The Stories We Tell

Sometimes the smallest most insignificant decisions can lead to the biggest impact. After all, we make decisions all day, "Will I go for a run or sleep another 30 minutes? Do I want to make dinner or order in? Take the new job or stay put?"  But sometimes, those tiny, seemingly unimportant decisions can also shape the course of our lives. Do you take the time to reflect? Can you see the moments when the small decisions created the big change? Do you accept the moments when the world slipped off its axis and life just changed? Can we learn to recognize these small moments that had the big impact and are we able to see the lesson in the change? Kristina Wandzilak is the founder and president of Full Circle intervention and sober-living communities, and has been a leader in the addictions industry since 1995. She is a mother, an author, a television personality, and interventionist. She is also a former addict who ended up homeless on the streets of San Francisco — willing to do anything to survive. But the game-changing decision that would alter the course of her life was at the age of 15, when she had a crush on a boy who drove a VW bus.

Sense of self can be a tricky thing. We all have an idea of who we are, and who we want to be, and that reflects many things: the world around us, our own personal histories, goals, traumas, family. It can be easy to distract from your sense of who you really are, to numb with drugs, or alcohol, or even keep your eyes glued to your phone instead of pursuing something that will make you happy. While falling into a pattern of distraction and numbing can be very easy, lifting yourself out of it can be much harder. Today's guest, Lisa May Bennet, always knew she was a writer. However, in college, as the idea of becoming a writer transitioned into the often scary practice of writing, she leaned on the distraction of alcohol from having to pursue her passion. Because if you never pursue your passion, you cannot fail. It wasn't until several years later that she made the choice to put alcohol aside and rededicate herself to her writing; Lisa didn't fit the traditional definition of an alcoholic, but this is precisely what made her journey more difficult. Her friends and family diminished her struggles, claiming she was fine and didn't need to change at all, but Lisa knew better.

What does it mean to find your true calling? For some of us, it means discovering our inherent passion. It means having a gift and sharing it with the world. For others, it means doing something that makes you happy. That makes you feel whole. That makes you feel free. But finding your calling doesn't come without compromise — and sometimes — sacrifice. Until the age of 18, Krushnaa Patil wanted to be a dancer. She was certain that was who she was meant to be — that is until she climbed her first mountain. Through mountaineering, Patil discovered a sense of freedom that she had never felt in her “normal” life, and in 2009, at the age of 19, she became the youngest Indian to climb Mount Everest. She was also the first Indian woman to reach the highest summits in Antarctica, South America, and Europe, having completed ultimate peaks in six of the seven continents. But in pursuing her calling, Patil was faced with the difficult decision to accept help from the person she was trying to be free from.

The concept of duality teaches that life is created from a balance of opposite or competing forces. Where there is light, there is darkness. Where there is stillness, there is movement. And where there is life, there is also death. But these dual forces are not just opposite — they are also complementary. Acknowledging and facing our own mortality can make for a richer life. Experiencing a brush with death — or a brush with life — can have a profound impact on us. It changes us. And it's important to reflect on the moments when death teaches us about life. Rabbi Steve Leder is the senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles and the best-selling author of five books, including “The Beauty of What Remains” and most recently, “For You When I'm Gone.” Rabbi Leder has officiated more than 1,000 funerals over the course of 30+ years, but it wasn't until his father's passing that he understood the truth about death, and the duality between Steven Leder the Rabbi and Steven Leder the son.

As we approach the end of our first season, we wanted to take a look back at our favorite moments of wisdom from each of our guests. Please enjoy our look back at season one. Thanks for listening and thank you to all of our guests from our first season. We're going to take a few weeks off to plan and record season two with a bunch of fantastic new guests, new topics, and new stories. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" wherever you get your podcasts.

Setbacks are a part of life: little misfortunes like traffic on the way to work, or big obstacles like the loss of a job or friend, or something you may have even taken for granted. However, it's in these moments that we must embrace the struggle, when we must love ourselves enough to struggle, and to acknowledge that this, too, is part of our story. Each stumbling block we encounter can humble and remind us that our journey is never over. "Love yourself enough to struggle" has become a personal motto for this week's guest, Dray Gardner. After years of sports and motorcycling, Dray's back went out in 2005. Instead of exploratory surgery, Dray opted for a more wholistic approach and started a 30-day yoga challenge. Then, a seizure behind the wheel of a car in 2009 nearly paralyzed Dray for good. Instead of giving up, he returned to the yoga mat as a beginner and started his journey all over again. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" wherever you get your podcasts.

It's natural to want to feel a sense of control over your own life and the things around you. Being out of control can be scary, but when we tighten our grip on the people and situations around us, thing will start to slip through our fingers and show us that sometimes we cannot control the world around us. This week's guest is Tamu Lewis. When tragedy struck, Tamu was forced to re-examine her life and the things she could and couldn't control. Tamu had to shift her priorities. She has since founded the Positively Empowered Academy in the name of her brother who she lost to suicide. This work that has given her a new meaning and brings her hope to empower parents and destigmatize the conversation around mental health. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Success can be questioned and expanded: being rich, influential, knowledgeable, powerful — these are narrow definitions of success, all based on measuring ourselves against each other in some way. What if you are already successful based on your own values and you just never recognized it? Growing up in a low-income area in Los Angeles, Rosie Acosta witnessed violent crime and poverty firsthand and even had her own run-ins with the law. As a teen, Rosie made a choice to change her life, and search for mindfulness through yoga. Rosie is now a health coach, meditation and yoga teacher, a podcaster, and an author — a definition of success to many, but Rosie has had to repeatedly remind herself that the milestones of success do not always equal happiness. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's easy for us to say "follow your passion!" or "march to the beat of your own drum," but following through on your passions is much harder. How do we persevere when everyone in our lives is telling us it would be wiser to give up, more traditional, or dream a little smaller? Raheem Jarbo (also known by his rap persona Mega Ran) was a middle school teacher leading a double life as a hip-hop artist for years. In 2011, he left his teaching career behind to pursue his passion for music full time. However, his unconventional musical styling of nerdcore hip-hop made an already difficult artistic pursuit even more challenging. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

As much as we try to live a life surrounded by positivity, there is no way to completely avoid the experience of pain. Nor should we — sadness is as much a part of life as happiness. Extreme loss can often feel random, almost cruel, but that's when we must do our best to find purpose through our own tragedy. After the tragic loss of her son, Andrea Sonnenberg became cocooned within her pain for years, until a meal with a friend inspired her to become an advocate for mental health and to work on improving the system that is failing so many. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our journeys are never finished, are they? Whether it's a journey toward health, wisdom, happiness, or enlightenment: it's always a journey toward something. We never actually get there, and that's OK. That's more than OK. We must acknowledge this fact to move forward. At the age of 20, Jonny Benjamin was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. In 2008, a stranger stopped Jonny from taking his own life on a bridge and changed the trajectory of Jonny's life. In 2014, Jonny launched a social media campaign called "Find Mike" in order to help him locate the stranger who saved his life six years prior. He has used his story to promote mental health awareness and turned the tale into an award-winning book; however, Jonny's struggles with his own mental health didn't end that day on the bridge, nor did it end when he found Mike — whose real name is Neil Ladybourn — and the pressure for Jonny to be "done" with his journey actually led to further struggles. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On our last episode, you heard an incredible story about grief and loss from Michaela Boehm, relationship therapist and author of "The Wild Woman's Way." In addition to the wisdom of her story, host Nithya Shanti and Michaela sat down to talk about her work as a therapist, and delve deep into what makes a good attraction and what makes a good relationship. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Loss is an inevitable part of life, and while practicing non-attachment may be a step in our journey toward inner peace, losing a loved one, or even a valued possession or piece of creative work can be difficult to work through emotionally. This week's guest, embodiment teacher and relationship therapist Michaela Boehm is an internationally recognized expert in intimacy and sexuality. However, Michaela's road to success was not without hardship. In 2012, she discovered the body of a close friend in the California desert and embarked on a 1,400-mile odyssey to return his remains to his family. This traumatic loss and the journey that followed changed the course of Michaela's life forever. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Advocating for yourself can be a can be difficult, even scary sometimes, especially when many of us are taught not to rock the boat. In honor of World Yoga Day, we welcome this week's guest, Tianna Madison, yogi and three-time Olympic gold medal winner for Team USA in track and field. But even a world record-holder needs a support system. With the high achievements of her life came tragic lows that she suffered privately. It wasn't until 2020 and the appearance of a life-threatening mystery illness while training for what she hoped would be her third Olympic appearance, that Tianna learned the power of using her voice, advocating for herself, and the community that she built around her. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In our last episode, you got to hear a story from Jay Vidyarthi, meditation teacher and app designer. Jay guided host Nithya Shanti through a quick, five-minute meditation on effortlessness, so we are sharing it to use whenever you want to take a short break to center yourself. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, or listen on the RoundGlass Living App.

On our path to enlightenment, we are all eventually going to wrestle with our own egos. This week's guest, meditation teacher and app designer Jay Vidyarthi is the founder of Still Ape, the world's first user-experience design studio focused exclusively on mindfulness, compassion, and wellbeing. However, not too long before working in the world of digital wellness, Jay had dreams of becoming a rock star. He dropped out of college in his early 20s to tour with his band, but soon Jay found out that his rock-star expectations were about feeding his ego, so he began the long process of grappling with, and befriending his ego. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" wherever you get your podcasts, or listen on the RoundGlass Living App.

Meditation teacher, author, and speaker Vimalasara grew up in an orphanage in Britain and developed mindfulness techniques as a child to cope with the harsh punishments they faced. Later, Vimalasara became the author of several books, and it was a trip to India for their ordination as a Buddhist that provided the inspiration for the book "Broken Voices" and a shift in their life's perspective. Subscribe to "The Stories We Tell" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, or listen on the RoundGlass Living App.

Welcome to, The Stories We Tell, a brand-new podcast from RoundGlass. On this show, we share the gift of illuminating stories: each week, listeners can hear a true story from a special guest: Stories of self-acceptance, overcoming inconceivable odds, embracing change, and recognizing our limitless nature. Hosted by Nithya Shanti, a teacher and facilitator of conscious living, every episode of The Stories We Tell invites reflection and offer glimpses of our multifaceted world. The Stories We Tell premieres June 9, with a new episode every Thursday. Until then, enjoy a sneak peak at some of the incredible guests we have in store. Subscribe to The Stories We Tell in your podcast feed today. It's the best way to make sure you never miss an episode. We look forward to sharing our stories with you.