“This Is It!”: Finding Calm After Years of Emotional Stress

In brief

Tina Sofos, a businesswoman in Western Australia, went through a broken marriage, a family that turned away and two breakdowns that put her in hospital. In 2004 a stranger at a funeral handed her a flyer for Falun Dafa. Slowly, the emotional stress gave way to calm, and her family came back.

The woman on the phone

Sometimes the hardest part of a long bad stretch is that nobody asks. If you’ve waited a long time for someone to ask how you really are, you’ll understand this phone call.

The woman on the other end was kind. She asked Tina whether anything was troubling her.

So Tina told her. She had to live apart from her son because of a long commute to work. She was estranged from her family. “The more I tried to mend the relationship, the worse it got,” she remembers. “I was under a lot of stress.”

It was 2004, and the stress had a long history.

Tina married at 20, and her family disowned her for it. She had always worked — a cafe at 21, her own hair salon for 11 years, later a sales manager for an international media company. But in 1999, her marriage fell apart and her family criticized her. She suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized.

She wanted to be strong again for her young son, so she went looking for help. She read many self-help books. She went to community groups. She took Chinese medicine for two years without improvement. One doctor told her she had “congested energy and suppressed anger.” An acupuncturist told her she couldn’t reach the root of it.

“Nothing changed,” Tina writes, “and things got worse.” In 2004 she had a second breakdown and was hospitalized again.

If you’ve tried everything you could find and still felt yourself slipping, that is not weakness. It means you were carrying more than anyone saw.

A flyer at a funeral

Her acupuncturist suggested Tibetan yoga, and Tina agreed to try it that Saturday.

On the Friday, she went to a funeral. There she met the son of the man who had died. He was a hairstylist who had worked in Hollywood, and he “radiated serenity.” She watched how gently he comforted others.

The coincidences struck her. His mother had divorced when he was young, so his childhood was like her son’s. He had the same name as her son. His family came from the same town in Greece as her parents. He was a hairstylist, as she was.

He told her that practicing Falun Dafa had helped him, and gave her a flyer. That flyer led to the phone call — and to the woman who asked what was troubling her.

The next morning, getting ready to go with her husband to the practice site at Box Hill Gardens, she said to herself: “This is it! I think I found it!”

There she learned the slow, gentle Falun Dafa exercises, including the sitting meditation. When she offered to pay, a practitioner explained that the practice is passed from person to person, free of charge. Tina was so grateful and touched, she remembers, that she wept.

The one who listens now

She began to read Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, and found it answered her questions about life. Its principles — Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance — resonated with everything she believed.

At the time, she was still seeing a psychologist every week after her hospital stay. The psychologist, Tina says, noticed a real change in her clarity and stability, and was amazed when she compared it with her earlier notes. When she asked what had happened, Tina told her about Falun Dafa. The psychologist told her to keep practicing. A few weeks later, Tina remembers, the psychologist said she no longer needed the medications or the sessions.

“If I hadn’t found Falun Dafa,” Tina writes, “I may not have survived to this day to share my story.”

The deeper change was in how she met her own reactions. She learned to look inward. For years she had cared terribly about what her family thought of her. Looking closer, she saw that she had also been judging herself, believing somewhere inside that she didn’t deserve their love.

“Once I enlightened to this, I forgave myself compassionately,” she writes. Her relationship with her family, she says, improved straight away.

If you have spent years wondering what your family thinks of you, perhaps the gentlest question is what you think of yourself.

One by one, she let go of other old weights: anger, resentment, impatience, guilt, worry, fear. Each time she felt “lighter, stronger and more confident.” She learned that forbearance isn’t weakness: “it takes strength to have self restraint.” When she is accused now, she tries not to react or argue, and kindly explains.

People have always brought Tina their troubles. Before, it left her overwhelmed and drained. Now, she says, she no longer feels burdened, and she can listen with compassion. Her family members praise her kindness. Her coworkers say she is calm and unusually patient.

In 2004, she was the one on the phone, waiting for someone to ask what was wrong. Today she is the one who listens. And she always carries Falun Dafa flyers in her bag — just like the one she was handed at a funeral.

What this story may hold for you

• Tina’s turn began when someone simply asked what was troubling her. You might let one person ask you — or be the one who asks.
• She had tried books, groups, medicine and therapy, and kept going. Perhaps your search isn’t a failure; it’s what keeps the door open.
• Some of her heaviest stress came from judging herself. Forgiving herself, she says, was what let her family come close again.
• Calm, in her story, isn’t having fewer people need you. It’s being able to listen without being drained.
• 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 days stress won’t let go

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

Our free guide, When Stress Won’t Let Go, gathers three true stories of people who were worn down by pressure that never let up — and what slowly changed for them — with a gentle page on how to begin.

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Questions readers ask

Q: How do I cope with emotional stress when my family has turned away?

If you are in crisis right now, please reach out to a local crisis line or doctor first. For Tina, years of family estrangement eased when she looked inward and forgave herself for believing she didn’t deserve their love. Her relationship with her family, she says, improved after that.

Q: How can I deal with stress when other people’s problems drain me?

Tina always had people bringing her their troubles, and it left her overwhelmed. After she began practicing Falun Dafa, she says, she could listen with compassion without feeling burdened — her coworkers now call her calm and unusually patient.

Q: Where does this story come from?

From Tina Sofos’s own account, “Western Australia: My Positive Changes After I Began Practicing Falun Dafa,” published on Minghui.org on February 24, 2025. The quotes are her own words.

A note on health

These stories share personal experiences and inner journeys. They cannot replace professional psychological or medical help, and please don’t stop or change any treatment because of a story. If you are in serious distress or crisis, please reach out to a qualified local counselor, doctor or crisis line.