200. Don’t Tell Glennon to Love Her Body

Speaker 1 What if you could bleach and color without wrecking your hair? With K18 Molecular Repair Hair Mask, you can. It's not another quick fix with false promises, it's hair science.

Speaker 1 The patented K18 peptide repairs hair at the molecular level. That's really, really deep.
So you can keep coloring and still have hair that feels soft, strong, and bouncy.

Speaker 1 Because yes, we can do hard things, but your hair doesn't have to be one of them. Shop K18's mask at Sephora Sephora or get 10% off your first purchase with code hardthings at k18hair.com.

Speaker 1 That's code hardthings at k18hair.com.

Speaker 2 Welcome back. to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 2 So you might want to go back and listen to the last episode because i gave a overview of what recovery feels like to me and what a difficult miracle it is difficult miracle difficult miracle and today i want to talk about not the first three parts which we talked about last time which were kind of the invitation that you get to recovery and the acceptance of the invitation or the denial and the withdrawal that comes after you take away the thing you couldn't live without And then today I actually want to talk about this part

Speaker 2 that is this beautiful, amazing part that happens after the withdraw

Speaker 2 time. And you know what? I think that might be too neat to say.
I don't think it happens after the withdraw. I think it's like kind of melded all together.
It's a new knowing of yourself.

Speaker 2 It's a leveling up. It's a way of life that feels freer and better and deeper.
than what you were living before.

Speaker 2 I have found it without fail every time I've entered any sort of recovery.

Speaker 2 If you stick through

Speaker 2 the withdrawal period, if you do that work, you usually end up with a different version of yourself that you wouldn't go back to the other one, that you wouldn't trade.

Speaker 3 And again, we're talking about recovery in the sense that you can think about it in the traditional way of drugs or booze or eating disorders, but we're also in the wider sense of

Speaker 3 moving out of something that you could not live without. So whether that's that's a

Speaker 3 relationship that

Speaker 3 you were in, whether that's a career or a job, whether it was an immediate family that you grew up in, that you could no longer maintain the same level of relationship.

Speaker 3 It's any of those principles apply.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Or even the personality characteristic.
Like, I see that all the time. Like, I'm going to try not to be so closed off with people.
We're letting go of some sort of blockage between you and life.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 all right, here's the story.

Speaker 2 And this will get weird because recovery is weird, all right? It's weird for everybody. Weird shit happens.
So I, I'm about six months in, right? Five minutes. To restriction recovery.
Five, six.

Speaker 2 So I have not been restricting food,

Speaker 2 which means that every time I think I should not eat that thing.

Speaker 2 I eat the thing.

Speaker 2 That's the only thing I can't do is listen to that voice that tells me

Speaker 2 to not eat something. Any other thing but hunger is not allowed to be the boss of me.

Speaker 3 There are no dangerous foods. There are no forbidden foods.
No, you are not living in that world. Yeah.
No.

Speaker 2 Which might not sound wild to people listening, but it's wild to me. I have been so structured and disciplined, disciplined, equaling.
I have been overriding my bodily instincts

Speaker 2 my entire life around food. With your brain.
Like early on, we'd go to dinner and I would look and I'm like, oh, what is my taste buds want to taste?

Speaker 2 And you would have to say out loud, like, okay, my brain is telling me I should get the salad,

Speaker 2 but I'm going to get the grilled cheese. The grilled cheese or the burger or something.
And she would have to make herself do that. It was like a forcing of the override of the brain.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I always always get the cheapest thing too. Yeah.
Cheapest and

Speaker 2 most calories. Right.

Speaker 2 So what I will tell you is that I don't want to get into numbers, but I have gained like

Speaker 2 over a tenth of my body weight in this last six months, which is also

Speaker 2 judging by for the last 20 years, I've probably known my weight up to like a pound or a half pound.

Speaker 2 Okay. And I could, I would, I would have told you that I could feel the difference between a half pound.

Speaker 2 So gaining 10% or more of my body weight is significant to me.

Speaker 2 In the beginning of this growth period,

Speaker 2 I would... I would say change.
Yeah, but I mean, I meant literally. I know, but like I feel like I feel like language is important here.
And

Speaker 2 the way that you're saying growth period, it can mean both things. It means positive to me.
I'm using growth as a positive. Okay.
Okay. I just don't want it to be a sarcastic.
No. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Literal growth. Okay.

Speaker 2 Like I have had times where, you know, I can't wear a thing in my closet anymore. Actually, most of my things from the waist up still fit.

Speaker 2 In the beginning, I just got rid of a few like tight jeans and now no pants, zero pants.

Speaker 2 And so I have had moments where, you know, I'm carrying the laundry basket of the like new set of jeans that don't fit anymore out. And I feel like I am

Speaker 2 stepping into bigger version of myself, literally, but also figuratively. It feels like all this shit is too small for me from now on.

Speaker 2 These pants, these old ideas about myself, these ways of being in relationship, these narratives I have, it's all fucking too small. Just get it out, get it out, get it out.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it was also very, what I would call excruciating for me, especially in the beginning. And let me give you an example of that.
So Abby would wake up in the morning and she would go, how did you sleep?

Speaker 2 And I would have not slept.

Speaker 2 And the reason why I had not slept is because I would be up all night

Speaker 2 feeling,

Speaker 2 Pod Squatters probably won't believe this, but it is actually what happened to me.

Speaker 2 Feeling my body grow.

Speaker 2 I would describe it as an oozing.

Speaker 2 It felt like I was like an alien oozing outside of my boundaries. Like if I were made up of gel,

Speaker 2 it was all oozing out of like the casement. So when I would say, how did you sleep? How would you respond?

Speaker 2 I would say, I slept oozing.

Speaker 2 I would, I was oozing all night. Okay.

Speaker 2 So that's how it went. When I tell you it was like

Speaker 2 being an alien, like, I don't know. It was wild.
Here's what I want to explain to everyone

Speaker 2 about eating disorder recovery,

Speaker 2 which by the way, I think is actually on a larger level. I wouldn't be talking about this if I thought it was just about eating disorders.
I think it's, it's, applies to everyone who has a body.

Speaker 2 One of the reasons why I have not been able to stand

Speaker 2 eating disorder recovery or

Speaker 2 any talk about how people get a better body image or whatever

Speaker 2 is because

Speaker 2 I'm not worried so much about the shape of my body or the size of my body as much as i just hate i hate having a body

Speaker 2 i do not like

Speaker 2 my problem is having

Speaker 2 a body i've told abby this so many times if i when i die and go to wherever's next

Speaker 2 i fully expect to be seated with a bunch of the otherworldly beings or whatever in whatever heaven is and have them say to me, oh, honey, you did your best. That was your first incarnation as a body.

Speaker 2 For sure. I got a first-timer.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Like she was flailing about so much. She kept talking about how much I hate having a body and everyone else was normal with it.
But we were up here going, It's okay, honey.

Speaker 2 It was just your first time as a body.

Speaker 2 Like before you were a tree and then you were a frog and then you were the air and now you're like this human in this human body and it's very uncomfortable for you. But takes some getting used to.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Then it will all make sense.
And then I'm going to look at everybody and say, I told you. I told you that was my first time as a body.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 the thing that is my major struggle with recovery for body stuff is how it's presented because

Speaker 2 eating disorder recovery assumes that your problem is your body image.

Speaker 2 That your problem is you just don't think you're skinny enough or you don't think that your thighs are cute enough or you don't think that whatever.

Speaker 2 So eating disorder treatment or how we all talk about it in the general culture is is like, it's like girl power, body positivity.

Speaker 2 It's like people telling you over and over again to have a relationship with your body. Just love your body.
Love your body.

Speaker 2 If I had a dime for every single person who told me to love your body,

Speaker 2 here's my problem with loving your body.

Speaker 2 Love your body, Glennon. Just love your body.
Okay.

Speaker 2 What I hear you saying to me, you know, I cannot understand things if they're not linguistically correct. My brain just stops.
I need to understand things.

Speaker 2 If the words you're saying to me don't make sense, I cannot integrate them into my life, into my knowing, into my being, into my wisdom. So if you tell me to love my body, all right.

Speaker 2 Here are some other beings that I have a relationship with that I love.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 love my wife. I have a relationship with my wife.
I love my wife. I love my dogs.
I have a relationship with my dogs. Love my dogs.
Love my children. Love my sister.

Speaker 2 These are all beings that I have relationships with that I love.

Speaker 3 You have a positive dog image.

Speaker 2 Positive

Speaker 2 sister image.

Speaker 2 Right. Yes.
Love them. Here is the thing that all of those beings have in common.

Speaker 2 They are not me.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 The relationship is

Speaker 2 me. I'm the subject.

Speaker 2 The object is the other being, my wife, my dog, et cetera.

Speaker 2 There are two parts two parts in a relationship the person who is doing the loving and the being that is being loved

Speaker 2 subject object

Speaker 2 and so

Speaker 2 that right there

Speaker 2 is the it's the very framing of the solution is the problem because loving my body presupposes that my body is not me.

Speaker 2 It is other than me.

Speaker 2 It is the object. If I am loving my body, if I am having a relationship with my body, I am already objectifying my body.

Speaker 2 I am the subject. My body is the object.
So just stay with me here. So I have a cat.
Okay.

Speaker 2 I don't really, this is a forever. People are allergic to my house.
I have a cat. Okay.
Have a cat.

Speaker 2 I have a relationship with my cat. I love my cat.

Speaker 2 I can feed my cat. I can discipline my cat.
I can pet my cat.

Speaker 2 What I cannot do in this situation ever

Speaker 2 is have the experience of being a cat.

Speaker 2 I can love the shit out of my cat.

Speaker 2 I can have a relationship with it, but in that framing, by definition, I am not catting. I am not being a cat.

Speaker 2 I am not inside the cat being a cat, having the experience of being a cat, looking out the cat's eyes,

Speaker 2 catting the cat is the object i am the subject we are separate beings so when we say love your body or have a relationship with your body we are also saying you and your body are separate beings

Speaker 2 and if we are separate beings if i am a separate being from my body if my body is the object then not me

Speaker 2 that I'm supposed to be in relationship with, then who or what is the I?

Speaker 2 Do you see what I'm saying there? I do. If I'm supposed to love my body, my body is the object.
What's the I?

Speaker 2 So, for example, I'm going into couples therapy with my body. We're all supposed to be loving our body better.
Clearly, we're two different beings. So, I'm going into couples therapy with my body,

Speaker 2 and we're gonna sit down on the couch. And my body's on the right, who's what's on the left?

Speaker 2 I guess my mind, right?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 We Can Do Our Things is brought to you by Bumble, the app committed to bring people closer to love. I went through it in my first marriage.

Speaker 3 I was desperately in love, and then in a whiplash of a moment, it was gone. I felt abandoned, betrayed, crushed.

Speaker 3 A while out from the divorce, when a friend asked me whether I was ready to date again, I said, listen, I love men, but I also love hamburgers.

Speaker 3 And I just had the juiciest burger, and it gave me food poisoning. And I don't even want to look at another burger for a very long time.
When I was ready to look, I was terrified.

Speaker 3 How in the world do you put yourself out there after that?

Speaker 3 I don't think there are a lot of people more courageous and cool than those folks who have been through the depths of heartbreak and are brave enough to reveal their heart again.

Speaker 3 It starts with that first step, a shaky voice inside of you that says, I want this even more than I don't want that.

Speaker 3 I want to share life and this beautiful banged up heart with another beautiful banged up heart. These days, that first shaky step often happens online on a dating app.

Speaker 3 In celebration of you brave ones, we want to tell you about Bumble. What I love about what Bumble is doing is they are making that first step feel a tiny bit less scary, more possible, more human.

Speaker 3 They make you feel more safe.

Speaker 3 New Bumble users have to add multiple layers of verification like mandatory photo, phone number, and ID verification so you can feel more confident that the people you're seeing are who they say they are.

Speaker 3 Plus, profiles aren't just about photos. They highlight personality, interests, and passions.
So you can get a sense of whether you will actually connect with someone.

Speaker 3 You can be shaky and scared and show up anyway. You can start again.
Bumble helps people do exactly that. Start your love story today on Bumble.

Speaker 3 I have so many questions. This is fascinating.

Speaker 2 Okay, go.

Speaker 3 I hear exactly what you're saying, but just one little thing. So I'm tracking with you.
Yes.

Speaker 3 So would you be able to say,

Speaker 3 I love myself?

Speaker 3 Is it just about the body? Or do you have an understanding of self when you picture self? And then secondly,

Speaker 3 and we need to get deeper into this because I am tracking with you, but like.

Speaker 3 If you were in therapy with yourself, could it be like you were rubbing your leg, you were putting moisturizer on, you were laying down.

Speaker 2 Well, is there a way to become one? Like, how do you, how do you become mind, body, and spirit? Well, I think we have to figure it out. How do you know? Here's my question.

Speaker 2 How do you know your mind, body, and spirit? I don't fucking know that. Some dude just said that.

Speaker 2 Eventually, we want to get to one, but I think we have to work through this process that I'm taking us through first.

Speaker 2 When we are saying, love your body, here's what we don't have. We don't have a lot of mind positivity programs.
Okay. We don't have a lot of love your mind.
Have a relationship with your mind.

Speaker 2 Pro mind. Mind positivity.
We don't have that. She has a mind image problem.
We don't have that because we believe we are our minds.

Speaker 2 Because we don't objectify our minds like we objectify our bodies. Interesting.
We need to love our bodies and have body image things because we believe the bodies are like our purses.

Speaker 2 They're like an object that we carry around.

Speaker 2 And where did we get this idea? We go way back. This is philosophy.

Speaker 2 Okay. This is philosophy shit.
Like Plato said we're body, mind, spirits. The, the, uh, uh, Descartes said, I think, therefore, I am.

Speaker 2 All of his philosophy said we are our minds first, and our bodies are these other parts of ourselves that are a little bit lower and have all kinds of weird limitations and and desires that we should overcome.

Speaker 2 That the real path to God, that the highest being was the mind. And that philosophy has trickled into and permeated every single minute of our lives.

Speaker 2 So now we believe we are minds that have bodies, that we should go into relationship with, that we should therapize. We used to think we should tame.
We should beat into submission.

Speaker 2 And now we're like, oh, but now we'll love it.

Speaker 2 Now we'll love it. Now we won't tame it.
We'll honor it. But it's still just a thing that's hanging.
We're like minds in like meat suits.

Speaker 3 What's fascinating is that where that all started.

Speaker 3 Even the motivation to try to figure out which one is more real, which one is us, the mind or the body, which is this theory of dualism where there's two,

Speaker 3 it was all about

Speaker 3 both, like Descartes' whole work on that was about the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. They needed to ask these questions because there's a material world where everything

Speaker 3 at the end of the day desecrates. When you die, your body decays and goes away.
We can see that in the material world. And so if that were true, then there was no possibility of immortality.

Speaker 3 So that's why they came up with this idea that we are not actually that body that goes away and decays. That is not us.
What we are is this mind, which is transcendent.

Speaker 3 The body is the prison house for the spirit, but the spirit, the conscious thought, the all of that, that is the place where we can live endlessly. So when this body decays, the mind does not.

Speaker 3 That transcends. And so all of that was a justification of not being able to live and to tolerate the possibility of our mortality, the possibility that it all goes away.

Speaker 2 Right. Fear of death.
Yeah. That's why it's all tied into religion.
Still, the flesh, the flesh, like just the flesh is just this terrible thing we have to overcome. And mind is who we are.

Speaker 2 Scripture, like that's how we touch God is through the mind, right?

Speaker 2 I am my mind. I have a body is what every bit of body image, of body positivity, of all of that presupposes.
That is the problem for me, is the framing.

Speaker 2 What I think this shift is for me is that I am no longer interested in loving my cat.

Speaker 2 I am no longer interested in loving my body. I am only interested in bodying.

Speaker 2 What if, okay, what if Descartes, what if all that was wrong?

Speaker 2 What if every single thing that we have learned about who we are is wrong? What if it's not I think, therefore I am?

Speaker 2 What if it's like I feel, I see, I vibrate, I hug, I eat, I rest, I orgasm, I smell, I touch, therefore I am.

Speaker 2 What if I do not have to learn to love my body because my body is not separate from me? It is me.

Speaker 2 So, what if the only thing I have to learn how to love is having the experience of living out through this body?

Speaker 2 I don't want to love my body. I just want to body.

Speaker 2 I want to be. I want to

Speaker 2 look out from in here

Speaker 2 and experience it. I don't want to have a body anymore.
I want to have an experience of being a body.

Speaker 3 You want to be alive.

Speaker 2 Be alive. I mean alive.

Speaker 3 There's a difference between being alive and dead.

Speaker 3 There has to be a difference. Yes.
And so if the experience of being alive is a truly unique experience, then you want to fully inhabit that experience by

Speaker 2 being

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 2 not self-objectifying anymore. I think I've been trying to get at this for freaking decades, but I hadn't lived it yet.
I was still intellectualizing it.

Speaker 2 Okay, listen to this shit that I wrote a while back because if all of this has sounded crazy, this won't.

Speaker 2 Your body is not your masterpiece. Your life is.

Speaker 2 It is suggested to us a million times a day that our bodies are projects. They aren't.
Our lives are, our spirituality is, our love is, our relationships are, our work is.

Speaker 2 Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it's all you've got to offer the world. Your body is not your art.
It's your paintbrush.

Speaker 2 Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or stocky paintbrush or scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant.

Speaker 2 What is relevant is that you have a paintbrush, which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life where others can see it and be inspired and comforted by it.

Speaker 2 Your body is not your offering. It's just a really amazing instrument which you can use to create your offering each day.

Speaker 2 Don't curse your paintbrush. Don't sit in a corner wishing you had a different paintbrush.
You're wasting time. You've got the one you've got.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing. Like, I just

Speaker 2 don't want to go to any more classes where everybody is learning to fucking love their paintbrushes. I just want to paint.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I believe that this is what we're trying to say when we talk about embodiment.

Speaker 2 That what

Speaker 2 I am learning in my life right now.

Speaker 2 is that it wasn't just like MTV and magazines and porn

Speaker 2 that objectified my body.

Speaker 2 That it was the very Western philosophy and religion that everything is based on, that everything we've ever been taught is objectifying of the body.

Speaker 2 That considering our minds our real selves and our bodies not our real selves is objectifying just as it is.

Speaker 2 And why

Speaker 2 do I think that my mind

Speaker 2 that honestly has done some incredible things, but but led me astray many, many times, has more wisdom in it than my hands.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 My hands are how I love and touch and how I've connected with every single thing that I've ever loved or done or made art or my feet or my belly or my thighs.

Speaker 2 So to me, embodiment is like, you know how like if you go get a certain test at the hospital, they make you drink this shit and it like lights up contrast.

Speaker 2 Okay, it's called contrast and it like lights up something inside you yeah you drink this stuff and then and then you either take an mri or cat scan and it lights up the part in you that they're trying to get a picture of okay

Speaker 2 if i drank aliveness embodiment contrast a bottle of it anytime over the last

Speaker 2 46 years

Speaker 2 I would have drank the aliveness

Speaker 2 awareness

Speaker 2 contrast

Speaker 2 And they would have put me in a little tunnel. And the only thing that would have lit up would be the top half of my brain.

Speaker 2 That is the only place I have been alive.

Speaker 2 What embodiment for me now is if I drank a bottle of aliveness,

Speaker 2 contrast,

Speaker 2 I would be lit up with the exact same level of brightness from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes.

Speaker 2 I am no longer thinking

Speaker 2 with just my mind.

Speaker 2 When I go for walks, when my mind, it tends to be the loudest part of me. So when it keeps going, I remind myself, let's think in our toes now.
Let's think in our feet. Let's rub our fingers.

Speaker 2 Let's think in our hands. Let's think in our belly.
And I don't think I'm like more my body than my mind than my spirit. I think it might, for at least this moment for me,

Speaker 2 that it might all be horseshit, that I am just like this one thing,

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 this one being. And when I remember to scan all of myself, like I'm a house and in the attic is just as beautiful and wonderful as all the other places, but it's a little loud up there.

Speaker 2 I don't want to stay up there for too long. I just want to visit it, get some work done, and then come back down to like the arms and the stomach and the toes.

Speaker 2 I am alive, as alive in all of those places as I am in my mind. This might be the most clarifying thing that you've ever explained to me about

Speaker 2 me trying to manage our otherness.

Speaker 2 As somebody who's never struggled with eating disorder,

Speaker 2 it feels daunting to understand.

Speaker 2 And this is,

Speaker 2 for those listening, could be one of the most helpful things

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 help

Speaker 2 walk somebody through a part of their life, no matter what you're recovering from. Well, you are someone who's lived, who's been alive in all of your parts your whole life.

Speaker 2 And the things that we know are true about me in the world. I'm amazingly clumsy.
I fall down a lot. I've run into things more than other people.
All of these things are making sense to me because I

Speaker 2 have not learned to live. I don't have a lot of agency in this body because I have not lived here.

Speaker 3 What I hear you saying is there is a spectrum, the intimacy

Speaker 3 with which

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 internalization and adoption

Speaker 3 of which we experience our bodies. And on one extreme is this view

Speaker 3 that Plato had, that Christianity had, that basically the body is a source of endless trouble for us.

Speaker 3 It is desires are evil. We only escape

Speaker 3 the wickedness of the body when we die. Okay, that's on one side of the spectrum.
On the other side of the spectrum is love your body, be sweet to your body, pamper your body.

Speaker 3 And what I hear you saying is those are two

Speaker 3 polarized views of the body, but they are based on the exact same presupposition,

Speaker 3 which is that your body is something to reject or embrace, as opposed to your body is you

Speaker 3 and you are she.

Speaker 3 And so,

Speaker 3 even if you are being based positive, you are still alienated from yourself on that spectrum.

Speaker 2 I think what you're saying is important in terms of it annoys me when people are always saying your body's good. What do you you mean? That's just like saying my body's bad.

Speaker 2 I think that a lot of people are circling around this in terms of like

Speaker 2 body neutrality. What does that even mean? I am experiencing life out through this body.

Speaker 2 Like it's a neutral experience.

Speaker 3 Right. It is adopting your body.
To go back to our last podcast, it is responsibility for yourself.

Speaker 2 You are this thing.

Speaker 3 And so you are either alienated from it or you are in it and of it. There aren't a lot of options there.

Speaker 3 And so if the opposite of your body is wicked and you only escape it in death, the only reasonable corollary of that is you are either in and not escaping your body in life

Speaker 2 to be living.

Speaker 3 So I think what's interesting and not to get. too philosophical about it, but like the whole thing is very philosophical.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 She said apropos of nothing. But the whole idea that Aristotle had, which is that your body and your mind are inextricable.

Speaker 3 He used this analogy of

Speaker 3 wax imprint, where your

Speaker 3 mind and your body is the wax and the imprint, that they cannot be separated. So the soul is inherently part of the body.
And so

Speaker 3 it's very cool to take that all on because then you're not divorcing yourself from any of yourself and you're actually completely widening your opportunities to live when you're like wait so this toe is me

Speaker 3 just as much as this thought is me I feel it

Speaker 3 this show is brought to you by Alma I want to start with a truth I've learned the hard way. Taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time decision.
It's a daily practice.

Speaker 3 And even when you know you want support, the hardest part is often just figuring out where to start. For me, finding the right therapist changed everything.

Speaker 3 But getting there was kind of overwhelming. Endless searches, phone calls, dead ends.
It's wild that the thing that's supposed to help you can feel so hard to reach. And that's why I love Alma.

Speaker 3 Alma, A-L-M-A, takes all that chaos out of the process. It's a simple, easy-to-use platform where you can search for licensed, in-network therapists who actually feel like the right fit.

Speaker 3 You don't even need an account to browse and you can filter by what matters most to you, their background, specialty, therapy style, and more. And here's the part that really matters.

Speaker 3 This isn't just about checking a box. It's about real connection.
97% of people who found a therapist through Alma say they felt seen and heard. And that's the heart of good therapy.

Speaker 3 Someone who gets you, not just your symptoms. Better with people, better with Alma.
Visit helloalma.com/slash we can to schedule a free consultation today.

Speaker 3 That's hello a L M A dot com/slash W E C A N.

Speaker 2 I just want to get a little bit concrete because this is what's been really awesome for me. Is

Speaker 2 I have found ways to make this concrete in my life. First of all, what I believe the oozing was, was the liquid

Speaker 2 going into my body. The contrast.
The contrast going into my body. What I now believe I was up all night experiencing was embodiment for the first time.
Was like, wait, I have thighs.

Speaker 2 I'm being thighs right now. I'm calves.
I'm arms. I seriously believe that what those up all night oozing things were was my awareness sinking,

Speaker 2 becoming alive throughout all these different parts of my body. If we are not going to

Speaker 2 objectify our bodies, if we do not want to be objectified, meaning I just want to be the subject of my life. I just want to be in here looking out.

Speaker 2 I just want to be concerned with how I'm feeling, not how I'm looking. I want to be concerned with what I want more than being wanted.
I want to be alive in here, experiencing life looking out.

Speaker 2 This means

Speaker 2 I have found all of these parts in my life where I am self-objectifying. Why suddenly could I not speak on stages

Speaker 2 during my recovery?

Speaker 2 Now I understand why.

Speaker 2 Because when I am preparing to speak on a stage, I'm thinking about what am I going to wear? What am I going to say? What are they going to think when they're looking at me?

Speaker 2 I'm going to be on a stage. They're all going to be looking at me.
I am suddenly out of the experience of life and thinking of myself as an object.

Speaker 2 Why can I not be on social media right now? I don't think this is forever. This is just this part of my recovery.
I am so practicing living from the inside out, being the subject.

Speaker 2 I'm so practicing just being in my life, looking, tasting,

Speaker 2 breathing, living.

Speaker 2 When I take a picture to go on social media, that's the moment that I can express that's clearest that I'm living outside of my subjectivity and switching to objectivity. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 Now, what is this picture of me, this literal object? I am now out of the moment of living. of subjectivity and I'm switching to objectivity.
Now I'm putting this image out.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it is for certain objectification.
It's not me anymore. I'm over here.

Speaker 2 And I'm not laughing anymore. I'm not eating anymore.
I'm not celebrating anymore. I am objectifying myself to put this picture of celebrating or laughing or eating out for the new to comment on.

Speaker 2 That's really interesting.

Speaker 2 It's like putting your consciousness in. the world or the people out there looking back at you.
You're making yourself an object, literally. And so many of us are doing that on social media.

Speaker 2 I mean, I do that sitting in the living room, watching you do something. And I get my camera out and I take a video or I take a picture of you because I don't want to forget this moment,

Speaker 2 but I'm looking at you through this screen. I'm not actually experiencing you.
I'm taking this picture to experience this moment at a later date.

Speaker 2 with not even having really experienced the moment in real life. And I think that that maybe is what you're objectifying me in that moment.

Speaker 2 I think this is is one of the reasons why my kids, when they were little, were like, stop taking pictures of us. I think that they sensed objectification.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're taking a picture of me to put it out there. You're making me into an object.
Parenting is all that, I feel like.

Speaker 2 There was a moment recently where I was invited to go to this thing that I actually really, it's a good thing. It's an event.
It's a thing that I didn't even have to speak at it.

Speaker 2 But what I realized is I can't go to that thing because I'm immediately thinking about what am I supposed to wear to that thing because it's kind of a thing where you get photographed and it's not a bad thing.

Speaker 2 It's just

Speaker 2 objectifying in itself. Because what's important was who was there and in support of this thing.

Speaker 2 So then you have to decide, how am I going to objectify myself to be seen at this thing, which means that I have to get out of the clothes that I feel comfortable in and that I have to stop living to plan the image of myself that I'm going to send to that thing.

Speaker 3 I think what you're highlighting here is really important for

Speaker 3 in the process of any kind of recovery that you need to be very, very tender with yourself in those little micro things that six months from now, a year from now,

Speaker 3 you will be so practiced in

Speaker 3 what works for you and what doesn't, what feels good and what doesn't, but you just won't be at first.

Speaker 3 Paying attention to those little things that keep, that put you off balance, whether you're trying to

Speaker 3 do things that actually learn what feels right by not doing anything that doesn't feel right. Even if it seems absurd, even if it seems crazy, even if no one understands it.

Speaker 3 But those little micro things

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 seem perfectly reasonable for everyone else, but right now, you need so much to stay in touch with a part of you that feels an integrity, that feels like you're trying to train yourself to

Speaker 3 feel that thing and continue to go after that thing that you have to avoid those things that take you off track, even if other folks don't understand.

Speaker 2 Yes. And I would also argue

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 what folks learn in recovery

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 special things that are usually affecting everyone.

Speaker 2 I think it would be a real miss here to think that it's just because of my recovery journey that social media is not healthy for me.

Speaker 2 We are all fucked with social media. Okay.

Speaker 2 Our teenagers, our kids.

Speaker 3 And I don't even have it.

Speaker 2 But like, sister, the self-objectification of social media,

Speaker 2 this is not just a little weird thing that is because of my eating disorder. This is like

Speaker 2 something that's killing us. And I'm trying to take the judgment away from it and be like, it's because of the shift we do.
It's because we stop living.

Speaker 2 It's because we stop living and start creating these objects of ourselves and put it out there. And the tragedy in that is just that we're not embodied anymore.

Speaker 2 When people keep asking me, am I writing now?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, it's the podcast is what I love. I think it's because writing is self-objectification.

Speaker 2 I think it's because I think about these conversations.

Speaker 2 I get excited about original thoughts about these conversations. I come into these conversations.
I have a lived experience with you three.

Speaker 2 I never listen to them again. Once it becomes an object, it's over for me.

Speaker 2 When I'm writing, I write a thing and it has life in it. And then I edit it and then I revise it and then I perfect it and then I put it out as here I am.
I'm actually still in this body.

Speaker 2 But here's this version of me that is perfected and shiny and you guys get to comment on it forever. I'm not saying that won't be it forever, but it certainly is self-objectification.

Speaker 2 Somebody asked me a while ago, what's your dream self? I said, my dream would be like just writing poetry, writing, writing, writing, and then burning it all.

Speaker 2 Why? That was so weird to say. I know why, because that's living in complete subjectivity.

Speaker 2 I'm thinking this shit. I'm writing this shit.
And then I'm burning it knowing that I'm not even objectifying myself during it because I'm never going to show it to anybody.

Speaker 2 I'm never going to let myself become an object.

Speaker 3 That's why dancers are the ultimate embodied,

Speaker 3 because it's only while you're doing it that you need to use your body and your mind and your spirit to do it. And it's over, it's over.

Speaker 2 Why do you think the freaking thing that's all over the pillows is dance like no one's watching?

Speaker 2 Because even dancing.

Speaker 2 Even dancing is like, well, you still have to create a version of it that everyone's watching. And if you're a professional or whatever.

Speaker 2 But, you know, one of the ultimate embodiment exercises that people do is they get together and they freaking dance not choreograph not like they just move their bodies in like weird ways and that's part of

Speaker 2 embodiment recovery

Speaker 3 The origins of We Can Do Hard Things were once just a dream of community and connection and expression. That dream turned into the podcast you are listening to today.

Speaker 3 Starting your own business is a dream lots of us share, but too many of us let it remain just a dream. Don't hold yourself back thinking, what if I don't have the skills? What if I can't do it alone?

Speaker 3 Turn those what-ifs into why nots with Shopify by your side.

Speaker 3 Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S., from giant corporate household names to brands just getting started.

Speaker 3 You can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates to build your store, use AI tools to write product descriptions and enhance your photos, and even launch email or social campaigns that make it look like you've got a full marketing team behind you.

Speaker 3 Take it from me: if you're launching your own business, you do not want to do it alone. There are tools that can help.
We used Shopify to sell our We Can Do Hard Things merch on our book tour.

Speaker 3 We gave 100% of the proceeds of the merch away to nonprofits, and Shopify helped us to do all of that easily and seamlessly. Turn those dreams into

Speaker 3 and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your one dollar per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 3 Go to shopify.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 3 Shopify.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 2 It's a lot,

Speaker 2 but but it's also so unbelievably simple. The framing doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2 Like, I

Speaker 2 am

Speaker 2 my body.

Speaker 2 This is it. This is me.

Speaker 2 I don't want to love my body. I just want to love with my body.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I want to live as much as possible in subjectivity. I want to live out from in here.

Speaker 2 I don't want to

Speaker 2 live out there looking at me.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's so many of us who are not having the experience of being human beings.

Speaker 3 It's like the part of us

Speaker 3 that are

Speaker 3 beings

Speaker 3 are the inextricably vital part of us. that are bodies.
And it's like we could live a whole life just in our minds and just exploring our minds.

Speaker 3 And there's a hell of an adventure to have there, but we're not having that experience because we are

Speaker 3 disassociated from our bodies and we think they're not ours.

Speaker 2 Yes. And what I would suggest is that that's not our fault.
It's our responsibility, but it's in the philosophy that we've been taught since we were born.

Speaker 2 It's in the philosophy that we are our minds and discipline in itself is overriding the body to this higher higher power, which is the mind.

Speaker 2 When in fact, every single time I've gotten to trouble or gone down a path I didn't want to, it was because I was overriding the wisdom of my body

Speaker 2 with something that my mind said I should or shouldn't do.

Speaker 2 And my body actually never leads me wrong. So I don't know why I have been putting it in the second seat,

Speaker 2 except for the fact that my culture told me to.

Speaker 3 I'm very interested, and this is another conversation that we should be having, but I would be very interested in what the disabled community

Speaker 3 says and feels about this.

Speaker 2 And part of it could be,

Speaker 2 I don't think this is, this is it, but you know, people who struggle with mental health issues, like

Speaker 2 that, it is very, it is a liberating message to hear, right? I am my body. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think there is something there because I do hear a little bit of more trust, gaining trust in your body and suspicion of your mind.

Speaker 3 And I wonder if that's just an ongoing pendulum where we're like trying

Speaker 3 to

Speaker 2 be

Speaker 3 present in both, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm just not working on my relationship with my body anymore. If anything, I'm my body.
And if we need to go to therapy, we're just going to bring our mind to therapy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, your body is yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 2 All of that was to say,

Speaker 2 pod squad. Yeah.
How's body? How's recovery going? How's recovery going, hon? It's a remembering. It is a remembering

Speaker 2 of what we talked about in the last podcast: of

Speaker 2 bringing my child self to the table and letting her remember. It's a remembering of bringing my body back to me.
It's the opposite of dismembering. It's a remembering.

Speaker 2 Pod squad, we love you. Good luck with that.
See you next time.

Speaker 2 If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do each or all of these three things.

Speaker 2 First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode.

Speaker 2 To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow.

Speaker 2 This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful.

Speaker 2 We appreciate you very much.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.