Meditative Story

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...

Thomas Page McBee is an author and a journalist – and was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden. But that fight wasn't about overpowering an opponent. It was about confronting his own fears – of masculinity, of aggression and inadequacy – and winning. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and rev...

In the morning, Idaho pastor Tri Robinson herds cattle and mends fences; in the evening, he writes sermons. But the two parts of his life don't feel connected. He feels such a deep love of the natural world, in all its beauty, all its fragility. But what is he doing, as a leader, to help preserve that precious creation? As he carries that question with him on his daily rides, he realizes: he's abo...

As a young composer, Max Richter is searching for his voice, the sound of a music that is uniquely his. But what he has is only a box of fragments, song experiments, half-formed questions. He sits with them, he thinks on them, he lets them mature – and then he realizes: This is exactly the music he wants to make. As he shapes the fragments into his early masterpiece Memoryhouse, he finds the beaut...

Twins Scott and Brian Nicholson are dancers and choreographers on tour with Ariana Grande. Onstage, the three of them move across the stage as a tight unit – Scott and Brian like a mirror image of protective energy around Ariana, like a stereo amplifying her energy. But when an unimaginable tragedy strikes, that energy is shattered. Until they realize – they must keep moving. Together. If this epi...

Standing at the door of the airplane, a new thing called “snow” swirling around her, Rohan’s mom is about to take a momentous step – making a life change that reverberates down the generations. A meditation about the steps we take when the outcome is uncertain. 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 Med...

"Cape Spear always calls me back." Tony Tjan grows up in the cold and dramatic landscape of Newfoundland, where snow piles high and storms rage – but the neighbors always keep a door open to help one another. Returning home for a visit as an adult, he recalls childhood stories of abundance and adaptation, as he and his family learn to love this life on the Easternmost point of North America – in t...

When she went off to college, Hannah Brencher started a simple habit: exchanging handwritten letters with her mom. Inside the envelopes that arrived in her dorm mailbox, she begins to know her mother, for the first time, as a person – and as a friend. 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 St...

Omar Wasow had a fabulous life as a reporter and tech expert – he even taught Oprah how to use email! But an important piece of unfinished business from his college days kept nagging at him, and even tempted him to run away from his life and hide. Why did this one-time gifted kid struggle to complete something that mattered to him? Why couldn't he even get started? In another classroom, in the fac...

Love sneaks up on us. It’s a sudden awakening from the mundane. It’s divinity in the everyday. In this special episode, Rohan shares a trio of stories about his love, Lucy. The childlike purity and sweeping hold of love will wash over you in this intimate listening experience from Meditative Story’s very own Rohan. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a momen...

The strawberry field past the maple tree. A hidden nook beneath the stairs. The magical hour before anyone else is awake. Throughout her life, Angela Ahrendts has sought out sanctuaries – sacred spaces to reconnect and to dream, quiet moments to visualize what her next big decision might lead to, to stay open to the signs that help guide her. Now, after a series of bold career choices, Angela refl...

The idea of a meditation retreat is deeply romantic. But the reality can be very different. Join our host Rohan Gunatillake on his first retreat, at a monastery in the English countryside, where he locks in to his meditation practice for the first time – and on the same night, almost gives it up altogether. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to sha...