Shy Ben - Children's Sleep Story

Are you ready to meditate with Kori?

Make sure that you get super comfortable in your bed,

That the lights are just right and everything in your room is perfect so that you can relax and eventually fall fast asleep.

There was a farm in the middle of the forest,

In the middle of a very big spread out town,

In the middle of a country,

Far,

Far away.

On that farm there was a pasture with lots and lots of cows,

Maybe 50 cows in total.

When you see a field full of cows,

We just kind of assume that cows are just cows,

That they're all the same.

They're not very different because they all do the same thing.

They eat grass,

Sometimes they sit down on the ground,

Most of the time they're just munching away on grass in a field.

So you don't think from first impressions that there's much to a cow.

But cows have personalities.

They all have different personalities.

And there was one particular cow that was called Ben and Ben was very shy.

He showed his shyness by always eating grass alone.

He never sat down with a bunch of cows.

He never felt like part of this big 50 cow family.

His shyness made it very hard for him to talk to other cows,

To interact and feel comfortable with other cows.

He tried so many times.

He'd try and talk to other cows around his age.

And it always went the same way.

He always ended up regretting it because he would say something silly or he would stumble on his words.

And then he'd get really conscious of what he was saying and that would make him even more nervous.

And when he was nervous about what he was saying,

That made him stutter a little bit.

And then he'd go red and embarrassed and hope that no one had noticed his cheeks flushing red.

But then of course he would get super conscious about being red and embarrassed about being red and he would think that every cow on the pasture knew that he was embarrassed about being red.

And this made him even more embarrassed,

Which made him say even sillier things.

Sometimes he even planned out full conversations.

What he would say first,

What someone would say in response,

What he could say to that response,

Then what they could possibly say to that response and so on and so forth.

He would spend hours thinking about conversations that went well.

Sometimes this built up his confidence a little bit because he thought,

I've gone over everything.

I have an answer for everything.

If something goes wrong,

I can back it up with this answer.

If it goes well,

I can say this answer.

But then something would always happen that Ben hadn't predicted or hadn't thought about.

And then he'd be speechless or he'd mumble over his words or he'd get super anxious and sweaty and then he'd be worried that everyone could see that he was sweaty.

And then he would stutter and then he would be thinking about the words coming out sounding silly because he was stuttering.

Oh,

It was just so draining.

Ben had kind of given up over time.

He was tired of it.

Everyone kept saying how awesome he was.

Well,

When I say everyone,

I just mean his mum and dad.

And sometimes that doesn't count because it's mum and dad.

I mean,

What else are they going to say?

But they thought he was awesome.

They thought he was overthinking too much.

He should just be himself.

And then Ben would lay down on the field at night and look at the stars and think to himself,

But I am being myself.

This is me.

I'm awkward.

I stutter.

I get embarrassed.

I do flush and get red in the face a lot.

I get sweaty.

This is me.

Who is this if this isn't me?

What part of me is awesome that doesn't include this?

If I'm so awesome,

Then this part of me should be awesome,

Right?

And if that's the case,

Then why don't I like it?

I just want to crack jokes.

I want to be funny,

Like Tom.

Tom was another cow on the pasture.

Tom always,

Always had a bunch of cows around him,

Laughing and joking.

They would always,

Always get giggly and flirty.

All the other bulls,

The other bull cows,

Whatever you want to call them,

All the other boy cows,

Thought he was amazing.

He was always popular.

They all laughed at his jokes.

And all the girl cows thought he was just the cutest thing.

When he thought about himself,

He felt sorry for himself because no one seemed to pay attention to him.

He felt alone,

Different,

Sad.

The days pass by,

The weeks pass by.

It was months and things were still the same for Ben.

He was stood in a corner of the field,

Munching on the grass,

Just like he did every single day.

He was quite far away from everyone.

At one point,

He looked up at the sky and thought,

Oh,

It's a nice day.

That's one good thing at least.

The sky was nice and blue and there were big white fluffy clouds everywhere and he was looking at the different clouds to see if he could make shapes and pictures out of them in his mind.

And when he looked down,

Something caught his eye,

A cow alone far down the side of the fence.

He watched for a moment.

The cow was staring at the sky just like he had been doing a few moments earlier.

He didn't recognize this cow because he knew all the cows,

All the 50 cows.

This cow had a brown patch in the middle of its face.

He would have known a cow with a brown patch in the middle of its face because it looks quite unusual.

Ben decided to try and get closer,

Just for a closer look.

He kept taking a few paces forward,

Trying to be as inconspicuous as he possibly could.

He would stop and egress and then look around to see if anyone noticed what he was doing.

No one cared.

No one even noticed Ben.

He laughed at himself thinking how funny it was that he thought someone might notice.

How silly of me,

He thought to himself and got sad again for a moment.

But then remembered he was on a mission.

Who is this cow with a brown patch on its face?

It took him quite a while to get to the point where he was quite close.

Relatively close.

Not conspicuously close,

But close enough to definitely,

Definitely know that this cow was a new cow.

How had he missed it?

How had he not noticed?

That means there must be fifty-one cows.

Or as some of the other cows disappeared and he didn't even notice.

Who knows how many cows there are these days,

He thought to himself.

What's it matter?

They all don't really notice me anyway.

Ben froze.

He noticed the cow with the brown patch on its face.

Stopped chewing and stared at him.

He swallowed hard.

He hadn't pre-thought a conversation.

He hadn't gone over a conversation in his mind over and over and over again so he wouldn't get anything wrong.

He was so nervous.

So nervous.

He swallowed again.

The cow smiled.

He managed to smile back.

Then the cow with the brown patch on its face blushed and went red.

Ben noticed.

Oh,

Did he notice he'd actually not seen any other cow flush.

This made him flush.

He blushed.

His cheeks flushed.

The cow with the brown patch on its face smiled again.

It looked very uncomfortable.

Ben said,

Hi,

Are you new?

The cow said,

Yes,

My name's Molly.

Oh,

Said Ben,

Molly's a nice name.

Molly didn't know what to do.

So she looked back down and started chewing grass again.

And then Ben looked down and he didn't know what to do.

So he started chewing grass again and then they both chewed grass for a minute or two.

And then he felt super awkward.

His mouth got super dry,

Which made him very,

Very uncomfortable because he couldn't swallow the grass that was in his mouth and it was all stuck in his teeth.

Oh,

No.

He looked up and Molly was looking at him.

She smiled and she got grass stuck in her teeth.

And he smiled back and he got grass stuck in his teeth.

And then they both laughed.

Big,

Loud,

Belly tickling laughs.

They laughed and laughed and laughed.

And the more that they laughed,

The more that the grass was stuck in their teeth.

There was grass flying out of their mouths all over the place.

And they were both in the same position,

In the same embarrassing state,

Laughing together.

That was it for them.

It broke the ice.

They saw something that they had in common with each other and it instantly made them relax.

And when they relaxed,

They weren't as embarrassed.

They weren't as nervous.

And they could just talk and chat.

And that's what they did.

Molly and Ben talked and talked and talked.

They had so much in common.

They were both shy.

They both had a hard time meeting people and making new friends.

They both liked all the same things.

They both loved to look at the sky.

They both liked grass.

And they were both so happy to finally meet someone that they could be friends with and feel comfortable with.

Molly and Ben became really good friends.

They stood together every day in the pasture,

Wandered around together and talked and talked and talked and ate grass and talked and talked and talked.

And what they thought was interesting,

What they noticed was they made more friends because they had each other to feel comfortable with.

Just having a friend to back you up,

To make you feel safe was all that they needed.

They became friends with a lot more cows in the pasture.

Just because they met each other and just because they allowed themselves to just try at least.

They tried and it paid off.

And now they can call each other friends.

The end.