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Maya Shankar’s Followers (72)
Maya Shankar
Goodreads Author
Member Since
August 2025
More books by Maya Shankar…
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Maya Shankar
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Maya Shankar
made a comment on
Julia’s review
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The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans
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oh man, thank you for this lovely lovely review! :)
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Maya Shankar
made a comment on
Jaime Smith’s review
of
The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans
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I'm sorry you did not like the book. One clarification though: the "missing piece" was not a reference to my partner. It is a reference to my decades-
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Maya Shankar
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Julia's review
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The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans:
"Maya is the absolute GOAT of CogSci and storytelling. I laughed, I cried, and I got great new tools for issues like rumination and changes in identity."
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Maya Shankar
liked
Kate Ellesworth's review
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The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans:
"Inspiring stories woven with psychology of resilience"
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Maya Shankar
liked
Domenique Losito's review
of
The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans:
"Whilst I love Maya's podcast of the same name, I love having a physical book to read, and I absolutely devoured this book. Maya offers practical science, weaved into real-life situations, and offers practical and compassionate guidance that you can s"
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Maya Shankar
rated a book it was amazing
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| I grew up with Vijay at Juilliard pre-college. I was absolutely riveted, as I learned the "behind-the-scenes" story -- what Vijay (then Robert) was truly going through and struggling with along the way. Vijay's music is beautiful: it will bring tears ...more | |
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Maya Shankar
rated a book it was amazing
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Maya Shankar
made a comment on
Dr.Mahalakshmi’s review
of
The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans
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I'm so sorry you had a traumatic experience with the book. It is definitely not for everyone and certainly not an 'easy' read because I made it a poin
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Maya Shankar
made a comment on
Amie Mak’s review
of
The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans
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Thank you for this lovely review, Amie!
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“moral elevation is the warm sensation we feel when witnessing another person’s moral beauty—their kindness, courage, or self-sacrifice, for example. It’s what we might experience when we see a first responder run into a burning building, or when we observe a child on the playground defend their friend from bullying. It’s the admiration we feel when we see a person’s perseverance in the face of a terminal illness or their caregiver’s devotion. It’s the moment when someone’s extraordinary actions challenge our understanding of the world and force us to adjust our mental models to accommodate this new information, cracking open our imagination about what is possible.”
― The Other Side of Change: The Inspiring Bestseller on Finding Strength and Happiness in Adversity
― The Other Side of Change: The Inspiring Bestseller on Finding Strength and Happiness in Adversity
“When grappling with a difficult, unwanted change, it can be natural to try to make sense of what’s happened within the framework of a just world. But there are some changes that occur for no meaningful reason and offer no lessons—they’re just things that happen. And yet in these situations it can still feel satisfying to blame ourselves. Self-blame can be comforting, giving us the false sense that we are in control and are righting some wrong. But it can also take us down a path along which, like Maryann, we become consumed by shame. Because we feel irredeemable, we are unable to take constructive steps forward. Research shows that one way to help prevent this response is to cultivate more self-compassion,27 using an approach developed by the psychologist Kristin Neff. According to Neff, self-compassion involves recognizing your suffering, mindfully engaging with your emotions, and understanding that the pain you’re feeling is part of a shared human experience. This last element is particularly important: if you can contextualize an awful event in your life as something that can happen to other people, too, you’re more likely to depersonalize it and shift toward a more external locus of control—to interpret it as something that’s happened to you, as opposed to something that’s happened because of you.”
― The Other Side of Change: The Inspiring Bestseller on Finding Strength and Happiness in Adversity
― The Other Side of Change: The Inspiring Bestseller on Finding Strength and Happiness in Adversity