80 Quotes by Emily Nagoski

Most of us have spent our whole lives being taught to believe everyone else's opinions about our bodies, rather than to believe what our own bodies are trying to tell us. For some of us, it's been so long since we listened to our bodies, we hardly know how to start understanding what they're trying to tell us, much less how to trust and believe what they're saying. To make matters worse, the more exhausted we are, the noisier the signal is, and the harder it is to hear the message.

This is what science can do for us, if we let it. If offers us an opportunity to lower our defenses and experience the ways that we are all connected.

About 10 to 20 percent of both men and women report an increase in their sexual interest when they're anxious or depressed. But a guy who wants sex more when he's anxious or depressed probably has less sensitive brakes. In contrast, a woman who wants sex more when she's anxious or depressed is likely to have a more sensitive accelerator.

All your body requires of you is that you turn toward it with kindness and compassion, with nonjudgment and plain-vanilla acceptance of all your contradictory emotions, beliefs, and longings.

What turns us on (or off) is learned from culture, in much the same way children learn vocabulary and accents from culture.

Dread is anxiety on steroids.

The moral of the story is: We thrive when we have a positive goal to move toward, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from.

....there was always a way to get through a difficulty. If you just keep swimming, you’ll find your way. And when your brain wants to give up because there’s no land in sight, you keep swimming, not because you’re certain swimming will take you where you want to go, but to prove to yourself that you can still swim.

If you're trying to do something where you will inevitably fail and be rejected repeatedly before you achieve your goal, then you will need a nonstandard relationship with winning, focusing on incremental goals.