There are folks out there who make their money by teaching you to hate your body then selling you something to fix or hide what they say is wrong with you. And oh, oh they’re good at their jobs. They’re so good at it that you probably don’t even notice how often they subtly suggest that you you’re too fat or have too much cellulite or too many stretch marks, or that you’re too old or have too many wrinkles or too many gray hairs, or that your pores are too big or your eyebrows too sparse or your teeth too crooked.

But once you start to notice, you’ll see those messages everywhere. Which is infuriating! But it’s also the first step to making yourself less susceptible to that garbage. Because once you notice, you can ask why you’re being made to feel bad, who benefits from those bad feelings. And once you start to do that, a lot of those bad feelings just go away. And then? Well then you can start to experiment with what it’s like to have nice feelings about your body. To be kind to it. To treat it gently.

That process will look different for everyone, but for me, a big part of being kind to my body is taking delightfully extravagant showers. The kind where you tidy up the bathroom and light your favorite candle and put on some good music and deep condition your hair and use the yummy smelling soap and the very fancy washcloth and whatever else makes the process feel good.

And I swear it helps. It helps so much. Because it’s hard to hate something you treat kindly and gently. And it’s so much nicer to live in a body you’ve come to care for rather than one you’ve been taught to hate.

Get the free knitCompanion app to use your kCDesign (learn more).