The hey so today I'm doing something that we've never done before. We are about to head into a weekend like never before in the us and well around the world. We kind of wanted to wrap it and you with one big blue. The full audio hug, remind us all that people are good. They can be kind even to total strangers in ways we never imagined. So we, created a two part series for you that we are calling the hug. And were sharing a bunch of a heart lonely stories, told by friends of the pod and surpass guess who knows think about it are friends now to an story shared a moment or experience were a little bit of kindness, a little bit of sweetness and just maybe a little bit of lightness and laughter touched There lies and reminded them how good people can be.

I feel like. We all need a little bit of that right now. So today we're sharing part one of the hug, the first six stories, for you will air where to next week. Right after the election with the intention of wrapping us all arms of story that remind us of our shared humanity,

at the time. We really need him most to sit back and enjoy these stories in part, one of the hug, I'm Jonathan fields- and this is good life project. So the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Happiness is a skill that you can learn, so why not embrace it? It's hosted by dan Harris a journalist who had a panic attack on national television and then set out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help. Others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked to top scientists meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and lightness, psychedelics and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from brene brown to Sarah burrell us to sam Harris and more. I love learning from his questions and experiences, an incredible guests. Think of listening to ten percent happier as a workout for your mind, find ten percent happier wherever you listen to podcasts.

it is a I even work where it is creativity, come from. What's the secret to living longer, ted radio, our explores the biggest questions with some of the world's greatest thinkers, they will surprise challenge and even change you listen to and be ours ted radio, our whatever you get your PA guests.

the good law project is supported by the economists, so the world seems to be moving faster than ever: climate economics, politics, ai and culture. Wherever you look, events are unfolding at a rapid pace and it's hard to stay on top of it, which is why I love that now, for the first time, you can get a one month, free trial of the economists, so you won't miss a thing I have literally been reading the economist I want to say for decades. I love that it covers more than just economics and finances you'll find coverage on topics from politics to science, to technology, even arts and the environment. The economist offers this global perspective with really incredible clarity and deeper analysis, so you can dive into specific issues or catch up on current events, I was just checking out this article on the changing landscape of tech, jobs for recent computer science grads and how everything is changing so fast. It was a real eye opener and with the economists free trial, you'll get access to in depth independent coverage of world events through podcasts, webinars and expert analysis. As soon as you sign up, if you're interested in subjects like this go to economist dot com, slash project for full access to the topics that matter to you, an original analysis as events unfold, that's economist, dot, com, slash project or just click. The link in the show notes to start your one month, free trial with the economists today, because the world won't wait an hour

First storyteller is an old friend of mine, new based audio book narrator producer author actor, just it also human gabarus admin Bringing us into a moment with her brother that turn Tough time into a moment of grace, so here is a story in the form of a toast I do have the exact right glass and by act right, I mean the glass. I would have been drinking right around that time. We have the right liquor, it should be bourbon and it should makers mark. But I do have a drink in. Glass, the exact same glass, this is a story in form of a toast, and- the toast for my big brother, that does warm up the insides when I think of my big brother, when we were kids I think of us young. I have

a wonderful memory, I always think of, and this is some this, appetizer today to the meal of the story. when I think of when I remember my brother is, I was such a shy girl, which is hard to imagine, because I talk for a living and I'm very gregarious now, but painfully painfully wallflower shy And I remember that my brother and I were sent to the same summer camp when we were really young, my brothers for years older than me. and I remember the time that I was so shy. Remember, even all the girls would change out of their bathing suits and into their clothes, and I would go stand a corner and me no take my bathing suit off, while my clothes were on, and I was so modest and so shy a funny that I became this. brazen woman of the theater, but at that, I am what I remember is that, after

camp ended and we were waiting for the bus. I remember that all the girls would go play together and on all the boy, go play together and that I would sit by myself I remember how shy I was and how scared, and I sat and waited to see my brother walking from a different part of the camp over to the Bus and I remember the feeling when I sit there as a girl, and so scared and so shy and when I would see my big brother coming around the corner that my whole soul. What light up I was so happy to see my big brother said. the precursor to this next story, so flush forward, about thirty years, because I think I was about thirty five or so when

After being in a nine year long relationship, it was time for my then boyfriend and I to break up. And I remember the reason why I have chosen this particular drink- the perfect glass for the wrong drink is as I can remember, while boyfriend and I were in the process of breaking up there He would go to sleep in the bedroom and that I would walk into the kitchen and I would sit on this cooler we had and I would think bourbon adequately, exact glass, not this exact glass, but a glass. Just like this. I bought myself a whole set some time after we broke up, but I would sit with a glass tat looked just like this with bourbon in it, I would talk to my brother. He was one of the people how to most often I was going through this- in full fall wrenching heart breaking time, When I was trying to understand what had happened and

had gone wrong and how I was going to move forward in the world and my brother at the time just married to my sister in law. They had not yet had their beautiful remarkable amazing. Now, seven year old,. And my brother had the time I believe too. Sit on the phone with me for hours as I drank bourbon if the same glass and wept. But it was a little but after this when this main part of the story takes place. my boyfriend had by this time. Moved out- and I was left in a home that felt blown apart There were holes where his stuff used to be, and there was some stuff that was left that I never liked in the first place and have learned at that point. How to put together a home now

the kind of home I have now, which is my sanctuary and a place of great creativity and joy and love and rest. Then I didn't know how to put together a home so when he left it, it was. Like a bomb and gone off. there were and spaces where books used to be- and places on the wall where there was faded paint dust underneath where pictures had been taken off and Everything felt filled with holes, partake early in the kitchen, because I was not the chef that I am now. I didn't of the kind of kitchen that I have now and so it was missing a lot of things. My kids I was in particular and it was around this time that my brother came to visit. he came by himself his

was back at home and he came apps on a business trip or perhaps just to see friends, but he was with me for a few days- and it was a wonderful time for us to get to hang out in I knew late bombed out apartment together and have long conversations over bourbon into the small hours of the night and at one point My brother noticed that there was a list the door of the refrigerator. I don't remember what the title of the list was or even if there was a list, I just remember that it was a list. Of items and. My brother said to me: what is this what's this list on your fridge and eyes. Oh, I said well That's a list of everything that I wish I had in this kitchen I could afford it. That's a list of. Everything I'd have if I were married,

if I had had a registry and actually had nice things for my kitchen. And what I think I was really saying was that's a list of everything that I would have if I wasn't such a complete and utter failure, and if I hadn't just bombed out my entire life, and if I hadn t actually law any opportunity to have the kind of life that I would have hoped to a one point have and if I wasn't too old and if I wasn't to this and if I wasn't to that end having just X, Y or z, then maybe I would have amount of things in my kitchen, but basically, what I said was I'm going to gradually by every single one. Until I have the kind of kitchen that I want. And we spoke no more about it. We suited to have some bourbon and talk and to the wee hours of the night, full of days later. I remember I was sitting at home reading a book or Being an audio book or reading a play And my brother came in

He had been out all day doing what he usually does, so he probably had lunch with pete. That wonderful tea house over on the EU side or he might have had brought, with eaten in brooklyn if she was living in brooklyn at the time and he might have had a walk with Kim brown she was living in sunnyside, then. Like she is now, actually right near me, but at the time I was up in washington heights And my brother, after a very long day, Burst in the apartment, with his cheeks reddened from the outside cold, in his hand he carried two or three or four or five. Beautifully wrapped parcels. paper bags with color paper in them, one following gifts, and remember thinking, oh my goodness

How is he going to get that all in his luggage. and I'm not even sure if I said anything, but I remember that locked eyes, and he had a huge smile on his face and Lifted up the bags laden as he was, and said jubilantly. I got all your stuff. and even right now. Even right now. It makes me emotional to tell the story because there were some sweet he had. Purchased everything from my list. I got all your list, he said And I think at the time when I think back, I do now think that I cried, I I didn't say much because I was very overwhelmed.

Probably because I was too emotional to say anything, but when Think back on it, I think. That it was one of the most loving acts brother to his sister when her or was broken She felt like such a failure and like life had ended, and, frankly, that she would never have a nice kitchen Had he bought everything. my list- and I I have some the pet today, so If you want to know the truth, I have a really nice cutting board and A really nice, salad, spinner and there's also fears stuff I wouldn't have even known. You know, I think, there's like oh, I can well: did you can put in the oven and then take to people's homes, which I have often because turned into a homemaker. I turned into someone who cooks all the time

I turned into someone who often uses casserole dash to bring to people's houses I turned into someone who built a house where I love my kitchen, where the whole home and where every piece of it feels like me, So this is a toast. I am raising this glass one more time this, same class, but it's not the same class in. Too often times I will drink bourbon. And I will think of my brother and the kindness The time when I was so broken down and About me back up to argue hope you next, that its former DJ music efficient, not aficionado purveyor of chill. We know him in the community. Has the dude from the mid west and an amazing dad rick Charlie,

bearing a moment of surrender and amazement when his daughter was younger. Do you remember when you were a teenager and a new song came out that you could not stop listening to the kind of song that just blew your mind, that it even existed or you could not help but move to it, you played over and over again never tiring of the music or the words It's so much Your parents were seriously considering psychotherapy for you Well, for me that song was role with the changes by ariel speed. Do remember It starts hard with a pounding piano chord in, crashing drums followed by screaming electric guitar and inter crescendos to pause before Kevin cronan belts out archipelago as soon as you are able man still brings me chills every time

And yes, I did in fact listen to it about twenty times for sitting down to tell you the story. so for my daughter june, that song was. Vive la visa by coldplay. It too, as a powerful intra with booming yellows and hard meaning based rum. Understood how this song filled her heart with the essence of life. Well, I did at least for the first fifty times I heard it. She chose the song to sing in her middle school talent, Joe it's subsequently appropriate, considering where she exist Actually was a year earlier. you see three hundred and sixty five days prior june was laying in an ice you hooked up to life support desperately waiting for a new liver to arrive. Hers had died a slow agonizing death due to a genetic disorders. She had been born with. She laid there

the golden brown mustard hugh in her eyes and on her skin, and a myriad of machines poem. Full of a fake life in hopes. That healthy liver would come available to her in time and time I was not on our side. The of either translated means live life. The story of the song is of a king, who loses his kingdom it is only then that he realizes he forgot actually live life. one year later after relearning how to walk. How to talk and how to sing. he would stand all alone on a stage in front of a hundred of kids in a dull too. I'll they knew who this kid wise, but really didn't, know the person You see she wasn't popular, Jeanne have a ton of friends. This school.

was sitting in the gym, also alone, surrounded by all these strangers. With a giant pit in my stomach, I'm not sure who is more nervous. Her me. Return came up in the curtain opened in there this tiny thirteen year old girl. All five foot three of her standing. a giant normous stage just her neck, simple black dress and a microphone. while the music began and after the cello intro she hid her first notes her voice was meekin. Not at all the powerful force that had bellowed through my home day after day, She was terrified she Through the first stanza stood there waiting for the next mark as the music continued, and that is where it happened. She froze.

she their lost where the words began again or she'd simply forgot the words altogether. I don't know. But there she stood still, blankly out into the sea of strange faces. Man like forever, that she stood there and then the tears started, rolling down her cheeks. She didn't know what to do in and she wasn't alone the audience just as frozen Only someone on state realised this number was crashing hard and they the curtain quickly. The m rushed on stage to clean up the mess and introduce the next act. As apparent, what do you do? I mean right do I madly rushed back therein scooper up and just to hug olive, the fear and, embarrassment out of her. Do I let her be in See how she handles it. I didn't know and

I froze and stayed in my seat and waited. Maybe this is just one of those times it they have to go through it on their own. You know. I just did known. She and come out to sea me or look for me. So I just sat through each of the remaining numbers. selfishly hoping for the end, twisted in turn, may seed is uncomfortable. Middle school old wooden folding chairs could ever give you any comfort anyway. Last Act was about to be introduced in this programme, or it could finally and. the sees kept on saying the word june. Like the month. Was odd and probably wouldn't be noticed by anyone else. Except my daughter's name. Was kind of painful to here after we had gone through, I would, torturing me this way. was gloves going through my head

Well, then we all found out what was going on in their own cheeky way. They were re introducing june. She was going to come out and try again. My freaking god you got to be kidding me. I was enough. Full on panic, attack this point, and I can only imagine what was going on inside her. but there she was again. All alone and that huge stage Simple black dress, holding microphone. the audience cheered loudly in the music began, and everything was just as it was before I was rooting under my breath. You can do this. I know you can do this and then- We hit the same places the first time and it exactly as before, she got lost in froze.

Only just buried. My head. In my hands feeling the embarrassment she had to be feeling. and that is when it happened The forum sees rushed out on the stage, but this time they had the sheet music for the song in hand. They surrounded her and begins singing with her. The audience started. Cheering you can do a june. You ve got this just like giving underdog his super energy pale. She woke up and started belting out the song again then the entire cat of all the kids who had performed in the talent ya appeared on stage all around her singing along to the song. sat there ready to borrow my eyes out here, entire community embrace. This miniscule teen and lifted her up on their shoulders and carried her to the finish line. would have been a very forgettable moment became in stork event.

Her most vulnerable, this group of strangers, desire to rise up on their own out of there is comfort in tehran. After the show, people who she didn't even know waited in a long line to congratulate her not necessarily for her performance. because she had the guts to get up there. A second time and stay there and finish evolve. medical torture that this girl had gone through. That is the best Davis thing she ever did. And all these other humans, mostly complete strangers to be sure, stood with her holding her up when We needed it most the big thing is they didn't have to

met, yet the global private aviation leader is known for personalizing every detail of your travels because not yet standard is not just to meet their definition of perfection. It's to exceed yours, discover more at net jets, dot, com,

Good, my project is supported by new, so it's that time of the year, where a lot of folks start to think about their fitness goals, getting their bodies moving myself included. I actually recently started paying a lot more attention to how I was fueling, my body and also really came to realize that I was carrying a lot of inflammation in my body and potential disease risk in the form of weight. So I wanted an intelligent and sustainable and supportive way to increase my health, lose the weight and inflammation and just feel better and noom is just a great solution for this one that I have turned to numerous times over the years to help me accomplish wellness and when it makes sense, weight management goals as well. So noone uses science and personalization, so you cannot just intelligently manage weight for the long term, but also really learn from their psychology based approach that helps you build better habits and behaviors that are easier to maintain and the best part you decide how newman fits into your life, not the other way around, based on a sample of four thousand two hundred and seventy two numerous ninety eight percent say: noom helps change their habits and behaviors for good, and that is because noone actually helps you understand the science behind your choices and why you have certain cravings. So if you feel like you've been lacking the knowledge to make the changes, you want to see, try out noom, so you can start making informed choices and start to really change the way that you think about weight, loss and weight management and wellbeing. Take the first step and sign up for your trial today at noon: dot, com, that's n, o o m dot com to sign up for your trial today or just click. The link in the show notes

That right, it is supported by arab, so I am always looking for new ways to get more nutrients into my daily routine to promote really all around better. Well being and recently I have discovered I herb a one- stop shop that offers the best curated selection of wellness products at incredible values. Then everything from vitamins and sports supplements to bath products can care and make up. I had so much fun, exploring their website and finding things had a really wanted, like thorns, calcium, magnesium, melick capsules and vitamin d three k to both of which support, bone and muscle health and immune function. I urge that you made it so easy to find what I need, because you can search by category or even wellness, concern and best of all, I feel safe, knowing that every product is tested, verified and sold directly by. I herb so it's time to get your health in check with. I urge our listeners get twenty two percent off your first order when you use code good life at I herb dot com, that's twenty! Two percent off your first order at I h: e r b, dot com, promo code, good life or just click. The link in the show notes and use a promo code. Good life choose I herb because, while miss matters.

The thanks so much to our next storyteller is writer and new mom rebecca tossing comes at a recent guest on the show, rebecca shares a story about when the truth bubbles up inside of you and it just needs to find an escape. assignment, was to grow into nature and draw you didn't have to be elaborated, meaning could just be like the trees in your backyard or a trailer park, but it one of my first assignments in my first semester of college ever so I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I'd really like art class in high school, so I was in this art class. I put this nature assignment progressing And like I always did until like ten thirty the night before it was due on the next morning at eight a so its literally pitch

outside and a tree looks the same as building at that point. So Strategizing panic, I'm going to do so? I'm like rifling through all these old nature books and my parents basement, and I we found some gorgeous scenes, which is really exciting to me, because already frayne up perfectly and all I really had to do was copy it the page in the shading just right, and I thought it looks really and so I wanted it to look good, because I really wanted to impress this your teacher, but I had- or I guess, accurately I wanted to, avoid being ridiculed the teacher His name was zig. Or at least an we call him zig. I dont know if that was really his official name or where that came from, but we call them saying, and he was this larger than life. cantankerous little man with tufts of white hair

and he would come into the art studio in the morning wooden greet anyone. You wouldn't smile. He was glaring at everyone. He always seemed furious about something and the start of each pass. You know I ve been in cost for a couple of weeks and we started each class by putting up homework our drawings upon this big board for everyone to see and he paced back and forth in front of them. A few minutes. You know glowering with his arms crossed and then he would set to work critiquing there in front of everyone like pinpointing every stake every opportunity eve someone, to be creative every blunder. And then at the end, all that he would maybe sprinkle like a few compliments out there, so I was really hungry for those compliment. I say that I say that I was hungry for them, but like not actually hungry enough to do my son in a timely manner. I don't know, I guess me that combo hungry to achieve and not willing to work. Maybe that's

something about me and my early twentieth, maybe certainly plays in early twenties, but that that's where I was I was really hungry for his approval so The morning after I copied that your seen out of my parents nature book and were all painting our drawing up on the board proceeds scrutiny- and I was feeling really good, because mine awesome had this like foreground background thing going on and shading was stellar and I thought it like really stood out from the rest of all of the boring nature scenes on the wall. I was expecting media get like a little sprinkling of praise this morning, and you know we in silence as egg walked back and forth in front of the pictures and pain. finally breaks the silence, and I hear my name, which is exciting, he asks rebecca. Did you actually go? into nature-

my face sick, really hot, because why is asking me that like Why is he do that? For some reason, and so I completely respond uninspiring and I just say yes. Mary definitively. Yes, nature and He presses n and he says really like, we panicking like. Why is he pressing me on this? But I Look at that point, I don't have a choice. I have to do my heel then and go forward with this lie. Doubling down and am I try to be as cool as possible? As my heart is pounding in my chest, and I say yeah. I really did and there pause and he- that says something like well that's really amazing because and doesn't usually grow at this time of year. In kansas, I didn't even

realize that I've been drawing corn. I had just been like copying this book out This kansas nature scene album, and so my like heart drops through the floor, because he has totally caught me in this lie, and we are like locking eyes and ears like it goes on for like three hours but like do have nowhere, and so all I do is I'm just like nodding casually like. Yeah pretty amazing, but he knows I'm lying and I know that he knows I'm lying and we're just frozen in this room. She aiding moment it probably left two seconds, but it felt like it was forever and then moves on. You noted her cheek somebody else's Had wobbly tree. so. This happens early in the semester. Zig- and I have this moment- and I dont know what a typical.

Really college student would do about that. I don't know how easily they would move on. I to keep going back to this class three times a week for the rest of the semester and I'm so tired, britain move on. I want to be chill and easy and forget that it happened, but I I am not easy breezy, I am full of anxious and anxiety I feel like I've actually swallowed like us down and and carrying it around in my belly every day and it's like only growing in its cool in heavy and Just so sure anyone can see it everyone's looking at it everyone's thinking about it. But I am also had about war with myself because feeling this torture, but I'm also like ok, but does anyone really care? This is probably in your head. Some just like this child in turmoil and I want to move on, but I hand, and then it's getting late and of religious, because I feel I start feeling like guy is telling me that

not going to be okay and tat. I am able to write my sins and confess to this almighty zig, but somehow like confessing, does it feel even more terrifying, then confessing to god, I cannot bring myself to do it. So it's like week after week. known, is growing in my belly and I am in turmoil. It is finally the last day of class I've made here the whole semester in agony I actually have to go into zigs office to turn in my final word over the semester, some in the office with it's just him and me giant stone in my belly. That is now approximately the size of a car, and I know this is my last chance to absolve myself, but I if you, like

I'm jumping off of the side of a cliff like I have no idea where I'm going to land. I think it must be expecting like he's going to spit in my face or something I can't even imagine like how he's going to respond to the blatant lie. before I can like seniority now I like here the words humbling out of my mouth, And I'm just like in a haze of confession, Z, I have to tell you, I literally in the master but the picture of the corn, and you said, corn. Engro this time of year kansas. But I really didn't go into nature, and I I don't know why and I'm so sorry. I don't know why. I did that and I'm just like totally lost in this moment of confession, and I don't even really know where I am anymore. It's like. I don't even see the room, it's totally a blur, and it's just me and my sins, and I don't even know how long I go on before and pulled out of this haze because It gives of laughing honestly. I don't think

I'd ever seen this man even smirk before, but you like a whole body laughing at me, and I like tat, deep breath and I'm smiling and the relief is enormous and I just keep hawking, and so I say something like I do really felt, like god, wanted me to tell you that I lied god, mean me to tell you this and suddenly zig roaring like whole body rocking and laughter. Tiny guilty little freshmen. Am I like I was floating Because you know mrs mann and found my most egregious sends to be of areas So I do have to say I went on to take many art passes from vague and one My favorite details that I learned about eventually, is that he loves the ambulance

he would it make a special effort to watch over his yard and make sure that it was full of dandelions every even though it made a home, his neighbors furious? and he liked to go out on his porch drink his morning, coffee overlooking the dandelions, so I ended up and surely drawing a series of view The anti lion pictures in front of a front porch and I never gave them to him or anything, but it was just like this for me to remove burn this amazing, hilarious, weird larger than life. also very human gorgeous angry man thanks so much rebecca sue me your times bustling author up with us about happiness equation and everything is awesome, reopen creature, whose too

up the hugs torch with our next story about an airport experience we can all relate to that ends in a very different way than we expect. Is it just me, or does it pretty much everybody gets a little bit more anxious when they go to the airport, you know there's like all these store that you never heard it before exist anywhere other than inside the air. and they sell things that you know you're like hell. That's like a bag of almonds, but is made by a brand that only exists inside the airport? the juice from a company that, like you, thought, went bankrupt in the nineteen eightys. But apparently there still alive selling just juices at the airport, I mean whole place, is unnerving nerve, unsettling ingest from that idea, that's an alternate reality, never mind the fact that you're enough

as a lineup serbian shuttled this way, and that way you tap on your pockets. Make assured you got your passport. Is everything in your bags? We have everything we need right and then, of course, on top of all that, plus the stress of timing, like guns going right time later, we on time we lay there is of course. The most stressful part of the entire airport experience, which is, of course, the border guard. Okay. I know some people call these people customs agents ah was thought like their aboard regard and my mind there like guarding a border. They they are standing. the outside of the country's line. I mean

sighed, the usually in the wrong country like like, I live in toronto, canada. So when I go to the toronto airport, Is the united states border regard, who is employed the. U s got really got a picture of the present in a frame right behind them. You know they are working on behalf of the united states, but there are living in the us there living in toronto or in canada, order there some rosa their protecting the border from a far right and so on. No, if it is just my subconscious, but whenever up to the border guard. I'm always like you know, I'm trying to argue why I'm invading their territory? That is kind of the way I think about it, and entire conversation between me and the border guard is of course govern by a whole bunch of rules and norms and laws, and behaviors that

makes both people in the interaction kind of act like robots in oh, like You put your passport down and you don't say anything like you, don't even talk. Isn't like a house gallantly has your day but those met. There's nothing. There's just like you walk up in silence. It's like it's the soup nazi inside. Perhaps rightly you got not used. You wait for them to talk to you And you never know they might just wave your long limits where you go on how long you there they might give you a good old fashioned grilling you now where's dislike and you don't know what's come in there. I did you pack make yourself well out of nowhere, and then you stop recommended at pack my bags myself like who would pack my bags womack? Will you know maybe my wife put my toothbrush brush you like a use. You get nervous about it because you don't, questions you come into the pact breaks up, give anything to declare a mother. What do you have anything

declare war. Am I supposed to declare I don't even know how, that entire question is supposed to be answered. What am I supposed to do so, I would say, not z, offended I've. Nothing did the clear, but the point is that the interaction itself is, I find super stressful now, I mentioned already, I'm canadian I live in toronto Do I travel to all the time the united states K giant huge country just were almost everything I do is an happens. So I'm there all the time, I'm flying to new york san, diego or chicago, nor leans or wherever and I gotta go through the airport and they gotta have a conversation with border guard. My entire permission to be independent states is, of course governed by a whole bunch of, for that. I hold very dear to myself and my body at all times like this one

visa, this travel document. I have the stamp of my passport and, of course, these stamps and apple documents and things have all kinds of rules. You know you, you can't take out more than a certain amount of money. You can't bring anything back over a certain amount of money. He can't I visited a farm in the last fourteen days. You care pockets full of soil. It can't hurt my favorite have any produce. That's one of the things it says you can't take a whole beggar. groceries with the way she crossed the border? We don't all what kind of pesticides are in that, and so I go to the airport one day I go across the border one day I walk up to the borgo in there and out of nowhere I completely forget cause I just not paying attention to myself that I'm eating an apple. I am eating an apple as I walk up to the border and of course, as you might guessed he looks at me. He looks at the apple and he's like

You gotta get a second there now, if you never heard that phrase before you may not reaching out chilling. It is. You gotta go to secondary. We don't have tools here at first. to properly assess you and sort out the trouble urine, I'm like well what, where secondary points in like a direction that I never knew existed, then a whole weight that has a whole bunch of mirrored glass down it because of course it looks like the kind of glass that you can see out, but you can't see em like oh I'm bored like this Building a police station rise you so, In that way, it of course, has got the double pained glue ass doors. That are totally ass dead

the really serious doors- and you know this, because when you walk towards them, they swing open. Her words, you know when you got the growth store it swims opened into the store. But when you locked were serious door. They say until words, you can't look in here only you ok here. We know you're coming from so far away, though we have to swing of open to wear. Some it's ok so wheel in my suitcase towards secondary, get inside and you can just feel when you get there. It's a very official seen. It is a very manage seen these people are doing a d assessment on. You did check at the border if you're gonna get in or not and they got a follow rules they gotta followed. roller Paul's. There is laws governing the whole thing they are uniform. They got frame pitcher

president. Behind them they were representing the head of the country, okay, so get there a glove, At the desk, a woman says I need you to put your suitcase here and need you to open it, and I need you to take three steps back. I do that puts on her rubber, little gloves and starts fishing through. My suitcase and you know. Of course I've got this apple, and it's hitting me all of a sudden that I'm like I'm a to lose everything. I'm gonna lose my paperwork. I'm gonna lose my visa. I'm gonna lose my password because you can't cross the border with food, never mind. Produce which had just been eating? And it's not her fault, I'm thinking, because she following the rules. When I got my visa of course, I was told you can't go through with food. If you do, you lose the thing. So as she's doing that she looks at me, she comes across a book.

she asked me a question about it: oh yeah, that's a book! I'm reading now. What's bout. Mr answering questions, while its take those stories takes place and I can see in her eyes and in had that she's just a bit interested in it and she kind of us all the rules and you can't keep digging through my suitcase, but He's got also interested in this book and once a bow so I start telling her about in. I serve open up all of em My bookmarking there, I'm I'm a little but way the longest are talking about, and then. Suddenly it happens where we go from to hold all strangers who don't know each other have never met before And will never meet again. a situation completely governed by rules laws, norms. That neither one of us design. Ok, Whether one of us came up with,

one of us necessarily is sort of like in rima whether these are not, and we click out of that little matrix, and we click in two the shared humanity, the shared idea that were the same really in the same place. We heard the same species we are the are we Evolved time we our from the roots origin of life on the planet, together, four billion years ago we were both single celled organisms at the bottom of the ocean, vents near Australia. We made it, we made it right, sackful of organs thing with four limbs pen to it in a brain that the stag horace was where it we we made, we together

have lasted four billion years on life from The early origins of life itself. To trust in one another the bottom of the ocean. We trust in mitochondria previously living organ out, inside ourselves eat some of us but give us power. Will. We feed a protein. We evolved photosynthesis. The ability to eat plants that energy from the sun give out carbon dioxide visas, plants, venus oxygen, the entire route history of life on the It is one of trust, interconnectedness in symbiosis. Every single thing in this world is

heather, together by the idea that it is the current manifestation of all the life that came before it. There isn't another way to be here. Right now beyond that, even if you limit it to our species, while a hundred Ten billion of us have lived ever total in history And we are amongst the lucky eight billion alive today, zooming in a level deeper were in the same place. You are listened to this podcast I'm into a microphone, but aren't we and a little bit in the same place? in our hearts and our brains, the same worries and the same fears. And the same anxieties and the same stresses. When her eyes shifted ass. She was going through. My suitcase and

My body language, I'm sure, softened and went from a posture of defence and anxiety and calmness and distance. We ended up connecting the book, and I don't even remember what the book was and we ended up coming back to that shared humanity, the shared energy, the sheer place, but all living things share that all of us share on earth together. will we get rid of the structures that are surrounding us and whether they are political structures with their education structure whether they are how we live, where we live or how we move around and we just Let her south sift back to the idea that we're alive and working together were connected, then guess what everything softens? Our brains are eyes

our hearts, all open up at an embrace can happen with its visible or invisible between us the embrace says this. I want a little bit I you in my heart- and I want to put a little bit of myself in yours and I know it might sound trite or might sensible. But after that happened as she was rifling through my suitcase. It was really easy for her to say I think, you're good and for me say thanks and chuck my apple in the carpet and just keep moving? I feel like they're so many times and moments in line with our behaviour and how we are doing and what we're doing is governed by us, Of norms, a set of rules, a set of policies that were created far above This way beyond this way before us that we do necessarily need to live by, and if we can recognise that that matrix, see that flickr in

structures that are surrounding us in jest and act with a smile I holding the door. by giving someone the permission of our humanity and helping them humanity keep moving, though we should do that weak. and that every single mamma we interact with another person is another opportunity to do that. Just like this. Hmm, thanks. Kneel and next up is mary from Jeff Harry, who is known for wearing and handing out lego bo ties. I happened to all one and where it when I really want to feel good. just to remind us all the smile and play a little bit and he showed Experience really that happened to him in the shadow

nine eleven and how it forever changed him. I'm sitting in a hotel room in paramus new jersey. Cause. I was virtuous corporation. At that time there was like located parameters. Yours, he had just put us up in hotel rooms on September eleventh and delicious chaotic You know what like we're all at the office, raul freaking out. We don't really know what is happening. Let you couldn't even get on the internet. shall I people freaking out and then We got you all hotel rooms because you can't go back and I lived in brooklyn at the time so remember, they send me some hotel who knows what it was, and then I remember when I got to my hotel room see out the window and I can see just all of the smoke coming from lower manhattan and like most people just like turned on the tv or slight just

stunned, didn't freaked out and I felt so hopeless and so lost there I couldn't sit in my hotel room enough. I had get out because those like life enzo case on my friends. Work right down, town girlfriend. Is there some like how do I get across the bridge, their blocking the bridge so a rumour getting into my car. Driving around new jersey going to hospitals, trying to donate blood because, like that will be the only thing that I think I can do, because I could just sit there like. I felt like I need to do something and remember going to four different hospitals in every single one of them. Turn me away because they were like our blood banks. Are full of people have been visiting them the entire afternoon, and now it's almost like the seventy eight p m at night and I feel

like. I haven't contributed anything People are dying like literally die, and I can see it and I remember listening to the radio news npr and they were like firefighters. Don't have insoles, you know they need dr scholl's insoles. They have plenty of water, but they need this, and if you wanted delivered it and you live in new jersey, come down to jersey, city, so I went and I bought stuff, and then I drove down to jersey, city and I had been thy overcome by such fear and helplessness and spare for that entire time, and all of it I kind of like melted away. When I saw like these, shoot, strobe lights and just like so many people, you're just so many people, it was like thousands of people, it felt like end.

all had the same idea that I had an were cars that were lined up like fifty in a line that had like all this stuff that they wanted to donate because all of it was getting shipped from the jersey city port down to a lower manhattan. There were people that were trying to get on those boats because they wanted to get over to help, even if they were in firefighters, they were just like. Let me just help. I don't even know where I parked my car: that's how like random and crazy. It was, but remember, just simply getting out being like. How can I help some pointing to somewhere else and some people putting it somewhere else, and then I revengefully remember just getting in a group that was passing stuff over, because I realized like

the chain wasn't. You know long enough right, so there was like a Pasolini for water and there was a pass lane for dr scholz and there was a pass lane for food and I remember seeing a family and it was like literally like a kid that was like seven years old. Passing it to his mom, who was passing it to this guy that was in this suit, like there was dirty. It was like this dirt like it was this fine suit that now was like covered. In like sweat, euro edge, grime and then at one wait. I left that, and I went to an area where we were just shorting stuff, because there you know all these people were donating, but the chaos of like what needed to get over there now and what needed to get over there later and then I started like guiding- well, because I was an expert because now I have been there for an hour, so I'm like okay. Now it goes here and here you know it was new, but everyone was kind of just adapting and rolling with an almost like. It was like a campaign except like the felt like lives, ruined the line, we all felt like first responders the part that really

impressed me, the most was how many kids. I saw with their families. Where was the whole family? Was there How many people had left their job come straight down their wearing where'd. Ever you could have. Somebody was wearing a construction, Out outfit, asking What guy there was in, like a nice suit so like for that moment, in time, class was not an issue there to individuals just helping each other for nothing much bigger than themselves and there was to site so many different races here, and you have to remember that I'm not from new york, new jersey, so up until that point? I

always felt everyone was super, mead and super rude. It's just like your just kind of like stand office and my instead in almost felt like I don't like softball team when they get into like a scuffle and they all I get each other's back. There was something about the camaraderie? That was just so humbling, like it made me to europe. because it was like humanity at its best and he gave me so much hope when there was so much tragedy that was in the air and it inspired me to start being more active and embrace being an activist in many ways I had seen a lot of division and you know racism, and you know various parts of things you know at my time, while I lived in new york and and worked in new super for that.

For the sad day, you would have not question that those people knew each other, You really felt like if you were like they played for the same brooklyn softball team right like at the same time that they were like really like hey. We gotta move, we gotta, we gotta move the stuff. They were also very aimed and sweet, which is nothing like new jersey or new york. Nothing! Yet all like hey thanks for that. I cannot Have that, like just in these new jersey access than I was just like what is when on dude and I didn't leave- I didn't get tired. Goes there till midnight swabs there from seven p m two minutes and I didn't get tired. If anything I want point was like, can I go over, there is well. Can I even though I didn't know what I was gonna be doing. If I got over on that barge to get over, there it was so close. Yet so far like You could see it. Feel it.

Smell, the is everything Bernie Across the water, almost I felt like you could touch it yet. It also felt so far away, because you can almost feel the pain and suffering that was going on there, and being on the jersey side, where there was like this all this beauty and humanity of like what was happening here and I know was also happening over there, but it was just Like such a stark contrast- and I- That's why so many people were yearning to get over there, even though they did know what they would do when they got over. There is because they just want to help They could stop it from happening. They couldn't and I remember after seeing that that night The next day I went to the tourist corporation, where I was working in my departmental, is like hey admin by, like you know

hundreds of dollars of stuff who wants to help me and all these people donated- and I remember when they open the bridge of george Washington. I drove straight down to fourteenth street rely. it was a cop there and he was just like park here and there were just like handing it out to like the firefighters and the police and and a remember it was I look. I gotta take it there, but The other cop was like don't worry about the ticket, you know we'll take care of that and I just felt like everyone had each other's back. And I ll never forget them. Thanks Jeff, so our final storyteller in today's episode of bag. Buddhist, meditation teacher near times best selling author and founder of the world's largest online meditation community, the open heart project, susan piper? She is sharing a story about,

how a whole town took care of her in a time of dire need. A long time ago, ended up living in austin, texas kind of by coincidence, mike Broke down there and I didn't have enough money to get it fixed, so Did up living there? I got a job the best job at the best bar in the world called and once asked in the home of the boys and back- and this was late eightys to the mid nineties. It The most amazing music seen imaginable form, I heard the best music one in here, The house was incredible and every blues great of the day would come to play lanterns so the very this weekend I work John. They hooker played all all weekend and I heard albert king and albert collins and buddy guy james cotton and junior wells and eddy taylor, jimmy rogers in all the greats-

all the great. It was quite incredible and I didn't know anyone and as from the east coast, meaning I was kept myself, but I like the people I worked with, and I loved where I was- and after. Therefore about six months. Driving home from work one night and I was in a terrible wreck. I was hit by drunk driver? ended up in hospital for several months now, unexpected me to live the whole nine yards And there was, in this fairly new city, pretty much by myself I didn't really know hardly anyone a boyfriend. I left a lot and after him out of intensive care. I said, hearing about all the things that the people I worked with had for me, and beyond the people, I worked with, the people

Who were connected to anton in the blue seen in general and austin, so Many people gave blood for me. People made cards. For me, people took photographs of themselves, doing fun things and sent them to me. People came to visit me. The law oh blues, radio show walked about me and her I'd been in this accident and I needed blood and if anyone could spare any too donate forces in piper and as suddenly I real as I was in this family I was in this community and withdrawn is closely as I was. They opened their arms to me. I I honestly feel that I lived in part because of that love. And I was in the hospital for a few months and I of course, steering music very very much.

and one day I was lying in my bed and turning out what I was doing as one does in the hospital half asleep half awake, and I thought I could hear a harmonica like. Ah, while that sounds just like James cotton during my soul, good. I ain't got louder and louder. Her. And I was lying there thinking while this is an amazing dream. This is, I hope, and stay in this dream for a long time and just then The door to my room so open a little bit and in watch james gotten, who had down the hallway. harmonica for me and By me, with my boyfriend and played for twenty minutes half an hour just played exchange word here.

played. We smiled at each other and he laughed. And I don't think I've ever felt so cared for in my life. So I don't know about you feeling a little more connected to my heart right about now reminded really how much goodness is all around us when we stop long enough to see it and to share it. These stories have warned you have even just a bed maybe you know somebody else who might need to hear them to get there. Whatever emphasise we would love to share with friends and family, it's these hug episodes. We Need stories that remind us of the good side of human beings more than ever and revenge we'll be back in a week next monday, with part two of the hug sharing a bunch of news stories that will bring you back really home to your heart. So

george you subscribe. If you haven't yet so you don't miss it.