Eric (0:00)

Hey, it's Eric. Before we begin tonight's episode, just a quick reminder. You're about to hear a few ads that help to support Listen to Sleep. If you'd rather drift off without them, you can join Listen to Sleep plus and get every episode ad free plus bonus stories and meditations. Just go to ListenToSleep.com and click on Support to learn more.

Unknown (0:29)

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Eric (1:20)

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

Christy (1:28)

Hey, it's Christy.

Kelly (1:29)

And I'm Kelly.

Christy (1:30)

You might remember us as the OG partners in Crime from Dance Moms.

Kelly (1:34)

Well, this is Back to the Bar, the podcast where we drag out every insane, chaotic and iconic moment from the show.

Christy (1:41)

We're spilling the tea, calling out all the BS and sharing stuff you definitely didn't see on tv.

Kelly (1:46)

New episodes drop every week, and yes, we're laughing through the drama for once.

Christy (1:52)

Follow, grab a drink and join us as we go back to the bar.

Eric (1:58)

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com hello, it's Eric here with another soothing, original bedtime story to help you relax and drift off to sleep. This story means a lot to me. It came out of a week where I stepped away from doing and remembered again that healing isn't about fixing ourselves, it's about making space for what's already here. In part one, we followed a man who left his old life behind to build a cabin in the woods, only to find out that all his inner noise had come with him. In this second part, he learns how to stop running. He starts to listen, and the forest begins to meet him. There's a rhythm to healing that can't be rushed, a kind of wisdom in the land that doesn't need to explain itself. When we yield to that, something begins to unfold not perfectly, but truly. So settle in, take a long breath and let the stillness of the mountain settle around you. And if the podcast brings you a little peace, I'd be so grateful if you'd leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really does help others find it. And if you know someone who could use a little help falling asleep or just slowing down, please feel free to share it with them. I make a new episode every week from my cabin here on the mountain, and it's the support of listeners like you that keeps it all going. For 4.99amonth, you'll get access to over 500 ad free episodes, including eight full length Sleepy audiobooks, and you'll be helping to keep Joe, the dogs, the cats and me more warm and fed. You can pledge monthly or yearly and cancel anytime. Just visit listentosleep.com support or tap the link in the show Notes let's take a deep breath in and out. Just letting go of the day, feeling the weight of gravity pulling you deep down into the mattress, and another deep breath in and out. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. No one to be. This is your time. Quiet time. One more deep breath in and out. If you get tired while I'm reading to you, that's okay. Just let yourself drift off. A Home Beneath The Trees Part 2 the Days Began to fold into one another like waves on a quiet shore. Mornings came with a soft light that filtered through the trees and spilled onto the cabin floor, warming the knots in the wood. The man no longer reached for a clock. He rose when the forest did. When Sol began to stretch and Micah pawed at the door, ready to make her rounds, he'd walk with them each morning to the ridge just beyond the gully. It wasn't a dramatic view, just a rise where the trees opened enough to glimpse the mist moving across distant hills. He'd sit on the same rock, sip from a tin mug of tea, and say nothing, not even to himself. He had started to listen differently, not with his ears, but with something quieter, a kind of noticing that didn't have words. He didn't think of it as mindfulness. He didn't think of it as anything. He just noticed the way the frost receded from the grass as the sun crept higher, the deep pulsing thump of a raven's wings overhead, the hush that fell across the land just before the wind shifted. Sometimes he noticed his own mind, too. How it tried to make sense of things. Even now, it still brought up old worries, imagined conversations, memories that had lost their shape. But more and more, he let them rise and fall without interference, like leaves floating down a stream. He chopped wood. He cooked simple meals. He mended what needed mending. The cats came and went, sometimes sleeping on the porch, sometimes vanishing. For days. The dogs remained constant, one steady, one restless. They taught him without trying how to move through a day without needing to solve it. He rarely thought of his old life anymore. Not because he'd buried it, but because it no longer called to him. The urgency had drained out of it. That version of himself had been real, and it had done what it could. But it didn't feel like home now. One afternoon, while clearing a path between the cabin and a spring fed pool down in the ravine, he paused to catch his breath. His chest rose and fell. The birds quieted. A stillness came over the woods so complete it felt like the whole forest had exhaled. In that moment, a thought rose, not as an idea, but as a truth. I'm not trying to become anyone anymore. The realization didn't arrive with fanfare. It didn't need to. It felt like setting down a heavy pack he hadn't realized he'd been carrying for for most of his life. He sat on the mossy ground and let the quiet wrap around him. There was no goal in this, no enlightenment to reach for. Just a growing sense that he could be here as he was, with no need to change the shape of anything. Later, he returned to the cabin and made a simple dinner. Lentils, greens, and warm bread with butter. He ate by the fire with the dogs curled at his feet. He didn't feel proud. He didn't feel healed. He just felt present. The wind picked up that evening, stirring the trees into motion. Micah barked once, then quieted. The cats sat on the porch rail, tails flicking. The black one stared at the man as if he were a guest in its house. He smiled and nodded. That night he fell asleep with the window open. The wind moved through the cabin like breath, cool and alive. He dreamed of water running through stones and a path that led not away from the mountain, but deeper into it. When he woke, he didn't reach for the dream or try to make it mean anything. He just breathed in the morning air and listened to the quiet rustling of fur as the dogs rose to greet the day. There was still more to walk through. He could feel it. But for the first time, he wasn't bracing against Happened one afternoon, not unlike the others. The sun had been warm that morning, teasing spring through the branches, and the man had spent hours stacking wood along the side of the cabin, losing himself in the rhythm of motion. He liked those kinds of days, the ones that didn't ask for reflection, only presence. But that afternoon the light changed. Not in a dramatic way, just a quiet shift. The sun dipped behind the ridge earlier than usual, casting long blue shadows across the clearing. A chill crept in, not cold enough for concern, just enough to make him pull on a sweater and step inside. The cabin felt smaller somehow. The walls seemed closer. The fire crackled, but the warmth didn't spread the way it usually did. He made tea, sat at the table, and stared at nothing in particular. The dogs were asleep, Micah curled tightly in her bed by the fire, soul sprawled out like an old rug. The cats had vanished again. He took a sip, then another, and suddenly he felt it. A wave not of sadness exactly, but of everything. Grief, regret, tenderness, memory, all tangled together and rising up before he could brace against caught him by surprise. There was no warning, no image or trigger, just the sudden sense that something inside him was. Was ready to be felt. He put the mug down with a shaky hand and stood up, unsure of what to do. He walked to the window and stared out into the forest. But it offered no answers, only trees, Only silence. His throat tightened. Not the kind of tightness that precedes words, but the kind that holds them back. He sat down again, this time in the armchair near the fire, and let himself sink into it. And then, without meaning to, he began to cry. It wasn't loud, no sobs or gasps, just tears that came steadily, like rain that had been waiting for the right sky. His shoulders trembled. His hands stayed open in his lap. He didn't try to explain it. He didn't try to stop it. He cried for the man he used to be, for all the years spent proving and striving and pretending not to feel what he felt, for the people he'd loved and lost, the ones he pushed away, the ones who drifted without goodbye. He cried for the version of himself that thought healing meant fixing, for the boy he once was, standing alone in the backyard, staring at the stars and wondering where his place was in the world. The forest didn't intervene. The fire didn't dim. The dogs didn't stir. Everything held him exactly as he was. When the tears slowed, he didn't wipe them away. He just sat there, empty and full. All at once he realized in that quiet space that this was why he had come, not to escape his life, but to feel it all the way through and to learn, slowly, gently, how to live it differently. The cabin creaked as the temperature dropped. A breeze stirred the curtains. From somewhere in the woods. An owl called out a single low note that that lingered. He got up and stepped outside. The forest was blue with twilight, soft edged and breathing. He walked to the wood pile and gathered a few logs, stacking them in his arms with the care of someone handling something sacred. The gold bit at his hands, but he welcomed, reminded him he was here. Back inside, he fed the fire. The flames rose again, steady and golden. He made another cup of tea, not because he needed it, but because it felt like a kindness. He sat down again, this time not to think or feel, but simply to be. Sol shifted in his sleep, letting out a long, satisfied sigh. Micah raised her head briefly, then settled again. Later, when the moon rose high and the night settled in, he stepped outside one more time. The clearing was silver and still. The trees stood like sentinels, wrapped in light and shadow. He breathed in long and deep, letting the air fill the spaces. His grief had cleared. He didn't feel better, but he felt real, and that somehow was enough. He stood there a little longer, until the cold crept through the wool of his sweater and urged him back inside. And as he closed the cabin door behind him, he looked back once more at the forest, and for the first time it didn't feel like he was visiting, felt like it had let him in, not because he had earned it, but because he had stopped trying to deserve it. The days grew longer, almost without him noticing. It wasn't the kind of change that came all at once, like a first snow or the burst of spring. It was gentler than that. The light lingered a little longer on the western ridge. The mornings came with bird song again. Hesitant at first, then sure. The man found himself moving slower, not from age or fatigue, but from something quieter, a kind of trust. He no longer needed to fill the hours. He had stopped asking what the day was for. He just lived it. The dogs adapted to his pace. Micah still ranged ahead, chasing scents through the brush, but she circled back more often now, content to walk beside him for stretches. Sol still took his time, padding steadily through the undergrowth, tail swaying, ears twitching with every distant sound. The cats remained half wild, appearing at dusk or dawn, perched on the porch railing or sunning themselves on flat stones. They watched him with the same unreadable gaze they had always had, but now he didn't feel the need to be read. Some days he worked splitting wood, sealing the roof before the next rain. Other days passed in quiet observation. He watched ants carry needles across the moss. He listened to woodpeckers tapping out their rhythms. He noticed the way his breath moved when he wasn't trying to control it. Healing had stopped feeling like something to accomplish. It was a rhythm, a return, a slow remembering of what had always been there. He started talking to the forest. Not out loud, not always, but in small acknowledgments. A nod to the cedar that leaned across the path, A murmur to the creek when he dipped his hands into its cold water. Not conversation exactly, just presence. Returning presence. One morning he woke before the light. Not from restlessness, but from something else. An invitation, perhaps. The cabin was dark and still. The fire had gone out in the night. The dogs were curled in sleep, paws twitching with dreams. He stepped outside barefoot. The clearing was wrapped in mist, pale and glowing in the moonlight. The air was cool, but not sharp. Everything held its breath. He walked slowly across the clearing, feeling the damp earth beneath his feet. A breeze moved gently through the trees, stirring the branches but leaving the silence intact. And then he heard it. A soft trill, faint at first, then clearer. It was the black cat, not meowing, but making that strange, melodic sound cats sometimes make when they're content or calling to something unseen. It sat near the edge of the forest, just beyond the ferns, eyes reflecting the moonlight. The gray cat sat beside it, tail curled neatly around its feet. The man stood still, watching. The two cats rose and walked into the woods, not quickly, not secretively, but as if they knew he might follow. And without thinking, he did. The path wasn't marked, but his feet knew where to go. He moved quietly, the mist clinging to his legs, the scent of damp bark and moss rising around him. The cats led him to a small grove he hadn't noticed before, nestled between three towering redwoods whose roots wove together like fingers in the soil. They stopped there, and so did he. The cats sat. The man stood. The trees waited. And in that hush, he felt it. Not clarity exactly, not purpose, just a sense of being deeply, irrevocably here. Not as a visitor, not as someone healing, but as someone whole, even in his brokenness. The cats blinked slowly, then turned and padded back the way they came. The man lingered. He pressed a hand to one of the redwoods. Its bark was rough, furrowed, cool with dew. It didn't speak, but it didn't need to. He stayed until the first birds called out and the sky began to soften. Back at the cabin, he brewed tea and sat on the porch as the sun rose, Sol came and rested his head on the man's knee. Micah stretched and lay beside them. The cats returned one by one, leaping onto the railing, tails twitching, eyes half closed. He didn't try to name what had happened. It wasn't a moment that needed to be understood. It just was. And that moment was enough. The first frost came with no fanfare. He woke one morning to find the meadow silvered, the grasses tipped in delicate white. His breath rose in clouds, and the porch boards were slick beneath his boots. Micah leapt from the steps, surprised by the chill, while Sol took his time testing each paw against the frozen ground. The man stood with a mug of tea between his hands, watching the light slowly warming the clearing. The seasons had turned without asking. He had lived through all of them more than once now. Green spring, dry summer, wet fall, and now winter's edge. There was no beginning nor end to any of it, just a slow unfolding, like breath. That morning he didn't build a fire. He let the chill settle in. It felt clean, alive. Later, he walked the ridge trail, the one that looked out over the trees. The dogs moved beside him, quiet and alert. The forest had thinned for the season. The bare branches reached toward the sky like questions. At the ridge, he sat and watched a band of low clouds drift in. The hills beyond were veiled, their outlines soft and disappearing. A hawk circled high above. Everything was in motion, even in the stillness. He thought of how many versions of himself had stood there. The man who had just arrived, full of hope and unease. The man who had paced the cabin at night, trying to outrun his own mind. The man who had cried by the fire without knowing exactly why. He didn't feel like any of them now, or maybe he felt like all of them, layered and softened, held together by something that didn't need fixing. Back at the cabin, he found the black cat sitting by the door, tail curled neatly around its paws. The gray one sat on the roof beam, blinking slowly in the cold sun. They followed him inside without hesitation and stretched out in a patch of light near the stove. He made soup that afternoon. Turnips, beans, kale from the last of the garden. He ate in silence, listening to the soft creak of the cabin as it adjusted to the cold. Then came the wind. It started as a low hum in the distance, threading through the trees, lifting the edge of the world. He went outside and looked up. The clouds were thickening, branches were beginning to sway. Sol and Micah stood still, ears perked. Storms on the mountain weren't uncommon, but this One seemed to move differently. It didn't arrive with speed. It circled first, like a thought returning. That night, the wind pressed hard against the cabin walls. The fire roared and the dogs stayed close. The cats vanished again. He didn't feel afraid. He'd felt fear before, tight, gripping, unrelenting. This was something else. This was weather. This was the forest doing what it had always done. And he was a part of it now. Around midnight, the wind reached its peak. Shutters clattered. The trees moaned and leaned. Something fell outside with a crack. He wrapped himself in his coat, lit the lantern, and stepped out. Rain had started, cold and slanted. The air smelled of wet bark and stone. He moved through the storm slowly, checking the wood pile, the roof line, the gate that kept the path clear. Nothing urgent. Nothing. Nothing broken. Just movement. Just care. As he turned to go back inside, he saw it. At the edge of the clearing, just beyond the reach of lantern light, stood a single bull elk, its coat slick with rain, eyes wide and dark. It didn't move. It just watched. He held its gaze. The wind paused in that stillness. He felt it again, the way the forest spoke, not in words, but in presence. The elk turned and disappeared into the trees. He went inside and sat by the fire, soaked and quiet. The dogs curled at his feet. The storm began to fade. The cabin breathed. By morning, everything was washed clean. The light was soft. The trees dripped steadily. The roof had held. The fence was down in one corner, but that would wait. He brewed tea and sat on the porch, wrapped in a blanket, watching steam rise from the earth. Sol leaned against his leg. Micah sniffed at the edge of the woods, then trotted back. The black cat appeared and rubbed against the man's ankle before leaping onto the railing and curling into itself like a comma. And the man, without thinking, smiled. He wasn't waiting anymore. Not for clarity, not for resolution. He didn't need the forest to tell him who he was. He didn't need to find peace like it was some buried treasure. He had stopped running. He belonged to the quiet now, and it belonged to him. The cabin creaked as the sun climbed higher. He took a deep breath. Not the kind that comes from relief or triumph, but the kind that comes when there's nothing left to hold on to, nothing left to resist. Just a moment, Just this. Just a man on a mountain. No longer trying to escape the world, but living inside it. Fully awake. Good night.