When the Body Becomes an Enemy (and How to Reclaim It)

For centuries, women have been conditioned to distrust their own bodies. To monitor them. To discipline them. To make them desirable — but never too much. To erase them when they don’t fit.

The result? Many of us live cut off from our most fundamental source of truth. We make “reasonable” choices with our heads, but ignore the signals of fatigue, irritation, or blockages… until we end up convinced that the problem is us.

And yet: your body is not an obstacle. It’s a guide.

The body reduced to a display case: a heavy cultural legacy

This disconnection is not personal failure. It’s the legacy of a system built over centuries.

• Religion long associated the female body with sin. Purity, chastity, and control were praised, while pleasure was condemned.

• Medicine dismissed women’s pain, labeling it “hysteria” instead of listening.

• Popular culture imposed impossible standards: be thin but curvy, youthful but mature, seductive but never too much.

These forces have shaped generations of women who learned to see themselves from the outside, as if judged by an invisible jury.

Over time, we internalized the belief that our bodies were projects to fix, not places to inhabit. Display cases, not compasses.

How disconnection shows up in daily life

Disconnection doesn’t always announce itself through trauma. More often, it creeps in through small daily compromises:

• Saying yes to an invitation when every cell in you screams no.

• Pushing through a meeting while your stomach is tied in knots.

• Faking desire in bed because explaining feels harder.

• Masking exhaustion with coffee, a smile, and performance.

These gestures seem ordinary. But repeated over time, they carve a rift between what you feel and what you show. Between the inside and the outside.

That’s how disconnection becomes the norm. And the longer it lasts, the harder it becomes to know what you truly want.

The hidden but far-reaching consequences

Ignoring your body comes at a cost.

• On your health: chronic pain, migraines, sleep disturbances, persistent fatigue.

• On your psyche: anxiety, loss of desire, the sense of being stuck on repeat.

• On relationships: difficulty setting boundaries, fear of expressing needs, feeling like you’re always performing.

And when desire goes quiet, it’s not only intimacy that suffers. Creativity stalls. Ambition dims. The ability to dream and project forward fades.

A nervous system locked in constant alert has no space left for joy.You stop creating. You start executing. You stop choosing. You just survive.

Desire: a life force, not a performance

We’ve been taught to confuse desire with performance.Sexual desire = proof of love. Professional desire = endless ambition. Personal desire = selfish luxury.

But desire is bigger than that. It’s a life force. It’s the current that pushes us to say yes to a project, to laugh, to dance, to connect.

When it disappears, we often blame ourselves: “I’m not motivated,” “I’ve lost my drive,” “Something must be wrong with me.”

But in reality, it’s your body protecting itself.

Understanding this changes everything. The absence of desire is not weakness. It’s a signal. An invitation to rebuild the safety that allows desire to return — in intimacy, in work, in life.

Why this is both political and personal

Reclaiming the body as a guide is not a self-care trend. It’s survival — and it’s power.

Because a woman who is embodied no longer needs to justify herself.She feels her limits and respects them. She says no with clarity, yes with conviction.

And that simple act — inhabiting the body rather than policing it — becomes political.An embodied woman takes up space. She disrupts expectations. She shows others what’s possible.

This is why embodiment isn’t just personal healing. It has collective impact.

Reclaiming the body: a strategy for power

When you stop treating your body as a problem to fix, you discover it’s a powerful ally.

An embodied woman:

• says no without guilt,

• makes aligned decisions,

• taps into creative energy no rational plan could produce.

And this desire, once restored, doesn’t stay confined to the bedroom. It shows up in how you work, how you create, how you enter a room, how you negotiate, how you love.

From survival to vitality

Imagine making a big decision without weeks of mental spinning.Imagine saying yes to a project not out of duty, but because it excites you.Imagine realizing your body is not a cage but a springboard.

That is what becomes possible when you stop seeing your body as an enemy and start recognizing it as what it is: a guide, an ally, a source of power.

What if this is your moment?

This is exactly what I explore with my clients and in my workshops: transforming the relationship with the body to reignite desire, clarity, and vitality. Contact me today to find out more and take the next step.