No one is born hating her body. We learn to hate ourselves as we begin interacting with other people and absorbing messages from the media and participating in society. Eventually, the negativity becomes ingrained and we outgrow outside input, berating ourselves and scorning our own physical forms with little or no prompting. That internalized loathing becomes a body image monologue, a personalized story that loops and loops, reinforcing negative feelings and drowning out love.

Now each person’s body image monologue is different, so I won’t presume to know how to change yours. But here’s where I can help: For many of us, the drone of that negative feedback is so low and constant that we hardly even realize it’s there. We’ve lost it to familiarity, so we don’t even realize it’s something we want to combat. But changing your inner body image monologue can be transformative because it alters your baseline. Even just moving from a baseline of body hatred to a baseline of body neutrality can ease stress, change thought patterns, and encourage acceptance and serenity. So here’s where you might want to start: read more