Untamed

01The Caged Cheetah and the Perfect Life

We often spend our entire lives diligently following a script written by someone else, never realizing that the lingering sense of discontent we feel is actually our soul begging to be let out. The profound realization that we are trapped usually does not come from a dramatic disaster, but from a quiet, seemingly ordinary moment of observation that suddenly shifts our entire perspective. For Glennon, this pivotal moment of awakening did not happen during a profound meditation retreat or a dramatic life event, but on a remarkably ordinary, sweltering afternoon at a local safari park with her children. The sun was beating down, the air was thick with the smell of dust and captive animals, and the crowd of families was gathered around a fenced enclosure, eagerly waiting for a cheetah run. A zookeeper stood before the restless crowd, holding a megaphone, and introduced Tabitha. Tabitha was a majestic, breathtaking cheetah who had been born in captivity and raised alongside a Golden Retriever. The zookeeper proudly explained that to keep Tabitha tame, they had modeled her entire upbringing around the eager-to-please, domesticated nature of a dog. When the gates opened, a dirty, tattered pink plush bunny was dragged across the dirt on a mechanical wire. Tabitha, a creature built by evolution to race across the vast African savanna and hunt wild prey, dutifully trotted after the ragged pink toy. When she caught it, the crowd cheered, and the zookeeper tossed her a piece of frozen steak as a reward. As the crowd dispersed, entirely satisfied with the performance, Glennon stayed behind, unable to tear her eyes away from the enclosure. She watched as Tabitha paced the perimeter of the fence. There was a distinct, haunting look in the majestic animal's eyes—a fierce, restless energy that clearly communicated a deep, primal knowing. Tabitha was looking out just past the wire fencing, her muscles coiled, her posture proud but confined. Glennon heard a fellow spectator ask the zookeeper if Tabitha ever felt sad about not being in the wild. The zookeeper laughed and confidently replied that Tabitha didn't even know what the wild was; she didn't know she was a cheetah because she had never known anything other than the cage. But as Glennon watched the magnificent predator pace the dirt, she knew the zookeeper was wrong. Tabitha knew. In her blood, in her bones, she knew she was meant for something vastly larger, wilder, and more beautiful than a dirty pink bunny and a piece of frozen steak. That profound realization hit Glennon with the force of a physical blow because she suddenly recognized herself in that pacing cheetah. For her entire life, she had been a captive animal, meticulously trained to chase the dirty pink bunnies of societal approval, physical perfection, and the illusion of the "ideal" family. She had been conditioned, just like Tabitha, to ignore her wild instincts and settle for the frozen steak of external validation. The bars of her cage were not made of iron, but of the relentless expectations placed upon women. From a very young age, society begins the taming process. Girls are implicitly and explicitly taught to be quiet, to be accommodating, to shrink themselves, and to constantly seek permission. They are trained to smile when they are angry, to apologize when they take up space, and to systematically bury their true desires under layers of duty and obligation. Glennon's own taming had begun early and manifested in devastating ways. By the time she was ten years old, the overwhelming pressure to be the perfect, slender, agreeable girl had driven her into the dark, secret world of bulimia. The eating disorder was her first desperate attempt to control the wildness inside her, to starve the cheetah until it was small enough to fit through the bars of societal expectations. When starving herself was no longer enough to numb the overwhelming anxiety of living in a cage, she turned to alcohol. For years, addiction was her hiding place, a way to blur the sharp, painful edges of a reality that felt fundamentally wrong. It wasn't until she found herself pregnant with her first child that she managed to claw her way out of the haze of addiction, desperately grabbing onto the only roadmap she thought was available: the script of the Good Christian Wife and Mother. She married Craig, she got sober, she had three beautiful children, and she built an incredibly successful career as a mommy blogger and author. She carefully constructed a life that looked absolutely flawless from the outside. She was the epitome of the redeemed woman, the ultimate success story of someone who had overcome her demons to achieve the American Dream. But internally, the cheetah was still pacing. Despite the bestselling books, the beautifully decorated home, and the massive online following, there was a gnawing, persistent ache in her chest. She was exhausted from constantly performing, constantly maintaining the facade, and constantly pretending that the dirty pink bunny of her carefully curated life was enough. The zoo visit stripped away the final layer of her denial. She finally understood that she had spent her entire existence trying to be a well-behaved Golden Retriever, completely forgetting that she was born a cheetah. This terrifying but exhilarating revelation was the first crack in the foundation of her entire life, setting the stage for a spectacular, necessary destruction.