“Better to Be a Stone”: When Overthinking No Longer Ran Her Life

In brief

Chen Mengfeng, an electronics company manager, lived for years with an anxiety she couldn’t explain. After two family deaths at 36, it turned into fear. Reading Zhuan Falun in one day, then practicing Falun Dafa, slowly ended the overthinking — through layoffs, money worries and a family that changed with her.

The stones by the road

Sometimes nothing is wrong, and the worry comes anyway. If you’ve ever felt uneasy for no reason you could name, you’ll understand her.

Chen Mengfeng worked as a manager at an electronics company, and her life was stable and peaceful. Yet from a young age, an unease would come over her that she couldn’t put into words.

“I didn’t understand why I had these feelings,” she said. “I clearly had no worries about life, so why was I still unhappy? The future felt uncertain, and I felt as if I had no control over anything.”

She looked at the birds, who seemed to have no worries. She looked at the stones by the roadside.

“Back then, I felt that being human was too painful,” she remembers. “I looked at the stones on the roadside, and even thought it would be better to be a stone!”

When she was 36, two family members she loved died. The worry turned into something heavier.

“Even wealthy people eventually end up in coffins, the same as ordinary people,” she remembers thinking. “So what do we come to this world for?” She felt, she says, “extremely fearful of life, as if the end of the world were about to come.”

If your thoughts have ever circled the biggest questions until the ordinary days felt frightening, that fear is real — and you are not the only one who has felt it.

Eight in the morning to five

The fear stayed with her until, one day, she remembered a book.

Years earlier, her older brother had given her Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa. He and their mother both practiced. The book had been gathering dust on her shelf ever since.

She took it down and read it in one sitting, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

She says it answered her questions about life and cleared her confusion. Somewhere in Lecture Nine, she remembers, it hit her: “I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning.” She knew then, she says: “This was what I’d been looking for.”

She bought all the Falun Dafa books and felt happy every time she read them. Reading became a daily habit, and the anxiety and fear she had lived with for so long slowly faded.

Something else went quietly too. For 16 years she had played mahjong every Friday after work, often until the early hours and sometimes until noon the next day. The day after she finished the book, her sister-in-law called to invite her to a game.

She asked her not to invite her anymore. She didn’t want to play.

Not long after, her husband gave up his own drinking, betel nut chewing and mahjong. He hasn’t gone back to them in the 15 years since.

Taking a step back

But a calmer mind did not mean an easier life. Her real tests came later.

She and her husband worked at the same company. When it cut staff, he was laid off first. She thought it was the perfect time for him to get some proper rest.

The rest lasted six years.

Relatives and friends would ask whether he had found a job yet, or whether she was the only one supporting the family. Before Falun Dafa, remarks like that would have upset her, and she could never have let them go. Now she could.

“I know everyone has their own destiny, so I’m not overly worried about this,” she said. “I’m perfectly fine with my two children not working, so why should I have any reservations about my husband not working?”

She didn’t complain once in those six years. Her husband, noticing how hard she worked, quietly took over dinners and many of the household chores. Their marriage grew even more harmonious.

Then the company cut staff again, and this time it was her — after 18 years.

There was one way to stay. A colleague in another department planned to leave, and his manager asked her to take over the job. After a few days of handing over, the colleague changed his mind and wanted to keep it.

If you’ve ever stood one step from what you needed and watched someone else need it too, you know how hard that moment is.

She knew that without that job, the family would have no income. She also saw the manager’s dilemma and her colleague’s anxiety. She didn’t fight for the position. She stepped back and let him keep it.

“When I let go of my attachments and stopped competing with others, I actually felt at peace!” she said with a smile.

Eight months later, her husband found a new job, and she became a full-time homemaker.

The woman who once wished she could be a stone by the road now sees the worry for what it is. “After practicing Dafa, the anxiety and worries I used to have no longer controlled me,” she says. “Instead, I can now control them and prevent them from disturbing me again.”

“Cultivating Dafa has truly made me feel peaceful,” she says. “I have everything I need in life.”

What this story may hold for you

• Anxiety doesn’t always need a reason. Mengfeng had “no worries about life” and was still afraid. Perhaps your unease doesn’t need to justify itself before it deserves care.
• The answer had been on her shelf for years. Sometimes what helps is closer than we think — and only becomes readable when we’re ready.
• Her calm was tested by layoffs, money worries and other people’s remarks. Peace, in her story, isn’t the absence of trouble; it’s that trouble stopped running her mind.
• Stepping back, for her, felt like peace rather than loss. You might wonder where letting go could make room for you.
• A miracle might be the body healing, or the heart letting go, or finding meaning again — or any mix of these.

A free guide for the nights your mind won’t rest

If this story touched something in you, there are two more like it.

Our free guide, When Your Mind Won’t Rest, gathers three true stories of people who were caught in thoughts that wouldn’t switch off — and what slowly changed for them — with a gentle page on how to begin.

It’s free. One email with the guide, then a few short letters. Unsubscribe any time.

Questions readers ask

Q: How do I stop overthinking when nothing is actually wrong?

Mengfeng asked herself the same thing: “I clearly had no worries about life, so why was I still unhappy?” For her, the change began with answers to the bigger questions under the worry, then a daily practice. Over time, she says, the anxiety “no longer controlled me.”

Q: How can I control my mind when I’m worried about money or my job?

When she and her husband both lost their jobs, she chose not to fight for a position a colleague needed, and found she “actually felt at peace.” Her story doesn’t promise the worry disappears; it shows a mind that no longer has to follow it.

Q: Where does this story come from?

From the Minghui.org report “From Anxiety and Confusion to Peace and Joy—Finding the True Meaning of Life” by Minghui correspondent Shen Rong, July 21, 2026, translated from Chinese. Her quotes are given as published in English.

A note on health

These stories share personal experiences and inner journeys. They cannot replace professional psychological or medical help. If you are in serious distress or crisis, please reach out to a qualified local counselor, doctor or crisis line.