Grieving the Future You Imagined with Dr. Maya Shankar

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
At nine, I auditioned for the Juilliard School of Music
in New York. I would have ten hours of classes.
I was achieving my big dreams until one day I
heard a popping sound, and doctors eventually told me that
it was a career ending injury. Without it, I wasn't
sure anymore who I was and who I could be.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Maya Shanka is a cognitive scientist who studies how our
identities are formed, how they break, and how we rebuild
after life doesn't go to plan. But what makes Maya
so special is the way she translates complex science into
deeply human insight.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
A reason that we might not feel as connected to
one another from my vantage point as a cognitive scientist,
is that we haven't figured out a deeper version of
our identity. When we think about self identity, we have
to remember that, of course, it serves a lot of
purpose in our lives. The challenge, though, is that when
life makes other plans, change can serve as a moment
of revelation for people. At the beginning of the change.

(00:54):
If you're feeling daunted by it and you think I
can't possibly get through this change, don't forget that the
person enduring. It will be different from the person you
are right now. There is going to be a new
version of Rady on the other side of change, who
is different in ways that are likely to be extraordinary.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm Rady Wukah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
for raw, unfielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you
to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Maya,
thank you so much for coming on to A Really
Good Cry. I'm so excited to have you here.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Thanks for having me Raddy, It's such a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I know you went on Jay's podcast. We're just talking
about Amaya has been on Jay's podcast how many years ago,
twenty twenty one, twenty twenty one, And when I mentioned
that I was having Maya on my podcast to Jay,
he was like, she is the sweetest person. He was like,
I'm so excited you're having her on and make sure
I'm here when she comes. And he doesn't usually say
that about my guest because he doesn't usually know them,

(01:54):
but he absolutely adores you, and he was so excited.
So I'm really really happy we get to have this conversation,
I'm glad too.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
And as I was also saying before we started recording,
when I came by your place for Jay's podcast, you
open the door and I just felt like, oh my god,
I'm encountering a truly special human being. You had so
much warmth and radiance, and despite the fact that I
was a stranger to you, you immediately made me feel

(02:21):
so accepted and like, what an incredible gift that you
can give to people that you meet in your life,
that kind of love and attention and care. And so
it's so rare that I have an encounter with someone
who makes me feel the way that you did within
seconds of meeting.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Okay me, you properly has made me feel exactly the
same way about you. I'm not just saying it because
you said that about me, but I think it's always
you know, whenever I think about energy, I think there's
so much about the reciprocation of it. It's like you
you only have that interaction with that exchange when you
also hold those qualities. And I've really noticed that in people,
even watching we're talking about my grandma, even watching my

(02:56):
grandma do that with people, it's like the energy is
always a reciprocal thing, like you can really fill the
blog when it's.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Not that yes, and when it's not there, I'm like
my brain enters SOS mode, start short circuiting, like why
is this person not giving me anything back? So it's
definitely a struggle.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, thank you, and you definitely have that energy to
thank you. I wanted to talk a little bit about
your new book that's just come out, The Other side
of Change, who we become when life makes other plans.
Have it right here in my hand, and I had
a beautiful read thrower, and I would like to kind
of gave me an insight into your life. Number one,
So I feel like I kind of already know you
before you've even sat in front of me. But I

(03:38):
would love to go back to how you went from
trying to be a professional violinist, which, by the way,
is incredible. It's one of my favorite instruments. I also
paid to when I was younger, not to the degree
you did till I was maybe like twelve or thirteen,
but you went from being a violinist to now being
a cognitive scientist. So give me the rundown of.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
How that happened. It's a very very unusual trajectory. As
you mentioned, from the time I was a little kid,
my obsession was the violin. So I remember my mom
going up to her attic and bringing down my grandmother's
old violin that she had played in India and in
Burma growing up as a little girl. She had played
in Indian classical style, and my older three siblings had

(04:21):
rejected the violin on the grounds it wasn't cool enough.
But when my mom opened the case, I felt something magical,
and I wonder, actually rothy if it was in part
because I was so close with my grandmother. Whenever we
would visit her during our summer vacations to India, we
were just attached at the hip. So I would sleep

(04:41):
next to her on the linoleum floor with our sorry
cloths folded up with pillows. And when she would go
into the pooja room, the prayer room, I would sit
next to her and just try to emulate her rocking motions.
And I would stand next to her in the kitchen
when she was cooking delicious meals. So I was obsessed
with my grandmother, and I wonder if my little kid
brain thought this is a way of bridging some of

(05:03):
the distance that exists between me and her because we're
thousands and thousands of miles apart. And so I asked
my mom very quickly for a pint sized violin of
my own, and I immediately fell in love. So this
was at age six, and then at nine, I auditioned
for the Juilliard School of Music in New York. That
began a very intense period where I would wake up

(05:25):
at four thirty in the morning every Saturday, catch a
train to go to New York from Connecticut. I would
have ten hours of classes, come home at night. But
I never ever complained about it. I was never frustrated
by it because I felt like I had found my
true passion. And when I was in high school, For
those who follow classical music, they'll know the renowned violinist

(05:46):
Itzac Pearlman invited me to be his private student.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Wow. And for me at.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Thirteen, that's incredible, And for me that was the vote
of confidence. I feel like I needed to think maybe
I had a shit because you know, when you're in
a pressure cooker environment like Juilliard, you have all sorts
of insecurities.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Cool, So I.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Did not think in that environment I was going to
be able to thrive. But when Pearlman took me on
as a student, I thought, okay, there might be a chance, right,
And everything was going according to plan, and I was
achieving my big dreams until one day I overstretched my
finger on a single note. I overstretched my pinky finger,

(06:27):
and I heard a popping sound, and doctors eventually told
me that it was a career ending injury.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
No way.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And I was in denial for so long. Right, imagine
you're fifteen, Your biggest dream has been taken away from you.
And so I was playing through pain and I had
surgeries and all these alternative treatments and took excess and
anti inflammatories, everything that I could possibly do to restore
my big dream. But eventually I had to sort of

(06:57):
face the facts. And yeah, it was just such a
heartbreaking moment for me.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Of course, that was fifteen years old. You said, right,
Oh my god, imagine being in a position where you've
already had a full dream happen in your life by
the age of fifteen. Right, how did you at that age,
Because obviously that's an age where we don't often go
through something that's so traumatic, Like not many of us
go through things that that you're living life as a
kid and fine, you have to go to school, but

(07:22):
not much else happens. And as someone who had to
go through that at the age of fifteen, what were
some of the things that you noticed in yourself? How
did it affect you as you grew up then? And
then how did you end up in the work that
you do now?

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, it's such a wonderful question. Reflecting back, I realized
that there was something really curious about my grief, which
is that I wasn't just grieving the loss of the violin.
I was grieving the loss of myself. And I think
this is common for so many of us. We often
don't realize how much something has come to define us,
how formative it was for us, until we lose that thing. Right,

(07:57):
and the violin had almost become an ex of my
body at this point, right, I mean, to this day, Robbie,
my right shoulder is slightly elevated compared to my left
because of all the hours I started doing this, like
my body literally grew around the instrument, and so without it,
I wasn't sure anymore who I was and who I

(08:17):
could be. And you realize too, that your identity is,
in my case as a musician, is entangled with so
many other parts of your self confidence, in your well being.
So one thing that I faced a lot as a
kid was I was bullied a lot at school. So
I was one of a few brown kids in a
predominantly Caucasian community, and the girls in my neighborhood were

(08:42):
particularly cruel. So I was a very insecure child. I
cried a lot because I was just so I have
a very sensitive interior and so when they said really
mean things, I internalized it and I took it as
evidence that I was broken in some way. And music
and that musical world was a place. It was a

(09:02):
refuge for me, actually because unlike my hometown, Juilliard was
an international school, so there were students who had come
from all over the world who were studying here, and
the color of my skin was irrelevant. I mean, I
just I felt so accepted and like I really belonged
in that community. And so that was also entangled with
my identity. So it's like, oh, wow, I've lost this

(09:24):
other pillar of my life. And so I think that
was the first indication to me. And you know, now
I study change, but that one of the reasons why
change can be so challenging to navigate is because it
does threaten our self identity. Yeah, it makes us question
who we are at this really fundamental level. And I

(09:44):
don't think I was prepared for that.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
How does someone balance the idea of wanting to be
something attaching themselves to this identity that they desire, that
they really want. And you know, we hear this idea
of okay, well you have to fake it till you
make it, or you have to believe that you already
are something before you even go into If this is
what you want, then you have to almost believe that

(10:08):
you've already achieved it. So how does someone go from
having that information where Okay, if this is what I want,
it's all I should think about, It's everything I should
become to then also being detached from this idea of
if something changes, I have to be okay with it, Like,
how can someone navigate that?

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Okay, that, first of all, that is so beautifully articulated.
Thank you for asking that question, because you're getting actually
at the core of one of the theses of my book.
So when we think about self identity, we have to
remember that, of course it serves a lot of purpose
in our lives, so we don't want to do a
way with these identity anchors either. Right, if you identify
as a mom, or a podcaster, or a writer or

(10:47):
an athlete, it breeds instant solidarity and camaraderie with your
fellow peers who are also in that spaces. Right, Oh,
you're an athlete too. Oh great, we have a point
of connection. So that's wonderful. What's a wonderful aspect of
attaching ourselves seting regularly to a role. We also feel
meaning and purpose when we wake up every day. If
I'm a musician, I know what my hours are going

(11:07):
to be devoted to on any given day. It helps
stave off some of the existential inks that I might
otherwise feel. So that's another benefit of having a really clear,
strong identity. The challenge, though, is that when life makes
other plans and it threatens the role or label that
you've so for so long attached yourself to, you can

(11:28):
then feel very destabilized. So one insight I've had only
in recent years, I wish I had had this insight
as a fifteen year old is to identify yourself not
simply by what you do, but by why you do
those things. So when I ask myself, well, Maya, what
did you love about playing the violin? I realized that
at its core, what drew me to it as a

(11:51):
six year old and a nine year old and a
twelve year old was that it was a vehicle for
emotionally connecting with people. I was able to generate feelings
within myself that I never felt before through music and
to share that with my fellow musicians. Or if I
was on stage playing in front of an audience, there
might be someone in the audience that was feeling something

(12:11):
for the first time that they never felt before. If
I was successful in my role as a musician and
so forging that kind of emotional intimacy was so special.
So if identify as someone who just thrives on emotional connection,
then the question becomes through what other outlets can I
express this part of myself? So when life throws me
that curveball and I can't do the thing that I'm

(12:31):
doing right now, can I find other means of expressing
this core part of myself? And I love this insight
because it's a source of stability when we're in the
midst of change, right It was a reminder to me
just because I lost the violin didn't mean that I
lost what led me to love it in the first place.
That part of me was still so fully intact, It

(12:53):
was still robust, It could still serve as a compass
guiding me towards my next steps. That reason, I would
urge everyone who's listening or watching to ask themselves, what
is my why? What is the thing that makes me tick.
Maybe it is giving back to your community, Maybe it
is caring for others, Maybe it's learning something new. Maybe

(13:14):
it's finding ways for creative expression to unfold in your life.
Whatever your why is, and be non judgmental about it.
Is just the thing that lights you up, that like
made you excited as a kid. Make that a part
of your identity, because it will be a north star
when you have to figure out what comes next.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
I love what you just said. I had so many
thoughts that came from from those few sentences, And the
first thing I thought about was, you know you mentioned
how it created a point of connection for you, And
do you think a lot of loneliness right now in
the world and in you know, the even though we
have so much access to so many people. People seem
to be getting lonely and nonia. Could that be because

(13:53):
they're struggling to figure out what the identity is.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
I've never thought about that, and I think you're really
onto something. I think think also a reason that we
might not feel as connected to one another from my
vantage point as a cognitive scientist, is that we haven't
figured out a deeper version of our identity. So we're
always asking kids what do you want to be when
you grow up? Which is a really harmful message because

(14:17):
we are inherently implying that it should be about the
role they occupy, or the label they give themselves or
the job they do. We never ask them who do
you want to be when you grow up? And when
you realize what your mission is, what your purpose is
in life, right, and this is obviously work that you
and Jay are doing every day, then you actually feel
connections across domains, across disciplines that make you feel so

(14:40):
much more connected to all these people that you meet
in your life. And because of my background, I'm so
focused actually on what unites us, right. We all have
a shared psychology, We all often have a common set
of goals, which is to be kind, to one another,
to meaningfully contribute to our communities and to the people
that we love, to engage in appropriate amounts of self compassion,

(15:04):
because we often reserve so little compassion for ourselves and
so much for others, And so when we have these
kinds of goals, we realize, oh my gosh, we're actually
so much less isolated than we think. We have so
much more in common with one another. And what you're
making me realize in this moment for the first time,
which is why, by the way, I'm loving this conversation
you're giving me all these new thoughts, is maybe if

(15:26):
we were to be clear about what our whys were,
we would start to feel so much more unity with
the people in our lives, even if they are doing
wildly different things, even if their stories look so different
on their surface than ours do. We would realize that
there's actually so many points of connection.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, I guess it's this deep intention behind your identity. Yeah,
I think about even if you have this. I was
thinking about myself, and you know, I always had this
desire to be adopt and at first it was because
I thought it was like a prestigious thing to be
doing as Popla oulature. And then when I realized I
couldn't be a doctor the first because I didn't get

(16:04):
the grades for it. The first thing I thought about
was when I know, I want to do something to
do with children like that was always something I wanted
to do, whether it was a pediatric doctor or whatever.
The next thing I decided to do, I needed to
be with children. I didn't know why I wanted that
or but it was a really deep feeling that I had.
And so then my mum recommended that I go and
do nutrition, and I was like, Okay, well, if I
do nutrition, I want to be a children's nutritionists. And

(16:26):
I realized a big part of that was because I,
as a child struggled so much with my weight and
it was something that has definitely shaped a lot of
who I am, and going into something like that was
now that I realized something where I could help people
in a way that I struggled. And then I did
six years of training to be this clinical dietitian in
a hospital. I worked there for less than a month.

(16:50):
I got married, Jay got a job in New York.
I moved to New York. I couldn't do any of
that anymore, and at that point, I felt like my
whole identity that I had built because one was an
identity of being someone who worked in a hospital that
I absolutely loved and I wanted to be that person.
I've been trying to be that person for such a
long time. And then there was also this idea or

(17:10):
finally I think, I know what I want to do
and I'm doing it, and then I go somewhere where
I can't do any of that. I was on a
spouse visa. I couldn't work there, I couldn't do any
of it, and.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
That slight change of plans. Yeah, exactly, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
And in that moment I was like, okay, well that
was the one use I had. What else I'm not
even going to do? Everything has gone. What is the
point now? And then what I now realize is that
that intention that you have, if it is a strong
intention and a deep desire, and if it is beyond yourself,
A lot of the time these what you were saying,
the surface level identity, you know, things that we create

(17:47):
about ourselves. It's a lot of the time based on
the surface level desires of I want these people to
think this. It's it's a very outwardly thing versus if
you have a thread that can be threaded through no
matter what job you do, no matter what role you play,
then you actually realize that that deep desire can be
put into place, like you said, in so many different ways.

(18:07):
It can be on an online platform, it can be
a one to one thing that you're doing for someone.
It can be in the house that you live in
with your own children, with your own partner, and you
can feel justice fulfilled if that intention is coming from.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
The right place, that's exactly right, and it turns out subconsciously.
I've kind of done this because think about the work
that I do today. I host a slight change of plans.
What's at its core deep emotional connection. I get to
cut through all the platitudes and just get right to you. Okay,
what was the hardest moment of your life? Writing my
book The Other Side of Change, where I did long
form interviewing for years with the same people. That's also

(18:44):
about forging deep emotional connection. And so I want to
share one quick story with you, which is I heard
from someone who he had listened to my ted talk
and heard about this why versus what distinction? So he
was a Harvard trained human rights lawyer, such a successful dude,
Rhodes scholar, etc. And then he got plagued by long

(19:07):
COVID and he became more or less incapacitated, right, incredible
amounts of brain fog, unable to perform his daily duties,
had to take a step back from all the legal
work he was doing. And then he asked himself, well,
what's my why? And he said, well, at the end
of the day, I like advocating for underrepresented communities. That's

(19:27):
why I'm a human rights lawyer. He said, but I
can't do that now. And then he said, but maya
guess what I figured out. I can actually still achieve
that why by being an advocate for the long COVID community.
So now he is all over Scott, Shout out to Scott.
He's representing people that neither rights to be acknowledged. He

(19:51):
is making sure that he's a spokesperson for everyone who's
struggling with the aftermath of a COVID infection. And I'm
so proud of him for discovering that there was still
some means by which he could express this fundamental part
of who he is, despite the severe constraints and limitations
he faces.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Sometimes I think that we, you know, there's so much
that we're taught when we're younger, like this is good,
this is bad, these are negative emotions, these are positive emotions,
And I think that really restricts us in being able
to see that the only thing that is constant, as
you've said, is changed. The change is something that always
always happens. We see, there are things that we've categorized

(20:32):
as negative change and things that we've categorized as positive change.
And I think sometimes that's where the issue lies. Where
something negative that we perceive as negative happens in our
life and we think that it is a downfall. We
think that we can't go anywhere from it. But what
if the thing that you're perceiving as negative is exactly
what we're supposed to happen for you to fulfill the

(20:54):
dream that you have. How do you help people shift
their mindset around change and the perception that we have
of things that are good or bad.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah. I always say that we must approach change with
a profound amount of humility, because, like you said, we
tend to label changes at their outset, this is a
negative change, this is a positive change. But by and large,
most people that I've interviewed have been wildly surprised and
kind of taken aback by the events in their life

(21:23):
that they assumed would definitely be positive or definitely been negative. Right,
the reality is much more complex. So we in general,
and this is what the research in cognitive science shows,
are very bad at predicting how we are going to
feel about future events. So we're bad aspective forecasters, and
we're bad for a bunch of reasons. But one of

(21:45):
the reasons why we get this wrong, why, for example,
when you first moved to New York you thought, oh
my god, all my dreams are over. This is the
end for me, is because we forget that we too
will be altered by the experiences we're going through, that
we too are constantly changing. So there's a bias known
as the end of history illusion, which says that we

(22:07):
fully acknowledge we've changed considerably in the past. So if
you showed me footage of ten year old maya twenty
year old Maya, first of all, I would cringe, and
sightly I'd be like, oh my god, I am such
a different person today. Not even I can't even relate
to that young person. But if you were to ask me, Robbie, well,
how much do you think you're going to change moving forward?

(22:28):
I would be like, oh, no, girl, I'm done changing.
What you see is what you get. Yeah, this is
the finished product. Researchers say it's like a watershed moment
in which we falsely believe that the person we are
right now in this moment is the version of us
that's here to stay right, that we're going to be
for the rest of our lives. But of course we
are going to keep changing, and when we have a

(22:49):
really big event that happens in our life, positive or negative,
it is going to accelerate those internal changes. Being thrust
into a new reality and facing the new demands and
stresses of that environment will unlock new capabilities, new perspectives,
new values, ways of being in the world that we

(23:10):
simply never saw coming. And I think there's a lot
of optimism in that message. And that's what is the
most helpful reframe, which is at the beginning of a change,
if you're feeling daunted by it and you think I
can't possibly get through this change, don't forget that the
person enduring it will be different from the person you
are right. Now, there's another version. There's a reason my

(23:31):
book is called The Other Side of Change. There is
going to be a new version of Rathi on the
other side of change, a new version of Maya on
the other side of change, who is different in ways
that are likely to be extraordinary, right and will help
you overcome and actually explore new possibilities in the aftermath
of change that you never saw.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
When you were saying unlock, I was thinking about this
is so random, But I was thinking about those video
games where you know, it's like a supersonic type of
character and collecting all these coins along the way, have
you seen, And then sometimes they have to like bang
into boxes to collect all these coins, and some of
them have to like do all these things where they
get so flustered and they've got the dizzy spells going
off on top of them. But al those things are

(24:12):
unlocking all these weapons or these superpowers that they're able
to collect with them to use when the time is right.
And I was like, that is exactly how I'm now
imagining change to be for a person. When you said unlock,
I was like, that's such a positive way of putting it.
It's saying that even though it may seem really difficult
and it's there feels like there's a lot of resistance.

(24:34):
There is something being unlocked in you. There is actly
a new, different part of you that you would not
have been able to access had you not done this correct.
That's really fun to think about. Scary, but also how
incredible that that that can happen.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, it's hope giving because I think one of the
arguments I'm making in the book is change can serve
as a moment of revelation for people. So there's an
interesting etymology. If you just love you do a nerdy yes, Okay,
I know, I know your listeners enjoy the nerdy stuff.
When a big negative change happens in our lives, right

(25:09):
when that proverbial anvil falls from the sky, it can
feel like we're in the middle of a personal apocalypse,
right like the world that we came to new and
feel stable in is no longer available to us. And
what's so interesting about the word apocalypse is that it
actually comes from the Greek word apocalypsis, which means revelation.

(25:33):
And so that's really instructive because what it's saying is, yes,
change can upend us, but It can also reveal really
valuable things to us about our views of the world,
things that we might want to question or challenge because
maybe they're holding us back in some way, aspects of
ourselves that were previously hidden from view that are now
surfacing for the first time. On a personal level, you know,

(25:57):
we talked about my formative experience with change as a kid.
I'm dealing with an adult version of this, which is
I've for so long assumed that I would become a
mom one day. It's probably the earliest identity I ever
associated myself with. And in part I'm sure that was
because of cultural influences. Right, I really believe I absorbed

(26:17):
subliminal messages saying like you're worth as a woman comes
from eventually having children, Right, that is why you're valuable.
And I also felt an inherent desire to become a mom,
and I, like you, I love kids, and so for
so long I have just assumed that one day I
would become a mom. And over the last seven plus years,
my husband and I have had a really challenging journey.

(26:41):
We've had to navigate many obstacles, many disappointments, many heartbreaks,
and I remember on the night of the second miscarriage,
when we found out that our surrogate had miscarried and
that we lost identical twin girls, I really did feel
totally empty, like my life went from color to grayscale

(27:03):
in a second. And I think that is in part
because of exactly what we're talking about. And I couldn't
quite understand why I was feeling like a broken version
of myself again until I realized that I had, through

(27:23):
all of these messages over the course of my life,
felt like I no longer had self worth in some
fundamental way unless I achieved this goal of mine. And
I'm sure that I was carrying that subconsciously for so long.
But it's only when change strikes and you're forced to

(27:44):
confront those beliefs that you're carrying, that the beliefs are
making you feel the way that you do about yourself
and about the world, that you're really given the opportunity
to re examine them anew and to start asking yourself
provocative questions like well, why do I believe that my
self worth has to come from this place? Why do
I think that I can't live a full life if

(28:05):
I'm not a mother, I'm an aunt to six nieces
and nephews. I found all these beautiful ways in my
life to give back. I mean this hearkens back to
the conversation about my why I just love. I just
love loving. I mean, that's kind of my thing. So
I can find ways to love in so many other domains,
but for me, it has served as this really valuable

(28:26):
point of reflection in My husband and I have had
so many conversations where he's like, Maya, we need to
unpack this, like why is so much of your self
worth tied up in this identity and then slowly peeling
back the layers and being like, well, growing up, I
heard my Indian aunties and uncles talking about parenthood in
this way or that way, and so I just think
that it serves as a wonderful moment when change can

(28:49):
where we take a step back and we reevaluate all
of these beliefs that we assumed were sacred, immutable truths
about the world that actually are worthy of re examination,
because in daily life, we're not waking up every day
thinking what beliefs should I revisit today?

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:06):
And that's why change They bring them to the fore
and they make them really salient.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
That's a first, Sorry you went through that, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
I think it's such a difficult journey for many women
that go through this. And I guess what a question
that came from that was you talked about when you
come to face a challenge, that's when all your beliefs
are sometimes heightened.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yes, and revealed to you sometimes for the first time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
But for people who want to start maneuvering this and
want to start becoming really aware of their belief system,
want to really start becoming aware of where their resistance is.
Are there any practices that you've done throughout your days, Like,
are they daily practices people can do to help them
navigate change better, or when change does come or fear

(29:53):
does come, for them to face it in a more
logical way that benefits them absolutely.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
And importantly, I wanted to make sure that I wrote
the other side of change, not just for people who
are in the throes of change, but those who are
trying to renew a relationship with a past change. Maybe
they still feel very troubled by it and they want
to unpack it and understand what was at the core
of their angst or their anxiety. And also for people
who are trying to get ahead of future changes. So

(30:20):
I don't want people to have to go through what
I went through or many mistakes that I made. I
want them to learn from my experiences so that and
from the experiences of the people I interview, so that
they don't repeat the same mistakes and they're armed with
the knowledge and the toolkit. So the best advice comes
from research by economists and psychologists that show you should
think about your beliefs as hypotheses that should be tested. Okay,

(30:44):
So one thing that's important for people to know is
that all of us form what's called the narrative identity
over time. That is a story we tell ourselves about
who we are and about how our lives are unfolding,
and our brains really value you consistency in this narrative.
We don't like for there to be holes. So you

(31:05):
can think of the narrative identity as this tapestry. If
I take one belief and I start to jiggle that tapestry,
everything kind of gets distorted me. Right, So there's a
high cost to actually re engaging with our beliefs and
new but it's such a critical part of the growth process, right,
And so to overcome this. What you want to do
is interrogate your beliefs. Like you as a scientist, you

(31:26):
ask yourself, how exactly did I arrive at this belief
How did I get from point A to point B
in my thinking? Would I have different beliefs if I
had grown up in a different family, or had grown
up in a different country, or in a different religious environment,
or a different spiritual environment, or a different political environment. Right,
you can also ask yourself in theory, what evidence would

(31:49):
convince me to change my mind? And I love this
one because it presupposes that you ought to be convinced
in the base of new evidence.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Right, get to debate yourself.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, exactly. And by the way, these are all techniques
that have proven very effective in the context of influencing
other people. But in my book, I wanted to turn
it on yourself and say, well, how can you interrogate
your own beliefs? And what's so interesting is one of
the women Ingrid that I interviewed for the Other Side
of Change, she grew up feeling profound shame around her
family's heritage, her family's Colombian heritage and the indigenous practices

(32:21):
that they engage with and she wouldn't share any of
her family's stories with her boyfriend or any of her
American friends. She was just very sheepish about it. And
then she gets amnesia because she has a biking accident,
and she loses all of her memories. And there's something
so fascinating about the ways that her memory and the
order in which her memories return, Her memories of her

(32:44):
family's story and that rich heritage resurfaces and gets restored
before her memory of her shame gets restored. Okay, so
she first gets these stories coming back into her brain
is flooded with all of these rich like all the
rich folklore and the amazing water blessings and the tarot
cards and what have you, and she is just filled

(33:06):
with feelings of awe and reverence and wonder and she's like,
I love these stories. Why have I never shared them
with anyone? I need to tell everyone I know about them.
And then only a few weeks later does the memory
that she felt shame about them return, But it's too late.
She's already made up her mind about that family heritage
and love. I tried to choose by the way stories

(33:28):
that were so exceptional in their nature, but wants to
have a universal lesson that's buried within them. I love
that it shows that there is such fragility in our
belief systems. When Ingrid asked herself, why did I have
so much shame around her family? It turns out that
when she was a kid, her mom had cautioned her
about sharing these stories publicly because she was worried that

(33:49):
Ingrid might face discrimination or some backlash, or maybe even
violence from people who didn't understand. But young Ingrid's mind
interpreted that message as a sign and well, if I'm
being told I can't talk about this, that probably means
there's something wrong with this. And so it was a
simple misunderstanding, right. And we forget sometimes that our belief

(34:10):
systems are influenced by who the messenger was, what the
emotional state was that we were in when we even
receive those messages. Messages we receive in childhood are bound
up with our sense of love and belonging. They're especially
hard for us to challenge in these moments. But if
we again take that critical lens and we ask ourselves, well,

(34:31):
would these beliefs hold up with the people that I
trust in my life? Right? Would they hold up given
what I know about science and about what the facts say,
then we get into that more curious mindset that unlocks
changes in our belief system and in that process you
might realize, oh, wow, these beliefs were really holding me
back before. Now I can flourish. And just to add

(34:53):
a PostScript to that, Ingrid went on to write a
whole memoir about her family's culture and their history, and
it was a Pulitzer Price finalist. So turns out her
stories were globally embraced and I'm so proud of her
for that kind of internal evolution. And again, that's the
power of change. It can free you from chains that

(35:16):
you had needlessly put on yourself in times past.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
A great story.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, it's incredible.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
I wanted to go back a little bit to do
with you know, I have mostly, if not all, female
listeners in this podcast, and I get a lot of DMS,
and I have people in my own life that are
really dealing with this identity shift of motherhood and whether
it's because they've got polycystic ovary syndrome, whether it's they've
tried IVF once, twice, three four times and it's been unsuccessful.

(35:44):
And I guess something people really struggle with in within
that is, how do I know when I just have
to stop trying? Like, how do I know that I'm
not supposed to based on my vision of myself as
as part of my identity? How do I not how
do I know that this is not something I should
keep trying with until when? And so I would love

(36:07):
to get your perspective on that and to how someone
can really help the family members going through it, but
also anything that they can do for themselves.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
I'm getting emotional just because I feel so much for
people who are in this position. I'm a listener of
your show, and I loved hearing the conversation you had
the Jay about these exact topics, and a lot of
people don't understand how much it can ruin a person's
day to ask them questions like, see, you have kids, right,

(36:36):
how many kids you have? I'm like, I don't have kids,
but you're going to have them right? And there's just
such a lack of appreciation for what we go through
on an individual level. And I felt so heard. First
of all, thank you for doing that episode. I felt
so heard listening to you talk so thoughtfully about this
topic and to make space for people who are in
many different moments in their journey.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
I appreciate you saying that, because I really didn't want
to have that conversation.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
I'm sure you did. It is such a hard one
and by the way, one of the hardest episodes of
my podcast, The Slight Change of Plans I've Ever done,
was recorded the day after Jimmy and I found out
about the second miscarriage, and I did not want to
have that conversation. Right we were expecting twins. I was
over the moon. We were thinking we got to move
out of our small apartment. We're making all these plans,

(37:23):
and I remember telling my producer, especially as a South
Asian woman, I have to do this episode. I have
to represent people who are in my shoes who don't
feel licensed to talk about this topic. And I need
to do it soon, because well, one, I'm going to
change my mind if we wait too long. But two,
I don't want to have a polished story to tell.

(37:44):
I want people to hear me in my rawest, most
vulnerable state, because that is the gift that all my
guests have given me on the show, and I feel
like I owe my listeners as well, you know, so
I want to share a little bit more depth that's
okay around my journey to motherhood because it's a bit
more complicated. So I did not want to write the
last chapter of this book, and I forced myself to.

(38:06):
So every chapter in the other side of Change is
focused on someone else. The last chapter is memoir, and
I was like, Maya, you have to turn the mirror
on yourself and you need to figure out this change
you're processing in real time and how you're going through it. So,
in addition to the fertility struggles that I alluded to

(38:27):
when I was seventeen years old, so when I was
a college student, I spiraled into a really unhealthy rumination
around my future kids suffering. We don't choose the things
that we get fixated on. But I had read about
some hate crimes and I'd watched a documentary, and for

(38:48):
whatever reason, and I think it's because becoming a mother
was my biggest goal, my brain connected these dots, which was,
oh my god, I'm seeing this child suffer. I want
to be a mother one day. Oh my goodness, could
I ever tolerate my child's suffering to this degree? And
it killed me to imagine someone that I love hurting

(39:10):
in that way, and it made me feel incapacitated because
there was this tension within me, which is, on the
one hand, I love children so much and I'm so
desirous of becoming a parent, and on the other hand,
I feel things so deeply and I have such a
hyper empathy towards children to see them in pain might

(39:32):
literally destroy me. And it threatened my big dream and
I didn't know how to work my way out of it.
And it's not one of those worries that just goes
away with time, because my brain, because it was spiraling,
was conjuring up every way that a child can suffer, right,
And it was so you know, I think as a

(39:54):
little kid, you just have dream fantasy worlds of your
future family where you're in with the white picket fence
and the and the two kids that are super well
adjusted and they have great friends, and they confide in me,
and they may challenges and as their mother, I'm able
to solve every problem for them. And it was just
reckoning with the fact that the world can be indiscriminately
cruel and I did not know if I had the

(40:15):
right constitution to deal with that. And for the first time, Robbie.
And it's such a joy, by the way, to be
able to talk about this part of my story, because
I haven't been able to in talking about this book. Really,
I had to reckon with the fact that this thing
I wanted so much might not be compatible with my

(40:36):
well being, and I never thought about it that way before.
I knew women who didn't want kids, and I definitely
didn't fall into that category. I fell into a different category,
which was I desperately wanted kids, but did not know
if I had the right constitution for motherhood, the right
emotional constitution for motherhood. And we don't talk about that enough,

(40:59):
that disconn or that mismatch. We're told in society, follow
your dreams, overcome your fears. And there has been a
point in my adult life where have I made a
lot of progress on this rumination and these anxieties. Yes
I have my husband, who's a relentless optimist, has helped me,
you know, change my orientation and focus on the positives,

(41:21):
like all the ways that our children could experience joy,
not just suffering. But obviously I still have that seed
within my brain and it's a work in progress, but
I am finally coming to terms because right now I
don't have children. We've put the whole process on pause.
We you know, we have embryos and a freezer. We've
talked about adoption, we've talked about other ways to start
a family, but we are on like a hiatus right now.

(41:45):
And there is a feeling of peace descending on me,
which is, maybe it's okay if in life the things
I want the most I don't actually do because they
wouldn't promote my well being. What an interesting for me
revelatory concept because I had never given myself license to

(42:07):
make that choice for myself.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
For you to be the person that you prioritize.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, because life is full of trade offs. So did
I feel over the holidays avoid in my stomach? Of course.
When I went to Like Pottery Barn and was buying
furniture for her home and I saw the little like
baby section, Yeah, it was kind of sad as I
looked at all that furniture that I realize, but I
also really care that I'm not anxious all the time,

(42:34):
and I really care that I have a healthy relationship
with suffering in the world. And I'm an EmPATH, and
so maybe it's okay. So I don't have global advice
for when people should stop trying, But I can only
share my own personal story, which is I never thought
I would stop trying, and I have now come to

(42:54):
a point in my life where we decided, officially we're
stopping trying. Today I feel contentment. I feel contentment in
my heart, and I feel full as a person, and
I feel that I can live a happy, rich life
in which I have meaningful connections with adults and children alike.

(43:16):
And never I never thought that I could get to
this place. If you had asked me on the night
of the second miscarriage, like maya, will you ever feel
whole if you don't achieve this goal? Will you ever
feel there's anything that redempted that will come from this?
Will you become a better person on the other side
of change? Like I would have been like no, no, no,

(43:39):
I could not see that for myself. And that's the
personal evolution that this book is very personal for me
because I experienced in an unexpected internal evolution writing it
and benefiting from the wisdom of the people I spent
years with in conversation with, and saw myself become a
better version of myself on the other side of change.

(44:01):
I just did not expect that. RADI there's a freedom
in that. There's a freedom in releasing yourself from the
pressures that you have imposed on your life.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Thank you for sharing that. I think that's going to
help so many people, because I do believe that it's
one of the hardest decisions for a woman to make.
For some people, it's an easy decision, but for others
who are struggling and have this identity and have a
big part of their life connected to it, it is
often a ten year, fifteen year journey that they have

(44:32):
to go through. And sometimes it's a well, now there's
no other option, and now we have exhausted all options,
and now we make the decision. Or some people get
to where you have and they think, okay, well I've
tried enough for it to really wear me down.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yeah, and there's so much Sorry to interrupt, I just
wanted to say, like, there is so much exhaustion in
this process. I mean, we were at it for six
seven years. Yeah, and we did initially pause out of
sheer exhaustion and because we had to take a step
back and reevaluate our lives and gain perspective, and also

(45:11):
recalibrate our marriage, because this had been the focal point
of just about every conversation that we had had for
so long, and it was that that initially led to
the pause. But then during the pause, I felt like
I experienced some degree of enlightenment, which is, oh, there's
actually other reasons to press pause on this. And that's

(45:31):
not to say again that there isn't profound grief. It's
just the recognition that there are so many beautiful ways
that a person can live their life. And I had
been met with lots of condescending, disparaging comments like maya,
you'll never know real love or like true love, or
you'll never know the joy and happiness of being a parent.

(45:54):
Maybe that's true. But what I can tell you is
that I love my husban been more than I can
imagine loving a person.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
And I have tried, and it's I've been trying.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
And I've been trying, and also like, maybe that's enough
for me. And also, and I don't think I've ever
shared this, but there's also a liability in loving a
little human as much as I would love a little human,
which is that all those platitudes and cliches they say
about like your heart running outside of your body, and
you're only ever as happy as your least happy kid.

(46:25):
Like all of those would be true. Yeah, less happy
than my least happy kid. And so to love so
blindly and so unconditionally is also scary for me as
a person, given that I again do feel things so deeply.
And I know many of your listeners in particular because
you attract mpaths. I think my show does too. They
will resonate, They will resonate with that which is like

(46:47):
your heart really does leave your body.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yes, I think about you know, I was thinking about
people who are mothers and this identity that obviously is
created through having you know, a full human that you
look after and you nurture and you nourish, and you
literally grow from being a little little thing to being
a toddler to an adult. And this idea of having

(47:11):
to detach or at least shift the way that you
are a mother through that journey. And so first off,
you are the person that is fully liable for this
child like you, they don't exist without you, yes, and
then as they get older, you know, I think about
my mum. I think she really struggles with this idea

(47:32):
of taking that away from our relationship and we've really
created such a great friendship now, but there's still elements
of this which comes out as control for me and
my sister. But this element of I still know best
for you. Of course, I should be the person that
you get my opinion. I should be the one that
you know. If I tell you something, it's it's because

(47:54):
I know better. And obviously it all comes from a
place of love. But I have seen that course so
much issues When mothers or parents are unable to see
the change of their child becoming an adult. They will
always be their child, but their child does become an adult,
and this shift that can happen, and often it makes

(48:16):
the relationship more and more distant instead of being becoming
closer and closer, which if you think about it, as
we get older, we become closer and closer to understanding
our parents because we're becoming what they were. But because
the adult or the parent doesn't seem to be able
to disconnect themselves from I used to be the person
that gave you life, and now you don't need me

(48:38):
in the same way anymore. It's a really hard shift
to make, yes, And so I don't know, I don't
know whether it's even a place for you to give
advice on or or if you have any thoughts on it.
But it is an identity shift that I see many
struggle with and ruining relationships because of Oh.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
My gosh, my mom so old. I told you I
wanted four my oldest brother almost fifty. Yeah, my mom
will be our mom forever. Yeah, that dynamic is never
going to change. She will always call us, she will
always share what's on her mind and advice she has
from us and feedback. Yeah, whatever it is like that,
That is just I feel like it's just written on

(49:16):
our birth cert like I'm going to be your mom forever.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, there's no boundaries, like you know, Western people always like,
you know, you have to have boundaries with.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
It, like what are boundaries? Like?

Speaker 2 (49:25):
What kind of what kind of relationship? What kind of
family did you grow up in? Because boundaries is not
something that is possible in mine. Even if I don't
ask for an opinion, I'm going to get it.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
And that's a non negotiable. It's not it's not even
a discussion point. It's a I'm your mother, I'm going
to tell you. I think I will say you can
take it on you. But what I mean is take.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
It, yes, exactly. One of my absolute favorite episodes of
A Slight Change of Plans is called The Devastation of
Things Going Exactly according to Plan, and it is about
a mother raising two daughters and letting them fly out
of the nest. And that is the as you was saying,
that's the best case scenario is my kids become in
the autonomous independent they're living their own lives. And she's like,

(50:08):
and this is absolutely heartbreaking. And so for anyone who's
listening who's struggling with their parents being like this, send
them the episode because I think it's this mother actually
reckoning with that loss and realizing I have to take
a step back now. As an Indian American, I was like,
no one in my culture will relate to you, Kelly.

(50:30):
So it's really nice to hear you say these things.
But I send it to my parents and I'm sure
they're just like, what is this? I know, but it
was at least eye opening.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Yeah, So like you to hear that, I keep wanting
to like, I've experienced so many parents that tell me
the way that they are with their children. I'm like, wow,
this is amazing. Yeah, you can do what everyone but
just know that I'm here for you, you know, whenever
you want to talk. Yeah, and there's so much of
me that has this vision of being a mother like that.
But then I wonder if it's just in my dna
to not be like that, you know, totally. It's like

(50:59):
this ideal version of who I think I'm going to be,
But really I will probably end up like my mom.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
And I know that I would be that kind of
mom where I'm like still calling my kid when they're fifty.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Right, like super erotic about my children until.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Until it is a kind of love and care.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Also feel it's definitely a cultural thing too, you know.
I was thinking about parents and me and Jay have
had lots of these conversations. I lost my grandma this
year and we've been talking about so every time I
talk about a MIxS grand but we've been talking about
the idea of loss.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Sorry, really.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
This is going to happen for a while. But yeah,
you know, my dad wasn't. Something happened to my dad
this year and he's fine, but it made us think
about the idea of you know, as you get older
in your thirties and your forties, these are the changes
that you have to start getting now, like you have
to start coming to terms with. And you know, some
people who'se their parents when they're really young, and that
change is like such a it's like an explosion that

(51:56):
happens in their life and as we get older. Obviously
it's a natural part of life, but it's obviously the
hardest thing that anyone has to deal with. Yeah, And
so I guess my question is around future change. Yeah,
and how do people you know, that's one of the
biggest changes that a lot of us have to go through,
is the idea of people who've been in our life,
our whole life, not being there any longer.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
And I think especially for our generation, it's like this
is the time you're like, oh, wow, people in my
family going to hospital more, they're getting more health issues,
they're you know, they're at the age where they have
to be so much more careful, and we want to
spend more time with them because time is limited. Absolutely,
But how do you navigate this idea of future change
that is literally impossible to change, It's impossible to avoid,

(52:40):
but is the hardest thing to have to think about
day and day out.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Well, for some I'm so sorry for your last and
I know the gorgeous relationship that you shared with your
similar to your grandma. Yeah yeah, And as I was
sharing that, I was thinking, oh, my gosh, she must
relate to this so much. And you're absolutely right there.
I think I had this moment maybe five or six
years ago where I was like, oh my god, this
is the age and I was seeing this within my

(53:04):
parents and my aunts and uncles and my parents' friends,
all these health issues emerge, and so much loss and
so much grief. I think one instinct that I have
had in these moments, which is not healthy, is to
almost preemptively start to detach myself from the people that
I love most because I'm so afraid of losing them,

(53:25):
and it can lead to an avoidant attachment style, honestly right.
And it is actually reminding me of one of the
stories in the book. This woman Tara. She actually lost
her beloved father, who is a veteran of the Vietnam War,
to suicide when she was a teenager, and she loved

(53:47):
her dad. Tara's dad was her best friend, her role model,
her confidant, and to see someone who was the life
of the party and were so joyful and so full
of life, and his life because of you know, profound
PTSD following a war led her just shut off to everyone.

(54:09):
In fact, she vowed to herself as a teenager, I
will never love anyone again deeply because the pain of
being hurt is just too unbearable, right, I'd rather just
not put myself in a position again where I can
get hurt. She said. She felt like her heart had
been cut up into like a million pieces, and she

(54:30):
literally went to the library and looked up whether it
was possible to die of a broken heart, like that's
how painful it was. And it was actually through another
unexpected life change that Tara for the first time realized
that that kind of distance was untenable for someone like her,

(54:50):
that her nature was to love fiercely and to love deeply,
and that she was going to have to start taking
baby steps towards facilitating a more secure attachment style. And
by the way, the research shows it's quite a positive
message that we are not destined to have the attachment
styles that we form in childhood. So I think there's

(55:12):
a popular narrative that if we've experienced that kind of
trauma in childhood, it is our destiny to have an
avoidant or an insecure attachment style and adulthood. And while
there is a weak correlation between childhood experiences an adult
attachment style, each of us can actually take very concrete,
deliberate steps that move us towards more secure attachment. So Tara,

(55:36):
with such profound bravery, starts engaging in these small stats
baby steps. Every time she gets scared, she just backs
off a little bit, tries again the next day. It's
all incremental progress, right, There's no silver bullet in this space.
And over time she built one of the most robust,
secure communities of love that I have ever witnessed in
my life. Her life is brimming with love and humanity.

(56:02):
She has a sisterhood when it comes to her friendships.
She has such loving relationships in her life. And I
have been so moved by that example because she has
every reason to resist that, to continue to let fear rule.
And there's a quote at the end of the book
where she says, am I going to keep allowing myself
to be open to others but with the risk that

(56:25):
it might all hurt me so much? One day? And
she said, you know, for as long as it's possible.
I'm going to keep trying. And I find that so inspirational, because,
like you, it's just so easy to be filled with
so much grief. We almost want to get ahead of
our grief. And Tara is a wonderful reminder to me
that if we're very intentional with the way that we

(56:46):
love others, actually we can do the reverse, which is
to foster the deepest, most intimate connections. And that's what's
going to fill us with the least amount of regret
when we lose the people we love, because we would
know that we had given it our all.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
You know, well, honestly, that's exactly how I felt about
my grandmother. We had a lot of notice with my
grandma and it was actually so beautiful. It was like
that almost I always say, like she had the perfect
leaving story that you could imagine it was. Everybody found out,
everybody rushed to her bedside. We had twenty five of
us family with her every single day. Everyone got to

(57:17):
spend you know, family members who didn't have a good
relationship with her suddenly over those months created this beautiful
relationship with her, one that they never even thought was possible,
but they found you know, family members who had a
broken relationship with her had suddenly found themselves absolutely obsessed
with her and loved her and wanted to be of

(57:39):
service to her in every moment. And then I have
had a wonderful relationship with her and I got to
spend every single moment by her side. Yeah, and I'm
kind of good. It was so beautiful, yeah, yeah, And
it was such a lovely way to have that connection
with her at the end where no one had regrets.
Every single person felt like they had this fulfilled version
of their relationship that they needed with her. And I

(57:59):
was thinking, wow, that preparation and all of us having
the like, what a blessing it was to have that preparation,
My gosh.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
But in the same way, you can kind of have
these conversations with your partner, with people that you love
about what is inevitable and what's going to happen, And
it's difficult, it is to talk about having some sort
of preparation in your mind is probably going to be
a good thing. Like having in your mind and thinking
about it, just like you said, it allows you to
do all the things that you want to. You know,

(58:27):
when you spoke about your friend and the idea of
blocking things off. It's so funny. When my grandma went
into hospital, the first thing I said was, I don't
want to call her for a couple of days because
I don't want her to see me upset, or like,
I don't want to see her right now. And so
I did everything that I could in the background, like
helping with logistics, but I did not want to talk
to her. Yeah, And then when my dad went in hospital,
I was like, I don't want to talk to dad.
Don't want me when when you're with him, don't call

(58:48):
me because I need a couple of days to just
like think about it and to not feel that upset
and to become a bit more logical. And I realized
that our natural instinct is to block off us. It's
like I don't want to be too close to them
right now because it's too painful. But I think it
also gives you time to like think about it and
really prepare and really think about how you feel about
the situation. And I think those conversations at our age

(59:12):
are really really important to allow yourself to one have
the connections that you want right now, but also to
prepare yourself so that when those moments do come, you
are able to deal with it with love and not
feeling blocked off. Yeah, it's like, now that I've deal
with these blocked off phases, I'm like, hopefully when it
comes to that time, I will have more open heart

(59:34):
because my body and my mind have been through that
process already. But if we don't do that, and we
and we literally ignore it for our whole life, when
it happens, it can completely destroy you and destroy your
maybe you'd regret so much more how you reacted in
that moment or how you dealt with that situation.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Yeah, there's a radical acceptance that requires that, which is
what I think you're saying. And I mean, what a privilege.
I have the kind of end of life that your grandma.
I wish that for everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
You know, to be in the presence of your loved ones,
to die with dignity. It's a beautiful way to go.
And I mean, at the end of the day, I
think that, like human connection is my religion. Yeah, that's
what I think the meaning of life is. It's about
the feeling of being understood by others and allowing them
to feel understood by you. I think that's what makes

(01:00:26):
humanity thrive. And I think that's what when I'm on
my deathbed, I'm going to think the most about did
I make people feel loved and heard and understood by me?
And what you're expressing in the way that you care
for your grandmother at the end of her life, that
you just did exactly that, like you, Yeah, it's so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, it definitely was a special time. I wanted to
go back just a little bit to this idea of
you know, we spoke about feeling lost than identity, and
so for some people they're really attached to their identity,
but for others, they don't know who they even are.
And so how does someone who feels really lost start
to even create what their identity is, start to figure

(01:01:08):
out who they are, what they love? Like any pieces
of advice that you have for people who feel really
lost in their life at the moment, whether their identity
has been crushed or whether they don't know who they are.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
It's a great question. So one thing you can do
is travel back in time to your childhood and ask yourself,
what were the things that I naturally gravitated towards. So
when you were on the playground. Was it going to
the highest point on the whatever monkey bars or you know,
was it going up let or were you like me

(01:01:38):
listening to what everyone else was saying and trying to
get in on like human psychology, how did you spend
your free recreational time? Were engaging in storytelling and playtime?
And that can give you a really nice indicator of
what the things are that you love. The other thing
that people can do, especially if they're going through change,
is to do what's called the self affrict exercise. This

(01:02:01):
is where you just take five minutes and you write
down all the identities that you value in your life
that bring your life meeting, however big or small. So
this could be as simple as I joined a pickleball club.
That's one of my identity pickleball player. Okay, it could
be oh, I organized the big sale for our local PTA. Okay,
I'm a PTA person, I'm a parent, I'm a caregiver,

(01:02:23):
I'm the coach of the little league team, I am
part of a dance class, or I do you know?
For me, it's like I do zoom workout sessions with
my trainer. Okay, I'm gonna write that down. I'm one
of Ma's students, you know, and you write down all
of these. And you can also if you are going
through something that's making you feel very disoriented, right you've

(01:02:44):
just lost your job, or you're having trouble, for example,
in your relationship, what you can do is focus on
those aspects of who you are that are not threatened
by the change you're going through. So, for example, if
you're in a if you've just lost your job, you
might focus on the fact that you really value your
role in your community. If you are in a tough
spot in your relationship, you might focus on the fact

(01:03:04):
you really value your spiritual life. Right, I love that
I meditate every day or I do yoga. By the way,
I don't do these things. Yeah, you're all hypothetical. I
wish I could tell you and Jay, but I, you know,
a daily meditator, but I'm not. And so what this
does is, first of all, it allows people to see
their identities more expansively. So let me share the personal
story of I used to be like I don't know,

(01:03:27):
so after the violin is in particular, I was like,
I don't have an identity. What's my identity? And I
remember taking a walk with a friend in twenty twenty,
this is right before the pandemic, and I was like,
I have no passions, Like what do I even love
to do? And he's like, Maya, you love people. And
I was like, that's not an identity and he's like,
take it from someone who doesn't love people yet and
he's not endlessly curious about people. And that really got

(01:03:49):
me thinking we can sometimes take the things that define
us for granted because we forget that other people don't
have those strengths.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
So, for example, this friend of mine, he loves wood shopping,
and I don't think he had integrated that into his identity.
But I was like, we'll take it from someone who
doesn't like love wood shopping. That is actually incredible that
you love building things from scratch, right, And So I
think we think too narrowly when we think about self identity,
and the affirmation exercise broadens the aperture. It allows you
to zoom out on your life and to see how

(01:04:19):
rich and multi faceted it is. And then once you've
got all of those identities now on the piece of paper,
you can say, well, which ones do I want to
lean into more? Right? Oh, well, it's kind of clear
I could see connective tissue between these three. I really
do love being a part of my community. Okay, maybe
I can actually volunteer for the upcoming New Year's party
or the whatever Valentine's Day, whatever it is. And so

(01:04:40):
it just it gives you a little bit more food
for thought.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Oh that's a good place to start with people. Yeah, yeah,
I agree with you. I think sometimes you don't even
realize the incredible skills and qualities that you have because
they're so normal to you, like they're so organic to
who you are.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
One hundred percent. And actually it's reminding me too that
I think one mistake our brains can make is when
there is a seismic shift in our life. So, for example,
when you moved to New York and you had done
all of this training right to be a dietitian and
now all of a sudden, you're coming to the US
and you don't have your license anymore and you can't practice.

(01:05:14):
It's very easy to think that it was all for
nought and you lost everything. But you need to remember
that all of the skills that you honed, all of
your talents, all of the knowledge you accrued, all of
your life experiences and the wisdom that you gained as
a result of those experiences are still fully there and
are still fully intact and will service you in whatever

(01:05:35):
you do next. So when it came to my life
as a violinist, like, yes, none of the technical skills
of playing the violin were particularly helpful for me, but
all the softer skills I built, like grit, discipline, discipline,
oh my gosh, so much discipline, routine, responding well to failure,
you know, like I was criticized all the time for
every little micro note that I got wrong, and so

(01:05:57):
was I built thicker skin over my fear of performance
and being on stage. Those have all been so helpful
to me in my role as a cognitive scientist, as
a podcaster, as a writer. Like these are all useful
general skills. So when you're at an inflection point, ask yourself,
who else can this person be? This person who has
had these broad, wonderfully rich life experiences, Like imagine that

(01:06:23):
you are an employer who's looking at your own CB,
but don't just include the jobs you've had, include the
trips that you've taken and the vantage points you've gained
from traveling the world or the experiences you've had caring
for an elderly member of your family, or babysitting the
kids next door, Like, these are all things that you
still have with you that will aid you as you

(01:06:43):
go next. It's not like a it's not like there's
a blank slate and you just have to work from nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Right, tell me more about you speak about this concept
of mental time travel, and I really like that. Is
there a part to play in mental time travel with
trying to figure out who you are? As well?

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Yeah, well I should share that one reason. So we
talked about one reason that change is scary, which is
that it threatens our identity. Another reason why it's scary
for people like me anyway, is that it's filled with
so much uncertainty, and our brains are not wired to
like uncertainty. So one of my favorite research studies shows
that we're more stressed when we're told we have a

(01:07:21):
fifty percent chance of getting an electric shock than when
we're told we have a one hundred percent chance, which
is it's so wild, right, We would rather be sure
rabi that a negative thing is going to happen than
to have to grapple with any uncertainty. But I feel
this deeply right. I want to know how my story ends.
I want to have a firm grip of the steering wheel.

(01:07:41):
And so many of us fall prey to what's called
the illusion of control, which basically just means we grossly
overestimate the degree to which we dictate how our lives
turn out. I mean, so much of like Buddhist philosophy
is all about, you know, creating that distance and that
detachment so that we aren't so anchored on outcomes. But
our brains naturally want to make us feel like we

(01:08:02):
are in control and that we are in the driver's seat, definitely,
And so mental time travel is one way of helping
to tame those negative mental spirals that often emerge in
the face of uncertainty. And so let's say you're navigating
a breakup. It's not like, well again, if you're like
most people, you're not just like Okay, now that relationship

(01:08:25):
has ended, you've gone to the next one. Folks, you're
sitting there ruminating what did I do wrong? Why did
they stop loving me? Why did I stop loving them?
Could I have been better? Why did I say that?
Oh my god, that was so embarrassing. I should never
have said that I'm never going to be able to
date again, and if I do date, I'm never going
to find anyone like them. Should I not have ended
the relation? We can go crazy in these spirals, right,

(01:08:47):
Or if you are a people pleaser like I am,
you have a benign but awkward interaction with a coworker
and suddenly at three in the morning, you wake up
and you're like, oh my god, I was so embarrassing. Yeah,
what did I say?

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
I should text them? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Do they hate me? Or if they didn't write back
to me, are they mad at me? And it's like, Maya,
you texted them thirty minutes ago. You need to chill out, right, Yeah.
And so our brains can just they just can really
run away from us when we are in the throes
of change. And so mental time travel simply refers to
the fact that our brains, through the wonderful process of evolution,

(01:09:23):
have the capacity to both travel forward in time and
backward in time, and we can use this to our
advantage when it comes to taming these mental spirals. So
we can travel back in time to remind ourselves of
moments where we were very resilient in the face of adversity.
Right when we're feeling really weak and like the moments unprecedented,
we can be like, well, you know, five years ago,

(01:09:45):
I went through this really hard thing. I'm hoping one
day I look back and I remember, well, remember in
your late thirties when you're navigating all this fertility stuff,
or actually not even late thirties, Remember in your thirties
when you're navigating all this fertility stuff, you know you
were able to overcome that. And so we can do that.
We can also look back in time to remember moments
where we were fixated on something and it turned out

(01:10:07):
not to be a concern for us many years later.
We can also move forward in time to remind ourselves
that the current moment and our current preoccupations are transient.
So you can ask yourself at three in the morning,
how am I going to feel about this five hours
from now, five days from now, five years from now,
fifteen years from now. Chances are the awkward interaction with

(01:10:29):
the coworker is going to be less meaningful and less
significant to you. Five years from now, you might not
even have them as a coworker. Okay, unless you're in
business with your husband like you've been read your teap
business and then actually, yeah, I used to give you
a different strategy for that one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
I didn't like his idea.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Yeah, exactly. In addition to the mental time travel thing
of being like, Okay, this is a transient situation. This
is probably you know, when you think about yourself five
or fifteen years in the future, you adopt more of
a bird's eye view and you can kind of look
back and see, oh, this was just a moment in time,
and almost certainly you know I would have entered another
relationship since then, or at least found peace or some

(01:11:07):
degree of closure. The other thing that you can do
when you are in the throes of those really icky, annoying,
maddening mental spirals is to coach yourself like you would
a friend. So oftentimes when we take a first person
view on our problems, we don't give ourselves any self compassion.
We brate, we are filled with regret, and because of

(01:11:29):
all the heightened emotions, we can't see our situation clearly.
But if you pretend that you are just a third
party observing the situation, you will be able to poke
holes in your narrative, be able to point out, hey, maya,
maybe you're not really seeing this exactly as you should.
And then most importantly, you will be able to extend
yourself the compassion you need to actually move forward in

(01:11:50):
a productive way, because if you don't give your self compassion,
you don't think, oh, I wasn't great in that situation.
You think I am bad and there's no redemption in
I am bad. But you would never say that to
a friend. You would never tell your friend, well, there's
no redemption for you, you're bad. You would say you just
acted out of character in that moment. And so there's

(01:12:10):
a lot of research showing that again, treating yourself like
someone that you're coaching, and even using this like very
small tweak and framing. So rather than talking yourself in
the first person like I need to get a grip,
you instead use a third person maya, you need to
get a grip. That can also forge really helpful emotional

(01:12:31):
distance between you and your problems.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Like calling yourself out, saying your actual name and be like, hey,
you need to do something about this.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
Yeah, and then it's like, oh, it's kind of a
different person, but I'm coaching and actually, sorry to share
yet another one, but this is one of my favorite ones.
Which is when we feel negatively. We're often feeling a
range of sometimes conflicting and often confusing emotions, and all
our brains really do is just take a snapshot of
that feeling and say, like, we feel like craft.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
One thing that can be very helpful is to label
your specific emotions with as much granularity as you can,
so you can say, I'm feeling envy right now, I'm
feeling frustration, I'm feeling anger, and feeling grief. And what
research shows is that when we label our emotions, we
shift our focus away from being the emotion to simply

(01:13:22):
having the emotion, and that is another helpful way of
forging the kind of psychological distance that we need to
move forward productively.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Yeah. I guess being the emotion feels very permanent and
then having the emotion feels very.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Temporary, exactly. It's not identity based exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
I was thinking about this idea of certainty in the shop,
and it's really interesting because I feel like us as humans,
we confuse certainty for safety, and then even if we're
in a situation that is miserable or limiting, because it's
certain and because it's obviously familiar, it makes us feel
better about the unfamiliar. Could you give me a little

(01:14:02):
bit more around the science around that and how people
can push themselves out of this Even if they're in
a cycle of something that's terrible, it feels comfortable and
it feels certain, so they stay in it. How can
someone get themselves up it, whether it's a relationship or
whether it's a job. And we'll be above.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
Yeah, I one hundred percent affiliate having clarity and certainty
with psychological safety. And I feel, I mean, one of
the reasons, and I should mention that I wrote the
other side of Change because I'm afraid of change and
I have not done a great job managing changes in
my life because I am a creature of habit. I

(01:14:39):
like having routines. I'm not super exploratory. I mean, it's
just my genetic nature to just like comfort, and so
I don't like it when the page turns and I
don't know what's coming up next. I like to know
how the story is.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
I want to get to the end first. I want
to read everything that happens, and then I'll read the
rest of it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Yeah, exactly exactly. And what I'm referring to is what
psychologists call cognitive closure. So we really love having black
and white answers, clear definitive answers. And the problem, of course,
is that when we climb out of the rubble of
a big change, all we see around us is gray.
It's just gray space, it's ambiguity. One of the women

(01:15:19):
that I write about in my book, which who I
think gives us a very good solution, is named Florence,
and she found out decades into her marriage that her
husband had been having an affair with another woman, and
she was, of course totally gutted, totally heartbroken. She had
thought he was her soulmate and he had not felt
the same. So it's just a crushing blow. And her instinct,

(01:15:41):
because she's a science journalist, is to do exactly what
I would want to do in that situation and maybe
you would want to do, which is to figure it out,
to crack the code on her heartbreak right, to get
all the clear answers. So she goes on this solo
canoe trip and she's like, Okay, I'm going to figure
this out, and we trick our brain into believing that
if we can just figure out, if we just understand it,

(01:16:02):
then I can get over it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
If we can always say that, I'm like, I just
need to understand it. If I can understand, like if
someone doesn't like them, but I just need to understand it.
If I know the reason, yep, then that's fine. But
if I don't know, I really struggle to let it go,
and I really struggled to work out with it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Okay, Like, just tell me why kindred spirits. The worst
thing someone can do if I've accidentally upset them or
fund them is to tell me it's just it's like
a prison.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
And I finally like, well, I was having let it
go because I'm thinking about it, but like.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
Yes, Raby, can we make a promise right now? If
one of us ever upsets the other, we are going
to let the definitely, okay, so you'll never put each
other through that torture. So exactly, so we it's almost
like fool's gold though we think, Okay, if I can
just identify all the things that could hurt my family,
I'll be able to keep them safe. If I can

(01:16:52):
just identify why he stopped loving me, I'll never experience
this kind of betrayal again. If I can just figure
out what I did wrong and make amends for it
then I'll never make mistakes again. It's just not true,
and it's a false sense of closure and clarity. So
Florence ends this solo canoe trip in a far worse

(01:17:13):
place than she started. She's spiraling, She vacillates between thinking
it's all her husband's fault and it's all her fault,
and she's just going between two you know, extremes on
the pendulum. Sorry, and she's just swinging between two extremes.
And she actually only finds that safety in lack of
clarity in community with others. So she stumbles upon a museum,

(01:17:38):
which I believe it or not, is a real thing
called the Museum of Broken Relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Oh, I'm not surprised. It's a museum everything these days.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
It's a museum in Croatia. And she's walking through the
museum and she's going to all these different exhibits, and
she's seeing herself and her plight and all of her
desire for closure and clarity and unmended hearts and the
lack of clarity that these people in the exhibits, or
these people's narratives are conveying through the exhibits shine through
to her, and in that moment. She says, just the

(01:18:08):
recognition that something that felt so singular and so idiosyncratic
was actually universal was a comfort in its own right.
And I think, to your question of certainty feels safe, Well,
we're never going to get the certainty we want, so
we have to find safety elsewhere. And Florence says that

(01:18:29):
by connecting with others who had been through a similar
experience to her and feeling close to them, she was
able to open herself up to the lessons that they
could teach her. And one thing I want to share
on top of that is, again, this is my vantage
point as a cognitive scientist who believes in the unity
of humanity. We don't just have to seek out people

(01:18:50):
whose stories look like ours. So one of the reasons
that I wrote The Other Side of Change is because
I felt like these conversations that I was having with
people revealed that there were so much that united people's
stories that didn't look at all the same on their surface.
So the young man who received a stage four cancer
diagnosis and then the woman who found out after her

(01:19:13):
husband's passing that he had cheated on her were both
grappling with a feeling of betrayal right, and they would
never have sought one another out right. In our society,
we're told, oh, you've just lost a job. Oh, I
have a friend who lost a job, Let me connect
you with them. Oh, you've just ended a relationship. Okay.
In the bookstore, there's a section for people who are
navigating the end of a relationship, and we're taught to

(01:19:33):
seek out people who have endured exactly the same type
of change that we're going through. And my argument is
that because of our shared psychology, because we're all grappling
with the same stuff of change, and by that I
mean bristling at the world's unfairness, grieving the futures that
we once thought were available to us, worrying about what

(01:19:55):
our self identity can be now that we've lost a
person who actually really defined us, being concerned about our
past because now a secret's been revealed to us and
it changes our understanding of our family. Whatever it is.
The problem statements are the same, so you can easily
expect that the solution set's going to be the same too.
And so the joy of writing this book is that

(01:20:17):
even though the people who I interviewed have stories that
don't look like the stories I've been through that. I
found that I had so much in common with them
and that the strategies they used to overcome their change
were relevant to my own life.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
I love that you explored so many people's lives, Like
I think that's such a beautiful thing to be so
curious about others. And often we lack that because we're
so obsessed with our own self and our own life
and so narrow. We have such a narrow perspective and
it is so easy to say this person doesn't look
like I mean, this person doesn't have the same life
as me, and so all of that's irrelevant. But how

(01:20:50):
much we miss out on these experiences, these perspectives that
can rich in our lives, if that's a word. Yeah,
that can make our lives so much richer just by
having a different perspective, just by having a different story
that we can't relate to but we can learn from.
And I think that's what we have to differentiate between
you me and we have to relate to it or

(01:21:11):
you might but you definitely can learn something from it.
And there's always something you can pull that can be
relative to your life.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
Absolutely, And you know, when I think about so one
of the people that I interviewed when when they were
a college student, they had a brainstem stroke and it
left them locked in with locked in syndrome. That's when
you lose voluntary control over all the muscles in your
body except for the muscles that control your eyes. So
you're literally in a prison because your consciousness is preserved,

(01:21:42):
all of your thoughts and feelings are preserved, but you
can only communicate with the world or your winnings. And
I mean her Olivia's story is so unbelievable, and she
has an astonishing recovery. But what was so interesting about
our story rally and what was so unexpected about it?
Because I'm always interested in what's happening in here. I
am care I care less about the external beats of
a person's narrative and more about what's shifting within their brains.

(01:22:05):
Her story is actually one about a recovering people pleaser,
someone who learns from this experience how beholden they were
to other opinions of her, and then she loses the
ability to curate a version of herself that she feels
will be palatable to others because she literally cannot control
her body and she cannot even speak to her boyfriend
and her boyfriend's family, or impress them in the ways

(01:22:26):
that she hoped to impress them, and through that process
establishes a kind of self love in her twenties that
I look at with such admiration and envy, because if
only we could all achieve that level of self assuredness
and love. And so who would have thought that I
would feel so close to Olivia because we shared this

(01:22:48):
thing in common that I wouldn't even have known had
I just heard about the elements of her stroke and
her physical recovery.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
You know, it's incredible. Yeah, I really, I definitely have
taken that away from you in this comversation of how
important it is to hear people's stories and how much
we can get from that and talk about humanity as
a whole. And one thing I really struggle with is
the idea of I feel like we seem like a
society that is getting more and more open. We're more accepting,

(01:23:16):
We're more like, Yeah, you know, if you look at
the timeline and what history has shown, we seem like
as a human race, we're getting more progressive and being
more open minded. But at the same time, it also
feels like the world's becoming a lot more judgmental, And
when I think about judgment in my own life, I
always notice that I'm more judgment It correlates with the

(01:23:38):
less happy I am, the more judgmental I am of
other people, the less content I am in The moments
where I'm feeling more insecure and the moments where I'm
feeling unhappy about my own circumstance is when I will
have a lot more to say and a lot more
to think about somebody else. I would love your perspective
on that, And why judging people gives us this feeling
of superiority like it gives us hurting other people, or

(01:24:01):
judging other people makes us feel better about ourselves. How
of the two relations and how do we separate that
relationship to not being not being connected? Because your pain
doesn't shouldn't make me feel any better?

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Resolutely? Yeah, I mean, look, we all have tribalism baked
into our brains, and the group out group mentality is
just a part of our wiring, and I do think
it takes deliberate effort to try to break down those walls,
in those boundaries. I also think that when we are
judging someone else, what we're really doing is trying to

(01:24:37):
reaffirm our own values and what we actually care about,
and to remind ourselves that, oh, we're good people, right,
because we're not like that person over there. Right. But
I will tell you one thing, which is having been
a cognitive scientist for decades has been the greatest empathy
builder of my life. Because when you understand the root
causes for why people believe certain things, why they believe

(01:24:59):
that things they believe, why they've come to have the
attitudes and the orientation to the world that they've come
to have, you will naturally dislike them less.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:11):
It's so I know this sounds crazy, but it's like
very very hard for me to hate someone when I
understand their full story.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
It's because you've taken the time. I think the more
time if you choose to take a little bit more
time to understand the person that you're judging, or the
person that you think you hate, or the person that
you dislike online. Yeah, the thing is you have to
be willing to give them the opportunity. And I think
most of us when we decide we don't like this person,
I don't want to talk to this person. This person

(01:25:38):
nothing like me, it's because a part of us wants
to feel that way. But if you chose that you
actually didn't want to feel that way, and you wanted
to give the person benefit of doubt, which is what
it usually is. Yeah, you probably will end up liking them,
but a part of you doesn't want to. Yeah, a
part of you doesn't want to believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
It threatens your own tribal identity. And I think that's
what's so hard and what you learn. I think with
a lot of people is they're like, how could you
possibly believe the things that you believe? And it turns
out that for them, that part of their belief system
is entangled with their social identity. It's how they relate

(01:26:13):
to their family members, it's how they feel a sense
of belonging. It's the community that they are a part
of within their lives. And so for me, when I
think about the origin story of belief systems, it just
takes the temperature down because, of course, like everyone else,
I'll be watching TV and I'm like, how could this
person say this vile stuff? It's disgusting. I still have

(01:26:34):
that same visceral reaction, and then I try to remind myself,
like You can vehemently disagree with what they're saying, and
you can think that what they're saying is so so
harmful and you should do everything you can to advocate
against that, but there probably is humanity deep within them.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
Yes, I want to try and end with a hopeful question,
and that is what's the most hopeful thing. Your research
as being a cognitive scientist taught you about human nature
and our capacity to just be nice people.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Yeah. So one of my favorite concepts that actually I
discovered when writing The Other Side of Change is called
moral elevation. Moral elevation is that warm, fuzzy feeling we
get in our chest when we witness someone else's moral beauty.
So moral beauty can be defined as any extraordinary behavior.

(01:27:25):
So it can be someone's self sacrifice or their courage,
or their resilience or their ability to forgive someone or
their resilience whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:27:33):
Even when I see a young person stand up for
an elderly person on the train, I'm like, thank God,
these people exist.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
And we're going to all be those people talking about
a failure of entity. That's all of our destiny.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
That's great, Okay, we are still good people.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
Fantastic, No, I feel that too, And so it turns
out moral beauty is everywhere around us if we're just
willing to be keen observers. And what I love about
the experience of moral elevation is that it doesn't just
feel good. It doesn't just restore our faith in humanity.
It actually changes our brains. So research shows that when
we witness someone defy our understanding of what humans are

(01:28:12):
capable of, it actually cracks open our own imagination about
what we are capable of, which is especially helpful when
we're in the throes of change and we don't know
what the other side looks like. And I had an
experience of moral elevation back in twenty fifteen. I remember
after the horrific shooting at Mother Emmanuel Church, the daughter

(01:28:33):
of one of the victims extended forgiveness publicly to the
racist killer inside the courtroom, and Robbie I was stunned
by this. Okay, I mean I was working at the time.
I was working in the Obama White House, and I
was in this policy sphere, and I just remember my
colleagues and I because I think President Obama had gone

(01:28:55):
to the church and we were all just stunned by this.
And what do Collier taught me, which was the daughter,
was that humans have a capacity a depth of forgiveness
that I did not think was possible. And the beauty
of moral elevation is that it's not even like I
was looking to forgive anyone in particular, but that impact

(01:29:15):
transcends domain, because it led me to ask myself, how
kind am I capable of being to others? How much
empathy can I show to others? How much resolve can
I show? How much conviction, how much resilience? And it
just makes you hopeful about what humans can do. And
so I would urge everyone who's listening to this moral

(01:29:40):
beauty is all around you. It's at the coffee shop
in the morning when you witness someone being super nice
to the barista. It's when you're walking down the street
and you see someone hold an elderly person's hand and gently,
with no rush at all, walk them across the street.
It's when you pass by the playground and you see
a little kid defend their friend from bullying. It's just
all around us.

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
It's when people you in in a line that you're
cutting into on like a motorway, or yeah, thank you so.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
Much, you're drive Caday. How grateful I am to you
in this moment because I'm almost going to miss my flight,
Yeah exactly, and you didn't even know that. But you're
so nice. And because the world can feel so divisive,
and because we feel so disconnected from one one another,
inviting moments of moral beauty into your life every day

(01:30:25):
will remind you that actually there are good There are
good humans everywhere, and we think about these people in
groups as like masses, but on an individual level, there's
so much humanity to be inspired by.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
Thank you so much. So many other questions that I
didn't even ask, because we had a way better conversation
than than what my what my questions even were, but
we went.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
In so many unexpected directions.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
We really did, and they're the best type of conversations.
I love it when I don't even have to look
at my cards hardly and I just get to have
a beautiful conversation with you to us exactly what we
got to do. So thank you so much. Thank everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
Go out.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
If this conversation didn't inspire you, then I don't know
what will. To be honest, go get the other side
of change. By Maya Shanka It is such an incredible book,
and it's filled with all these stories and these lessons
and wisdom that we've spoken about. I feel like we've
just kind of hit the surface in this conversation, and
there's so much more in this book. So thank you
for listening, and thank you so much, Thanks so much,

(01:31:25):
rather amazing

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Radhi Devlukia

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Grieving the Future You Imagined with Dr. Maya Shankar