Joseph seems to radiate equanimity and balance.

Of course, the difference between Joseph and me is that he's been meditating for four years

and I've been meditating for maybe four days.

So when Joseph says, yeah, it was a hard morning, but that's okay.

It isn't the voice of apathy.

It's the voice of experience.

It's saying some difficulty is normal.

And this is exactly what I'm here to learn.

I'm just so desperate to figure it out fast, to beat down my sorrow.

He's like, give yourself a break.

Thank you. He's like, give yourself a break. By the time Sharon Salzberg is 16 years old, she knows the people around her don't admit to suffering, much less talk about it.

A year later, she makes a life-changing decision to travel alone to India to study meditation.

It doesn't all go as expected. Through the journey's disappointments,

discomforts, and surprise lessons, she finds an unexpected friend herself. In today's meditative

story, Sharon, who I must confess to being a hero of mine, talks about how being kind, especially to herself, became her biggest mountain to climb.

In this series, we combine immersive first-person stories, breathtaking music, and mindfulness prompts, so that we may see our lives reflected back to us in other people's stories.

And that can lead to improvements in our own inner lives.

From Wait What, this is meditative story.

I'm Rohan, and I'll be your guide. The body relaxed.

The body breathing.

Your senses open.

Your mind open. meeting the world. I'm I'm I'm

...