Standing Nowhere

Episode 5: When the Mud Settles — Peace in the Pressure and the Spaces Between

• Jacob Buehler • Episode 5

Share episode

What if your life didn’t need to be fixed—but simply witnessed?

In this episode, Jacob shares a vulnerable story about his car failing at the worst moment, old fears flaring up, and the strange stillness that followed. Through parenting, pressure, and frozen pizza, he explores how peace isn't something we create—it's something we notice when we stop fighting for control.

You’ll hear reflections from Psalm 23, the Tao Te Ching, Star Wars, and a powerful teaching from the Buddha on breaking habits through awareness—not shame. But maybe the most moving moment comes from Mr. Rogers, who reminds us that sometimes the greatest gift we can offer… is silence.

This is a meditation on trusting the moment, letting go of force, and discovering that even when life falls apart, the water can still clear—if we have the patience to wait.

🕊️

“I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder… in noise, rather than silence.”
 — Fred Rogers
 Watch the clip

Want to share a thought?

Support the show

🔗 All links: https://linktr.ee/standingnowhere
🎧 Listen on your favorite app
💬 Join our community on Discord
📩 Email: standingnowherepodcast@gmail.com

(Tap “Support the show” above to become a Patron — thank you!)

Jacob:

All right, we're rolling. We are on episode five of Standing Nowhere. I'm your host, Jacob Buehler. Welcome back, everyone. I'm excited because today's episode marks the one-month anniversary that I launched the podcast and And for me, that's a lot. Sorry, I'm a little out of breath. I did a couple of squats before starting this episode to get the blood flowing a little bit. You sit too long in a chair and your mind turns into mush. So one month in, I had a little delayed period starting this podcast because I was nervous. I wasn't quite ready for it. I was just starting my journey of self-reflection, introspective, looking in, what is the self? What is this This life and universe all about. Y'all know my story from the first episode. Y'all. I use that word. Y'all. And today I wanted to talk about chaos, cultivating peace amidst the chaos, and how being not forcing results in changes in our lives. Essentially, changing our habits, but also surviving amidst all the chaos that life throws us. Because life is crazy, right? I like to always say, compared to what? But... Life is crazy. And yesterday was crazy for me because I do deliveries and gig work full time for my income at the moment. And I was on a Chipotle delivery and I was about halfway to the customer. When I push the clutch in, I drive a manual transmission. And as I push the clutch in, I hear a pop and the clutch sinks to the floor and it won't come back up. So I'm like, oh boy, what do I do now? My mind starts racing, but immediately I caught myself, found myself. I was like, well, I got to get to a safe spot. So using the momentum the car already had, thankfully, I was able to get over two lanes, pull into a parking lot, and cruise into a parking spot. So it all worked out. I contacted my insurance to get roadside assistance to get my car towed home. But during that time, my... You know, anyone in my position that works full-time as a delivery guy, if your car breaks down, your income's gone. So I made the calls, got the car home. I found the part that I needed. It took me a while. But essentially, I can't get the part until Monday if it's even in stock. It's only at the dealership that I can find it. AutoZone and O'Reilly's, places like that, don't carry it. So I have to wait until Kia opens and their parts department opens on Monday, tomorrow. It's Sunday right now as I'm recording this. I'll release it on Thursday. But it was a little stressful. But I started... I started to remember my practice, coming back to my breath, coming back to my being, not worrying, not just telling myself not to worry, but genuinely not worrying. There is only so much you can do in a given situation, really. And beyond that, you're just going to stress yourself out. So I've got to wait till tomorrow. And here I am today. So I thought, well, at least I have extra free time to record the podcast episode, because usually I record on Tuesday or Wednesday morning. And I only have about an hour to an hour and a half to do it before I have to get to work because I really don't get days off right now. Occasionally, I'll get the latter half of a day or maybe a full Tuesday or a full Wednesday off when money permits. But most of the time, I have to work seven days a week, which usually comes to about 50 to 60 hours a week of work. And in those hours, there is no lunch break. There is no 15-minute break. I do get a little reprieve at the restaurants that I'm picking up from for a couple of minutes while I'm waiting for the order, but not a lot of free time for the podcast. So the fact that the car is broken down right now gives me a little extra time. And the first thing I did this morning was research the part I needed to make sure that that's all set. There's always that quote that comes to my mind when crazy things arise, and it's from the Dalai Lama. He says, if you can fix it, the problem, whatever it is that's worrying you, then there's no need to worry. And if you can't, then there's no need to worry. There's basically never a good time to worry. So I remembered that and I was like, well, what can I do right now? Research what part I need, figure out how much it's going to cost, my plan of action of getting it tomorrow. Okay, that's done. Now what? Well, I can be, just be. spend some time with my son. I walked with my four-year-old, Leon. He's a wonderful boy. We walked to the gas station together, and we weren't in a hurry. We weren't in a rush, and it was so wonderful. He was just telling me everything on his mind, and it just melted my heart. It actually made me a little emotional because he said, Dad, I'm I love it when you get to stay home with me because he doesn't get to see me that much. And that's been one of the biggest struggles about me having to work all these hours is that I don't get a lot of time with my children. And that's the hardest part, actually. And the free time that I do get, for a long time, I was filling it with bad habits to blunt or ease the pain. I'm sure many of you listening can relate. Life is demanding. Life is stressful. And the internal stress that that causes, we can deal with in less than optimal ways. One of the ways that I do that, at the end of the day, I like to have a little cannabis just to relax. I don't use a lot of it. I'm not a wake and baker. But at the end of the day, it has been nice to have a little bit to take the edge off. I used to have alcohol with it. once in a while, not a daily drinker, but two, maybe three times a week, I would have alcohol, sometimes more if I'm being honest. And I've kicked that alcohol habit. Thankfully, I kicked it a couple of months ago. It wasn't easy, but I feel much better now that I have. And I've struggled in my life with changing my habits. I think we all do. We're creatures of habit. What we do on a regular basis becomes the norm. And then it's hard to get out of that. Without silence or being, you really, I found that it's really hard to change a habit unless you sit with it and be with it. And that's what I wanted to talk about today because I want to change some of my habits that I still have, which One of them is cannabis. One of them is my video game time. And one of them is my nutrition. I need to get in shape. Starting a consistent training program. I've been on and off training programs throughout the years, on and off with eating healthy and then giving up and just eating frozen pizzas or fast food for convenience. And all these little things make big differences in our lives. And I've noticed that the harder I try to force myself to change a habit, the less likely I am to actually change the habit. It's like the change has to almost come about by itself. And I struggled for the longest time of like, how do I do this? What do I do to change my habits? And I found the only way that it can happen is to cultivate being, to cultivate peace and at least for me, and I'm sure for you as well, but only you can see if you try. And that process involves slowing down, breathing, being with yourself, seeing what is going on inside of you. How do you feel? There's a wonderful quote from Fred Rogers. Many of you know as Mr. Rogers from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. And I absolutely love this man, not just for his TV program that I used to watch all the time as a kid, but because the man embodies peace and stillness. I think he's a saint, personally. I think he's a highly realized being. He understands How this world works on a high level. And he does it because he's very silent interiorly. Check out this quote. He was in an interview. I'll put a link to this interview with Fred Rogers in the description so that you guys can see it for yourself, hear it for yourselves. But the interviewer asked him about a book that he had just written at the time. And he said, so this is a distillation of your growing and learning. It's about what exactly? And Fred Rogers responded by saying, quote, it's about being. It's about the things that matter to me. It's about the white spaces between the paragraphs, which I think are more important than any of the text. because it allows you to think about what's just been said. And that's really profound, not just in a sense that when you are reading something, you have to allow yourself time to process it, but also the things that you're feeling in your life. You have to be with that in silence in order for you to process it and understand what is really happening. Take, for example... I started recently eating healthier and in smaller amounts because I need to lose weight. I'm five foot eight, not very tall. And I was eating larger amounts of food, I think as a coping mechanism. Sometimes we... We give into our desires a little too much to compensate for the stresses in our lives. We call it stress eating. And I was doing just that without even realizing it. And this is while I was meditating and learning to be more mindful throughout my day, especially in the beginning. And eventually it got to the point where a stillness or silence had grown, a sense of being had grown in me to the point where I started to become very mindful of what I was putting into my mouth, how I was eating. And I started paying attention to how I felt afterwards, how it started impacting my sleep. And I just naturally wanted to feel better, to feel more alert instead of sluggish. And out of that natural desire, to cultivate presence and peace in myself, I naturally started eating less. I would start eating some of the food that I normally ate and about halfway through what I would normally eat, I was like, you know what? I feel good right now. I feel content. Why do I need to eat this much extra? So I just started saving it in the fridge and having it later the next day, spending less money. And the scale started going down. I'm down about 15 pounds now. And I have about 35, maybe 45 pounds that I need to lose. And I have some years under my belt with weightlifting. So I do have some muscle that I've built in the past. So my frame. I'll be honest with you guys. I have nothing to hide, I suppose. I'm about 215 pounds. I was pushing 230 just about a month and a half, two months ago. Just by eating less and it Desiring to just feel good and be and not stuff my mouth quickly with food just to cover up feelings of stress from my workload or whatever, I've lost weight. I have failed so many times to start my quote unquote diet over the last year. two three four years even longer I would always get on the horse and stay on it for a while and then fall off the longest I'd ever get was like three or four weeks and then I'd fall off the horse again and I would just it was so my wife would tell me you always go in extremes you eat a lot or you eat nothing and then you wonder why it's not working and it makes sense but I couldn't come at it from the approach of me confronting a problem like it's an enemy or a habit like it's an enemy that I had to beat it. I had to just cultivate a peacefulness and a stillness inside of me that I desired to experience more than the pleasure that the food gave me. There's a big difference between pleasure and and happiness. And I was happy when I ate the right amount of food. And I am happy when I eat the right amount of food. And I'm even happier when I eat healthier food, nutritious food, especially higher in protein content, because it satiates you better. You feel fuller eating less. And vegetables have a wonderful effect on the body. So I'm going to start a habit series. I don't know what I'll call it yet. They'll probably be shorter episodes that I'll release, probably intermittently between regular weekly releases. I have episodes coming out Thursday mornings, 5 a.m. Arizona time every week. So I'll probably do the habit series maybe on a Sunday or Monday release, somewhere in the middle of the week. And only once in a while, perhaps, where I update you with my fat loss status or my other habits that I'm trying to break, which I'll go into later in the episode. There's another quote from Fred Rogers along this line that I wanted to read out to you guys. And this hearkens to what I was talking about with cultivating peace and inner stillness. So check this out. The interviewer asks Fred Rogers, "'Who has made a difference in your life?' And Fred Rogers replied, quote, Oh, a lot of people, but a lot of people who have allowed me to have some silence. I don't think we give that gift very much anymore. I'm very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder in noise rather than silence. How do we encourage reflection? I trust that this book will do some of that, but oh my, this is a noisy world. You see, he's pointing to that same truth that all of us Not just myself, all of you listening, we are bombarded on a daily basis by a fire hose of information. And that's right in your pocket. Your phone chimes and you rush to grab it. Even if your phone is silent, you rush to grab it to see what you can fill the silence with, what you can fill these little breaks we get with more noise instead of cultivating more peace. And you've heard this before that we need to use our smartphones and screens less to But what is an actual practical way of doing that and going about that? Because otherwise, I'm just gonna sound like any other voice that you've heard that says, do less of this, do more of this. But how? How do you do that? You obviously want to do it, but you don't. I'm the same way. Paul wrote about this in his epistles in the Bible when he says, I do the thing that I do not want to do. And I won't go into more detail on that, but you can read that passage. I forget which book it's in, but this is a problem that's plagued mankind for a long time. Another passage that I wanted to read to you is the 23rd Psalm in the Bible written by David. And in it, You'll hear many translations say, the Lord is my shepherd in the very beginning. But I want to remind you all that when the Bible was originally written, the Lord was not what was written. It was Yahweh, which is the name given to God or ascribed to God by Moses in the book of Exodus. And Yahweh, the name of God, which we are told not to take in vain, means to be. to exist or being in general, past, present, and future tense, I am. So remember that when I say Yahweh in this passage, okay? Yahweh is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of Yahweh my whole life long. So you see here he's pointing to your being. That same stillness that Fred Rogers is talking about, that stillness is your being, that silence. St. John of the Cross says, the first language of God was silence. And we need to remember that. Silence is a powerful thing. Just to take time out of your busy, noisy day, even if it's five minutes, to just be still, to stop striving, to allow a breath of air to pass, a breath of silence. You'll be amazed at the insights that you can derive from this. Later, we hear in the New Testament from Rabbi Yeshua or Teacher Jesus, as he is called in the Greek, do not worry. He says, therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, Oh, what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things. And indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today. And I remembered that when I felt my clutch pedal sink to the floor. I mean, immediately my brain thought, there goes my income. And I'm recording this on Sunday, and I do not know how I'm going to pay my bills next week. I have a little bit of money, but the fact that I was not able to work today is going to cost me about $250 in earnings, and that's going to set me back. I'm still on track to pay my bills this month, but... It's not easy. It's not pleasant in my brain right now. It's a weight. But if that worry starts to arise, I remember what teachers like Fred Rogers or Jesus or David say, which is to let go of my striving. to let go of my worrying that those things will be taken care of in their right time, that I can have trust, which is another word for faith. The King James translation, when he says, do not worry about tomorrow, was take no thought for tomorrow, which I really like. Do not think about tomorrow. And if there is something pressing, because I know a lot of you are thinking, well, Jake, I have to think, I have to plan. And I'm not saying don't plan, but when the thought arises in your mind that you have something to take care of, like for example, I have to call the gas company so that our gas does not get shut off and I have to do it within the next 24 hours. I can't forget about that. But when that thought pops in my head, I simply say, okay, I'm going to notate that on my phone, add a reminder, and it's gone. And I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm not going to ruminate and go in circles on it. I will take care of it. Another teacher or mystic who spoke something similar, just like Jesus or Fred Rogers, was Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, verse 15. He says, The ancient masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it. All we can describe is their appearance. They were careful as someone crossing an iced-over stream, alert as a warrior in enemy territory, courteous as a guest, fluid as melting ice, shapeable as a block of wood. receptive as a valley, clear as a glass of water. Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? The master does not seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present." and can welcome all things." This is powerful stuff. These people are speaking from a wisdom that is beyond their intellect. They have cultivated, like a garden, a peace within themselves, a space within themselves, and they didn't cultivate it by force. You can't force a garden to grow. You can't pull the daisies up or you'll rip them out of the ground. They let be. There's a Zen saying, sitting quietly, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. So we take action and we do what needs to be done in our lives to But there's no need to go beyond that. And until we take moments to stop and smell the roses, as they say, or cultivate that stillness in us, these right actions, we won't know what they are or what to do. In our franticness, like Fred Rogers said, it's a noisy world. And in our franticness, we... We strive too hard to figure these things out. And in so doing, we make it worse. There's another verse from Lao Tzu in verse 48 of the same book. He says, in pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things. And this reminds me of a lesson that we can all learn from the Star Wars film saga, where we can learn a lot of things through fiction even though it's fiction it is laced with human wisdom real true human wisdom and if you go back you will see anakin skywalker in his life he is confronted with an issue that he simply cannot ignore and he simply cannot surrender to Notice that word surrender and rest. You'll find it in the Bible when it comes to salvation. We always need to rest into salvation or surrender into it. We can't do it ourselves. And in the third Star Wars film, Anakin Skywalker is faced with the idea that his wife is going to die, Padme, and she is pregnant with his child, children, which he doesn't know at the time. And he's so consumed with the idea of her death that he must do something. He must take control. Now, Master Yoda, his wise master of 800 years plus, he advises him, just like Lao Tzu, to do nothing. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. He says... You must learn to let go of all you fear to lose. And I'm paraphrasing him. But does he do that? No. He grabs tighter. The person that positions himself, the emperor, as the only way of saving Padme is about to be arrested by Mace Windu. So he rushes over there and saves the emperor. And what happens? Him trying to save his wife results in her death. I hope I didn't spoil the movie. It's been out for over 20 years just about now. I think this year is the 20th anniversary. But spoil alert, that's how his wife dies and how he becomes Darth Vader. He just can't trust that his wife will be okay. He must do something to save her. And in his mustness of, mustness, is that a word? In his inability to trust, he ruins everything. And the same thing happens to his son, Luke Skywalker. He can't trust that things will turn out okay with his friends. And he ends up trying to save them, just like his father did with his wife. He tries to save his friends and he fails. He loses his hand and he sort of goes backwards in his teachings. And then again, later in his life, his nephew... If you've seen the sequel trilogy, they have problems. They could have been much better, and I won't digress into that. But there's something really, really profound in Star Wars Episode VIII, which a lot of people hate. It's called The Last Jedi. Me personally, that was my favorite of the new trilogy because the center theme of it was about failure. And the biggest failure in the film is Luke Skywalker with his nephew, Kylo Ren, or Ben, as he's called in the film. And Luke Skywalker has visions of his nephew becoming evil and joining forces with Snoke, who's kind of like a fill-in for the Emperor from the original films. And in his panic, in his worry, in his need for control, he decides, I'm going to kill my nephew because he had visions of all the horrible things that his nephew would do. So he says, I'm going to take control and kill him. And in his madness, as he's just about to bring his saber down and end his life, He has a moment of clarity and he realizes he's gone mad. But by then it's too late. His nephew has seen him take action against him and he fulfills the prophecy in his own mind, his own worry, and becomes the very evil thing that Luke was trying to stop. So what I'm getting at here in the Star Wars series is that both Anakin and his son Luke are fearing an outcome. They take control to stop it and in so doing, they make sure that that outcome is what actually happens. When all they had to do was be still and leave it to the course of things. Now, I'm not advocating that all of us live passively, but it's like the Fred Rogers quote at the beginning of this episode. Like he said, it's the stillness, it's the space between words that allows us to make better decisions. And this is tying into what I wanted to talk about, which is also habits and breaking our habits. We do the same thing with habits. So like me wanting to change my diet and eat healthier, it felt like something I had to confront, like an enemy. to break this bad habit and force myself. If I could just get through three weeks of good, healthy eating, I'll have forced my way into a healthy habit. But again and again, I kept failing or wanting to quit cannabis or caffeine or energy drinks or whatever it is. You know, play less video games, be more present with my family. The only way that I'm going to go about those things is by cultivating a still peace within myself. essentially by craving or desiring the state of stillness versus distraction. We don't change by fighting what we're feeling or running from it, but being with it in silence and contemplation. So this is going to be a major theme of this side series with updates today. You know, those listening, Patreon followers, if you want to let me know things or habits that you're trying to change as well, you know, we can do little weekly updates with each other. We can engage with each other in Discord and maybe help hold each other accountable, but ultimately to have compassion on ourselves and others when we fail at changing these habits. We're moving towards the finish line here, but I wanted to read a quote from the Buddha. As I abided thus... Diligent, ardent, and resolute, a thought of sensual desire arose in me. I understood thus, this thought of sensual desire has arisen in me. This leads to my own affliction, to others' affliction, and to the affliction of both. It obstructs wisdom, causes difficulties, and leads away from nirvana. What I considered nirvana This leads to my own affliction. It subsided in me. When I considered this leads to others' affliction, it subsided in me. When I considered this leads to the affliction of both, it subsided in me. And when I considered this obstructs wisdom, causes difficulties, and leads away from nirvana, it subsided in me. Whenever a thought of sensual desire arose in me, I abandoned it, removed it, did away with it. Just as in the last month of the hot season, when all the crops have been brought inside the villages, a cowherd would guard his cows while staying at the root of a tree or out in the open, since he needs only to be mindful that the cows are there. So too, there was a need for me only to be mindful when those states were there. Tireless energy was aroused in me and unremitted mindfulness was established. My body was tranquil and untroubled, my mind concentrated and unified. In our practice of abiding ardent, clearly knowing and mindful, we learned to find the appropriate balance between active and receptive. doing and non-doing. You see how that reflects to the Tao Te Ching poem I read earlier? What the Buddha is saying here is that you don't need to force your thoughts away. You simply need to be aware of them. So if the desire arises in you, let me give you an example of I had, what was it, about two weeks ago when I was in the process of eating less and just naturally liking that healthier feeling and state of mind, I actually had the desire to go eat a frozen pizza that I had purchased. And my wife had put a picture of our daughter when she was only a few months old, and it is the most Beautiful picture of her. She's like staring into the camera lens with that perfectly innocent stare with her two eyes sort of looking at you like Puss in Boots from Shrek with those, you know big eyes, you know and it it made me reflect on what the Buddha said here where he says When I considered this leads to others' affliction, it subsided in me. So I had the desire to go eat something unhealthy, and then that picture reminded me that me being unhealthier is going to affect my daughter. What if I have a heart attack? What would that do to my daughter if I didn't live a full healthy life or at least the best of my ability? Or what about if I have a more sluggish mind and I'm less inclined to go play with her and my kids outside or whatever, to not be the best me? And it doesn't mean I need to hold myself to some unrealistic standard, but anytime we are tempted with something that perhaps is not as wholesome as it could be, we can reflect on how will this affect myself and how will this affect others in my life that I love, my wife, my kids, you know, whoever's in your life. So again, we don't change our habits by fighting them or what we're feeling or running from them by a drink at the end of the day or a smoke or... this or that distraction, we change by being with it in silence and contemplation. So if you guys can suggest some clever title for this perhaps breaking habits side series, I would love to hear what you guys have in mind. I'll be posting them as I go along. I am down to about 214, 215 now and I'll keep you posted as I go. Maybe later if I'm brave, I'll do some before and after photos or maybe we'll have a Discord chat room for people looking to change habits where we can sort of come together as a group and say, you know, my name's Bill and I'm struggling with this and this is where I'm going. And there's no judgment. Because it's not easy to change habits. We're creatures of habit. So that is going to do it for today's episode, guys. I'll let you know how things go with my habit changes and with the car repair and hopefully making my bills on time. If you would like to support the podcast, please follow or subscribe on whichever app you're in. Leave a, perhaps a review. I'd love to hear from you and your comments. You can also support us by going to patreon.com slash standing nowhere podcast. You can also leave me feedback directly at standing nowhere podcast at gmail.com. And I'd love to connect with you. I'd love for you to be a part of this show and perhaps share your story over the air. But I am very grateful to all of you for listening to me talk your ear off for this past 40 minutes. And I'm grateful for this creative project because my goal here is to be accountable and vulnerable with you guys. share what it means to be human, talk about how we can cultivate mindfulness and waking up on a day-to-day basis. So thank you. Much gratitude for you for listening. This has been Standing Nowhere. I'm your host, Jake, and blessings to all. This voice might feel like dust on the dial But I'm standing nowhere and I've been for a while No heroes, no headlines, no promises made Just a whisper that won't be afraid like home No flats to wait No need to roam The silence speaks louder than war ever could And I've never felt so understood The static is kind to follow no king on the throne the sky's turning amber the clock's all reset and I haven't stopped walking just yet standing nowhere air wide and free Chains no name, no destiny The road dissolves, the sky turns white I'm still here, nothing