Dr. Maya Shankar

Like, okay, there's something safe and cozy that still exists in my current world, which is making me feel totally disoriented.

I want to tell them that one, I feel you.

I've been in your position so many times, and it is very, very scary to be right in the thick of it.

At the same time, I have come out the other side of change in my own life, more hopeful and more optimistic than I ever thought I could be.

If you had asked me in my moments of my most harrowing grief, will anything good ever come out of this?

Is there anything redemptive about this situation?

Will you ever become a better person?

I would have been like, of course not.

This is only bad.

And so as someone who would lean more cynical in that department, I have been so heartened to see that

What I'm talking about in my book, the premise of my book of us becoming new people on the other side in ways that lead to richer, better lives has come true for me.

I just have the firsthand experience of having been so transformed by the wisdom and insights from the people I interviewed and by the science of it all that I feel like I have a much better relationship with change.

And I am so happy about the person I've become as a result of the hardest moments in my life.

And I have two allergies.

One is soy and the other is cliches and platitudes.

And so I'm the first to be like, really, Maya?

There's like a true silver lining in change.

And I promise you, this is real talk.

Again, the change itself might not be anything you ever willed, but I promise you that through a combination of revelation and growth, you will unlock parts of yourself

that you did not even know existed.