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SHIFT HAPPENS

SHIFT HAPPENS

Written by: Claudia Mahler
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 In SHIFT HAPPENS, host Claudia Mahler is curious about how women made it through turning points in their lives, and how they reflect back on them. SHIFT HAPPENS creates a space for women to pause for a moment and to share, to listen and to feel heard. A space where we connect and talk about life and its pivotal moments. About the highs and lows, the challenges and the joys. About what has been gained, and about how enriching change can be. Some things we hear are heavy, some are funny; they all put me in awe, as they are honest and raw testimonies of life. Too often, women just get on with it — the everyday, the duties, the expectations. Too often, life-altering events are being swept under the rug, as the day must go on. This podcast is a little window into the world. I invited women from all walks of life, and various counties, countries, and continents. I am in conversation with authors, business owners, artists, life coaches, and change-makers in the areas of academia, wellness, the arts, HR, beauty. All these women have their individual life stories, and much wisdom to share. Lots to learn from all of them. Social Sciences
Episodes
  • How To Manage Women's Health With Dr. Molly McBride

    How To Manage Women's Health With Dr. Molly McBride
    Nov 19 2025

    In today's episode - the finale of Season 5 - I am in conversation with luminary and renowned New York based gynecologist , Dr. Molly McBride.

    She shares how amazing it is to pivot later in life, how she enjoys being 60, and we talk about menopause - how it was for herself (tough) and how she helps women to manage this often complex time in life (peri-menopause, menopause, post-menopause).

    Dr. McBride is a passionate advocate for women's health and openly says, that she is disappointed in many of her colleagues, who simply still avoid to gain deeper knowledge about menopause and it's possible health consequences for women - from brain fog to osteoporosis, from "not feeling myself" to cardio-vascular diseases.

    Dr. McBride offers cutting edge services - and stresses the importance of listening to her patients, and validating their often still dismissed symptoms. She is a strong proponent of HRT - where applicable.

    She just relocated her practice to the Flat Iron district in Manhattan. And - being usually a step ahead, now also offers individual health plans for men.

    Enjoy this lively and informative episode. Listen in, feel heard - and I'll be back in the begining of the New Year with Season 6! Happy Holidays.

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    SHIFT HAPPENS’ Season 5 is supported by London based jewellery brand Tilly Sveaas. Its founder, Tilly Sveaas creates gorgeous, timeless pieces. Guess who is wearing it too: noone less then Taylor Swift. Go to www.tillysveaas.co.uk and use my code SHIFTHAPPENS to get 15% off.

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    To learn more about my guest Dr. Molly McBride, please visit her website SLAN NYC

    Find her practice: SLÀN NYC, 54 West 21st Street, Suite 910, New York, NY 10010

    Visit her Instagram (with great insights!): @slannyc

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    To learn more about SHIFT HAPPENS, click here

    To learn more about Claudia's business Curated Conversations and her Salons in New York, Zurich and Berlin, click here

    You can also connect with Claudia on Instagram @shifthappens.podcast and LinkedIn at ClaudiaMahlerNYC

    This podcast is created, produced and hosted by Claudia Mahler.
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    39 mins
  • How To Practice "Sympathetic Happiness" With Helen Schulman

    How To Practice "Sympathetic Happiness" With Helen Schulman
    Nov 5 2025
    Helen Schulman is an acclaimed novelist, screenwriter, short story writer and New York Times Bestselling author. In my 40th episode, we talk about the concept of "sympathetic happiness", as she shares her impactful encounter with the Dalai Lama many years back. She was visiting Portland, Oregon for the first time, exploring the city, when she basically stumbled over His Holiness: he was giving a free public audience in Pioneer Square, Helen had never heard him speak before so she stuck around. His topic was "sympathetic happiness". The idea being that if you can join in the happiness of others, your own happiness will multiply. His deceptively simple and profound theories really struck her - she had been teaching grad school for quite awhile by then, and realised that if she could be really happy for her students' successes, if their joy became her joy her life would become fuller and richer and well, happier. She always felt happy for them, but now she could focus on also being happy through them. It was a small good thing that happened to her that day, but it has really affected the rest of her life and her work as an educator.Once Helen understood this concept, it made it easier and more compelling for her to build programs that she thought would help her students reach their dreams, and also, pragmatically, help them find agents and editors, and outside work.Helen also talks about her new book "Fools for Love" that was just published in July during this recording, and she had a book launch at Rizzoli's in New York City. It's a collection of short stories, that she edited and interconnected so that they relate to each other. She also shares how she learned how to waltz from her grandmother, and how she relearned it with her husband last year in a dance class in a beautiful castle in the South of Germany (she wrote a piece about this for the Condé Nast Traveller).HELEN SCHULMAN is a novelist, screenwriter and short story writer. A collection of stories, Fools for Love, has been published by Knopf in July 2025. Prior to publication, the title story was published in The Atlantic. Her newest novel, Lucky Dogs, was one of Oprah Daily’s top ten novels of 2023. She is also the author of the novels Come With Me (San Francisco Chronicle ten best books of 2019) This Beautiful Life (a New York Times and International Best Seller), A Day At The Beach, P.S., (made into a motion picture starring Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne, Paul Rudd and Marcia Gay Harden, for which Professor Schulman has a screenwriting credit), The Revisionist and Out Of Time (Barnes and Noble Discovery), and the short story collection Not A Free Show. She co-edited the anthology Wanting A Child with Jill Bialosky. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in such places as Vanity Fair, Time, Vogue, GQ, The New York Times Book Review, A Public Space and The Paris Review. She is the Fiction Chair at The Writing Program at The New School where she is a tenured Professor of Writing. She is also the Executive Director of WriteOnNYC.com. A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, Professor Schulman has been a NYFA Fellow, Sundance Fellow, Aspen Words Fellow, a Tennessee Williams Fellow (Columbia University) and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize.####On another note: I am so proud and excited to announce that SHIFT HAPPENS’ Season 5 is supported by London based jewellery brand Tilly Sveaas. Its founder, Tilly Sveaas creates gorgeous, timeless pieces that have been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, The Times, The New York Times etc. … Her jewellery is for women of all ages. Guess who is wearing it too: noone less then Taylor Swift. Go to www.tillysveaas.co.uk and use my code SHIFTHAPPENS to get 15% off. To learn more about my guest Helen Schulman, please visit her Wikipedia page.To learn more about SHIFT HAPPENS, click here To learn more about Claudia's business Curated Conversations and her Salons in New York, Zurich and Berlin, click hereYou can also connect with Claudia on Instagram @shifthappens.podcast and LinkedIn at ClaudiaMahlerNYCThis podcast is created, produced and hosted by Claudia Mahler.
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    33 mins
  • How To Transition From East To West With Cornelia Thomsen

    How To Transition From East To West With Cornelia Thomsen
    Oct 22 2025

    In today's episode, East-German born, New York based artist, Cornelia Thomsen shares her story of finding her way into becoming an artist. She gives insights into her socialistic upbringing in a small village near Dresden, and how she managed to get accepted to be trained as a porcelain painter at famous Meissen Porcelain Manufactory.

    Cornelia (a humble powerhouse!) shares how she had believed that the world she lived in would be it, until the Fall of the Berlin Wall, when she stormed into the big world and embraced it. Her worldview became liberated by the discovery of abstract art.

    Cornelia talks about resilience being her super power, and how she persistently worked as an artists, went to art school near Frankfurt (with two small children at home), moved to New York and started a gallery together with her husband (and meanwhile 3 children). Cornelia and I have known each other for almost 20 years, sharing experiences and emotions, raising children in Manhattan - an East German and a West German united on neutral grounds.

    Her work has been shown internationally, and is in collections of world renowned museums like LACMA in LA, museum of fine arts in Houston, the Parrasch Art Museum in Watermill, New York and others.

    AND: In August, just briefly after recording this episode, her newest series of works, the complete sets of Golden Ratio Series have been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

    #### On another note: I am so proud and excited to announce that SHIFT HAPPENS’ Season 5 is supported by London based jewellery brand Tilly Sveaas. Its founder, Tilly Sveaas creates gorgeous, timeless pieces that have been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, The Times, The New York Times etc. … Her jewellery is for women of all ages. Guess who is wearing it too: noone less then Taylor Swift. Go to www.tillysveaas.co.uk and use my code SHIFTHAPPENS to get 15% off.

    To learn more about my guest Cornelia Thomsen, please visit her social media page:

    Instagram: @corneliathomsenart

    Instagram: @thomsengallery

    Website: Cornelia Thomsen

    To learn more about SHIFT HAPPENS, click here

    To learn more about Claudia's business Curated Conversations and her Salons in New York, Zurich and Berlin, click here

    You can also connect with Claudia on Instagram @shifthappens.podcast and LinkedIn at ClaudiaMahlerNYC

    This podcast is created, produced and hosted by Claudia Mahler.
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    36 mins
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