What moment in life did you discover that you had to change your look to be more you?
Throughout life, we are bombarded by messages and events that tell us what we need to be. We always have a choice but we also don’t feel like we have a choice much of the time. We automatically internalize these lessons from things people say and the situations all around us. Creating “truths” about what things mean is a natural habit and we never realize that we are even forming beliefs. “That’s just the way it is.”
There are those defining moments in life where we take a look at ourselves and just know we’re going to be okay. Other times life forces us to look at ourselves and learn to be okay.
My “holy shit, this is unacceptable” moment was right around the time of my divorce. I realized that I had been so absorbed in the relationship and trying to figure out what was wrong with me that I forgot to take care of me. My favorite clothes had just barely crossed into too small territory and I was left with post-partum clothes that didn’t really fit or express me. I realized that I needed to take control of what I was thinking about style and get back to a place I could be proud of.
Then began the work of getting back in shape and dropping the 15 pounds I’d gained. Talking to myself in a more supportive and uplifting way. Confronting the things I thought to be true about what I was calling style and the judgments I had made on myself and others for our looks and clothes.
Here is what I did and you can do too,
- Look at yourself in the mirror and just think thoughts.
- You’ll know what I mean because as soon as you stand in front of that mirror your brain will begin kicking out the automatic thoughts you’ve had like a record. Really listen to what you are telling yourself and take notes. Literal physical notes.
- Read over these notes and see how you can adjust them
- Are the thoughts you’ve had observations about your physical appearance that you can actually change? Is it weight related and you want to be healtheier? Is it the clothes you’re wearing and you want to dress differently? What actionable things do you have the power to do right now to change these thoughts? How many of these thoughts are just mean? How may are kind and supportive? It’s impotant to recognize that our self talk needs to be coming from a healthy relationship with ourselves.
- Take the unwanted thoughts and write them out in reverse.
- If you wrote down the thought “I look awful”, reverse it to “I look incredible!” . If you thought, for example, “I’m just so fat and ugly.” reverse it to “I’m so healthy and beautiful!”. Put these new thoughts up where you can see them, preferably taped to your mirror, and read them every single day. It’s work but worth it to build a better relationship with yourself.
- Date yourself.
- Whether you are in a relationship with someone or not it’s important to treat yourself with love. Take yourself out for breakfast or go have a glass of wine at that place you love. Just appreciate yourself and do nice things for yourself like you would do for a friend.
- Examine your clothes.
- Now that we’ve worked on the inside a bit let’s look at the outside. What thoughts are you having about certain pieces? How does each one make you feel when you wear it? Does it fit with the vision of who you want to be? These are all questions we need to ask ourselves about the things we wear and adjust them accordingly. It’s important to notice snap judgements and thoughts we have right away about clothes. Are they your thoughts or thoughts you picked up from your mom or sister or friends? THIS is when we can really become okay with out style and break the automatic thoughts about looking good being for self absorbed wenches.
It is my sincere hope that you can really examine your beliefs around style and make changes in the direction you want to go. If you want someone there with you or just advice about this, please send me an e-mail (yolandie@hamiltonstyling.com) or DM me on Instagram or Facebook. I’m always happy to help. ?