Maya Shankar
speaker
1,518 appearances
8 recordings
7 series
first heard Oct 2025
last heard 5 Jul
Maya Shankar’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 5.
Appearances
And that breeds what psychologists call psychological distance.
So it helps us see our situation from new vantage points and perspectives.
The other strategy is to just spend five minutes today engaging in a self-affirmation exercise.
This is where you write down all the traits that you value about yourself, all the identities you value that are not threatened by the change you're going through.
So if you're having a rough go of it at work, you might mention your membership on the pickleball team in your local community or whatever.
If you're struggling in a relationship, you might focus on your spiritual life.
The idea behind this exercise is that when you articulate all, you know, as Simo was talking about with anchors, right, when you articulate all the things that define your life, then when a change threatens one area, you don't feel entirely unmoored.
you know that there are still so many parts of you that are still very alive and robust and steady during these moments.
And it helps you zoom out from whatever loss you're experiencing and to see that you're living a very rich and multidimensional life.
I did this in the throes of the pregnancy losses where so much of my attention was on trying to become a mom that I lost sight of all these other rich and beautiful identities I had.
And so I found that to be a very useful exercise.
Simo, over to you for the last minute.
Thank you so much, Simone.
It was such a pleasure.
Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now.
I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans.
We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.
Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans.
We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.
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