Ever said something you regretted about three seconds later? There is a gap between what happens and how you answer it, and it is bigger than it feels.
Ever said something you regretted about three seconds later? There is a gap between what happens and how you answer it, and it is bigger than it feels.
It feels like you have no choice but to react. You do. The gap is small but it is there, and meditation is what widens it. Here is the proof that it exists. Are you aware of your foot? You had to go there to answer that. That going there is the gap, and you can use it on somebody angry in exactly the same way.
One thing to try: Next time something lands, ask yourself one question before you answer. Are you aware? That question alone is the pause.
In this episode
(0:02) Have you ever regretted something you said
(4:28) Something happens, and you are already reacting
(5:47) The gap is tiny, but it is definitely there
(6:50) Ringing a friend to complain about the driver who cut you up
(8:11) It does not matter who they are, only who you are
(9:49) Watching your own body react, in real time
(13:35) Are you aware of your foot? And what you just did to answer
(17:33) Bringing it into the conscious mind on purpose
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Have you ever said something you regretted about three seconds later?
There is a gap between what happens and what you do about it. It is real, it is bigger than it feels, and everything useful lives inside it.
The heart of it
The reaction feels instant. It is not. It is fast, which is a different thing.
Anger is not the problem. What you do with it in the next two seconds is.
Meditation is not about calm. It is about widening that gap.
Somebody says something and you are angry before you have decided to be. It feels like pushing a wall and having it push back, with nothing in between. But there is something in between, and it can be stretched.
We all know the picture. The bar fight in the western, and the one person at the end of the bar with a drink and no interest in any of it. What we forget is that they walked in ten minutes earlier already like that. Nobody arrives calm at the moment they need to be.
Now here is the proof that the gap exists, and it takes about four seconds.
Are you aware of your foot?
You are now. And in order to answer, you had to go there. That going there is the gap. It has a size and you just used it.
Try the other version. Are you aware? Not of anything in particular. Just, are you aware? Most people either say yes instantly or the ego arrives to say this is a silly question. Stay with it a moment longer and you will feel yourself widen out to find the answer.
That is the same movement you can make when somebody is angry in your face.
Most of the time your subconscious handles everything, which is why you can drive through ten villages and remember none of them. Put a road closure in one and you remember it, because that is the moment it says, I do not know what to do with this, over to you.
The gap is you being handed the thing on purpose rather than by accident.
Be who you are, not who they are.
One small thing to try
Next time something lands, ask yourself one question before you answer. Are you aware?
That question is the pause. You do not need to do anything with it, and asking it takes about as long as a breath.
Traffic lights are the free version. So is the moment somebody says something and you feel it rise. Notice the body first, the heat or the tightening, and answer after.
Questions people ask
Am I meant to stop feeling angry?
No, and I would not want you to. Anger fixes things. Nobody should be calm about children going hungry. The feeling is not the trouble, the unexamined two seconds after it is.
How do I make the gap bigger?
By using it when it costs nothing. A minute here and there, noticing what is happening in your body. You cannot build it in the middle of an argument, the same way that man did not become calm during the bar fight.
What if I have already reacted?
Then you are like the rest of us, and I am no better at this than you are. Notice it, do not build a second story about being bad at it, and use the next one.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
mindfulness · present-moment · overthinking
Read the transcript
Have you ever
regretted something you've done?
Or regretted something you said?
If so, this podcast is for you.
I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms. The podcast that gives you a little calmness and peace
when you need it most. And probably when you have it least. It helps you through those difficult times.
And I did a podcast and said enough is enough. I've had enough and I need your help.
And the reason I did that podcast a couple of weeks ago is because I'm doing much of the things
I don't want to do, but I'm doing them because I'm just giving into my habitable subconscious mind, watching Netflix,
just procrastinating all the time. So I want to give you a bit of an update. And now I'm going
to talk about The Gap.
And it's a kind of mind the gap or Enjoy the gap. Recognise the gap. But it really will. It's
one of those things, you hear it all the time about changing your life. And I just want to, you
know, emphasize that there's so many things that will change your life, but this will change your life really because
you won't have to regret things. And you can feel a little more calmness. You'll feel a little more happier.
And things like that. And you'll be totally more in control of your life. But I'll go on to that
in a minute. I want to go back to mainly um just for a moment, I want to go back
to watching Netflix and all those things. So I've deleted all the games off my ipad. I've deleted the games
off my phone. I've deleted several things. I've totally unfollowed quite a few people
I've I'm just I've turned off notifications. I'm doing all these things. I'm slowly trying to move away from social
media, although it's a large part of my life because I have a page and I have this podcast and
I have Twitter and it's the way I communicate a lot of the time with people in true because my
job the mayor I'm the mayor of trua at the moment. I'm doing my second year there's one way in
which I can communicate what I'm doing so I am I am doing what I said. Not
quite as well as what I could have been doing. Have I took a Tv out the bedroom? No, not
yet. But I don't have it on nowhere near so much um So yeah, I'm reading a lot more and
I'm reading a wonderful book at the moment called The Salt Path. It's um a lady and her husband went
on a tour after losing their house. They went on a walking tour around Cornwall. It's just incredible. The coastal
path. Really great story. Really entertaining. Really open-hearted, lovely couple. And
I'm about three quarters of the way through and it's just a wonderful book to It's a real page turner.
But
yeah, let's get back on with today's podcast. So that's a little bit of an update. Let's get back onto
today's podcast and that is about The Gap. And what is The Gap? What am I talking about? So, The
Gap. The Gap is that little, very small, Minute little time
between when things arise and what you do with it. So let me explain what I mean by when things
arise. So if someone says something, it first of all creates a feeling. It creates a thought.
You hear it. I don't want to go the technical aspect of you hear it and it goes into the
head and all that. And then your brain interprets it and then it looks at your subconscious mind and it
looks through the habitable nature of your mind and You know, and it reacts. That's what it does. First of
all, you've got the really quick mind the fight flight or freeze.
Then if if it's not a life-threatening moment and then it'll move on to the subconscious mind sometimes might go
how did I deal with this last time look through the big fighting cabinet
and it may end up at the end of the day saying, well, I don't know what to do with
that. So it passes on to the human mind. But very often it goes through the fighting cabinet and it
finds what it done last time. So if someone says something and you're affected by it, you'll be angry. You'll
be triggered. Or you might be really calm or feel really good. It might be a lovely thing that you
just experienced. But whichever way, you'll have a feeling arise. Something will happen and you'll have
a feeling arise or a thought or something will happen. Then what normally happens is we jump
to our habitable response and It's normally so quick we don't even see it it's so
um It's almost spontaneous. It's like as if there's no gap there. And this is why we use meditation or
mindfulness to help to see that gap. Have you ever noticed when you get angry? Someone says something, you get
angry and you immediately react. It's almost like as if there was no time between what happens and the reaction.
There's always a little time, but it's so minute and small, especially before you meditate or before you do any
kind of mindfulness and all. And it's it's almost well it's reactionary you know
um It's almost like that, you know, you push against the wall and the wall pushes back instantly. Even then
there is that... Little Gap. But it's almost like as if you have no choice but to react. But you
do. There's a small, minute amount of time. And this is why when we meditate or when we practice mindfulness
you ever notice when you're really calm, that guy at the end of the bar in the movies, we've all
seen it, and there's a big fight happening. And the guy at the end of the bar has got his
whiskey in his little tumbler. Everybody else is there falling down fighting and he's just relaxed. Really calm.
That's because he walked in the bar 10 minutes earlier just really chilled with that swagger walking across. And then
he stands up at the end and he does that last punch or he just says something and leaves. And
we all want to be that calm person in that storm when it's happening
and
But we often just get wound up in whatever's happening we We end up phoning friends and getting older,
different people and all that. To a point where it's like phone a friend oh If someone cuts drop on
the road or something, we've not only got a moan at that point, they probably can't hear us because the
windows that we do a gesture outside the window or something like that. And we immediately react to it and
then we then we tell people about it later and then we... Phone people. And we don't leave it go.
We keep repeating it um Even if you dealt with it at a time, you might have flipped them the
bird or something like that. You know, if you don't know what that is, that's sticking up your middle finger
or you might even do a ruder gesture. But you're angry. You reacted. You're like, how dare they violate us?
How dare they do that to us? They almost like took us out. But the truth is, we don't know
what they're going through. We don't know why they did. Maybe they didn't see us. Maybe um it was a
mistake. Maybe they're in a rush. You know, we we don't know that Maybe they're just an a-hole. You you
know maybe they're just a not a nice person that doesn't ever care about anybody else. Whichever way, we don't
have to be the same as them. So we don't have to react in the same way. So, you know,
I always say to my daughter, When she says about when people do things and all that to her, well,
they say something. And I say, and she gets I want to react. I'm angry. I'm like but be who
you are, not who they are. Always remember who you are doesn't matter who they are. It just matters
who you are and how you do it. So when we see the gap, when we meditate and all that,
what we do is we slow down like the end of the guy at the end of the bar. And
we take everything in. Because we slow down, we're opening our ears, we're opening our subconscious mind, we're opening
our conscious mind, and we're just receiving all the information. And we're deciding what to do with it. And sometimes,
very often, you don't have to do anything with it. You can have a feeling arising go oh, I'm angry
might be justified. It's fine. Anger is not a problem. It's what you do with it you know Anger
can really fix things in the world. We should be angry at many things. If we're not angry at children
starving or abuse and things like that, well, if we're not angry about um some things that
are going on in politics and other areas and things like that, well, what's going on? We should be
um So anger is not a problem the The feelings and emotions that come up are not the problem
it's It's purely down to what do we do with it? And that's what makes all the differences, what we
do with it. So how do we create this gap? How do we make this gap slightly longer?
Well, every now and again, just take a one minute out and just sit and what's going on around me?
And observe your feelings. Observe your thoughts. So when someone's angry, when someone's in your face or
when you read a headline or you do something like that.
Just observe how you're reacting to it. Observe what's happening in your body. Now, are you getting agitated?
Are you um are you sweating a little bit? Are you like
like I say, angry? Are you fed up are you Does it make you happy and joyous? Because it didn't
always a negative emotion. You could have a lustful or a desire. You know, you can have desires. You could
have desires for a complete stranger in the street, but you don't have to do anything with it. This is
the point. You can have these feelings. It's quite natural to have these feelings.
You know, you can be in a happy, beautiful relationship and someone could walk past you and you go, do
you know what? They're good looking. You
know, you can have that desire to give them a hug or go over and kiss them, but you don't
have to do anything with it and you shouldn't. We live in a society where you just cannot do that
anymore and rightly so um You know, animals still don't quite get there yet, you know. If you
ever walk a dog, very often the dog's like, oh, I like that. I'll give it a go. No, as
humans, we we have that we have that little gap between
I've got this feeling, but I'm not going to do anything with it. So that's what I'm talking that gap
in many, many areas of our life. The gap's there. But the gap's not there when we're
clouded by this red mist of anger. Or very much in our habit mind when we're on autopilot
this um These
feelings come up, these emotions, these thoughts come up and we just go with them no matter what and we
don't question them.
That's what I'm talking about. So if you just spend some time today or even this podcast right now, what
are you feeling? What's going on? Listen to my words. Listen to the gaps between my words. It's the gaps
that make all the difference um To your life until you react you won't end up in a position where
you're regretting it later because you very often won't say that thing you shouldn't say um
You think about it a bit more what you're saying. And I'm working on this. I'm not much good at
it, but I'm getting better you know um I I hang around sometimes with Zen masters and
um Buddhist monks and things like that. And they very much, you can tell they're thinking about what they're going
to say. And you see it with the really calm, wise person. They'll be looking around the room and
someone will say something and you tell they're just thinking about it. And if you watch Youtube videos, you can
see all the time. If you watch Youtube videos when you've got some of these um yogis and things like
that that these wise Zen masters and all that, when they're asked a question on stage.
They'll really think about the question. They'll close their eyes and they'll consider the question. They'll mull it over and
they'll look through their fighting cabinet and they'll look at it from different angles and they'll understand it. And Rupert
Sabir is really good at this. If you look him up online, especially on Youtube, he's really good at finding
that little gap. And he asked the brilliant question. He says, are you aware?
I could ask you this question now. So let's do it now. Just shake your body out a little bit.
Just allow your legs and arms to be a little um I don't know, loose. Relax your face I'll
do this very, very quickly. And if I ask you, are you aware of your foot?
Well, yeah. But what did you do to become aware of your foot? You went to your foot. You brought
your awareness to your foot. If I said, are you aware of your left thigh well
You probably wouldn't have been unless there's a problem with your left thigh or you know someone's standing on it
or something something crazy. You never know what you guys are doing listening to my podcast. But in general
you're not this you're not aware of every part of your body. So if I said to you, are you
aware of your left baby finger?
You've got to become aware of it. You've got a um My screen's just gone off um You've got to
become aware of it. And don't forget, I'm not editing these podcasts like mad because I don't have time to
any of that stuff. My podcasts are very much unpolished. You get them the way you are. Get them the
way they are with the ums and arms and everything. With the tangents and everything. Anyway, going back. So
if I asked you to become aware of your baby finger on your left hand,
you're going to become aware. Now then, if I asked you, are you aware?
Are you aware? So what do you do in order to answer that question then you'll
either jump to two conclusions initially with no gap. So the first one is like, yeah, or maybe you just
go, no. And the mind might jump in here and go, well, I know this anyway. I'm more
intelligent This is a silly question. I can do this. But
what I want you to do is really step back and consider what happens in that moment between when I
ask you the question and when you answer. Are
you aware?
Now then, the answer is probably yes, but you have to do something to
become aware.
Just like if I say, are you aware of the back of your neck or are you aware of
a picture on the wall behind you? You have to bring your attention to it in order to answer that
question. Now,
you might be one of the ones that say, well, I was already aware. Well, you can't be aware of
everything. The point is, I'm asking you to be aware of something you're not already aware of.
And we know there's a picture behind you. We know we got, unless you're missing your baby finger on your
left hand, but you you're not aware of everything. You're genuinely aware of very little at any one given time.
Especially the human side. And this is what we're talking about, the human side here not the subconscious mind. Your
subconscious mind's listening to everything. It can hear everything. It's feeling everything. Otherwise it cannot make these habitable
responses they cannot stay up straight in the chair or walking. It's got to be aware of how your muscles
are doing, how the feeling's going, how your feet are, where the position the sound and everything. It's not until
it becomes unusual that the subconscious mind goes, I don't know what to do with this. And they pass it
to the human. Just like when you drive through 10 villages and you go, I can't remember driving through that
village. Well, if you drove through the village and something was different, like roadblocks or there was an accident, you'd
remember because the subconscious mind goes, this is different. This wasn't what I was expecting. Over to the human. Over
to the human. I don't know what to do with it. So this is what we're asking to do. Bring
it over to the human. Bring the current situation or whatever is arising into the conscious mind or the conscious
human. So when you ask the question, when I ask you the question, are you aware?
I want you to suddenly become aware of as much as possible. Inside, outside, the world, the air around you.
Just, are you aware?
And boom. If
you if you're not jumping in with the ego going, yeah, of course I know this, I understand this. If
you're really trying to do this, you'll hopefully come to the illusion that there's a little gap between what comes
up and what you do with it.
So as you as you practice this more and more and as you sit at traffic lights and just take
a deep breath. As you become aware of your breath, you become aware of your feet and you become aware
of everything going on around you. You become aware of the person talking to you or what's on the radio
rather than just subconsciously going through your day on autopilot. You'll realise that you have this ability
to be almost one step ahead in a superhuman way. I've
got this. Okay. Someone's coming in angry. I've got this.
I've got this feeling of lust or desire or overwhelming emotions. I've got this.
And it stops you reacting. It stops you doing something you regret later.
And that's what made that's one of the real benefits of meditation. You become more present with the present moment.
You become more like the guy at the end of the bar, perhaps not drinking whiskey out of tumblr but
that coal collected guy. Not always a guy, but very often it is in movies.
I'm thinking of more Western movies. I grew up with a lot of them. So yeah, hopefully that helps.
Let me know if that helps at all. And that this is one of the two podcasts. I said on
my um Tiktok account that I was going to do one of two podcasts. It was either going to be
um about the gap where it's going to be a really simple form of meditations. Well, I'm going to do
both podcasts actually um Next week, it's going to be a really simple four-step process of meditation that I do.
And you can do it in one minute or you can do it in one hour. It totally depends. And
it will really help you to generate this gap. And the bigger you make the gap, the more you won't
regret things in your life, the more you won't say these things. The more benefits it will give you. You'll
make more wiser decisions. You'll be able to make better and faster decisions, ironically. And you'll you'll regret less decisions.
And those decisions will be more beneficial for you and everybody. So
hopefully this will help. And look out every Friday for a new podcast.
I'm really working on that. Feel free to email me and go, where's your podcast?
Sometimes when a podcast goes really well, I want to run from it and go, oh, I can't do this
anymore. I have a real big fear and I'm working on it that I'm gonna let people down
and I realise I let more people down by just not doing rather than just getting on with it. So
I'm working on it. We're all deeply, beautifully flawed and perfect at the same time, aren't we?
And I'm no different. I'm no different
um we just gotta make sure we're working on it um So this is Stillness in the Storms. I'm Steven
Webb. your host. And you can find out more about me or you can contact me on StevenWebb.uk. I
don't have any sponsors for this podcast, but if you go to StevenWebb.uk, there is a link there to an
app with all my meditations. And
that will that will if you sign up to the app, I will get a little bit of the money,
which is brilliant. But otherwise, you'll have 30 days completely free with hundreds and hundreds of meditations um There's no
commitment. There's no thing um But this will help
um So yeah, there's a link on StevenWebb.uk. It's an awesome app. Not just mine, but it's literally hundreds and
hundreds and thousands of meditations. And they're all organized in a perfect way. So if you want to get better
sleep or you want to have a find the gap a little more or you want to have a coach,
things like that, it's all on this app. It's absolutely brilliant. It's called Aura. It's called Aura. But I really
want you to go through my link because that would be helpful. And it helps me to get an editor
that I can edit these because I'm not much good at it. Take care, guys. This is Steven Webb. This
is Stillness in the Storms. Helping you to get through the toughest times in life with a little more wisdom
