‘Let yourself be quirky’: Oprah Winfrey’s life coach on how to be much happier

Martha Beck survived abuse, went to Harvard, left her husband - then began working with the world's biggest TV star. She discusses self-help, nonconformity and the power of truth

This has almost been like a global meditation. What isn't working in your life rises to the surface. Going back to the way it was? It's not going to happen." Martha Beck - the bestselling author and Harvard-trained sociologist known as Oprah Winfrey's life coach" - is talking about responses to the pandemic.

Every act of creation begins with the destruction of the status quo," she continues. It looks like chaos. But, really, it's a freedom from the tyranny of how things have always been done'. Pascal said that most of our misery comes from the fact that we are unable to sit quietly in a room. And, by the billions over the past year, we have been forced to sit quietly in a room. Now people's questions are coming from a much deeper place. Before, it was: How do I change my life?' Now, it's: What do I want from my life?'"