Jane Fonda: How to Not Lose Yourself Right Now  🔗 **Source:** [Jane Fonda: How to Not Lose Yourself Right Now](https://share.snipd.com/episode/2d367e4f-9081-489a-a152-3519ec73bf68) ## Highlights - **Leaving Her Body And Living A Double Image** - Jane Fonda described leaving her body as a child after her mother's suicide and living a 'double image' where her interesting self lived beside a 'good girl' persona. - She traced disembodiment to early sexual trauma and decades of presenting a perfect exterior while her inner self remained separate. Transcript: Glennon Doyle So your mom died by suicide when you were 12. And you say that at that moment when you found out that your mom had died, you left your body and you didn't come back for 50 years. I relate to this so deeply. Can you talk to us about what you mean by, when you talk about disembodiment? Jane Fonda My mother was sexually abused as an eight-year I was sexually abused as a seven-year And I didn't know that for a long time. I had to go through a lot to kind of get back there. And I think sexual trauma and abuse causes women, it happens to men too, but mostly women too, become disassociated from their bodies. It's very easy to slip away from a relationship to your body, especially for women, because so much importance is put on our body. We're so judged by how we look, you know? So I think the disembodiment, the leaving my body happened much earlier than my mother's suicide when I was 12. I know that I went through a whole lot of my early life wanting to be perfect because I thought nobody's going to love me unless I'm perfect. And so all the interesting, complicated parts of myself moved out and took up residence alongside. It was kind of like a double image. ([Time 0:05:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/40935522-97e8-426f-b943-c26e2763a9e1)) - **Eating Disorders As A Symptom Of Inauthenticity** - Jane links eating disorders to inauthenticity: people fill the hole created by pretending with food, drugs, work, or shopping. - She explained her own bulimia as a response to needing perfection to earn love, not just parental blame. Transcript: Jane Fonda I think eating disorders happen in the presence of inauthenticity. If you're pretending to be someone you aren't, if you're in a relationship that isn't 100% authentic, we're going to tend to fill that empty space with something. And for us, it was food. It can be drugs. It can be shopping. It can be workaholers. It can be all kinds of things. But you fill up that hole created by inauthenticity. ([Time 0:08:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3f0f29ff-79ac-4e42-9d45-165293858bc4)) - **Reborn In Her Daughter's Home** - At 62, after leaving Ted Turner, Jane lived in her daughter's small house and felt herself 'moving back into myself,' calling that rebirth 'God.' - She researched her life for a film and discovered bravery and a path toward wholeness. Transcript: Jane Fonda Well, I really started coming together when I was married to Ted Turner. And we knew about a year in advance that the marriage was going to end. And I had a lot of time to prepare. And one of the things that I did was in preparing for my third act for my 60th, I made that little movie about myself. I researched myself. And one of the things that I discovered in doing that was that I'm brave and that I've always been brave. Oh, who knew? I didn't realize that. I didn't I didn't know. So that was good. And then from there, there were two more years with Ted. I started to feel, this is good. This is good what I'm doing. You know, he said, you're going to come back. You'll come back to me. And I said, what makes you think so? And he said, because I'm so interesting. And he is an interesting person I know. But I remember, oh, it was hard. We split up January 2nd of the year 2000. He has a little private plane and he dropped me at the airport in Atlanta where I lived with him. And I had a rented car waiting for me. And I turned around and I saw the next woman getting on his plane. My seat was still warm. Painful, huh? So painful. And my daughter, Vanessa, who had a one-year child, she was in Paris with her father, my first husband, who was dying of cancer. And I asked if I could stay in her house. And I remember, you know, I left so many properties, vast vistas, such a magnificent, huge life to move into my daughter's house in a little room with no closet. I had my golden retriever with me and there was such silence. And I remember standing in the middle of the room and I could feel myself moving back into myself. And I said, this is God. I know that. This is God. Now, here's something really interesting. ([Time 0:14:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/69229c8d-d820-4ad1-9324-d56c9831a220)) - **The Goal Is To Be Whole Not Perfect** - Jane reframed the biblical call not to be perfect but to be whole, using Aramaic translation to shift the goal from perfection to integration. - That reframing became central to her late-life project of becoming embodied. Transcript: Jane Fonda What he said was, you have to be whole like our Lord in heaven is whole. Jesus knew that the goal of humanity is to become fully integrated, fully whole. That's right. Yeah. I mean, it just, it was like, wow, it's happening to me. ([Time 0:17:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e6ec291-c22c-4068-8d17-3c73a3532453)) - **Embodiment Is Linked To Social Justice** - Jane connected personal embodiment to societal ills: disembodiment fuels climate denial, racism, and patriarchy because separation erodes empathy. - She argued reintegration of body, mind, and spirit could heal structural harms. Transcript: Glennon Doyle And refusing to believe that and living inside of it is, I think, what the whole thing's about. Jane Fonda It's what the whole thing is about. That's right. If we did that, if we lived authentically as embodied men and women, there would be no climate crisis. There would be no racism. There would be no patriarchy. It's all part of a poison that's been in our species for thousands of years, but I'm hopeful. ([Time 0:20:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c15e2ed8-61b4-427e-84fc-722ce1e62fe4)) - **Join A Movement Before You Need It** - Don't try to do activism alone; join a movement so you have support during backlash and controversy. - Jane credited her resilience to being part of movements that sustained her during FBI surveillance and public attacks. Transcript: Jane Fonda I think one very important thing is if you want to be an activist, don't do it alone. Be part of a movement. I've always been part of a movement. So there's always been support around me and love at the worst of the controversy. There were always people with me who knew what was in my heart and knew why I was doing what I do, knew the mistakes that I'd made, but we were in it together. ([Time 0:22:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6b2aaa9a-081e-486c-aaa9-e0f5d40d44ee)) - **Choose Agency Through Intentional Practices** - Cultivate agency through intentional practices: do life reviews, meditate, get therapy, and choose who you want to be rather than drifting. - Jane contrasted living in a canoe without an oar with actively steering toward chosen goals. Transcript: Jane Fonda It's that investigating your life. It's called doing a life review. It's meditation. It's therapy, if you can afford it. And it's a good therapist. It's girlfriends. I mean, it can be all kinds of things, but it all comes from a desire to be intentional about how you live. See, there's one way to live. You're in a canoe and a river and you have no oar. And so you're just taken where the current takes you or agency. You have an oar. I am going to go over to this. You control to the extent that any of us control anything, which we don't really, but you have agency over what you do with your life. ([Time 0:35:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84b96250-9d36-4f63-ae8a-b6220755e958)) - **Choosing Husbands To Teach Her Life Lessons** - Jane admitted she strategically married men who taught her things: Roger Vadim for womanhood, Tom Hayden for activism, Ted Turner for nature and care. - She described adapting her persona to fit partners as part of learning who she was. Transcript: Jane Fonda Yeah, that's what I did. Like you're a mastermind. I wanted to know what it meant to be a woman. And so I married Roger Vadim, who before me had been married to Catherine Deneuve and Bridget Bardot and made the movie with Bridget called God Created Woman. I didn't know that it was going to be a female impersonator, but that's what that was about. And then Tom Hayden, he's going to show me how to be an activist. And he did. That was a good choice. And then Ted, it was about the outdoors, about nature and being taken care of. I'd always supported everybody. It was nice to be taken care of. Yeah. It felt good. It scared me at first, but I remember the first time that Ted and I went to a hotel and the porter came with the luggage and I went to my wallet to tip him and Ted got there first and I got scared. And that's where I realized, oh, my God, my being the one that had the financial strength in the marriage gave me power. ([Time 0:37:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a4b56bc8-7306-470c-aa70-3fcdf48f4e28)) - **How Fire Drill Fridays Started** - Jane explained Fire Drill Fridays began after a Big Sur weekend with Naomi Klein and friends when she decided to move to D.C. to protest, then adapted to weekly actions when camping wasn't legal. - She recruited celebrity friends and sought Netflix's support to be in D.C. Transcript: Jane Fonda And my friend Naomi Klein had just written a new book about the climate crisis. And I had the galleys and Rosanna Arquette and Catherine Keener and I drove up to Big Sur for the Labor Day weekend. And I read Naomi Klein's book, and I knew exactly what I had to do. I said to Catherine and to Rosanna, I'm going to move to D.C. For I wanted to go for a year. I called Annie Leonard, who's the director of Greenpeace, and I said, I want to come to D.C. I'm going to I'm going to live in a tent for a year opposite the White House. And I'm going to raise a ruckus. I'm a little worried about where to poop. Because I have camped at 24,000 feet. I mean, I have camped in the wilderness a lot. And you know what to do with your poop. But in a city. Oh, and she said, well, I don't think you have to worry about it because it's illegal now. You cannot do that. Thank God. So that's when we shifted to fire drill Fridays. Glennon Doyle And what did your friends say when you said, I know what I have to do? Because they were probably thinking, you know, post something on social media. Jane Fonda And you said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no well maybe you could be there and we'll come with you and You know all of that and then i went and i made an appointment with ted sarandos who runs netflix and i said ted i want to move to dc for a year and i need you to let me out of my contract with grace And frankie oh he said that's so great, Jane, but I can't do that. I mean, I signed the contract. So I went for four and a half months and then COVID hit. ([Time 0:39:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2f01ba93-ed43-4082-ab88-e3e6dff41d30)) - **Pair Grassroots Action With Political Power** - Use both grassroots and electoral strategies: convert concerned people into activists and fund/endorse down-ballot candidates to counter fossil fuel money. - Jane's Climate PAC targets local races and supports mostly young women of color running for office. Transcript: Jane Fonda What you're doing? You know, these two prongs. One is Fire Drill Fridays, whose goal is to take people who are concerned about the climate and turn them into activists. That's grassroots. And we need millions and millions and millions of them. But we kept seeing the important legislation isn't passing because all these damn elected officials are getting money from the fossil fuel industry. So I should start a PAC that brings fossil fuels into the electoral arena, that targets the people who are taking that money, call them out on it, and then try to get elected the people Who say, no, I'm working for the people. I'm not working for big oil or big corporations. They're mostly women, mostly women of color, mostly young, and they're all over this country. And, you know, we're not a PAC that's rich enough to deal with the presidential or Senate level. So it's all down ballot. Oh my God. But down ballot is where everything's happening. It's amazing. ([Time 0:45:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4460408a-78d9-46f3-a7f6-5d9b2fcb8751))