633: The psychology of uncertainty, growth & hope | Maya Shankar, Ph.D.

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The mindbodygreen Podcast—Episode 633

Title: The psychology of uncertainty, growth & hope | Maya Shankar, Ph.D.
Host: Jason Wachob
Guest: Dr. Maya Shankar, Cognitive Scientist, Author of The Other Side of Change
Date: January 18, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Jason Wachob sits down with Dr. Maya Shankar—renowned cognitive scientist, podcast creator (A Slight Change of Plans), and author—to explore the psychology behind dealing with unexpected change. Together, they discuss how upheaval can act as revelation, why our sense of control is so easily shattered, the science of building resilient identities, and actionable steps for growth and hope when life’s plans go awry. Dr. Shankar draws on scientific research, personal stories, and practical tips to create a toolkit for anyone facing transformative life events.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Change as Revelation: The Story of Olivia

[01:41 – 06:54]

• Story Introduction: Dr. Shankar recounts “Olivia,” a college student who suffered a brainstem stroke leading to Locked-In Syndrome—a state of full consciousness without the ability to move or communicate except through eye movement.
  • “What being locked in revealed to her about who she was and mental states and perspectives that were potentially holding her back.” (Dr. Shankar, [02:46])
• Olivia had been a pathological people pleaser, always seeking approval. Her condition stripped away her ability to curate herself externally and forced radical authenticity.
• She eventually experienced profound self-acceptance and found happiness not through full recovery, but through internal change.
  • “Over time, as she witnesses her care team fall in love with her for who she really is, she has to engage in a kind of self acceptance that she never thought was possible.” (Dr. Shankar, [05:47])

Quote:

“Change can serve as revelation. When a bad thing happens to us, it can feel like a personal apocalypse… but apocalypse comes from the Greek word apokalypsis, which means revelation.”
— Dr. Maya Shankar ([03:12])

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2. The Illusion of Control

[06:54 – 10:02]

• Jason and Maya discuss “the illusion of control”—the human tendency to overestimate how much we can direct life’s outcomes.
  • “Most of us would descend into a state of nihilism if we didn’t feel we had control.” (Dr. Shankar, [07:48])
• Dr. Shankar references research showing people are more stressed by uncertainty (50% chance of a shock) than by certain negative outcomes (100% chance).
  • “We are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance.” (Dr. Shankar, [08:19])
• Her goal is to give people a “change survival kit” of practical reframes and tools for when the illusion of control is shattered.

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3. Malleability & Identity: Preparing for Change

[10:02 – 15:46]

• Introduces the “end of history illusion”—the belief that who we are now is basically set, even though we’ve changed greatly before.
  • “We are always changing. We are constantly a work in progress.” (Dr. Shankar, [10:33])
• Dr. Shankar shares her lost dream of becoming a concert violinist and, later, failed attempts to start a family. Both experiences were identity-shattering.
• She suggests anchoring identity not to roles or labels, but to the “why” behind them (e.g., valuing emotional connection more than being a violinist itself).
• This reframing builds resilience when life throws curveballs.
  • “If you can identify your why… it can be a soft landing for people when life makes other plans.” (Dr. Shankar, [14:58])

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4. Belief Systems: The Role of Faith, Spirituality, and Meaning-Making

[15:46 – 19:58]

• Jason notes that faith or spirituality often helps people through upheaval. Maya shares her agnostic perspective and focus on secular psychological tools.
• Sometimes, the desire to find meaning can backfire; rigid “everything happens for a reason” beliefs can lead to unhealthy self-blame (as in the story of a woman who believed a tragedy was cosmic punishment).
  • “Sometimes things happen just because… There’s no deeper meaning in those things, and it’s just about how you carve your path moving forward.” (Dr. Shankar, [18:41])

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5. First Steps After Upheaval: Navigating Denial & Meaning

[20:26 – 25:38]

• Denial can be adaptive in the short term; it’s a “psychological immune response” that buffers shock.
• For moving forward, Dr. Shankar recommends a “self-affirmation exercise”: list out loved and valued aspects of yourself or your life not threatened by the current crisis.
  • “Write down all of the identities that you value… that are not threatened by the change.” (Dr. Shankar, [21:10])
• She shares a raw personal anecdote about experiencing this during her second miscarriage, and how gratitude exercises (done reluctantly at first) helped her see she was still whole.
  • “Did I go to bed feeling more intact? Absolutely.” (Dr. Shankar, [25:16])

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6. Examining and Revising Core Beliefs

[26:29 – 30:34]

• Our beliefs are often inherited and unexamined. Major change gives us a chance to question beliefs that may be false or limiting.
  • “Our beliefs are not these sacred, immutable truths. They are flimsy entities that don’t always have a strong basis.” (Dr. Shankar, [29:16])
• Powerful story of Ingrid, a woman who loses her memory and reclaims previously shamed aspects of her heritage before the “shame lens” returns.

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7. Guiding Questions for Self-Reflection

[31:14 – 36:34]

• Maya encourages listeners to regularly ask:
  • “How am I defining my self-identity?”
  • “Can I build a more robust, expansive identity?”
  • “Which beliefs and values am I carrying that may need revisiting?”
• Introduces the three “possible selves”: hoped-for, feared, and expected selves.
  • After major change, feared selves often dominate; we must proactively open our imagination to new hoped-for selves.

Notable Strategy: “Moral Elevation”

• Witnessing others’ moral beauty (selflessness, resilience) makes us believe more is possible for ourselves.
  • “It cracks open our own imagination about what we might be capable of.” (Dr. Shankar, [33:50])
• Reading fiction can serve as an “identity laboratory” for experimenting with new selves.

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8. Practical Techniques for Realizing Change

[36:34 – 39:48]

• It’s one thing to imagine new possible selves; motivation and action are the next step.
• Dr. Shankar uses and recommends “temptation bundling”—pairing difficult tasks with immediate rewards and reserving those rewards exclusively for that context.
  • “I was only allowed to eat from the candy bowl when I was in a deep writing session... Over time, you start to look forward to the thing because of the fun treat.” (Dr. Shankar, [38:26])

Quote:

“Our long-term goals… they don't deliver super immediate rewards. That’s why these smaller treats can be really effective.”
— Dr. Maya Shankar ([39:21])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Change as Apocalypse and Revelation:

  “Apocalypse comes from the Greek word apokalypsis, which means revelation … change can upend us, but it can also reveal things to us.”
  — Dr. Maya Shankar ([03:12])

• On Uncertainty:

  “We are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance.”
  — Dr. Maya Shankar ([08:19])

• On Identity:

  “Just because I lost the violin didn’t mean I lost what led me to love it in the first place.”
  — Dr. Maya Shankar ([13:17])

• On Denial:

  “Denial is nature's way of giving us only as much as we can handle in any given moment.”
  — Dr. Maya Shankar ([21:03])

• On Moral Elevation:

  “It cracks open our own imagination about what we might be capable of.”
  — Dr. Maya Shankar ([33:50])

• On Temptation Bundling:

  “Importantly, you have to deny yourself access to the immediately rewarding activity in every other context so that it becomes uniquely paired with the hard activity.”
  — Dr. Maya Shankar ([38:16])

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Event | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------| | 01:41 | Introduction of Olivia’s story, change as revelation | | 06:54 | The illusion of control discussion | | 10:25 | Daily practice and the “end of history illusion” | | 11:52 | How malleable is identity over time? | | 15:46 | Role of faith/spirituality in navigating upheaval | | 20:26 | Immediate strategies after upheaval | | 26:29 | Revisiting beliefs and childhood conditioning | | 31:14 | Self-reflection, possible selves, and moral elevation| | 38:03 | Temptation bundling technique explained |

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Closing Takeaways

• Change, while painful, can be revealing and transformative if we are open to reevaluating our identities, beliefs, and values.
• Practical strategies—like self-affirmation, embracing denial in the short term, and “temptation bundling”—offer hope and agency amid upheaval.
• Proactively reflecting on possible selves, seeking inspiration in moral elevation and fiction, and combining motivation science with lived wisdom, we can adapt and even flourish when life makes other plans.

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The Other Side of Change by Dr. Maya Shankar is discussed throughout as a resource for navigating these transitions.
“Don’t wait for the bad thing to happen—reflect on your identity, beliefs, and possible selves now.”
— Dr. Maya Shankar ([32:30])

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the MyBodyGreen podcast. I'm Jason Wakab, founder and co CEO.

[B]

Of MyBodyGreen and your host.

[C]

This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes. Us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives but are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free [e-mail] Spotify greenlight.com Spotify.

[A]

What do you do when life doesn't just throw.

[B]

You a curveball, but completely changes the.

[A]

Path you thought you were on?

[B]

Because sooner or later, all of us face a moment when that plan falls apart.

[A]

A diagnosis we didn't see coming. A dream that quietly ends. A future that suddenly looks like nothing. What we imagined Today's guest is someone who spent her career studying exactly what happens next. Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist, former founder and chair of the White House Behavioral Science team, and the creator and host of the award winning podcast A Slight Change of Plans. And now she's the author of a powerful new book, the Other side of Change. Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans. In today's show, we dive into what science and lived experience can teach us about navigating upheaval. We'll explore how unexpected change can act as a form of revelation, why our sense of control shatters during life's hardest moments, and how to rebuild an identity that's resilient when roles, labels or dreams fall away. If you've ever asked yourself, why did this happen to me? Or wondered who you might become on the other side of a major life.

[B]

Shift, this show is for you. So in Chapter one, the Story of Olivia. Wow, you really know how to start a book. You've captured my attention fully with the Story of Olivia. Can you walk us through?

[D]

First of all, thanks so much for having me, Jason. Olivia was a early 20 something college student when she experienced a severe brainstem stroke that left her with a condition called Locked In Syndrome. And when you have Locked In Syndrome, it means that your consciousness is fully preserved. You think and feel the same thoughts and have the same emotions as before, but you have no voluntary muscle control over any of the muscles in your body, except for the muscles that control your eyes. So the only way that you can communicate with the outside world is by.

[B]

Blinking diving bell on the butterfly. There was a film. The real story.

[D]

Exactly. Jean, Dominique, Bobby. Yeah, exactly. That is what she experienced as a.

[B]

It's torture. It's torture. If I think about torture, that would be it.

[D]

This is a lot of people's worst nightmare. It would be my worst nightmare. You are in a literal prison because you. Again, it's not like the consciousness is compromised in any way. You are fully Jason. I'm fully Maya, But I can. I don't have any portals for communicating with the world around me other than my eyes. And so Olivia wakes up in this state, and what I found so shocking about her story is what being locked in revealed to her about who she was and mental states and perspectives that were potentially holding her back. So one of the themes that emerges in my book, the Other side of Change, is that change can serve as revelation. So when a bad thing happens to us, it can feel like a personal apocalypse, right? Like the world that we knew and had grown comfortable with is no longer available to us. And there's something interesting about the word apocalypse, which is that it comes from the Greek word apokalypsis. And apokalypsis does mean revelation. And so I share this etymology because it is instructive. Change can upend us, but it can also reveal things to us. Sometimes or most of the time, we go about our lives sort of thinking we have a good understanding of who we are, but at the end of the day, it's based on a pretty limited set of data points that we've happened to collect over the course of our lives based on the random, arbitrary experiences that we've happened to undergo. And it is sometimes a massive change, right? The anvil falling out of the deep blue sky that reveals something to us that had previously been hidden from view. Or it's the new stresses or constraints of our new environment that allows us to see something in us that was not that visible to us before. And so, for Olivia, she actually only really registers the gravity of her situation when her boyfriend's family comes to visit. And that's because for much of Olivia's life, she was a pathological people pleaser, okay? She desperately wanted the approval and affection of others. Growing up, she went to a wealthy private school. Her parents were very middle class. She never really fit in. She was bullied a lot, and she never felt like she had her boyfriend's family's approval. And when she comes in, she has to confront for the first time that she cannot curate a version of herself for these people in order to Gain their approval. And by the way, like Olivia's story is extreme. But most of us can resonate with this, right? Most of us want to create a version of ourselves for other people that is palatable, that is lovable, that is likable, that wins us favor, right, with, with, with other human beings and almost by brute force. Olivia, because she cannot curate an image of her, she has a ventilator strapped to her face. She can't be poised, she can't be charming, she can't make funny jokes. She has to confront the version of herself that is the most raw and authentic and vulnerable version of her in this new state. And the details are what obviously make her story so incredible. But over time, as she witnesses her care team fall in love with her for who she really is, she has to engage in a kind of self acceptance that she never thought was possible and to start to love herself. And what I find so heartening about Olivia's story is that at the outset of her change, she was absolutely resolute that the only way she would ever feel happy and peaceful and worthy in this world is if she made a full and complete recovery. And while her recovery was astounding, it was not full, it was not complete. And she is now the happiest, most self assured version of herself, more than she ever thought possible. And I think that that is the power in change, right? It reveals things to us that are holding us back and then we can revisit those belief systems, right? We can renew our relationship with ourselves and our self identity and come out the other side stronger.

[B]

Such a powerful story. And I think something that comes to mind for me, you know, I'm a type A personality. I assume you are too.

[D]

Type A. Plus whatever the extreme version of type A is, I'm.

[B]

And there's so much, you know, you try to control as much as you can and the old. As you know, as I've gotten older, I also think about the illusion of control where there is a lot I can control. And you know, I don't believe in just laying back and leaving it up to the gods or the stars or whatever you believe in. You have to do the work. I think you have to put in maximum effort to be the best version of yourself and control what you can. But ultimately I think there's just an illusion. Like the reality is there's so much we don't control.

[D]

Correct. So what you're describing, the illusion of control, refers to the idea that we tend to wildly overestimate the degree to which we dictate the outcomes in our lives. And when I think about it, it makes a lot of sense that we evolved this way because if we didn't feel we had control over our lives, most of us would descend into a state of nihilism, right? We'd be like, why do we care about anything? Why do we work hard? The challenge though, is that the meaning and purpose we get from this illusion is threatened. And we can feel that illusion shattering when a big unexpected change comes our way that we simply aren't prepared for. And Olivia felt this. I certainly have felt this way so many times. Like you, Jason, I love having my hands firmly on the steering wheel. I like being in control. I like knowing how the story ends. In fact, one of my favorite research studies shows that we are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance of getting an electric shock. And it sounds wild. Why would we prefer to have a negative bad thing happen with certainty rather than grapple with any ambiguity? But I so resonate with this finding and it makes so much sense to me that this would be the case. And I think in many ways my goal with the other side of change was to help people reclaim whatever control still remained in their circumstances. Because, like, I'm a normal person, right? I'm not like a Buddhist. I'm not. I wish I had a more of a Buddhist philosophy, but I have not been able to detach myself from my world and have that kind of enlightenment, enlightenment that I would so aspire to have. And so I do want control still. And my goal with, with this book was to give people a guide. In fact, I call it a change survival kit, where they know what questions to ask, what thought experiments run, what science based techniques to use so that they can engage in the relevant mental reframes to see and think differently about their changes. Because when everything is swirling around us, it is actually quite comforting to feel like there are still some things that lie within our control.

[B]

So on that note, I still want to control what I can control. And one thing where I immediately go is, okay, I've got some homework. How do I work on this so that when upheaval happens, I am better prepared? So how do I control that part of not having control? What can we do on a daily basis?

[D]

Okay, well, the first thing I want to remind people of is that many of us fall prey to what's called the end of history illusion, which says that we fully Agree, we've changed considerably in the past. But if we were to ask ourselves, well, how much do we expect to change in the future? Most of us will say, oh, no, not at all. What you see is what you get. This is the finished product. So we have this false belief that the version of ourselves that we are right now in this moment is a version of us that's here to stay day, no more self growth, right? And so that is obviously an illusion. We are always changing. We are constantly a work in progress. And the reason why this is relevant for change is that we forget that the big changes in our lives can actually accelerate these internal shifts and transformations. What that means is at the outset of a change, if you are feeling very, very daunted and think you can't possibly tolerate what's up ahead, that you can't possibly bear it, there is reassurance in remembering that the person that you will become on the other side of change, the person who will actually have to navigate the full arc of this experience, will in fact be different from the person you are today. That person will have new values, new perspectives, new capabilities that the present day version of you does not have. So that's just like baseline reminder that people should have some hope.

[B]

How malleable are we there really? Like 25, 35, you know, is there a certain age where you know what maybe change is probably going to be?

[D]

It's a great question. We remain highly malleable when it comes to these sorts of dimensions. So our belief systems and our abilities, those can change profoundly over time. Now, let's say our personality, like our personality traits, those are less subject to change over time. But that's not what we need to have changed necessarily in order to endure a change better. So let me give you one concrete example of a value or belief change that has helped me a lot when I've been navigating the changes in my life. So, long story short, I had a very formative experience with change when I was a little kid. I was an aspiring concert violinist. I was studying at Juilliard. I had big dreams of becoming a professional. And then a hand injury ended my dreams overnight and I had to give them up. I remember Jason in that moment, not simply grieving the loss of the instrument, but also grieving the loss of myself in this deeper way. I sometimes think that we don't realize how much something has come to define us until we lose that thing. I had tethered my entire identity to being a violinist, such that when I lost it, I felt Like I was not fully intact, right? Fast forward a few decades. I'm now confronting another challenge in my personal life. My husband and I had spent six, seven years trying to start a family. We're unsuccessful. We encountered heartbreaks and losses and disappointments. And I remember on the night of the second miscarriage with our surrogate, when we lost identical twin girls, I again felt in a. In a much deeper way, though, this fundamental threat to my identity, right? I remember thinking, this is the dream I've had since. This is the earliest identity I think I ever attached myself to. From the time I was three, I assumed that one day I would become a mom and have a family of my own, right? So one thought exercise we can all engage in, and I would urge your listeners to do this, whether they're in the throes of a change or not, is to learn to attach your identity not simply to what you do, to the roles or labels you have, but to why you do those things or to why you want those things. So let me make that more concrete. When I asked myself what it was that I loved about the violin. Sure, I loved the physicality of playing it, but at its core, I loved the fact that the violin allowed me to foster deep emotional connections with people, right? Music was a vehicle through which I could feel close to my fellow humans. Just because I lost the violin didn't mean that I lost what led me to love it in the first place. And so if I could anchor my identity to that, to my why, oh, I'm the type of person who loves emotional connection, then the exercise becomes, okay, well, I can't play the violin anymore, but how else can I find ways to express this part of myself? And it turns out that subconsciously I've been drawn to spaces that are all about human connection, right? As a cognitive neuroscientist and cognitive psychologist, I study the science of human connection in my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. In writing my book, where I was doing interviews for years, it was all about forging deep emotional connection. And so that why, if you can identify it, whether it's having an outlet for creative expression, liking to see yourself get better at something, giving back to your community, showing empathy for others, whatever the why is, it can be a soft landing for people when life makes other plans for you and can help you build a more resilient, almost a fortress that can buttress you in those moments. And so as I'm navigating my present day change, I'm trying to ask myself, well, what were you craving from parenthood? Right. What were you craving from motherhood? And if you don't end up having a family, what are other ways that you can express those same desires in life? Right. And so I have found that to be a very, very helpful reframe for me that has made me feel whole even when life has threatened my big dreams.

[B]

You know, you mentioned belief system. One would think that being religious or spiritual or having faith plays a significant role in one's ability to navigate through a people versus, you know, there's the classic question, why did this happen to me? Which I think everyone immediately goes there to quickly pivoting to, what can I learn from this? Like, what's the bigger picture? What is the universe? You know, God's or the universe's plan, like, for me. So, like, can we talk? Because in my view, that's at least in my experience too, my faith has gotten me through a lot of difficult times in my life.

[D]

It's such a wonderful, interesting philosophical question. I envy those with religious faith. I'm actually agnostic and I don't have that. I don't have that thing to fall back on when things happen. And in many ways I've written a secular guide for people. So I hope that people have other mechanisms to navigate, to navigate their big changes. Right. It's wonderful that you have your faith to fall back on. For me personally, I don't have that if I'm just being honest. Right. And so I think my spiritual life is defined by my love for others and the love that I receive back. Like, that's my working model of existence and what brings life meaning. Right. And I do find a lot of strength in those spaces. And I also think that my soft landing is human psychology. I feel very empowered by the fact that we can have control over the way that our minds process information. You know, there are these mantras, right? You can't control what happens to you, but you can control your reaction. And it can sound like a platitude. And actually I write in my book that when I heard that after the second miscarriage, I was like, this is not helpful to me. Like, someone give me a roadmap. How do I actually think and feel differently about my situation? And that's why I took this more empirical approach. But you know, you'll notice, Jason, in my book, like, I don't just call upon research from psychology or neuroscience. I also call upon wisdom from the ancients and from philosophers and from more spiritual spaces. Because I do think having a well rounded approach to confronting change is often helpful. At the same time, there is, there's a story actually towards the end of the book where a woman gets fixated on the idea of this negative, unexpected event in her life happening for a reason. She's just convinced that it happened. She inadvertently caused harm to someone else. And because she believes the world is fair, because she believes things happen for a reason, she goes down this really terrible self sabotaging path where she believes that she must be evil inside if she were to will this bad outcome into the world. And that shows kind of the flip side of trying to find too much meaning in things because actually her way out of her, you know, closing herself off to the world and thinking she was a danger to everyone around her came from loosening her belief in a just world and recognizing that actually sometimes things happen just cause there's no deeper meaning in those things and there's no why it happened and it's just about how you carve your path moving forward. And so that was a really fascinating inquiry because yeah, you might think like just believing in fundamental fairness is, is overall a good way to live, right? In some ways it is, but it can backfire.

[B]

Yeah, agree. Look, I think what I would say is I think most people are good, I think the, the world is good, but sometimes bad things happen to good people. And with that said, I think at a certain point you, what I like to say is put things and lock them up in the, I don't know, drawer, put it in the I don't know why drawer and just try to leave it there. Easy. Again, very easy to. To say a little bit harder in practice. With all that said, can you walk us through what should we do when upheaval happens? Whether it's a breakup, a job loss, a diagnosis, like walk us through those steps that we should take when we're faced with that.

[E]

Rei Co Op knows when you're up at 4.30am on a Saturday for a long run and you're actually excited. Not everyone gets it, but we do. At rei, we're here for people who get outside gear up for your next run in store [e-mail] it's hard to.

[D]

Capture all of that in one answer because obviously that's the premise of the entire book. So there's so many strategies. I mean, there's dozens of strategies that I outline in the Other side of Change. But what I will do is share a couple of strategies that people can use in the immediate aftermath of change to help reduce certain things that can hold us back. Like for Example feelings of denial or those ruminative spirals we get into when we are feeling a lot of anxiety. So one thing that was really interesting that I discovered in my research is that denial actually has benefits in the short term. And I. And I hadn't known that before writing this book, but there's research showing that, you know, what is denial? Well, as the grief reacher, as grief researchers have said, it is nature's way of giving us only as much as we can handle in any given moment. Right. It is a psychological immune response. And so they have done some studies showing that people had better short term, had better short term outcomes when they had some degree of denial. So one, have a little bit of compassion. If you or someone else is dealing with a seismic change and you don't feel like you're able to confront the full enormity of what you're going through, that's okay. And actually, in the short term, it can give you some necessary resilience and a feeling of hope. In the longer term, though, denial is not super healthy and can backfire. So what can you do? Well, there's a really effective strategy called a self affirmation exercise. And this is where you write down all of the identities that you value in your life, all the things that bring your life meaning and purpose that are not threatened by the change. So, for example, if you're having a really big rough patch at work, or let's say you've lost your job, you might emphasize your spiritual life. If you're going through a really difficult divorce, you might emphasize that you have a really loving community around you or that you, you know, love being head of the PTA or on the new pickleball club that you just joined. Okay. And I actually saw this work wonders in my own life. So when we got the news of the second miscarriage, I remember that day. Can I swear on this show?

[B]

Of course.

[D]

Okay. That day was a shit show, Jason, because earlier in the day, we had seen two healthy beating hearts. Then hours later, our surrogate says that she thinks she's miscarrying. And this, by the way, was the second time that this whole thing had happened. And so we were totally stricken with grief. And I remember that night laying under the covers in my bed, just like, not only feeling totally empty, like I mentioned before, but just hopeless. Right, because you mentioned you're type A. I'm type A too. I'm used to, like, working my way through hard problems, to hustling my way around barriers in the fertility space. There's no such thing as, quote, trying harder. The universe doesn't care how much you want this outcome. Right. Things will just happen as they happen. And so it is one of the things. It's one of those spaces where it's the ultimate surrender in many ways. Right? And my husband comes in, Jimmy, and he's a software engineer, and he unknowingly engaged me in one of these self affirmation exercises. He said, maya, let's just name a couple things we're grateful for. And I remember in that moment being like, bro, no, I'm not doing this toxic positivity nonsense, okay? You go over there with your Instagram tiles and you do this exercise. I'm just going to lay here and feel bad for us, okay? But, you know, it was coming from such an earnest place and Jimmy was looking so sweet, so I was like, fine, I'll just do this and maybe it'll get him off my case. And so I naturally started to focus on the parts of my life that were not threatened by this change we were going through. I said, well, I'm so grateful that I'm an aunt to my six nieces and nephews. I love that I get to host a slight change of plans. Like, how cool is it that I get to talk to amazing people from my closet in my apartment? That's incredible. I love my zoom workouts with my trainer Matt. We gossip about the Bachelor and Love is Blind, and it, like, really lifts up my day to get that endorphin rush. And I swear to God, Jason, like, as this list flowed out of me, I felt something magical happen. I instantly zoomed out on my life. I realized that in my single minded pursuit of this goal of becoming a mom, for years and years and years, I had lost sight of how otherwise rich and multidimensional my life was. Right. I had been wearing blinders, I had tunnel vision, and it had prevented me from seeing that. Yes, this change was happening. And one of my dreams I was seeing kind of dissipate, but I was still whole. My life still had so much meaning and purpose. There was so much reason to still wake up the next day and feel optimistic. And, you know, did I go to bed, like, feeling great that night? Of course not. But did I feel, did I go to bed feeling more intact? Absolutely. And did I feel like, to the question of denial, I was more able to register my reality because it didn't feel like a complete threat on my existence? Yes. So that's one technique. I have a couple others.

[B]

Thank you for sharing. You Know, fertility is brutal. Personally, we went through the ringer on this. I think my wife Colleen had, I want to say, three miscarriages, eight failed IVF transfers, numerous canceled embryo transfers, all while running a company together. At the end, we had, you know, we're blessed with two beautiful daughters. But my wife has talked about this like, you know, struggling with fertility is often dark, lonely family and friends don't know what to say. They want to help or they're afraid to say anything. And then you get all this unsolicited feedback. And then like there's this, you know, you know, am I doing something right? Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong? Like, it's, it's brutal.

[D]

So I, I, you have shared, I mean, just saying the guilt thing, I felt that in spades. I instinctively just wanted to blame myself for this. Oh my God, should we not have ordered the six week ultrasound? Even though I'm a scientist, my brain wasn't being rational in those moments, you know, because you feel like you're a failure in some way. And I so resonate with that emotional space. It's so interesting when I look back on that time, it taught me such a valuable lesson. You know, we talked about belief systems, and part of my journey in this space has actually been revisiting beliefs that I've carried from childhood that were worthy of revision, that I never thought to examine or evaluate. So in everyday life, we're not waking up every morning thinking, what belief or idea should I reconsider today? We're busy. We have lives, we have responsibilities. And it's easy to think that the things that we believe to be true about the world are based on deliberate conscious reasoning. But of course, the large majority aren't. They're based on childhood influences, pop culture, what society told us, what a teacher told us, what a friend told us. Our belief systems are shaped by so many forces and influences that don't actually always reflect the truth or, you know, how we would have arrived at our beliefs had we again sat down with a piece of paper and written down arguments for believing X or Y. And one of the stories in my book, actually, it's about a woman named Ingrid who feels a lot of shame around her family's heritage, around the indigenous practices that they engaged in. And she actually has a biking accident that leaves her with amnesia and the slate is wiped clear. And she is now, as her memories are returning, revisiting those stories with a new lens because the memory, the stories returns before the memory that she was ashamed of the Stories returned. So it's this fascinating tale of her seeing her stories anew before she has the shame lens imposed on it. And by the time the memory of the shame comes back, it's too late. She's already developed this beautiful, rich relationship with those stories. And the reason I included Ingrid's story is it's a good reminder that our beliefs are not these sacred, immutable truths. Right? They are flimsy entities that don't always have a strong basis. It turns out that for Ingrid, when she was a little kid, her mom had cautioned her about sharing these stories, not because she was ashamed of them, her mom was very proud of the stories, but because she didn't want Ingrid to face discrimination or violence from people who didn't understand. But little Ingrid's mind had interpreted that as well. If I'm being told I can't share this, it probably means this thing is bad. And so that's an example of, like, how we can just take messages in and like, not really evaluate them. And for me, what I realized is I had been taught for whatever reason from the time I was little. You know, maybe it was growing up in an Indian American family and hearing the conversations between my aunties and other influences that most of my worth as a woman in this society would come from becoming a parent. Like, that is where I was told that my life's meaning would come from. And if I didn't achieve that goal, I would never live a full, satisfying life. And obviously that's a problematic message in a lot of ways, but I had internalized that. I really had, because when I envisioned my life without a family, I imagine a grayscale life, like it lost all of its color. And one of the very freeing exercises I'm engaging in in real time is to ask myself whether I should believe that or whether I should believe that of course I can live a happy, full life without having children, you know, and again, this is just a call to action for everyone to just ask themselves, like, what are the beliefs that I'm carrying in my life that are. Are self limiting in some way, that a change in my life can inspire me to reevaluate with a new perspective.

[B]

That's a profound question because I think you're hitting on the watch outs we all have with our own identity. What do I really believe? What do I. What do I really value? What imprint has been left on me from my childhood? Or. And as a parent, you know, I think about unfortunately, like, oh, God, like what's imprint? Am I doing like what have I screwed up recently? You know this, Is this a quote unquote core memory now what, what just happened? Or no, I'll go to, I'll go to AI like no, is this a core memory? Do I have to worry about. But so, so walk us through. I think that was a very profound question. Like what, what are some other questions people should be asking themselves?

[D]

So to summarize, right, what we talked about before. So how am I defining my self identity? Can I build a more robust, expansive identity that is more resilient in the face of change, that helps me prevent long term feelings of denial and helps me figure out a path moving forward? Another thing to think about is what is my belief system, what are my values? And we tend to also hold our values as sacred. But as you'll see in many of the stories I share in the books, many of the people I interviewed actually change their value system over time. And by the way, one of my goals of this book too was to get people to do these exercises, even if they're not in the throes of change. Like don't wait for a bad thing to happen. I want them to get ahead of it so that you can learn from my mistakes and not actually have to go through the hard part, but hopefully just get the returns, get the joyful parts. The other thing people can think through is whenever life changes, we. There's a concept in psychology called possible cell. So we are constantly generating versions of ourselves in our minds and they come in three buckets. There are hoped for selves which reflect our dreams and aspirations. There are feared selves which reflect our anxieties and worries. And then there are our expected selves which reflect just what we think is most likely to happen. So yes, I would love to be a singer songwriter like Taylor Swift, but Most likely in 5 years I will still be a cognitive neuroscientist. Okay, great. So what happens when a big change occurs? Is that often like a big unexpected negative change is that all these hoped for selves disappear from sight and a lot of feared selves start to emerge. Right. Based on expectations. We have stereotypes, our own experiences that we've had. So we might believe that there are certain futures that are destiny for people who have been in prison, for people who are college dropouts, for people who are full time caregivers, for widows. Right. We just have our minds go to places and we think this is the kind of future I'm going to have now that I am X. But we know from research that our brains could needlessly constrain ourselves in terms of what's actually available to us. And one way to crack open our imagination about futures that are available to us in at these inflection points is to experience what's called moral elevation. So moral elevation is that warm, fuzzy feeling in our chest that we get when we witness someone else's extraordinary actions, their moral beauty. So that might be someone's amazing selflessness or courage or resilience or kindness or ability to forgive. You name it. If it's an amazing human trait, it will inspire moral elevation. But importantly, moral elevation doesn't just make us feel good. It actually rewires our brains. It changes our brains, because when we witness someone else doing something that defies our understanding of what humans are capable of, it cracks open our own imagination about what we might be capable of. And that opens up all of these possibilities of future selves that we didn't think were on the table another way. So, for example, in the book, I talk about this guy, Dwayne, who was sentenced to nine years in adult prison for carjacking he committed when he was 16. And he was super fearful of who he might become behind bars. And it's only through an encounter of moral elevation that he has in prison with a fellow prisoner where he sees him violating all these stereotypes he had around what a prisoner is like. So this guy he encounters cares for the younger prisoners. He teaches them how to box. And Dwayne had thought, oh, you have to be ruthlessly self interested in prison. This guy wakes up an hour early before count time and does 250 push ups. He irons his prison clothes, right? Dwayne says, this man was making a point to say, this is who I am, right? He was transcending what Dwayne thought was possible for a prisoner. And it was with that empowered mindset that when Dwayne encounters a book of poetry and reads a poem that speaks to the experience of young boys in the prison system, Dwayne for the first time thinks, well, maybe I could be a poet. I can't care for the younger boys by teaching them how to box because I'm not strong and that's not my lane. But I can record and dignify their experiences and fast forward. Duane today is a Yale law School graduate, MacArthur Genius winner. He writes some of the most stirring poetry I've ever heard. And it's all thanks to this one encounter of moral beauty. And so I would urge everyone to try to invite these moments into their lives because they can actually be Life changing. Another thing that people can do, actually, is to read fiction. So researchers call fiction an identity laboratory. And that's because when you're reading about someone else, the mind effortlessly blends that character and you into a single entity. And you're able to freely try on new ways of being or new personality types, or take risks or make decisions that you might not have felt the courage to do in real life. And so it's in this really rich exploratory space. And so those are just two examples. Outline a bunch of other techniques you can use to try to conjure up new and more hopeful possible selves.

[A]

Fascinating.

[B]

In closing, I'm curious what practices yielded the greatest ROI for you personally?

[D]

Ooh, that's a great question. I just feel so much wiser as a result of the people that I had the great fortune of interviewing. I mean, this book was such a journey for me, Jason, because I was writing it and interviewing people repeatedly over many years. So I was witnessing their evolution. And then simultaneous to that, I was undergoing my own evolution, Right. Going through this whole challenge around parenthood. And so it was this very transformative process for me. I think the techniques that have been most useful to me have been, well, it's one thing to generate new possible selves. It's another thing to actually realize those selves. And in the book, I outline a bunch of motivational strategies that people can use to actually achieve their goals. And I basically leverage these techniques each and every day. Because if you're trying to be a better version of yourself, if you're trying to change certain habits of mind or to become, you know, new, new versions of you that you just never thought possible, you have to have the mental discipline to actually put in the work. And I learned a lot from talking to folks through the book, but then also just from the field of cognitive science and being a cognitive scientist that have helped me actually put those dreams and desires into practice.

[B]

Can you leave us with one technique before we wrap?

[D]

This is a pretty easy one to implement, and I have used it religiously, so it's called temptation bundling. And temptation bundling simply means pairing the hard thing you're trying to do. So maybe it's go for more runs or do a tough writing session with an immediately rewarding activity. But importantly, you have to deny yourself access to the immediately rewarding activity in every other context so that it becomes uniquely paired with the hard activity. So what happens in the mind is that you start unconsciously pairing these two things together so that you look forward to Doing the hard thing. So I'll give you a very. Apparently I'm a kid, but when it came to writing my book, I would put a bowl of candy on my desk. No joke. I was only allowed to eat from the candy bowl when I was in a deep writing session. And I could never have candy outside of that space. And over time, it's like, you know, I'm kind of looking forward to the coffee chews, but you can't have them any other time. And I use this when it comes to working out. So I'll save my favorite songs for when I'm working out, favorite TV shows for when I'm doing laundry, folding laundry, or doing the dishes. Like, I just do these temptation bundles constantly throughout my life. And it's funny, it makes me a potentially undesirable wife because my husband and I were cooking dinner and I remember he's like, oh, let's play the latest Casey Musgraves album. And I was like, no, no, no, no, that's a workout album. We can't listen to that. That's part of my temptation bundling. But it's funny how the brain, you know, will slowly just start to look forward to the thing because it's like, hey, I get this like fun treat. And oftentimes, by the way, our long term goals, right? When it comes to, in my case, writing a book, getting stronger, they don't deliver super immediate rewards. And that's why these smaller treats can be really effective.

[B]

Well, I think you gave us all a little bit of ammunition for manipulating our children.

[D]

And yeah, they can't have that thing any other time. That's the insight.

[B]

We'll close there. Maya, thank you so much. The book's amazing. The Other side of Change. We'll link to it in the show notes. But thank you.

[D]

Thank you so much for having me, Jason.

[F]

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[D]

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