Esther Perel: The effects of trauma, the role of narratives in shaping our worldview, and why we need to accept uncomfortable emotions

The first thing I got which actually really came back very strongly during the pandemic this year was the notion that everything can disappear in a split second. Don't ever think that what you have is there to stay and is yours.

I don't understand the sentence that 'the purpose of a person's life is happiness.' Happiness cannot be a purpose; happiness is an outcome of multiple purposes for that matter. Happiness emerges out of something; it's not the goal.

On a cultural level, there's been a real push to see sex as a risk factor in America. Sex itself is the risk factor. Whereas, I think the European notion and the pubic health notion in Europe is that sex is a natural part of human development. Being irresponsible is a risk factor...

I think sexuality is a lens. It tells a story of the values, the behaviors, and the attitudes towards the body; towards pleasure; towards power; towards connection; towards the division of spirit and flesh, or mind and body, or all of those things.

What advantage is there to living longer if your relationships are poor and the quality of your relationships, therefore, determines the quality of your life?

I don't fundamentally believe that one can know oneself without knowing oneself in relationships to other.

You can't believe everything you think. You can't believe everything you feel. The mind is a very dangerous organ.

Ambivalence is the ability to hold both. I love you and I also have a lot of anger toward you, and those two are coexisting inside of me—rather than I split off one part, and then I attribute it somewhere else.

Basically, if you are a curious person in mental health and in psychotherapy per se, which is one practice of mental health, it is an endless, endless school.