Feeling Good in Your Own Skin

Body image is so complex, and our relationships with our bodies “from the skin in” is complex. It can be a place of a lot of confusion, anxiety, and worry, but it can also be a place where we feel freedom, happiness, and joy. What we put in is what we get out. This goes for skincare and bodycare products and for our attitudes, actions, and beliefs.

Let’s say, for example, that we are using products with a lot of harsh chemicals in them - there is a good chance our skin is going to let us know things are not going well. We may get red, dry, irritated, angry skin. If we are using a belief system filled with judgment and negative emotions, we will have the same response - but we may not be so quick to understand that WE are the ingredient we need to change.

To change life-long beliefs you need (drumroll please) something our founder, Joshua Onysko, loves to talk about - new rituals. We are not going to change a lifetime of thoughts and actions, or society at large, over night. But with conscious care and making rituals out of what we need to change, we can overhaul the whole way we treat ourselves on a daily basis.

First of all, affirmations. We have probably used a whole lot of harsh thoughts for years, decades, a lifetime. It might be hard to jump from - “I am a mess” - to “I am perfect just as I am” in one leap. So try moving incrementally - I have a body, I have skin, they do their job. And move slowly to - I enjoy my body, I enjoy myself from the skin in. And eventually to - I feel great in my body from the skin in. Use affirmations as a ritual part of your day.

How we do anything is how we do everything. So taking care to anoint ourselves (not just wash and moisturize) with products we love and feel good about is a way to shower bodies how much we care. It is nurturance, love, and respect all at once. Create skin care rituals that feed your soul.

Finally change your inputs. Find Instagram accounts with lots of different kinds of bodies in them: size, color, race, gender, age, and ability. Research finds that the best thing you can do to feel good in your body and in your skin is to change what you look at every day. If you can see yourself in what you view, you will have a more positive sense of yourself. Create viewing rituals to protect and enhance your sense of self.

One of the rituals that we do, in my family, is to use the Superfood Smoothie Mask together, feeling goofy, looking silly, and hanging out together. We have so many pictures of kids, us adults, all of us looking green and like the swamp thing - and we love it. No one is trying to be perfect, we love the feeling of doing something together, and at the end, we all feel pretty good - and look great because we are happy from the skin in. So make it a goal to feel good in your skin and see what changes you can make to break the mold and find a new, better fitting sense of yourself.