Bad day, bad fight, bad boss? Shopping is a girl's best happy pill. Be it for pampering, self-assuring, self-love or revenge, a new outfit combats our dull, damned or dreary. Shoes do powerful magic for me.
But there's more than calming our nerves or uplifting our mood.
When we play dress up we pull enlightenment into the dressing room.
Not your typical shopping spree because you're not visiting your fav boutique where Linda knows exactly what you like. You enter a new world perhaps of a shopping mall with dozens of styles or even better, a store like Crossroads Trading with a thousand looks. You go on an adventure, hand in hand with your soul.
You don't hunt for your style, you let it go.
That's the first challenge for the princess on her path to find the girl in the mirror, or is it the girl behind the girl in the mirror? Letting go of preconceived notions of what makes us look good and our often huge list of can'ts and won'ts is like a refreshing shower.
There's no age-appropriate style other than not dressing little girls like sex kittens. Everything else is how we feel about it, not what society says. The ground on which we strut our confidence is self love and that comes with a healthy dose of self respect, a sensitivity to what we really want to express.
Breakthroughs to our essence happen outside of our comfort zone.
Clothing is our second skin and it should look like us; our feelings, viewpoints, strength, character, deepest desires and most beautiful visions.
What is the true you?
Outfits can help us to find more of our self.
I was rarely a romantic type, always more the warrior than the goddess. I hated pink for decades. To my wow!!!! my dressing room was packed with long feminine dresses, sassy feminine looks and playful girly stuff after I followed my bliss and chose what spoke to me, tickled, challenged or lured me. I stepped into the first dress with a sarcastic grin, but already in the third I smiled surprised. This was - cute. I experienced my longing for romance, my love for experimental theater, my magic as much as my courage. I time traveled and recovered what I had lost after college; the joy of colors, the rebel risks, the creativity of eccentric combinations...
I found my giggle.
I found my art.
Actors step into wardrobe which describes the character of their role. We feel unknown levels of ourselves by trying out the characters attached to outfits. They are packed with emotions from love to spiteful judgments. They reveal our stories and beliefs in our reactions.
When you try a daring and revealing dress and immediately judge "slut", stop, breathe and listen. What does that really mean to you? Who's talking here? Is that what feel or are you repeating voices from the past? Feeling your judgments as a part of yourself opens heart and compassion.
Likewise you can feel the punk, the lady, the girly girl or the rock star in you and understand and appreciate yourself on a new level. You might even revive an old dream.
When we step into the shoes of another person and see the world though their eyes, it can profoundly change our attitude and expand our world view. We step into a new perception of life.
When we slip into a unusual outfit it unlocks our likes and dislikes, memories and visions. Fashion is a truth tool, maybe even a truth bomb.