Most of us want to speed through the hard times; we want to get to a place where life feels smooth and easy.

But what if the line between good times and bad isn’t so clear? What if hardship can actually be enjoyable?

On this episode, Heather Daya Rideout takes us from the beaches of Thailand to the mountains of Maine, and tells of a an encounter with strangers on the Appalachian Trail that completely changed her perspective on pleasure and pain.

Growing up, Adrienne Lindholm was dead set against having children. She didn’t like kids, and she felt that parenthood would force her to give up the things she loved most in life.

But as time went on, her husband became more and more determined to start a family. Eventually, she was faced with an ultimatum: have kids, or lose her relationship.

Adrienne wrote a memoir called It Happened Like This, which chronicles her life in Alaska and her dilemma surrounding motherhood. She joins us on this episode to talk about it.

Shannon Prince comes from a family with a rich relationship to the natural world. Her Cherokee ancestors were skilled at using plants to heal the deepest of wounds, and Shannon grew up with the understanding that nature could — quite literally — save you.

But her family’s eco-literacy had been stripped away over the generations, and by the time Shannon came along, there wasn’t much left to teach her.

Yearning to rediscover forgotten knowledge, Shannon traveled across the world, to a place where ancient traditions were more intact than her own.

On this episode, she shares her story. It’s a story that takes us from Houston, Texas, to the remote meadows of Outer Mongolia. And it explores the surprising things that can happen to us on a personal level, when we attempt to preserve a way of life that’s slowly being stripped away.