Your partner is touching you, but instead of noticing the warmth of their hands, your mind is somewhere else.

What does my stomach look like?

You change positions, and another thought arrives:

Absolutely not from that angle.

Someone tells you that you are beautiful, desirable, or sexy. Rather than receiving the compliment, your mind immediately begins building a case against it.

They cannot possibly mean that.

The body may be present in the bedroom while the mind remains trapped in observation, evaluation, and self-criticism. This is what can happen when body-image distress enters an intimate experience.

When Intimacy Becomes a Performance

Many people assume that body-image concerns are primarily about disliking what they see in the mirror. In reality, body image also includes the thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and expectations we carry about our bodies.

During intimacy, those beliefs can become especially loud.

Instead of experiencing pleasure, a person may begin watching themselves as though they were an outside observer. They may wonder how their body looks, whether their partner notices a particular feature, or whether they are performing sexuality correctly.

This internal monitoring is sometimes called spectatoring. Rather than participating fully in the experience, you begin mentally watching, judging, and grading yourself.

The questions may sound like:

• Is my stomach showing?
• Does my body look attractive from this position?
• Am I taking too long?
• Does my partner wish I looked different?
• Am I making the right sounds?
• Do I look sexy enough?
• Is my body responding the way it is supposed to?

When the brain is busy answering these questions, it has fewer resources available for sensation, connection, arousal, and pleasure.

Body Image Is Shaped by More Than the Mirror

Body image does not develop in isolation. It is influenced by family messages, relationships, culture, religion, trauma, media, beauty standards, aging, health changes, and previous sexual experiences.

For Black women, these experiences may also be shaped by colorism, racism, objectification, respectability expectations, Eurocentric beauty standards, and cultural messages about which bodies are considered desirable.

A woman may receive contradictory messages throughout her life. Her body may be criticized, sexualized, celebrated, compared, monitored, or treated as though it belongs to everyone except her.

Over time, she may learn to ask, How is my body being perceived? before asking, How does my body feel to me?

That distinction matters.

When we are taught to experience the body primarily through other people’s eyes, intimacy can become another place where we feel watched—even when our partner is loving and emotionally safe.

How Body-Image Distress Can Affect Sexuality

Body-image distress can appear in intimate relationships in many ways. A person may:

• Avoid initiating sex or physical affection
• Keep the lights off or remain partially clothed
• Limit certain positions or types of touch
• Struggle to receive compliments
• Become distracted during sexual activity
• Focus on pleasing a partner while disconnecting from personal pleasure
• Avoid mirrors or reflective surfaces
• Compare their body to former partners, pornography, social media images, or cultural ideals
• Seek repeated reassurance about their appearance
• Experience difficulty communicating desires or boundaries
• Postpone intimacy until their body changes

These behaviors often serve a protective purpose. Avoidance, hiding, reassurance seeking, and overperforming may temporarily reduce anxiety. However, they can also reinforce the belief that the body must be controlled, concealed, or changed before it is allowed to experience pleasure.

Healing Is Not About Becoming Confident All the Time

People are often told to “just love your body.” Although well intentioned, that advice can feel unrealistic and even shaming.

You do not have to feel completely confident about every part of your body before you can experience intimacy. You do not have to silence every insecure thought. You do not have to reach a particular size, shape, age, or appearance before you are worthy of pleasure and connection.

Healing may begin with something gentler than body love.

It may begin with body neutrality.

It may sound like:

• This is my body today.
• I can notice discomfort without abandoning myself.
• My body does not have to be perfect to experience pleasure.
• I can redirect my attention toward what I feel instead of how I appear.
• I am allowed to communicate what helps me feel safe.
• I can practice receiving affection without arguing against it.

The goal is not to force yourself into confidence. The goal is to create enough emotional safety to remain connected to yourself.

Treatment Approaches That May Help

Body-image distress is not treated by a single method. Effective therapy considers the person’s history, culture, relationships, trauma experiences, sexual concerns, and current level of distress.

Several approaches may be helpful.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help identify rigid or distorted beliefs about appearance, desirability, and worth. Therapy may explore thoughts such as My partner cannot desire me unless my body looks a certain way and examine how those beliefs influence emotions and behavior.

The purpose is not to replace every negative thought with a positive one. It is to develop thoughts that are more balanced, compassionate, and grounded in reality.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice difficult thoughts without automatically obeying them.

Instead of trying to prove that the thought I do not look good enough is false, a person might learn to respond:

I notice that I am having the thought that I do not look good enough.

That small shift creates distance between the person and the thought. The thought may still be present, but it no longer has to determine what happens next.

Mindfulness and Embodied Awareness

Mindfulness can help redirect attention away from appearance monitoring and toward physical sensation.

During an intimate moment, this may involve noticing:

• Temperature
• Pressure
• Breath
• Texture
• Movement
• Comfort
• Emotional connection
• What feels pleasurable, neutral, or unwanted

Mindfulness is not about forcing the mind to remain perfectly focused. It is the practice of gently returning to the present whenever self-critical thoughts pull attention away.

Self-Compassion

Self-compassion helps replace shame and punishment with curiosity and care.

A compassionate response might ask:

What happened that taught me to be this critical of my body?

That question creates a very different experience from asking:

What is wrong with me?

Self-compassion does not ignore pain or eliminate accountability. It helps us understand that shame rarely creates the emotional safety needed for meaningful change.

Sensate Focus and Sex Therapy

Sensate-focus exercises can help individuals and couples explore touch without making intercourse, orgasm, or performance the immediate goal.

The emphasis shifts from What should happen? to What am I noticing?

When introduced gradually and with appropriate therapeutic guidance, these exercises can reduce performance pressure, support communication, and help the body relearn that touch can involve curiosity rather than evaluation.

For some people, body disconnection developed as protection during or after trauma. In these situations, simply encouraging someone to “get back into their body” may feel unsafe.

Trauma-informed treatment moves at a pace that respects the person’s nervous system, boundaries, and sense of control. The work may include grounding, emotional regulation, boundary development, trauma processing, and gradually rebuilding a sense of bodily ownership.

A Gentle Practice: From Appearance to Experience

The next time you notice yourself evaluating your appearance during an intimate or affectionate moment, pause if it feels safe to do so.

Take one slow breath and ask:

1. What thought pulled me away from the present moment?
2. What emotion came with that thought?
3. What sensation can I notice in my body right now?
4. What would help me feel more comfortable, connected, or safe?
5. Is there something I need to communicate?

You do not need to force the thought away. Simply notice it, name it, and gently return your attention to your lived experience.

A Different Relationship With Your Body Is Possible

Your body is not an object that must earn the right to be touched, desired, or treated with care.

It is the place where you experience tenderness, boundaries, comfort, longing, vulnerability, connection, and pleasure.

Changing your relationship with your body takes time. Some days may bring confidence, while others bring discomfort or grief. Healing does not require perfection or constant positivity.

It asks for honesty, compassion, and a willingness to return to yourself.

Your body does not have to become something different before intimacy can begin to feel different.

Healing can become a pathway toward reconnection—not perfection.

And that’s According to Dr. LaShonda

Dr. LaShonda H. Henderson, Ph.D., LMHC-S, LPC, CST, EMDR-c

This article is intended for educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized mental-health or medical treatment.

I Thought I Was Just Going Back to School

When I started this Ph.D journey, I thought I was signing up to write papers, conduct research or complete a project, and eventually earn a title.

What I didn’t realize was that I was also signing up for:

• identity crises
• emotional support coffee
• twenty open tabs I swear I still need
• and a completely unhealthy relationship with Microsoft Word

No one really talks about how a doctoral program will humble you and heal you at the same time.  One minute you feel brilliant.  The next minute you’re rereading the same sentence wondering if you’ve ever actually known how to read.

“Somewhere between burnout and becoming, I kept going.”

The Doctoral Delusion Phase

I truly believed I would be “organized.” I bought color-coded notebooks. Loaded my Remarkable. Downloaded planning apps. Created timelines with hope and confidence. That lasted about fourteen business days.

After that, my life became a blur of:

• revisions
• committee feedback
• APA formatting
• existential reflection
• and whispering “I’m almost done” every three months

At some point, the write up stopped feeling like a document and started feeling like a personality trait.

The Unexpected Mirror

What surprised me most wasn’t the workload. It was the way this process forced me to confront myself. A doctorate has a way of exposing every insecurity you thought you buried under professionalism and achievement. Suddenly, all the perfectionism, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and fear of failure show up uninvited… usually around 1:17am.  And somehow, in the middle of researching body image, intimacy, identity, and healing, I found myself doing that work personally too.

I started this journey thinking I was writing a workbook.  Turns out, it was writing me too.

“There’s something deeply personal about researching healing while actively trying to survive your own stress.”

Becoming Looks Messy Sometimes

I used to think growth would feel graceful.  Instead, it looked like:

• crashing out over formatting and grammar issues
• celebrating tiny victories
• forgetting what day it was
• and convincing myself that deleting one paragraph was “productive”

But becoming isn’t always beautiful while it’s happening.  Sometimes it looks like exhaustion with purpose.  Sometimes it looks like showing up imperfectly anyway.

Closer Than I Was Before

And maybe that’s the thing I keep coming back to:
I am closer than I was when I started.  Closer to finishing. Closer to myself. Closer to the woman I’m becoming outside of the degrees and titles.

This process stretched me intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.  And while I’m still tired, still revising, and still questioning why APA has so many rules… I’m also proud.  Because despite every moment I wanted to quit, I stayed.

“Maybe the goal was never perfection. Maybe it was resistance.”

 A Reflection Forward

This doctoral journey has taught me that healing and becoming often happen simultaneously.

You can be exhausted and evolving. Overwhelmed and growing.
Burned out and still becoming. And maybe that’s what this season really is:
not a breakdown, but a transformation in progress.

According to LaShonda, Your Finer Sex Therapist.

What the Mirror Taught Me

Somewhere down the line, the mirror ceased to be only a mirror. It became a measuring tool. A critic.  A place I went to test everything I thought was wrong with me. I didn’t know I’d been taught how to see in a different person’s eyes — eyes forged in the crucible of beauty standards built with me out of sight. And the more I gazed, the less I knew myself.

“I wasn’t looking at my body — I was looking through what I was learning about it.”

The Inheritance of Distortion: We don’t learn body image in isolation.
We inherit it. Through unmeaningful comments. Through silence on “what was ‘acceptable.’” Through media that seldom reflected us, except when it was sensationalized or edited.

For Black women, the mirror is often more than mirror — it holds history. Colorism. Comparison. Survival. It helps us to adapt before we even comprehend who we are. “For many of us, the mirror holds other people’s opinions for a very long time.”

Unlearning What Was Never Ours

Unlearning isn’t loud.
Maybe that doesn’t always look like confidence or self-love.

Sometimes it means catching yourself in your own criticism about something and just not moving on further. Sometimes it is simply standing in the mirror for at last too long — not to help yourself but just to take note. It is the deliberate choice to question the voice that says, “not enough.” And instead asking, Who instructed me on to that?

Reclaiming the Reflection: Reclaiming your reflection is not forcing yourself to love what you see. It’s letting yourself see without injury. Without shrinking.
Without punishment.

”Without having to perform.

It is selecting to encounter yourself with curiosity rather than critique.

And gradually, over time, your reflection softens — not because your body changed, but because your relationship with it did.

“Healing doesn’t always involve learning something new — often it is releasing what was never yours to bear.”

A Gentle Truth

I’m still unlearning.
Still catching the old thoughts before they settle in.
Still practicing what it means to see myself without distortion.

But I know this much: the mirror was never the concern.

It was the meaning I was taught to be attached to what I saw.

🌿 A Reflection Forward

This is the essence of Sex for Every Body. Not just seeing ourselves in a new light — but understanding how we came to begin with when teaching ourselves to see ourselves.

Because when we begin to unlearn the mirror, we begin to recover the power over our own image of beauty, closeness and value.

On our terms.

For a long time, I’ve shared pieces of my journey… but I haven’t fully introduced the heart of it—my doctoral work.

My project, Sex for Every Body: Intimacy, Identity, and Body Dysmorphia in Black Women, centers on a reality that is often overlooked:

How we see our bodies deeply shapes how we experience intimacy.

This work explores the intersection of body image, identity, and relational closeness—specifically for Black women, whose experiences are often missing or misunderstood in both research and clinical spaces.

A therapeutic Workbook for Black Women Navigating Body Dysmorphia, identity, and intimacy .

It’s designed to help individuals:
• Understand how body image distress shows up in their lives
• Explore how it impacts emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy
• Gently challenge internalized narratives about their bodies
• Reconnect with themselves in a more compassionate, embodied way

Grounded in frameworks like intersectionality, attachment, and objectification theory, this project honors both the clinical and lived experience.

It includes reflective exercises, body-based awareness practices, and guided prompts that can be used individually or alongside a clinician.

Because the goal isn’t perfection, it is awareness, connection, and healing.

This work is deeply personal. It’s professional. And it’s purposeful.

And now, as I prepare to defend it later this year…

I’m proud to finally say:

This is what I’ve been building.

#SexForEveryBody #DoctoralJourney #BlackWomenAndHealing #BodyImageAndIntimacy #TraumaInformedCare #PhDLoading #AlmostDoctor

According to LaShonda, Your Finer  Certified Sex Therapist.

By the time I reached the doorstep of fifty, I had already lived what felt like several lives. There were seasons I didn’t think I’d survive—times when grief was louder than joy, when loneliness curled itself around my mornings, and when I questioned if the light at the end of the tunnel was really for me.

But I’m here. And I’m not just here—I’m alive, fully and fiercely.

In my younger years, I wore strength like a badge. Not the soft, flowing kind—this was steel-forged survival. I was the fixer, the doer, the one who could handle anything. But beneath that armor were stories I hadn’t yet given myself permission to tell: of trauma, of betrayal, of trying to shrink myself to be more palatable, acceptable, lovable.

Turning 40 began the unraveling. I lost some things I thought I couldn’t live without—and found parts of myself I didn’t know existed.

Grief entered like a tidal wave. Not just from loss of loved ones, but also from shedding versions of myself that no longer fit. I grieved dreams that didn’t come to pass. Friendships that faded. Love that didn’t last.

But grief wasn’t the end—it was the teacher. It softened me. It slowed me down. It taught me to say no without guilt and yes to peace.

It’s strange how pain opens doors you didn’t know existed. I traveled. I wept. I sat in silence. I rebuilt my faith, my joy, and my voice.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to earn rest. I stopped seeking permission to be happy. I stopped confusing busyness with purpose.

Fifty is not a finish line. It’s a homecoming. It’s me choosing softness over suffering. Grace over grind. Connection over comparison. It’s me realizing that my value was never tied to my productivity or my proximity to perfection.

I choose life in every sense of the word. I choose solo travel with sunrises and passport stamps. I choose laughter that echoes. I choose community. I choose the audacity to be soft, vulnerable, and still powerful.

This chapter isn’t about proving anything. It’s about being. Fully. Boldly. Joyfully.
And finally, it’s about thanking the woman I’ve been—she carried me here.

If you’re approaching a milestone, know this: it’s not too late to begin again. Your healing doesn’t expire. Your dreams are still valid. Your presence is enough.

Here’s to 50. To freedom. To life.

According to Me …LaShonda

There’s something sacred about booking a flight for one. No group chat planning chaos. No waiting for someone else to have the money, the time, or the boldness. No negotiating where to eat, shop, or stay. Just you — deciding to go, because you deserve to go. Traveling alone is not just a vacation as a Black woman. It’s resistance. It’s healing. It is taking space in a world that so often requires us to shrink, sacrifice, settle. It’s saying I deserve joy and ease and exploration and safety — right now, not when conditions are perfect. Travel becomes a Mirror. Few journeys are measured in miles but in moments: Breakfast alone without feeling lonely. Treat yourself to dessert because no one is there to judge your sweet tooth. Getting lost and realizing you’re actually capable of finding your way. Laughing with strangers in broken languages. Crying over a sunset because life just feels larger than your routine.

Travel holds up a mirror. It reveals who you are when you’re not performing. When no one knows your title, your sorority, your responsibilities, your “strong Black woman” armor … who are you? Sometimes, you learn: I’m softer than I pretend. I’m bolder than I thought. I am wiser than I ever give myself credit for.

Single Does Not Mean Still.There’s a myth out there that joy is something we wait to share with a partner in the future — the “right person” to travel with, to explore with, to live with. But when we are constantly saving life until some distant time, we are missing ourselves. Traveling solo says:  I don’t have to postpone sunsets. I don’t have to wait to eat good food. I don’t have to shrink my life until someone else is ready to join me. Single is not a break from it; it is a passport.

Being a Black Woman Abroad. Let’s be honest: There are layers to traveling as a Black woman. There are stares, questions, curiosity, often ignorance — and yet there’s something charged about entering into a place where you are rare and radiant. Where your skin is admired, your presence remarkable, and people want to know your story. In many nations, Black women are not simply stereotypes first — they are considered travelers, thinkers, customers, explorers. Once again you get to be outside of the narrative America wrote for you. You become the narrator. You become the adventure.

The Healing Is in the Unplanned. The gift of traveling solo is the gradual liberation to follow your intuition:  Perhaps you linger a little longer at the café. Perhaps you follow a hidden beach a stranger suggested. Perhaps you go elsewhere and discover something life-changing. Solo travel shows you ways to trust the voice you’ve been stifling to the background the whole time: the voice that knows what you need, what you like, what you’re curious about. In regular life, we mute ourselves in order to fit into roles… but when we’re travelling, curiosity becomes your North Star.

The World’s One and Last True Lesson. The world is trying to speak a very simple truth: You are allowed to take up space. Not just in love. Not just at work. Not only when you are serving other people. But in joy. In rest. In wonder. Solo travel makes you fall in love with your own company. You know you aren’t waiting to live. You are living. Fully. Fearlessly. Finer.

A Passport Is Not an Exercise in Document — There Is Promise involved here. It’s a promise not to reduce your life to whatever anyone else’s timing is. It’s a vow: Curiosity itself is part of your calling. It’s a promise that joy is nonnegotiable. You deserve oceans. You are worthy of stamps. It’s your life worth celebrating in color. And whenever you find yourself thinking that traveling alone may have become a big problem, remember: the world isn’t waiting for you to be less single — it’s waiting for you to be more alive.

According to LaShonda

Loving Myself Through Holiday Grief

Singleness forces you to look at yourself — not in judgment, but in truth.
Grief forces you to feel things you’d rather outrun.

But together.
They also reveal strength you didn’t know you had.

What this season has taught me:

1. My heart is resilient.
2. My loneliness deserves compassion, not shame.
3. I can hold both longing and gratitude without losing myself.
4. Self-love is not a backup plan — it’s a foundation.
5. I deserve a holiday that honors me, not expectations.

“I am learning that the softer I am with myself, the stronger I become.”

According to LaShonda

There’s a special kind of loneliness that hits during December:

The drive home after a gathering.
The quiet house when the laughter fades.
The untouched side of the bed.
The empty chair at the table.
The moment you realize no one texted to say “did you get home safe?”

People don’t talk about that loneliness.
They talk about “holiday cheer,” parties, family, and festivities — but not the ache that sneaks in with the cold.

You can be surrounded by people
and still feel alone.
You can be grateful
and still feel emptiness.
You can be healing
and still have nights that break you open.

“The world sees the holiday smile. Only you feel the weight behind it.”

-According to LaShonda

When the Holiday Doesn’t Look Like You Imagined

We all had a picture in our minds at some point —
a partner, a family, a certain kind of holiday magic.

And when life doesn’t look like that picture, the holidays can sting.

But here’s the truth:

Your life is not late.
Your love story is not canceled.
Your joy is not behind schedule.
Your future is not slipping away.

Sometimes the holiday that looks “different” is the one that grows you the most.

Sometimes the unexpected space becomes room for healing.
Or transformation.
Or new traditions.
Or new connections.
Or quiet miracles you didn’t see coming.

“Sometimes the holiday we didn’t imagine becomes the one that heals us the most.”

According to LaShonda