word love, what does it really mean? What does it mean to be loved or to love or acceptance,

which I prefer acceptance than love, because I think ultimate love is just acceptance. If you love something, you just

accept it. You don't try to change it in any way. So what would your word be? And

there's. So, you know, the English language has got like 271,000 words. I think we use, on average about 3,000

of them. So you've got a few words to choose from

and you can even go fancy and go for a Latin word. But I would suggest just keep it an

everyday word and just really dive deep into how does this word reduce my suffering?

So how does

simplify reduce my suffering? Because that's the whole spiritual journey, the spiritual journey is about reducing

our suffering and reducing the suffering around us. You know, Buddha said that the Four

um Noble Truths is, number one, to be alive, to be here, to be part of

samsara, the thinking mind. The ego is to suffer, you will always suffer. Number two, suffering

is because of attachments, because what we want it to be not because you're attached necessarily to a item or

a friend or a partner. It's because we're attached anyway and we're attached to what we want this position to

be. I'm not happy this moment. How do I change it? I'm not happy my weight or my hair lighter.

Why is it gray? I want to get rid of this virus. I want to deepen my

spiritual journey. Everything is all about wanting an attachment to it. So, and then number three, there is an answer

to attachment. There is a solution to it. And the solution is through meditation and the eighth

the Eightfold path, which if you'd like me to please let me know and I'll go through the Eightfold path

with you. But in amongst the Eightfold path, it's all about just living a more humble life,

simplifying things, doing things and less suffering. Every single one of them is about causing less suffering in the world

and less suffering to ourselves inside. So I look at the whole spiritual journey. If you've got more peace

and your anxiety is more under control because you won't get rid of it, it's a beautiful emotional

um emotion that has evolved over the years to give you absolutely a wonderful

teaching. You know, if you embrace your anxiety, it's telling you something. It's that seven, eight year old

going, hey, watch out for this. Last time it sucked. That's not my anxiety voice. I don't know where that

voice come from, but you get the point. And whether or not it's, you know, courage or fear or shame

or all of those things, it's about if you're reducing them, not getting rid of them, just being able to

recognise them and go ah hi shame. Hi fear. How you doing? What are you teaching me today? And you

could also go, hey, fear, you're right, I'm not going to do that because it's dumb. You know, that's gonna

be stupid. I'm gonna get hurt doing that um So sometimes listen to it, sometimes the anxiety is bang on.

You know, it's not about getting rid of these things, it's about, ah, there's a thought. I'm not going to

spend all day being anxious or being overwhelmed. I'm going to recognise it and go, ah, hi,

thanks for showing up,

good advice, take care. But I've got this. So if you can choose a word,

you know, some of the words you could use acceptance Just fighting against the reality creates pain.

So accepting things exactly as they are allows us to find peace just immediately, just acceptance.

I accept this thought. I accept this moment. Gentle. Just teaching yourself to be gentle with

yourself and gentle with those around you. Just more healthier judging. So I'm going to just list the

words. I'm not going to go through every word what they mean, but you could use pause, trust

enough, release curiosity. I love curiosity. Just be open, curious,

what's happening now? What's happening inside? Why do they think that way? You could even use it in

sentences every day. When someone comes up and says something you don't necessarily agree with, just go, I'm curious, why

do you feel that way? And it opens up the depth of conversation um ground That's a nice word.

Kindness, listen, understanding, compassion. Any kind of words. It

really doesn't matter what word you want to work on this year. And this is different than the three words

to show up as we'll do another podcast next month on that one um But my word is simplify

what does that mean? In every single moment of my life, how can I simplify this moment? How

can I close 15 tabs on the computer oh Imagine that. How can I turn off the notifications on my

phone? How can I just simplify this moment? So there's my podcast. I'm going to say thank you so much

to everybody that supports everybody. That's part of the weekly calm that is more like every three weeks um

But maybe simplifying things will make things easier. And as I said in my weekly calm before Christmas, I'm going

to get some help with my admin side and my editing side, which is going to make things a whole

lot easier. So I'll be able to release more meditations, more podcasts and. And that again, it's simplifying things. So

there you go. I'm just gonna Your donations help me to do that. Your donations will pay for

some of the things that I struggle to do in Paralysed. So look thank you for being there.

Thank you for the donations, thank you for the support, the shares, all the comments. I read them all, whether

it's on Spotify, anywhere. If you could leave a review, that would be awesome. Leave a review and put your

word what you can be you can always go to StevenWebb.uk

and message me. Always like hearing from you. Sometimes makes it takes me a few days to get back to

you, but it is what it is a busy Inbox I don't go there every hour of the day anymore

simplifying that look I'm just rambling on now. Take care and happy New Year. Let's

have a peaceful one and let's hear your word. I love you.