Hey all, I’m Sophie!
I know times can be pretty stressful nowadays. We all have a lot piling up on us, and I promise it’s no different for me. But if you’d take some time out of your busy schedule and read what I have to say, it might just give you a new tool for some stress management. Now sadly, this isn’t really a scary story. I know this being r/nosleep, stories are supposed to be scary, but I’m sure plenty of you in high school or college can relate to what I’ll be talking about, and if I put it here, then you’ll have a much easier time finding it!
I used to be horrible at stress management! There was always so much to do: homework, chores, go get groceries with Mom, go to church, go visit Grandma in the hospital. Just all the things I’d have to do on any given day. It piled up so quickly, at least in my mind, so much so that I would just forget. My grades throughout middle school tanked compared to those in elementary.
I was a smart kid, and Mom never understood what was going on in those liminal years. How could her daughter be so smart and yet always “forget?”
“You can’t just forget to do things! How do you think that excuse will fly in a real job in the real world??”
Now I know you’re probably thinking my mom was cold and insensitive to this sort of thing, and I would beg to differ. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that in order to be understood, you must first seek to understand.
You see, I have an older brother. Everything seemed to come natural to him. Sure, I was a smart kid, but he was a genius. He didn’t have to worry about forgetting his homework because he was able to do it in class while his teacher wasn’t looking. He could understand the words and concepts as they came out of her mouth.
Mom never knew about that part. She just knew that his grades were consistently perfect, and I was left in the shadow of greatness. I couldn’t handle the pressure. Mom never had to worry about Tyler, so she didn’t have to teach herself how to be a tutor, and she was too busy with her own job to really sit down and figure out my homework with me. I’d go to Tyler for help, but anything he said went right over my head. He’d have the answer immediately with little clarification. But he certainly wasn’t the know-it-all type. He was genuinely caring and tried to be as helpful as possible. He offered so many times to just do my homework for me, but I always turned him down. I needed to learn the material the best I could, and Tyler couldn’t take my tests for me. At least that’s what Dad would tell me.
My dad was a little more understanding than my mom. There were a few times when Dad would help me with my homework, and somehow, he always managed to make it click. His help narrowly saved me from so many failed tests. He never minded the fact that I was so forgetful about my assignments or had trouble picking up simple concepts. He simply saw that there was a problem, and he knew how to fix it. As much as I wanted to let Tyler do my assignments for me, Dad taught me that it was more important that I learn to stand on my own two feet.
“Soph, pay no mind to those who get it. Who always win. Who seem perfect. The only person who can care about your success.. is you. Create what’s yours, and the ones that follow will be the only ones you need.”
It didn’t really make sense to me at the time, but I don’t think it was supposed to. Now I don’t think I’ll ever know what he really meant.
Dad’s help wasn’t as frequent as I needed it to be because he was in the military. The times when he was consistently home was during the summer, when his help wasn’t necessary. During the school year, he would be home maybe only a week at a time.
One day, two men in their dress blues came to the door and handed my mom a tri-folded flag. We never found out what happened to him. I don’t think they wanted us to know.
Dad never told me what he meant when he said create what’s yours, but I was already past my freshman year of high school, and my grades had only risen slightly since middle school.
I started doing some online research about stress management, time management, success management. Put a word in front of management, and it was in my search history. That’s when I found tips for meditation. Sometimes when we get stressed, we just need to stop. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing. If we stop and just be, our brain can slow down, clear up, and even perform better after it’s chilled out for a bit.
I first started by setting a timer for thirty minutes. I’d go to my room and sit against the headboard of my bed. Sometimes I’d go to the nearby park and sit at a picnic table or against a tree. And other times, I’d go the best of both worlds, our front porch swing. I’d sit and let the sun warm my face and the breeze float my hair. In my room, I’d let the still silence hug me and imagine it was my dad. Sometimes my sessions would leave me smiling, and others sent silent tears rolling down my cheeks, but no matter what I felt, I would always be in a strange state of peace when the alarm pulled me out.
Eventually my grades climbed up like a set of awkward stairs that rose slowly and stretched out too far to take each step with only one foot at a time. But the shape of the steps doesn’t matter as long as they lift you to a higher state. I graduated high school, finally with a transcript ending in a full year with both A’s and B’s!
Now, I’m in college studying behavioral psychology and philosophy. I know, what a nerd! But I’m sure it was clear in the beginning. I want to help you with your struggles, starting with the story of mine. Now, I don’t just meditate when I’m stressed. I meditate all the time, usually every few days or so. The feeling of having a clear mind honestly helps me get ready for the week, not just destress from it.
Recently though, my meditations have become more visual. I no longer set thirty minute timers. For a while, I was setting them for an hour. In my longer sessions, I not only could feel the sun and the breeze, but I could… and this might sound weird… feel the earth. It’s strange. When you close your eyes, you begin to sense almost everything around you, and you can even visualize your environment with your eyes closed. The best way I could describe it is probably like how Toph, from Avatar the Last AirBender, could see despite being blind. I know it sounds like mumbo-jumbo, but if you tried it for yourself, you’d see too!
Anyway, the last few times I’ve meditated, not only do I sense my surroundings, but sometimes I can move around and go places, like in a lucid dream. I’ll walk around in my session. It’s funny how things will be out of place. Chairs might face away from tables, clock faces will have letters A-L instead of 1-12. Just silly stuff like that. But I’ve started getting a sense of familiarity and nostalgia whenever I meditate, an oddly strong sense of the two. I’ve looked into the meanings of my dreams before because that’s how our subconscious communicates with us. I wanted to understand why, so I focused on the feeling whenever I’d have a session where I felt it. When I wanted to feel this familiarity, I made sure to not set a timer. The one thing I did understand is that I needed to know what my subconscious wanted me to know. And last time, what I saw…
Was my old house.
Hey guys,
I hope you enjoyed this little story of mine. I’m still trying to understand what I’m going through right now, and I thought it might help me by sharing it with you, and even though I’m trying to help myself, I thought that maybe you might find yourself in a similar situation or that we at least had a similar past and maybe… just maybe, you’ll be inspired to help yourself the way I have! In the meantime, I’m going to keep meditating and focusing in on my feelings to see what comes to light. I’ll be journalling my findings, so I can more easily share them with you all, and I’ll try to post again in a few weeks.
Take care!