Cognitive reappraisal is a method for altering emotional response through reinterpretation of the meaning associated with an event or thought. Shankar discusses cognitive reappraisal as one means to reduce distress amid upheaval while acknowledging the truth of what occurred.

This references the tendency to underestimate how much one’s personality, preferences, values, and priorities will change over time. Shankar uses this concept to show that people often assume their current pain, desires, or identity will remain far stabler than they actually will.

The illusion of control involves overestimating one’s power and ability to alter outcomes. Shankar references this concept to explain why unexpected events seem so destabilizing; they expose the extent to which individuals have limited control over most significant events.

The just world hypothesis is the (false) belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Shankar demonstrates that this fallacy encourages both self-blame and victim-blaming after tragedy because it leads people to attribute random suffering to individual acts or morality.

Moral elevation refers to the uplifting and inspiring feeling experienced when one witnesses someone else’s courageousness, good-heartedness, or integrity. Shankar utilizes this concept to describe how exposing oneself to aspirational levels of courage and goodness can expand one’s view of potential futures.

Possible selves are images of who one could become in the future (hoped for, feared, and expected). The possible selves concept is integral to the book’s argument that the process of adapting begins when one imagines a future self that has value and meaning.

Rumination is a repetitive cycle in which a person dwells on unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or possibilities. Shankar defines rumination as a mind trap that increases suffering by framing an unpleasant mental situation as complete and permanent.

Locked-in syndrome is a neurological condition where a person is awake and mentally active but unable to move anything but their eyes. Shankar used Olivia Lewis’s experience with locked-in syndrome to demonstrate how a crisis of identity and function can arise from extreme physical changes.

Self-affirmation is a psychological practice of focusing on values or qualities that remain important even when one area of life is threatened. In the book, self-affirmation helps explain how people can preserve a broader sense of self when change damages one role, ability, or future plan.