hawthorne: learning to cope with stress through confidence and healing meditation

some days are more stressful than others. that’s a fair comment for most of us. but what happens when you can’t find that sense of calm to manage stress?

in my world, i’ve got a brain that gets hyper-stimulated by worry and stress (like my dad), so much so that it doesn’t turn off easily. my caffeine habit could be a factor here as well, but where would i be without that morning hit and afternoon kick?

modern life gets on our nerves

after all, this is the modern lifestyle we’ve created, which whiplashes our attention from instagram reels to texts, reminder pings and even old-fashioned phone calls on the one device i can’t imagine living without. smartphones keep us plugged in and turned on whether we love them or not.

i’ve been reading a lot about nervous system dysregulation, brought on in part by the demands of technology and hectic schedules. they trap us in fight-or-flight so that our stress hormones surge. then we’re more frazzled and our focus and sleep quality are disrupted. so, how do you solve this?

finding that mind-body connection

for those of us who can’t unplug and go to a silent retreat in the forest, there are things we can do to reconnect with our bodies and regulate our nervous system. neuroscientists in italy looked at research on neurobiological changes that are linked with mindfulness and meditation practices.

in a paper in biomedicines in 2024, they concluded that these techniques improve emotional regulation and actual brain structure, reduce anxiety and enhance stress resilience. this is exactly what i need! i’m all for hiking in nature, “walking and talking therapy” with friends, and taking time to appreciate the little joys, but i could use help with meditation.

i had the opportunity to try a virtual guided meditation session with the lovely sarah vetter in vancouver, founder of evergy studio. she’s someone who has been through rock-bottom lows to thriving transformation as an entrepreneur devoted to helping people get clear and strong.

lessons in emotions and sensitivity

during her second year of university, her anxiety developed into severe clinical depression. “it became so debilitating that i had to leave school because i could barely function. looking back now, i don’t believe there was something inherently wrong with me. i simply didn’t have the understanding or tools to process my emotions or make sense of my own sensitivity. that experience became the catalyst for everything that followed,” she says.

she managed a tourism company for seven years (a great way to observe human behaviour) and did a deep dive into learning about psychology, neuroscience, cognitive behavioural therapy, energy work and the subconscious mind to better understand why we think, feel and behave the way we do. that became the foundation for evergy. it’s what i’d call a unique approach to rewiring your thought patterns with self-affirming confidence, so you can anticipate and act differently to stress.

through guided meditation, her methods help people get introspective; they identify past troubling experiences and learn how these shaped emotional learning and our go-to responses.

why do i get anxious?

i was lying down and feeling comfortable, relaxing my mind through music, breathing and her voice, opening the door to subconscious memories and beliefs. she asked me about what causes anxiety for me, and i thought about picking my son up at day camp, worried that something might have gone wrong or that he had a hard time participating. he’s autistic and intellectually delayed, so social settings can be challenging.

then she guided me to a childhood memory of anxiety. there i was back in grade 6 in the school auditorium, waiting for my turn in a public speaking competition right after the smartest guy in the class, jamie, did his speech. the guy was heads above everybody academically, and i remember going to his house after school one day, and his mom gave us wagon wheels marshmallow chocolate-covered cookies as a snack (those are the things that stand out sometimes when you’re a kid). delicious!

i was so nervous about giving my speech that i almost decided on pretending to be sick so i wouldn’t have to go through with it. sarah said to imagine a woman coming into the auditorium and sitting next to me. the woman, she explained, is me today: taller (but still only 5’3′), experienced and grown up! how did i feel about seeing the future me? “she’s so strong and capable” were the words that came to me. i thought about what big me would say to little me, and it would be along the lines of, “there’s nothing to worry about. you can do this. it’s a great speech.”

and then i gave the speech and it was a great speech about a family camping trip to a provincial park where we went on a wolf howl. the park ranger howls into the night sky and we heard wolves howling back! jamie placed first, but i did well and felt good about the experience.

the aim is not to replace or delete memories that we have, but to change the emotional and physical sensations that we have around them.

childhood influences thoughts and behaviour

sarah says that many subconscious beliefs are formed during childhood as the brain learns how to interpret the world, and these beliefs can continue influencing thoughts, emotions, and behaviours long into adulthood. her work focuses on memory reconsolidation.

“when an emotional memory is reactivated in a safe state, it becomes temporarily open to updating. the memory itself is not changed. the beliefs, emotional associations and physiological responses attached to it can be,” she says. the body stores and communicates emotional patterns through physical sensations. rather than ignoring these sensations, sarah helps us use them as a pathway to identify the subconscious beliefs driving the emotional response.

interesting, right? there was also the theme running through the session of connecting with your authentic self, your own energy that has its own rhythm and colour. my energy, as i envisioned it during the session, was yellow and orange. i need to embrace it more and tap into it through the 10-minute meditation sarah created for me to use as often as i can. i’m not quite at daily meditation, but i love the personalized practice and the calm i feel when i do it.

sarah also sent me some of her reflections on our session a couple of days after: “one of the most meaningful parts of this memory was that your younger self feared standing in front of others to share a story. today, you have built a career around listening to, telling and sharing other people’s stories. what once felt unsafe has become one of your greatest strengths.”

how beautiful! i’ve been thinking about all of this when i go pick up my son from camp, realizing that he typically has great days there. so i go in smiling, and we get a small bag of popcorn from the canteen to share on the drive home.

is life stressful? of course. but sometimes you can look at things differently, and you start feeling a whole lot better.