“I was in high school, I believe, and my mom one day was like, ‘Hey, we are going to see the Dalai Lama!’ I didn’t really know what that meant, but she picked me up from school that day and we went. He was in Madison so we took a little road trip there and saw him at this huge convention center. There were hundreds of people, if not thousands. It was really cool because at the beginning and the end of his lecture we did mediation sessions. It was all of these people from all walks of life just existing together and just being still. It was just so powerful. I loved it!

“Prior to the lecture with the Dalai Lama, I wasn’t really into [meditation], but that experience definitely opened up the door to the practice of being a little bit more mindful. It was kind of my first introduction to it. I feel like now it’s a lot more mainstream and popular to do meditation and yoga practices. Also with the pandemic, I feel like more people are appreciative of just being still.

“I’m just so grateful for my parents and for my mother in this instance to just say, ‘Hey, we are going to drop what we are doing and we are going to do this thing. We are going to go and meet new people and have this experience that you’ll remember forever.’ I think that translates into me taking advantage of things that kind of come as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Taking that practice and what I learned there into the rest of my daily life.”