Meditative Story

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...

As the youngest of 10 kids, Majora Carter is used to being a little bit invisible, shyly watching the world around her as she draws with her crayons. But her first-grade teacher, Ms. Transport, sees that she has a special talent for art. She encourages Majora to share her gifts – and (the real challenge) to accept praise. Her rallying cry: "You deserve to take your flowers!" Years later, as a grow...

What’s the hardest part about being the main character in your own life? You’re also writing the script as you go along. And sometimes it’s hard to know when you need a scene change. Filmmaker Franklin Leonard encounters plenty of dramatic moments as he seeks to follow his creative dream. But those big moments, he comes to realize, aren’t what will change him into the person he truly wants to be....

Writer Florence Williams, grieving the loss of a long marriage, finds herself in Tulsa, Oklahoma; she's come to sit with Penny, her former mother-in-law, who is dying of cancer. Drawn together by the gravity of needing and being needed, the two women sit in the quiet house, in a space between life and death, between rootedness and uncertainty – and yet surrounded, always, by love. As Penny begins...

Behind her Grammy-nominated song “Black Like Me,” Mickey Guyton shares the story of her long journey toward embracing her voice as a country music star. As a Black woman in a traditionally white industry, her authenticity is constantly questioned: Too Black. Too white. Not “country” enough. Plagued by self-doubt, Mickey’s breakthrough comes when she remembers what matters to her and stops trying t...

When young Nate Berkus pushes open the door to his new bedroom, an unfinished space in his family home, he doesn’t know it yet – but he’s opening the door to a new vision of what his life can be. A life that he can design for himself. Because sometimes, choosing a new paint color is shorthand for choosing a new path. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a mom...

In telling three short stories from his life as a meditator, host Rohan Gunatillake explores the way a few simple words of wisdom, said at the right moment, can build your strength and resilience for a lifetime. He shares insights from his own early teachers as he leads us on a journey around the world, from an ancient monastery in Thailand to a silent retreat in the English countryside. If this e...

"Are you going to do this? Ever?" Standing at the edge of the highest diving board at the aquatic center, a young Adam Grant tries and tries, and tries to leap off. But he can't face down his fear — not so much of falling as losing control. So there he stands at the end of the board, paralyzed. In this story, Adam Grant, now a famed organizational psychologist, shares how a wise diving coach helpe...

As a young man, facing two great losses one after another, philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris falls into a deep sadness. He ruminates, feeling stuck, lonely, and lost. But in a chance experiment, Sam learns to explore the landscape of the mind. And he stumbles upon a breakthrough that gives him the ability to think more clearly about every experience, good and bad; to let negative, distract...

Actor, writer and comedian Aasif Mandvi has given us so many laughs in his role as a correspondent on The Daily Show – on stage and in television and films. But when a doctor diagnoses him with tinnitus (ringing in the ears), he has to come to terms with his own vulnerability and the unpredictability of life. This eventually leads him to imagine a world with more possibilities, including falling i...

Before his rise to fame, David Duchovny is a popular kid – charming, funny, bright and athletic, beloved by friends and teachers alike. But there’s one teacher who puts David off-balance, calling him out for foolishness where others see charm. Years after graduation, struggling to make it as an actor in Hollywood, David finally comes to recognize that what he mistook for dislike was in fact an enc...

Ecologist Nalini Nadkarni – known as the "Queen of the Forest Canopy” – has spent a career clambering around tree tops, studying the interdependence of plants and animals in an ecosystem. But when an accident in the canopy brings Nalini's work to an abrupt halt, she is forced to reckon with interdependence of a profoundly different nature. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from...

For filmmaker Jai Punjabi, the most powerful connection to home is through food – specifically the wonderful Indian cuisine he was raised on. Hoping to preserve the recipes of his beloved family dishes, Jai returns to his parents’ home in Bombay, only to discover that the secret lay not in the ingredients, but in a way of being. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Pleas...

By the 1980s, Diana Nyad had left competitive swimming behind, embarking on a successful career as a sports broadcaster. But after a meeting with “Superman” actor Christopher Reeve — whose throw from a horse left him paralyzed from the shoulders down — she is reminded of a challenge that fueled her early athletic ambitions, and re-commits to living everyday just past the limit of what seems endura...

“Pay attention to the small transitions, the ones whose potential is always here but sometimes overlooked.” Host Rohan Gunatillake tells three simple stories to draw our attention to the spaces where we realize change is happening. Standing in a doorway outside a school, he sees his small son growing, learning to take on the world. And sitting with the loss of a friend, he explores how we think ab...