I am a terrible meditator. Still am, after ten years. So I broke it into four steps and stopped trying to do the lot at once.

About 15 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice.

Still, quiet, open, curious. One at a time, and no rush between them. Meditation is the gym, not the race. You are not training to sit better, you are training for the meeting you did not want and the driver who cuts you up. Aim at a quiet mind and the opposite happens.

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Steven

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Welcome to Finding Inner Peace. The Four Step Meditation Journey. Now this meditation is really

one that I do quite often when I just cannot stop my racing thoughts. When I sit down and my

body, my heart's beating and my body's just feeling restless.

Really why do I use this meditation, the four step process? Because when we sit down to meditate, we very

often have The intention of feeling calm or quieting our mind. or communicating with aliens.

Whatever reason we may sit down to meditate, but very often I do it just because I want to

feel a little bit of stillness and I

may have a thought that keeps going around in my head or I may have a meeting coming up that

I'm feeling a bit anxious about.

So I sit down and I do this four-step process simply because To do the whole meditation in one go,

sit down, relax and then just allow your thoughts to pass. And I find it all a bit overwhelming to

begin with. So even after all these years of meditation, I've still got to break it down because really I'm

a terrible meditator and I find it really difficult to meditate. And I know the goal of meditation is not

to quieten the mind, not to have no thoughts. It's not to switch off the heart or switch off the

brain. It's really just to have a deeper insight, to find calmness, to become

wiser and maybe we can understand a bit more about our bodies and our minds and the way they work.

By doing that, we end up with a deeper wisdom. We end up being able to deal with

situations better. And I always say meditation is like the gym. You have the gym that prepares your

muscles and all that for that big race. Whereas meditation is preparing you for that awkward moment where you're in

a meeting that you don't want to be in or that driver that cuts you up and you want to

react.

Meditation and teaches us not to react and we can just, okay, they may have made a mistake or

that family member may not be deliberately trying to annoy me and we become calmer and wiser and we just...

Make better decisions and we come at life from a really, a lot more peaceful way. So this

meditation really does help me to do that. And I hope it will help you. So so

the very first part of this meditation is embrace stillness. And what I mean by that is just find a

comfortable place. Wiggle your bum. Let your shoulders just sit. And just become a little stiller.

You don't have to do anything. Just become still.

And this is just a physical stillness.

And that's it.

You don't have to settle your mind. You don't have to do

anything else it's just become still Allow

your shoulders to relax.

Allow your face to relax.

When I say allow your shoulders and your face to relax, it's an invitation because your shoulders and your face

and your arms and your bum and your legs, they all know how to relax. They do it all the

time when you're not paying attention.

So when you just invite them to say, okay, you can relax now. Watch

how quickly they relax.

If you try to do it, it just doesn't work.

So just allow your whole body to relax into this moment.

You may become aware of your breath.

You may even become aware of your thoughts. That's

all fine.

If you're a seasoned meditator, you may probably already jump two or three steps ahead. And that's okay

But We're just embracing the stillness right now.

Now we move on to the quietness.

This step is about heightened awareness.

Acknowledge your presence in this space.

Become aware that you're breathing in and

you're breathing out

Aware of your chest and

become aware that your thoughts may come and go.

And just sit in the space of awareness

And just bring it back to your breath every time you have a thought. Smile and thank the thought and

bring it back to your breath.

You don't need to do anything with your breath.

Your body knows how to breathe in any given moment. It does it without us getting involved most of the

time. It's only when we get involved you

may notice that.

When we're just sitting here, just being aware of everything that's going on. Everything is just calm.

So by now you're probably feeling more still and more aware. And

you're just calm in this moment.

And the third step I use is just to open this awareness up.

Instead of just being aware of your breath, maybe you can be aware of your taste in your mouth

And your breath at the same time.

Maybe be aware of the sounds and my voice and the words.

Aware of any other noises.

You may become aware of a part of your body where you can feel it touching the chair.

It's trying to hold all these different awarenesses in one space without locking onto one too hard or

too harshly. It's

not about focusing on the sounds or the breath. It's about just having an open awareness.

It's just embracing everything that's happening right now.

Internally and externally.

Everything that's happening around you and the whole universe.

As well as your breath

And the sounds

And the thoughts coming and going.

Every single moment is completely different.

Then the final step I use is just be curious

one way I do this is just to have a slight grin on my face.

That this moment is all okay and it's just entertaining and it's all here for us to have this experience

You know From the breath, to the feelings, to the thoughts.

It's all here for us to be aware of.

It's all a dance and a play.

And it's watching it with a sense of wonder.

And you can almost feel that each thought and feeling is a unique event.

This step is about non-attachment. Letting experiences rise and fall without judgement.

Whatever feelings come in or whatever thoughts come in, maybe you become aware of your taste or you become aware

of an itch or something. Just be entertained by it as an experience in your life.

Wow, what's this?

What's this wonderful event? What's this experience that's arising within me now?

And I find this process easier to manage because it's one step at a time. I'm not a

multitasker and sometimes it's really not easy to jump to open awareness and sit down and be aware

of your breath. Sometimes just to be a little still and That's all I need to do.

Then to be quiet. Then to open up. And then be curious.

And it gives a sense of that we don't have to do it all in one go. And the wonderful

thing with this meditation, it's a pathway to self-discovery and acceptance of you have thoughts, you have feelings.

You have things arising within you. You hear sounds.

And it guides you gently into the meditation.

But it gives you a deep insight to what's really going on.

So very often I forget about the art of meditation.

Don't worry about meditation or mindfulness. Just

sit and be a little quiet.

Find a little stillness.

Open up your awareness.

And then be curious. Treat it all as an event.

Now in a moment I'm going to count back from five so you open your eyes and return to the

room. But just before we do that,

recognise how much quieter your mind goes when

we don't try to force things. If you focus on quiet in the mind, the opposite happens. If you focus

on being still, Or being aware It's really hard to hold that. But

if we just allow these things to happen, what

a joy that is. What a peaceful moment that is. And

you don't have to do anything with any of it.

Your mind knows how to be quiet. Your body knows how to relax. Your body knows how to breathe. Your

ears know how to listen. Your tongue knows how to taste. Just

allow these things to be what they are.

So five, four, Gently open your eyes. Three, shake out your arms.

Two, one. Just look around the room and just, yeah, just really appreciate the fact that

at the beginning of the meditation you're probably finding it quite difficult to meditate that's why you might have picked

this one. Or you're a seasoned meditator and I'm just breaking it down going one step at a time just

really makes things a lot easier. And

really appreciate your time with me here today. Thank you. And

I wish you a wonderful, peaceful day.

I'm Steven Webb and this is part of the Inner Peace Meditations podcast. What would be really amazing if you

could leave a review? How you felt or how much it helps? That would be absolutely incredible. And you can

find all my links and how you can support the podcast in the show notes. Take care. You're awesome.