Ainsley

“That night, I began to understand that there’s a difference between someone actively trying to harm you and someone’s specific constellation of shortcomings being harmful to you. It’s the difference between an earthquake, inescapable and unanticipated, tearing everything you’ve built down and stepping into the path of a tornado even as the sirens ring out their warning.”
― Lilly Dancyger, Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger

“My anger signals the presence of injustice. His tends to flare in the presence of personal insult. Rather than being shameful, my rage is noble.”
― Lilly Dancyger, Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger

“The silencing and the invisibility lead to anger, and the anger leads to sickness. Poverty and ignorant employers lead to anger, and the anger leads to sickness. Insurance bureaucracy and the lack of social and community accommodation lead to anger, and the anger leads to sickness. The whole cycle is broken; the body learns to lean into that constant surge of stress hormones and negativity, and the body stays ill.”
― Lilly Dancyger, Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger

“Emotions are physiological cascades that want to complete their cycles, and they will complete those cycles when you allow them to; they want to be travelers, not residents. They want to move on. Let them. You may tremble or shake or cry or curl up in a ball. You may notice your body doing these things without your volition. Your body knows what to do, and it will do it as long as you sit calmly with it, as you would sit calmly beside a sick or grieving child.”
― Emily Nagoski, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life