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We're All Going through a 'Lifequake': Here's How to Get Through It

We're All Going through a 'Lifequake': Here's How to Get Through It

By Stacey Lindsay
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Best-selling author Bruce Feiler had been living what he called a 'linear life”…he discovered his calling, got married, and became a father all within the expected timeframe that society feeds us. Then in his early forties, Feiler got 'walloped by life.” A cancer diagnosis. A near bankruptcy. And his father tried to take his own life six times. 'This was an awful period where it felt like life was coming at me from all ways,” he says.Feiler searched for a book to help him through these hard times, but he couldn't find one. So he set out to write one. He traveled to all 50 states to interview hundreds of people who'd been through giant life changes, from losing loved ones to switching careers. Feiler learned that there is no such thing as a 'linear life.” Big transitions, which Feiler calls 'lifequakes,” happen all the time, and there are ways that we can cope with them. He compiles all these tools in his new book, Life Is in the Transitions.Feiler recently joined Maria for a Sunday Paper Live to talk about his profound learnings, and the ways we can thrive during transition. In their conversation, which we've edited and condensed below, Feiler offers a positive spin on how to look at change and the counsel that we all need right now as we face a huge "lifequake"…the Election. 'We can get through this together,” Feiler says. 'You're not alone. There are tools.”

Stacey Lindsay

Stacey Lindsay is a Seattle-based journalist and senior editor of The Sunday Paper. Her forthcoming book, BEING 40: The Decade of Letting Go—and Embracing Who We Are comes out May 5th from The Open Field and is available for pre-order.

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