I struggled on what to title this blog post because “how to love yourself” or “self-love is possible” feels thin. Anyone would argue that simply “believing” you’re going to like yourself more tomorrow doesn’t actually move the needle on how much (or how little) you like yourself. Particularly if your starting point is in the negatives, which if we’re honest is most of us.

Our society cultivates humans who thrive on self-mutilation as a means to building power or a “backbone” or thick skin. We grow up believing the only way we’re going to be better humans is if we punish ourselves for the times we’re not. It’s addition by subtraction. As someone who’s lived with disordered eating most of her life, I can attest to the connection between “doing something bad or being bad” and “deprivation as a punishment” can be slippery and traumatizing.

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