10% Happier with Dan Harris How to Regulate Your Emotions and Mental Chatter When Bad Things Happen | Maya Shankar
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Jan 28, 2026 
Maya Shankar, cognitive scientist and former Obama White House advisor, explores how change shapes identity. She discusses formative losses that led her research. Short practical tools include affect labeling, psychological distancing, adaptive distraction, and reframing. Conversations cover biases like the end-of-history illusion and how awe or community can loosen rumination.
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Illusion Of Control Explains Disorientation
- We habitually overestimate our control, and big negative events shatter that illusion, increasing intolerance for uncertainty.
- Recognizing these limits helps explain why some changes feel so destabilizing.
You Will Become A Different Person
- The end of history illusion makes us think we won't change in the future, despite clear past change.
- Big disruptions accelerate internal change, so the person on the other side will likely be different and possibly better.
Test Beliefs Like Hypotheses
- Treat your beliefs as testable hypotheses and actively seek disconfirming data.
- Ask "what evidence would persuade me to change my mind?" to keep beliefs flexible and avoid tying them to identity.
