Take Back Your Brain: How Sexist Thoughts Can Trap You-And How to Break Free

＂I freakin’ love Kara Loewentheil. If you’re a woman, there’s a reason why you’re not speaking up when you deserve to, why you’re picking apart everything you think is wrong with your body, and why you’re not in control of your money. You’ve internalized age-old messaging, and it’s time to interrupt that sh*t once and for all. In your hands is a playbook that teaches you how. Do not put it down.＂ -Mel Robbins, New York Times bestselling author

A manual for every woman who wants to stop endless negative self-talk, create unshakable confidence, and jump-start a life of joy and power. It all begins with your thoughts.

I never look good in tight skirts. I can’t ask for a raise or my boss will think I’m greedy. I’m getting too old to find a partner. I’m a bad mom. I’m always behind. I’ll never be good enough.

What if every time you had a self-critical thought, you heard it in a man’s voice? The truth is not far off. Living in a patriarchy, women absorb a lifetime of messages that say your worth is defined by your looks, your accomplishments, and how well you take care of everyone around you. In fact, these messages are so pervasive that, even knowing they exist, they still manage to program themselves into our brains. The result is that women end up feeling anxious, guilty, and vaguely ashamed of themselves no matter how much they do for others or achieve for themselves.

So how do we deprogram our thoughts from patriarchy’s corrosive influence? And once we do, how can we create new, self-empowering beliefs?

Master Certified Life Coach and host of the UnF*ck Your Brain podcast Kara Loewentheil knows how. Despite graduating from Harvard Law School and getting her dream job, Kara spent her twenties and thirties feeling insecure and anxious, until she learned how to change her thoughts--which led her to become a coach. In Take Back Your Brain, she draws on cognitive psychology, feminist theory, and years of experience as a neuroplasticity-focused coach to break down how the patriarchy hijacks women’s brains, and how women can get free. To bridge the gap between your inner voice and your true potential, she says, you must begin with your thoughts. By using the skills in this book to literally rewire your brain, you can create new thought patterns that will directly transform outcomes in your life.

Ultimately, Take Back Your Brain invites you to replace the thoughts that no longer serve you and make room for a kind of confidence you never thought possible. Because when women unleash their true power, they awaken new possibilities for the world.

Kara Loewentheil is a Master Certified Life Coach who helps anxious and insecure women overcome their internalized social programming. She is the host of the New York Times-recommended podcast UnF*ck Your Brain and runs the coaching community The Clutch. Kara received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before becoming a litigator at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Before leaving academia to start her coaching career she was a fellow at Yale and ran a think tank at Columbia Law School. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two bonus kids, and a hamster named Marmalade.