How to Reconnect with Your Body When It Feels Like the Enemy
Here’s what happens when you stop fighting your body and start listening instead.
When the Body Feels Like the Enemy
When you’ve spent years receiving messages that your body is too big, too soft, too much—it makes sense that you’d want to disconnect from it.
Body shame isn’t just an emotional wound. It’s a form of trauma.
Each time you’ve been stared at, dismissed, or measured against an impossible standard, your body has registered that moment as danger. Over time, your nervous system learns: It’s safer to leave.
That “ugh” or “yuck” feeling you get when you see your reflection, feel your thighs touch, or notice your belly soften? That’s your body remembering pain—the pain of judgment, comparison, and rejection. So of course you’ve learned to ignore it. Who would want to stay present in a body that’s been treated like a problem?
But here’s the truth: the shame never belonged to your body in the first place.
It came from systems that profit off your insecurity and from people acting out their own internalized fatphobia.
When someone judges another body, it might look like confidence, but it’s not freedom. It’s fear.
It’s a narrow, brittle way of measuring worth that traps them too—stuck in a rat race of striving for an illusion of safety that will never be found through control.
Reclaiming connection with your body isn’t just personal healing—it’s an act of quiet rebellion. It’s how you begin to step out of that system of suffering.
And one of the most beautiful examples I’ve seen of this kind of reclamation came from a client named Cindy.
Hey, by the way—
If this topic speaks to you, I send a twice-monthly letter called Softening Sessions—a quiet pause in your inbox where we explore what it means to come home to yourself.
Each note includes reflections like this one, gentle body-based practices, and reminders that healing doesn’t have to feel like a fight.
You can join here → [link]
The Joy Available When We Give Up the Fight with Food and Our Bodies: Cindy’s Story
Cindy was 55 when we began working together. Like many women, her relationship with her body had been shaped by decades of messages that said smaller was better, thinner meant worthy, and hunger was something to conquer.
Her body had always been “the project.” The shame. The thing to fix.
It was the shape that entered the room before she did—one she wished could be smaller, quieter, invisible.
Years earlier, Cindy had bariatric surgery. For a while, it seemed like a success story. She lost a significant amount of weight and heard all the praise that diet culture reserves for visible transformation. But over time, the weight returned—as it often does—and with it came a flood of shame and self-blame.
By the time she found Intuitive Eating and our work together, Cindy was exhausted. The fight with food and her body had consumed so much of her life that she could barely hear what her body wanted anymore. Her hunger and fullness cues were muted from years of dieting and the physical effects of surgery.
When she began the coaching process, she wasn’t sure what she still believed in. But she was willing to try something radical: compassion.
Learning to Listen Again
Cindy feared she would never experience normal hunger cues again.
After bariatric surgery, her stomach was physically smaller, and years of dieting had dulled her ability to feel the natural rhythms of hunger and fullness. She often said, “It’s like my body’s signals were permanently turned off.”
That fear ran deep—and it made perfect sense. When you’ve spent a lifetime overriding your body’s needs, it’s hard to believe it will still want to communicate with you.
But the body–mind connection is astonishingly resilient.
Cindy once described it to me like this:
“It’s probably kind of like someone who’s lost a limb. They still feel that limb even though it’s gone.”
She wondered if her hunger cues were similar—absent in form, but still present in the neural wiring.
And she was right. The pathways for hunger and fullness had never disappeared; they had simply gone quiet, waiting for her attention to return.
As Cindy began shifting her beliefs about her body—from “It’s broken” to “It’s trying to speak to me”—something remarkable happened. Her body began to answer back.
At first, the cues were subtle: a soft tug of emptiness in her stomach, a wave of energy, a quiet nudge that said, now. She responded by eating—not according to a clock or a plan, but in response to sensation. The more she responded, the more her body communicated. Each exchange built trust.
Over time, she was reestablishing an entire relationship—one that had been interrupted by years of shame and control.
Her intuition wasn’t gone; it was simply waiting to be heard.
The Freedom That Follows Trust
And then, something even more beautiful happened.
As Cindy’s mind decluttered and the relentless noise of diet culture began to fade, gratitude emerged on its own. She began waking up with a quiet awe for the fact that she had a body at all—a body that allowed her to live, to experience, to be here.
She hadn’t realized how much space had been taken up by body hatred and food anxiety. Once that noise quieted, new possibilities filled the room: joy, curiosity, connection.
She found herself excited about things that had nothing to do with weight or food—traveling, deepening relationships, pursuing growth in her career, and exploring spirituality.
Cindy even rejoined a Pilates class, but this time it wasn’t about sculpting or burning calories. It was about movement that felt good—an expression of gratitude and partnership with her body.
Her relationship with her body had shifted from management to companionship, from control to collaboration.
Here’s What She Did to Reconnect with Her Body
It might sound simple, but the most important part of reconnection is intention.
Healing your relationship with your body isn’t about changing everything at once—it’s about setting one or two clear, compassionate intentions and finding ways to keep them front and center.
When your mind has the first thought (“My body is the problem”), your intention practice helps you remember the second (“My body is my partner”).
Cindy’s process offers a roadmap:
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She set an intention to listen.
Each morning, before rushing into her day, she took one minute to check in: How do I actually feel in my body right now? That daily intention kept her anchored in curiosity rather than control. -
She replaced control with response.
When her body signaled hunger, fatigue, or emotion, she practiced responding gently—eating, resting, or breathing instead of overriding. -
She met shame with compassion.
Each time the inner critic surfaced, she practiced naming it and softening: “This voice learned to protect me, but I don’t need it anymore.” -
She practiced joyful movement.
Cindy rejoined a Pilates class and spent the first session not trying to “keep up,” but noticing what felt good. Movement became a conversation, not a punishment. -
She nourished gratitude.
Every evening, she named one way her body had supported her that day—walking the dog, hugging a friend, digesting food. Gratitude deepened her sense of safety and belonging in her own skin.
These might seem like small shifts, but they rewired her brain toward trust. Over time, her body began to feel less like an adversary and more like an ally.
Reconnecting with Your Body Is Revolutionary
Learning to reconnect with your body isn’t about loving it instantly or silencing every thought of shame. It’s about remembering that your body was never the problem—the culture that taught you to hate it was.
Every time you pause to listen, soften, or respond differently, you reclaim something that diet culture tried to take from you: your agency, your peace, and your right to inhabit yourself fully.
Reconnection begins with intention—and with a willingness to believe that your body still wants a relationship with you. Because it does.
Hey, before you go—
If you want more conversations like this, I’d love to send you Softening Sessions, my newsletter for anyone learning to listen to their body and soften old patterns.
Each edition blends nervous system science, storytelling, and gentle guidance for reconnecting with your body and your life.
You can join here → [link]
And just like Cindy discovered:
When you stop fighting your body, you don’t lose control—
you finally find freedom.
