Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey there, Maya here. I've been working on a
Speaker 1: special collaboration with the podcast Radioheadspace from Headspace Studios. Every
Speaker 1: day this week, I'll be guest hosting their episodes. We
Speaker 1: discuss everything from how to pivot gracefully when life gets
Speaker 1: in the way of our best laid plans, to how
Speaker 1: to stay motivated when we're trying to reach our long
Speaker 1: term goals. It was a chance for me to reflect
Speaker 1: on what I've learned about change over the course of
Speaker 1: my life career, and while making a slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: I'm going to share the first episode in the sequence
Speaker 1: with you now. I hope you enjoy it and you
Speaker 1: can hear the rest of the week's episodes on Radioheadspace
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. Sat Hi, I'm doctor Maya Schunker,
Speaker 1: your guest host for the week. Welcome to Radioheadspace and
Speaker 1: to Tuesday. Today we're going to talk about the impact
Speaker 1: big changes can have on our self identity. We'll explore
Speaker 1: why we're so attached to the labels we give ourselves
Speaker 1: and that other people give us, and how seeing our
Speaker 1: identities is more malleable can help us weather the storms
Speaker 1: that life inevitably sends our way. My grandmother had played
Speaker 1: the violin in an Indian classical tradition growing up, and
Speaker 1: when my mom immigrated to this country in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: she brought my grandmother's violin with her, and I remember
Speaker 1: one day she went up to the attic and brought
Speaker 1: the violin down, and she had only meant to show
Speaker 1: it to me, but I immediately took to the instrument
Speaker 1: and asked my mom for a pint sized violin of
Speaker 1: my own. I immediately was on the fast track to
Speaker 1: trying to become a concert violinist. When I was nine
Speaker 1: years old, I started studying at the Juilliard School of
Speaker 1: Music in New York, and when I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: the violinist It's a Perlman asked me to be his
Speaker 1: private violin student. And then one day my dreams ended
Speaker 1: in a moment, I had a sudden hand injury, after
Speaker 1: which doctors told me I could never play the violin again.
Speaker 1: And what I realized in that moment was that my
Speaker 1: identity was tethered to the violin, to being a violinist,
Speaker 1: and so when I lost the ability to play, I
Speaker 1: really do feel like I lost a considerable part of myself,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't really sure how to think about who
Speaker 1: I was or who I could be without it. There's
Speaker 1: a concept in cognitive science called identity foreclosure, and it
Speaker 1: refers to the fact that we can lock ourselves into
Speaker 1: a very specific identity in adolescence, but that actually can
Speaker 1: persist well into adulthood. And looking back, I absolutely fell
Speaker 1: prey to identity foreclosure. I was first and foremost a violinist,
Speaker 1: and I think one thing that helped guide me through
Speaker 1: that transition was to start to see my identity as
Speaker 1: more malleable, as something that could change over time. And
Speaker 1: I think my best friend along the way was having
Speaker 1: an open mind, being exploratory, talking to other people about
Speaker 1: what their passions were, just trying to see a world
Speaker 1: outside of the violin which had been my world for
Speaker 1: so long. One lesson that I learned from my own
Speaker 1: experience losing something that I loved that I want to
Speaker 1: share with listeners is to try and think about the
Speaker 1: features of the pursuit that you like and to attach
Speaker 1: your identity to those features rather than the thing itself.
Speaker 1: So when I reflect on what it is that I
Speaker 1: loved about playing the violin. I realized that, ultimately was
Speaker 1: human connection that really got me to light up. I
Speaker 1: could go on a stage in front of thousands of
Speaker 1: strangers and I had the ability to make them feel
Speaker 1: something they had maybe never felt before, and that was
Speaker 1: such a powerful feeling. It's when I realized, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: human connection that really makes me tick. I was able
Speaker 1: to find that trait in other pursuits, even when I
Speaker 1: lost the ability to play the violin. I found it
Speaker 1: as a cognitive scientist and studying the science of what
Speaker 1: it means to be human and to connect with other people.
Speaker 1: And I found it with my podcast, A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans, which is all about forging deep human connections
Speaker 1: with guests that I invite onto my show. So I
Speaker 1: would urge listeners who are going through an unexpected change
Speaker 1: or a turbulent time to ask themselves, what is my
Speaker 1: through line If I strip all of the activities that
Speaker 1: I engage with down to their core, what still exists
Speaker 1: and try to find that trait in as much of
Speaker 1: what you do as you can. That's all for today.
Speaker 1: Next time, I'll talk more about what happened after my
Speaker 1: career as a violinist ended and how we can forge
Speaker 1: new paths when life just doesn't turn out the way
Speaker 1: we hope it would. Thanks for listening, I'll see you
Speaker 1: back here soon.