HEALING WITH STYLE:
CREATING CONFIDENCE THROUGH YOUR WARDROBE

Whether going through a divorce, a child custody battle, a miscarriage, a job loss, or even a double mastectomy, many people express their woes in the most intimate and personal of spaces in their homes – their closets.

Closets are living breathing entities. They hold a person’s memories, good and bad, their fears, their triumphs. They can be a place of escapism or a place of play, and whichever way a someone looks at it can affect how they feel throughout their day.

Most people have one of three feelings about their closets: indifference, hate, or love. They might love the design of the space but hate how it makes them feel every time they step inside of it because nothing fits, or everything reminds them of a time they wore it with their ex-lover. Or they love everything in it but get frustrated and overwhelmed every time they step inside because they feel like they have nothing to wear, and don’t know how to put anything together. The underlying true frustration in these examples is a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in how to dress for their bodies, but ultimately lack of confidence within themselves.

CLOTHES AS A HEALING TOOL

Everyone is capable of Healing with Style. Style is not just about the clothes a person wears or their sense of fashion. It’s ultimately about the way they choose to handle a situation. Whether it’s with grace, fear, or resilience, any situation they are faced with and how they handle it, can also be defined as THEIR style.

When it comes to clothes, they carry energy, and if styled in a way that makes someone feel good about themselves and makes them feel confident like they can take on the world, then they should be seen as a healing mechanism. The color, the shape, the pattern, whatever it is, that makes them LOOK good, will make them FEEL good too. Ultimately, they will want to wear it more because it will change their energy as soon as they walk out the door in the morning.

It’s not always just about healing from the inside out, sometimes it can happen from the outside in too.

LETTING GO

Clothes can even uplift people through a healing crisis. Rather than wearing all black workout clothes to receive treatments for an illness for example, wearing colorful workout clothes instead can create an instant boost as the color gives out positive energy and can reenergize the spirit.

Sometimes it can be the simple yet challenging act of letting go of pieces that are no longer serving a person and allowing them to serve someone else, that is the true ticket to healing. Instead of holding onto unused suits and work clothes in bins in a garage hoping to get back to an old life from five years ago before that diagnosis - selling, donating, or handing down those pieces to others will ultimately serve the person who gives, the most.

It’s an exchange of energy that will open them up to creative possibilities and newness. It’s not always about adding items to a person’s closet or styling them in a new way. Sometimes, the first step of Healing With Style is just simply letting go.

BEGIN WITH COMPASSION

Here are the 4C’s: a step-by-step guide to learn how to align with one’s wardrobe.

Take a moment to close your eyes, pause and take a deep breath. Then step inside your closet. Have compassion for yourself first and then your clothes. It isn’t easy to let go. Know that they have been through a lot with you – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Recognize their journey too.
Go piece by piece in your closet. Hold each one in your hands.
Ask yourself: ‘Is this piece serving ME? Does it make me feel good? Is it serving my closet? Does it help me create the world I want to see and how the world sees the real me?’
If the answers are no, then play with the piece to see if there is a way to restyle it to make it serve you again. And if not, then let it go and let it serve someone else.
Donate, sell, or hand it down. This is a cleansing.
Once you have gone through each piece like this, there will not just be newness in your closet, but you will begin to notice a shift in your attitude and in your energy. What is left in your closet will be the pieces you love. All of which are serving you and who you want to BE and ARE right now in this moment. A new confidence in yourself through your wardrobe is born.
Change is a result of that confidence. As you wear the pieces you love that are serving you and making you feel confident, subtle shifts will begin to occur. Changes you have been wanting to make or hoping would occur, might begin to take shape. Take note of them and stay on course continuing to wear what makes you feel good EVERY DAY!

And so it is! Healing with Style!