More on this topic please!!! (insert prayer hands emoticon x10) #begging

Self confidence plays a major role as well.

Glennon, you are so honest…thank you…I can relate to every word you said. I’m going to try practicing this! 😉

i grew up thinking that “fart” was the four-letter F-word!! I still giggle when I say it.

I don’t know if it’s because I still hate my body or whether something else is just plain old wrong with me but part of me thinks “no way” are you able to do this. I don’t mean that with any disrespect and more just that I have to say that while I WANT to believe it, it’s hard for me to do so… I think I want to love my body. I think that I do love my body. But I’m really struggling with both and I feel like maybe finding love and acceptance for it is too simplified here? I dunno…

Brilliant and beautiful. Your personal growth process is to amazing and I can relate to it all. Thanks for sharing your story openly for women and girls, so we can grow with you. I pray every day that my girls won’t have to endure the same pain or not for as long, before they get to this place. Love you.

Oh Glennon, I am so eternally grateful to you for once again shining light onto the stuff we all keep in the dark. My pathway to dissociating from my body is much different from yours. It came from my mother- my therapist believes that I left my body in order to preserve my sense of self as a small child because my mother had NO boundaries. It was like she literally ate me whole… and the only way I could try to save my soul was to leave my body. And so now I am an adult. And I have finally set up appropriate boundaries with my mother. But I am still working on fully inhabiting my body… and sex is really the hardest… so hard for me. And it has indeed wreaked havoc on my marriage. Because like you, I always end up feeling used by my husband when we have sex. And although my brain tells me that this is not in fact what is happening, my body doesn’t trust. I would love to know what books you read and what other tools you found helpful (in addition to meditation) to heal this wound. It’s such a lonely road, because it’s just not talked about. Thank you so much for your honesty.

glennon!

what the heck. this is ridiculously on point. i almost cried. i laughed nervously instead. (i’m in a coffee shop.) my marriage needed this. i thank you. for digging around and figuring out what exactly was going on with yourself enough to explain it to us. because it’s going on with us too. i’m now looking forward to when the kids go to bed tonight…if you know what i mean;)

Oh my word, this…I am at a loss for words. I’m completely detached from my body. It’s a disappointment to me with all it’s small chest in 7th grade, cellulite in high school, extra pounds in college, needing to be punished into submission with bulimia, Fen Phen, whatever the going thing is or was. Detaching from the pain of immature sex, or the unwanted date rape, needing to be drunk or on a drug to have sex. Now I’m healthy, married with kids, loving Jesus, but still completely detached. My coping mechanism. I ignore any pain in my body – “it will go away eventually and we can’t afford the time or money to look into that anyway. You don’t have time to exercise, who will watch the kids?” Childbirth, I go into my mind to escape my body. Sex, go into my mind with eyes closed to escape what’s going on, even though it is pleasurable and loving. All this talk about loving yourself, being kind to yourself, I never got it. I must get purposeful about getting back into my body, but like others have said, I need more direction on what that looks like. Thanks so much for saying something about such a scary, vulnerable problem. There are many of us.

Whoa and wow. Society sends women the message that in order to be good enough about ourselves we need to spend an enormous amount of time, money and energy into clothes and manicures and hair and make-up. They try to convince us that it is self care but maybe it end up being just more armour we put on to distance ourselves from our body. The Spanx that reshape our tummies and butt, the gel manicures and nail polish that put a layer over our real nails, the coating of make-up to hide our flaws and actual skin, the dying and highlighting and teasing and curling of our hair to make it look like something other than it is. How can we expect to be comfortable in our authentic true bodies if we are told we need to spend so much time altering them before we can feel good about ourselves?

I just have to say loving your own body is just pointless if your partner doesn’t love it. I loved all the OWN videos but this one and now I’m just mad and sad.

Glennon: there was a touching article on CNN this week written by a hospice chaplain discussing how people feel about their bodies at the end of life. It fits nicely with what you discuss in the video. I can’t seem to get the link to work – but the article is entitled “What the dying really regret” and is absolutely worth the read. I won’t ever forget the article, and after reading it, have vowed to be kinder to my body as it carries me through every precious moment of life.

“The world told us to be selfless and then gave us a self.” No wonder I have been so confused! Thank you for being so open.

As a fellow ED survivor, you put into words exactly how I have felt for the past eight years of my marriage. It’s so comforting to know that I am not alone and that things can change- thank you.

Very powerful. Thank you. As a thin woman, I’ve always felt so very alone with my discomfort with my body. Many people don’t understand how I could be unhappy with it. Further, many women have shown me resentment for the body I have; so, I learned to silence myself to avoid their ire. You have given that feeling a voice, and perfect phrasing. It’s not that I am unhappy with the shape or size, but with the mere existence of it, and I spent many years punishing it for being. Thank you for this piece.

Glennon! I am *so* grateful to you for sharing this.

You explained something complex and important that practically ALL the women I know have struggled with to some extent, and you did it so simply and with such compassion.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Making the daily journey to womanhood right alongside you, sister,
Laura

Oh wow, I am SO proud of you! I had many years of living in my head and being terrified of my body too. but you know what? I love my body so much now it almost makes me cry. I just adore it and always talk to it gently, like a very small, very loved child. Thanks SO much for sharing this! You are the best x x

Glennon, your point about women often hating our bodies because society tells us that female bodies shouldn’t do all the things bodies naturally do (fart, sweat, etc.) is awesome and spot-on.

But there are other reasons women don’t enjoy sex, especially when “sex” means just intercourse. Even if we love our bodies, we feel used because we constantly get the message that we OWE our husbands or our boyfriends sex. I. e., we owe them our bodies. That’s bad enough in itself; then making it worse, sex is painful if the man doesn’t have the inclination or skill or caring to warm us up properly. Then it sucks because we DO love our bodies and think they should be treated better than this.

If society got rid of the notion that women owe men our bodies (in every way: beauty, viewing pleasure, sex, what a woman’s body should or should not do), we would be much happier with our bodies and ourselves.

To me the whole sex thing is overrated. It’s my body and when it feels like a chore then it’s not working. I don’t know who decided it was something that had to happen on a regular basis. Best thing we did was give it up for good. Happily married going on 25 years. I guess there are women who enjoy it but most I know don’t. My husband would rather I was into it but it’s not happening and he’s ok with it. Best feeling ever 🙂 we express our love to each other and don’t feel any less in love or feel less married because it’s not happening. It’s OK…

Gosh Glennon, why you gotta make me cry so much???

The comment you mentioned, “But you’re so thin” ugh….makes me so angry…so it’s ok if I hate my body cuz I’m fat???? Grrrrr.

But YES ME TOO only my reason is my chronic pain and disability. It makes sex nearly impossible and so painful….I usually wind up crying and not satisfied, no matter how careful and how much time my husband takes….he is truly a saint in this area. But it’s also embarrassing and I feel so much shame about this body that I do love…..it just prevents me from living my life. It keeps me from so much, ahh I’m crying again because I’ve never posted this truth of mine anywhere publicly.

You make me feel like no matter what, I’m ok. Bless you for that. Xoxo

I have had a long battle of hatred with my body. I didn’t know acknowledge this until just now when I watched the clip of you on OWN. This morning God brought me to the end of myself, and made me face my hatred of myself that stems from my body image. I have to learn to accept myself where I am and be willing to go through the challenges that He has placed in front of me. I am going to begin to focus on what my body can do and not it’s inadequacies or my being currently overweight. I believe that is at the core of this hatred that needs to change. Thank you for being so candid and reaching out to us on such a personal level. God bless you.

This is beautiful! Thank you, Glennon.

Like a lot of the women here said, it would be really wonderful if you could explain even in more detail how you brought your mind back into your body. I am often completely detached from my body. I know it is protective. I don’t know why. But it destroys so much, including myself. I can’t quiet my mind enough. Please, please talk more about this. Please.

This is exactly what I needed to hear – thank you! After gaining and losing over 75 lbs and gaining some more after my 2 pregnancies, being cheated in, being a chronic Lyme sufferer (and everything wonderful that comes with that) and a just-recently-diagnosed narcoleptic I tend to really struggle with my body and identifying with my body. I was introduced to the app Stop, Breathe & Relax but now I have a new motivation to use it. Thank you, Glennon! I just finished your book 2 days so and I have given a copy to at least 5 women I know and love. You have changed my world 1 page at a time and I know you are changing others.

Exactly…but, I need to know HOW to bring my mind back…

Is becoming bulimic at age 8 common? I taught 2nd and third grade for years and it breaks my heart to think some of “my girls” were bulimic!

Is becoming bulimic at age 8 common?

Thank you.

Holy cow! I need to think on this for awhile. Do I leave my body during sex? YES but I never thought about why. Is it to protect myself from pain? Maybe…..
Glennon, I caught a mention of you on the Today show while I was working from home one day and I think it was a divine intervention. I’m an empty nester but so much of what you say resonates in my soul. Thank you for your honesty!

The love of my life showed this to me. As a man who has never heard of this or had any woman speak of this, it sounds so foreign. Don’t get me wrong here, I am not in any way, shape, or form saying it is wrong or untrue or anything along those lines. I just can’t undestand because sex feels like one of the ultimate ways to physically connect, to achieve intimacy of body and soul. To see this and know that a lot of women don’t have that with the love of their life is shocking. I’m sure most men probably feel that. I wish there was a follow up on this video, from women to men, to help us help y’all. It breaks my heart to know that this an actual problem. Men want women to enjoy sex, it is one of the ways we not only feel more masculine, but also one of the ways we physically communicate love. Of course it is biologically imperative, but that’s a small part of it. We can get off any where, but we make love to the woman we care about. I genuinely wish there was a way to help with this. I also can emphatically say that you man, if he knew that there was a problem he could help with, also would want to help. Maybe there is a way to address this? Because it also makes a man feel that he is doing something wrong (I know, he’s probably not). We inherently want our lovers to feel what we are feeling. I also know this is not something a man can “fix”, but maybe we could be part of the process? Together the man and woman could find true intamacy together, and grow so much closer in the process. Just my thoughts on this. I applaud all y’all who recognize the problem. I truly wish the best to everyone, and I hope that one day everyone can acheive the true intamiticy of what making love is.

Thank you thank you thank you! I used to be bulimic and used the very phrase “civil war” to describe it. But I never made the connection between disconnecting from my body and disconnecting from sex. I recently started meditating, and this video helps me see even more how valuable it is to be still and pay attention to the breath. Thank you!

Another woman with the same problem having an aha moment! Glennon, that is so helpful! Would love to hear more/go deeper on this one. And the comments here remind me that my husband and I are not alone. Very grateful.

That was awesome.

I’m having a major a-ha moment here. I’ve been struggling with this for years and have never had any kind of understanding about it at all. You just gave me a flashlight.

Thank you, thank you truly.

Oh, my dear Glennon. How is it that you so often say the very thing I need most to hear? Thank you for this rockin’ video.

I too am working to be both a body and a soul, and not to view my body as just a container for my brain. For me, too, this started when I was a little girl. I was very sick as a kid, and learned to disassociate from my body in order to feel safe and comfortable in the world. I began learning to be present in my body as a college theatre major, when I was called upon to connect body and breath and emotion and impulse, and to use them all to reach out to those beside me. It’s been one of the scariest and best lessons of my life–and I am very much still learning.

You may be interested in something called The Alexander Technique. I won’t do the explanation justice, so I’ll let you google it (if you’re not already familiar with the concept). It’s one of those things, like meditation or yoga, that doesn’t necessarily translate well in writing but which can be totally magical in practice.

FART power!!
Love you,
b.

Glennon, I cannot thank you enough for this. I suffered for so long with the same feelings during sex and it was miserable. Meditation and mindfulness have helped me too. Also, sometimes I make love to God, since I believe We Are All One. (And while you may not believe you said ‘fart,’I can not believe I said that, but you have encouraged me to be a truth teller and I feel safe under you truth umbrella, ella…). XO

Wow Glennon. You brave thing you, thank you so much. I don’t hate my body – but I do feel angry and used during sex at times, overwhelmingly so. For some reason I have trouble being in my body during sex, I am not sure why. When you said that our partners use sex as a way to reach us through our bodies…well, that kind of blew my mind. And maybe you know, sex is too personal, too intimate for me to allow when I am being protective of myself. So I leave my body so he can’t get to me…

Loved it! I’ve constantly got a post brewing in my mind about taking ownership for our bodies and our sex lives, because like you said, it’s so easy to check out. Thanks for keeping this topic on my mind. It’s so important!

G, you and the commenters here just made me cry. In a good way 😉
I have such a hard time living in my body, and even in a loving relationship I find it so difficult to be present. You verbalized what i’ve been feeling for such a long time, and i thank you. Now, to find a way to meditate myself back into this body of mine, instead of always trying to get away from it…

Glennon I seriously think that at some point in this journey called life, you will wind up with your own talk show. You are so IN TOUCH with your followers and really any woman who is just trying to find herself and find her way. You are so real and open and inviting and make me (and I’m sure many other women) want to completely open myself up to you share the good, bad, and ugly, because I know you will embrace all of it. You really do have a broader calling beyond Momastery. You have a very special gift of showing every single woman that they are not alone. This is only the beginning dear sister. You are a blessing!!!!!!

This is beautiful and eloquent and brave–thank you! I imagine it might have been hard to be so brave and bare your soul like this and then not really get to talk about it but have the interview end. I hope you had some great support afterwards. Thank you for being a SHero!!!!!

Definitely identify with this, as it is a process to “inhabit” my body – one that I have worked on in recovery of my own past. One that will always be a work in progress, much like yoga is a practice. Some days you do well – knock it out of the park. Others, I try to allow for a lot of grace…and continuously “bring myself back” to being out of my head, in my body, in the moment.

I am big fan of this “own the weirdness” stage. Authentic, present, real…whatever you want to call it. I want to show up EVERYDAY.

Except for, well, those moments when I just want to watch House of Cards or Bad Reality TV with a blanket and a snuggle. And, as a friend said this morning, those moments are JUST as authentic.

At my son’s preschool, I overheard a teacher say to a little girl, “Eek! You have boogers smeared all over your face. That’s not very ladylike!” She was using a jokey voice, but it really bothered me but I couldn’t pinpoint why it bothered me so much. Yes, loving your body starts very young and it is all too easy to teach body-shame to our kids. Thank you for that insight.

Ummm, yes to that. Great explanation for what I’ve gone through 2 years of therapy for. I’m 32 and rediscovering sexuality in my 12 year marriage because I’m comfortable with the concept and my body. And, yes, I experienced the out of body floating to escape from the normal occurrences that I just didn’t know how to handle.

“I feel like I’m becoming less of a lady and more of a woman.” What a great statement. Society teaches us to be well-behaved ladies, but deep down we’re the female of the species, sensual and powerful.

“I stopped being a lady and started becoming a woman.” What a great statement. Society wants us to be well-behaved ladies when down deep we’re women, sensual and powerful.

I’m totally with the people who just had light bulb moments. Of course! This is why I feel angry and used during sex in my otherwise entirely loving relationship.

Love this!

I love this! I just told my husband this past Sunday morning that he was my “body mate”.

Love, M

yes. Yes. Yes. This needs more than four minutes. The truth of it has knocked me over. It needs to be discussed more and at length. I am beginning to realize how common this experience is for so many women. Whether the disconnect starts from eating disorders or being violated or whatever that moment that triggers the detachment. The detachment, for me at least, was a coping mechanism. If I didn’t detach, I feel certain I wouldn’t be here now. But the process of integrating your body back to who you are is so very hard. I think we need more tools. I think the process of detaching, while in an effort to protect ourselves and guard ourselves, ends up doing so much damage. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and health wise. Thank you for opening a door and shedding light on this. And once again, helping me realize I’m not alone.

Hi G. A.B. and I did giggle a lot over your refusal to say the fart out loud so we’d say it for you!

Now on the serious side. I am struggling with the body image thing still since my double masectomy. I had reconstruction of which one side failed 3 times due to nasty infections (on the radiated side). The other implant looks “yucky” and unnatural and nipple reconstruction also failed so I never bothered to get the nipple tatoos.

Glennon, I cannot get past this. It is so easy for folks to say to me “but you are ALIVE!” I cannot stress how thankful I am to be alive. Of course. Those who are not going through breast cancer or who have never had it and have bodacious tatas have NO idea or clue what it feels like to lose that part of our body. It has affected my relationship with my husband as much as he tries to play it off to other things; his back, he’s tired, (or he is plain inebriated which he never drank before until he joined this one band and I’m losing him to alcohol) etc. I feel like my 7 years of my cancer free life has just slipped by and I feel so lonely. Imagine a man without his penis (taken by cancer). Would he still feel sexy? Would he still feel like a man? That is how I feel without my breasts. Those little suckers were powerful (no pun intended, ha ha). I have to watch what I wear. I can’t lean over (or you see a concave chest or my ugly prosthetic bra). I haven’t been to a pool in all these years (those prosthetics are heavy and a suit cannot hold them). I can’t wear pretty things or show a tad bit of cleavage which I’m sorry – to me it made me feel sexy to my husband. I do not feel like a woman. I don’t want to go to “groups” where others feel the same. I have been thinking about one on one counseling though. I am floating through life. I look at myself in the mirror every morning and try to love what I see and cannot get past it. I just don’t feel like my husband is on board with me or is really trying. I had lost a lot of weight at one time and that didn’t work. I bought sexy things and that didn’t work. Now I’m stuffing my face again out of boredom. This was very hard to share because I have friends who are also fans. Hugs to you G. Miss your face.

Loved this. Thank you.

Glennon, I don’t even recall when exactly I stumbled upon your writing, but I have thanked God numerous times for you because your words, your experiences have often spoken directly to me and resonated so deeply. It’s an incredible gift to have someone you’ve never met say something that illuminates things in your own life in a way you couldn’t quite grasp, much less articulate, until that moment. Thank you for sharing yourself so intimately with your readers. You’ve already made such a positive impact on me in just a couple of months. Carry on, warrior…this world is a vastly better place with you in it and so bravely opening up and thus creating an online sisterhood.

You’re such a positive influence Glennon. I always appreciate your sincerity. This is a good reminder to be fully present in our selves which is all too easily forgotten in our hectic lives.

Wow, I didn’t even realize that there WAS an explanation this simple for a complex issue. I spend so much time in physical pain, all areas of my body, that pleasure in that area seems soooooo impossible. Add to this the emotional “failure feeling” and it’s a real doozy to undo. I can now only imagine how your mind told your body a LOT more negative things when your hubby gave you the bombshell “talk”. Good for you for persevering through so much ad SPEAKING about it. thin I really like you G!

Oh, Glennon, your voice (which is part of your body!) is so important in this world! Thank you.

Thank you so much for speaking about this! I too have had the out of body experiences. Have you guys also had the leaden body thing? It feels like everything is made of lead from the waist down. I have found that I want my hubby to somehow get the life moving and I just wait for him to do it, so I don’t have to get curious and awake and connected. I am now practicing coming to it with curiosity and kindness towards myself and hubby…but it is not easy. Yet I am weirdly excited about this time. After years of pain issues and body-disconnection, I say to myself: enjoy the messiness of not knowing how yet and just try to keep reaching through. It’s weird being 36, having 20 years of activity in this department, and it seems many times that I am somehow new to it…

Love to all the sisters (and brothers) on this every-body path!!!

You just explained in less than 4 mins what I have been trying to understand for over 10 years. For someone as self-aware (as I thought I was) this just sounds so perfectly simple. I’m just…speechless.

HANDS CAN GIVE HIGH FIVES TOO!!! *high five*

G, I so needed to hear these words today. I struggle with living too much in my mind, which gets to be so unhealthy for me. You speaking about inhabiting the body instead of the mind resonates with me, and I am grateful for your voice bringing these truths to us. My life is messy beautiful right now with an emphasis on the brutiful, and the weight of it all is made lighter with the knowledge that I am not alone in this messy brutiful life. Eshet Chayil!

Thank you! I soooo needed to hear this. Not the ‘fart’ bit because I have a 13 year old son and a husband and that’s it, so I’m out-numbered (they speak Boy and I live in the nicer elements of the mid-18th century, according to them) – but the Other Thing. I’ll try meditating.

This is so meaningful to me. Comes at an important time in my journey to reunite with my body. Thank you!

Awww, you done good, girl. Congratulations. <3