Meditative Story

It happens not in a yellow wood, but in author Steve Almond's befuddled 20s, when he is facing for the first time a decision that might actually matter. To the left lies success. To the right, something more interesting. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It...

As a Night Minister with San Francisco Night Ministry, Rev. Monique Ortiz walks the dark streets of a beautiful and aching city – a city that transforms completely when the sun goes down. Reaching out to the most desperate souls, she learns to help in a way she hadn’t imagined. Learn more at www.sfnightministry.org If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a momen...

The chaotic nature and noise of life as a musician – touring from city to city – eventually erodes Andrew Bird's ability to hear the music that is really inside of him. In a courageous effort to understand the faint calling of sound playing in his head, Andrew deserts his Chicago apartment for a rural piece of land where he believes an old farmhouse might unlock his personal renewal as an experime...

Before becoming a MacArthur award–winning entomologist, Dr. Marla Spivak is adrift – first as a young woman in search of direction, then deep in the Amazon, severely ill and fearing death. Time and again, it’s the hum of bees that shows her a path forward. Apiculture doesn’t just become her life’s passion, it reveals a deeper truth about the connections that bind us. If this episode resonates with...

What do we do with the not-quite-perfect relationships in our lives? Growing up, the comedian and actor Milana Vayntrub adores her father — but all their happy times together end with him getting back on a plane. What does it mean to love someone who insists on living on another continent? And what might it mean to forge a new kind of intimacy? If this episode resonates wi...

Years before his YouTube-phenomenon cooking show Binging with Babish, the filmmaker Andrew Rea finds himself slipping into despair. His day job is draining him; so is an unhappy marriage. He finds the courage to take big bold steps toward a new life that’s centered on his passion for food. But there's a Part Two of this story. Because even as he finds a more fulfilled version of himself, he learns...

You might know actor Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos — and now The Many Saints of Newark. But before all that, he was a 17-year-old kid, adrift, curious about acting. His parents are baffled, but they give him an enormous gift: they trust him. As he grows as an artist, Michael realizes the way that the courage to trust – in your instincts, in your teachers, and i...

Russ Ellis has led the kind of life they write books about. The first full-time Black professor at California’s Claremont Colleges. Acclaimed sociologist. Celebrated sculptor and painter. Even a recording artist. But as he reveals in this episode, even the fullest life can be haunted by a single event half a century earlier. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you....

Learn these calming techniques to help navigate tricky family dynamics, the challenges of disconnecting from work, and the loneliness that can arise at even the most joyful times of year. Notice them, name them, release them. To learn more about the RAIN mindfulness technique – an acronym first coined by senior Buddhist teacher, Michele McDonald – visit Tara Brach’s website (you’ll see how Rohan’s...

A street in Honduras. A conference room. The fifth lap of a bike ride. Crisis can descend on you in unexpected places – and so can clarity. All that’s required of you, really, is to be there for it, and to stretch yourself in ways you hadn’t expected. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese in Washington, DC, tells of three defining moments of struggle and grace in her life. If this episode...

Boy meets girl, girl notices boy's squirrel painting, boy and girl fall in love. The plot of a classic Hollywood romcom? Not even close. But when struggling actor Randall Park meets the person of his dreams at an awkward LA art party, it is indeed the start of an epic love story – and a story of self-discovery too. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a momen...

Robin Arzón is a star fitness coach at Peloton, beloved for her high-energy coaching with more than a dash of tough love. In this story, join Robin on the longest run of her life: the Florida Keys 100 Ultramarathon. As difficult as it is to run 100 sweaty miles in the South Florida heat, far more challenging is the mental fortitude to keep doubt at bay. If this episode resonates with you, we’d lov...

Arriving in a strange town, disoriented and desperate to crawl into bed, Kaywin Feldman realizes she is just steps from an eight-century-old art treasure: a small chapel covered floor to ceiling with one of Giotto’s most extraordinary frescoes. She wanders inside, and the course of her life abruptly changes. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to sh...

Psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos is the host of The Happiness Lab podcast – and of Yale’s most popular course ever. (More than 3 million people have taken her "Science of Wellbeing" course online.) In this story, journey with Laurie to an island in Puerto Rico where she is one of only a few humans among thousands of monkeys. The company of non-humans, it turns out, can help us better underst...

As he sits with his wife in the waiting room of the pediatric cardiology unit, actor Joel McHale is struggling to feel anything but helpless. His infant son has been born with two holes in his heart; an operation is underway to repair them. But waiting in that moment, Joel begins to realize the unpredictable journey of parenthood that lies ahead. Life will happen. You just deal with it as best you...

The heart of storytelling is a journey, across time and place. In these four short stories, travel to a remote and lonely farm … a village alive with family … an island teeming with unique life … and a city street that suddenly begins to feel like home. In stories from Andrew Bird, Nadia Owusu, David Whyte, and Pico Iyer, linked and contextualized with meditations from Rohan. Listen to Meditative...

One summer night Paola Antonelli, now curator and head of R&D at MoMA, sets sail off the coast of Sardinia – snaking through the wavy sea with friends. She jumps off the boat, slides into the water, and makes her way to the rocks as her friends hang back, making dinner aboard. While keeping her eyes on the horizon and the setting sun, her mind wanders to the rockier questions in her life: How...

Loving football – specifically loving England’s team during a cup final – means resigning yourself to heartbreak, over, and over, and over. In this meditation, Rohan Gunatillake explores the singular anguish routinely visited upon dedicated fans of a favorite team. Within a mindful life, that anguish can become its own kind of beauty. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you....

Best-known for his record-setting streak of 2,632 consecutive games played, Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. is widely regarded as one of Major League Baseball’s greatest all-time players. But for Cal, just showing up is never an end in itself. It’s how he shows up that distinguishes his legacy as an athlete, a lesson Cal learns by observing his father – a baseball legend in his own right – whose dign...

All our problems haven’t magically vanished after the dark year gone by, but perhaps we’ve begun a new chapter, a slow re-awakening. In this collection of short stories, Rohan finds moments from four storytellers – Diana Nyad, Nalini Nadkarni, Franklin Leonard, and Florence Williams – that explore the singular moments that set us on a new path. Sometimes, it’s a single, pointed question. Other tim...

Fresh out of nursing school, Wayne Little finds a treasured mentor in his first job – a nurse whose lifelong mission inspires his own. Years later, in the middle of a global pandemic, he calls on those lessons he learned so long ago. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcas...

As a young girl, mowing her neighbor's lawn in the Kentucky heat, SG Goodman learns many important things: how to avoid running into the chain-link fence, the art of blowing the grass away from the house ... and the way these small, regular acts of community become the glue holding the world together. In caring for Miss Betty across the street, and in caring for the land her father farms, SG learn...

It's 1996, and Robert Reich has the job of a lifetime – one that's taking a steady toll on his family. In a story he’s never told before, Reich shares the pivotal moment when he turns his economist’s eye on his own life, and realizes: It's fallen out of balance. On a muddy cross-country field, watching his older son run through the rain, he realizes what he must do to fix things. If this episode r...

During some of the tougher days of the last two years, Rohan takes refuge in learning a new dish: aubergines with fermented chili bean paste and black vinegar. The project grounds him at an ungrounded time, and gradually leads to a singular form of mastery – no recipe required. A meditation about learning the ingredients, practicing the steps, and ultimately stepping into your intuition. Cooking w...

In a meditation for all the senses, Rohan guides you into a relaxed state that will quiet your mind and help you drift to sleep. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful. Each episode of M...