Are you suppressing your style?

Last weekend my mum returned home from an overseas holiday. As we sat together looking through her photos, she paused on one. She had captured a woman passing by on the footpath, her back to the camera, dressed in a long bright turquoise coat with large black cuffs and collar. She had a black beret pulled tightly over her head framing dangly earrings that sparkled blue. The look was completed with large black sunglasses.

‘Oh she was dressed so beautifully’, mum proclaimed, ‘She was about 80 years old. I’m going to dress like that when I’m 80’.

Mum is 76.

Of course I instinctively replied ‘You don’t have to wait! Do it now!’. It’s not that Mum doesn’t dress beautifully, she does, but something about this woman inspired her to dream of dressing differently.

The woman passing by on the street awakened something.

We didn't talk about it at the time, but I think I know what it stirred in her. A desire to be more. More expressive, more visible, more of oneself.

I know because I have felt that too.

Desires aren’t passive, they’re demanding. What may start as a quiet idea, a soft dream, a gentle yearning, can evolve into an exhausting mental tug of war if left unfulfilled.

Unfulfilled desire can feel like grief, sadness, a relentless ache or a restless agitation that doesn’t allow you to fully settle into peace.

The desire to fully express who you are, to be creative, to explore your potential, isn’t small. If left unfulfilled, it can feel like you are a beautiful flower stuck as a bud, unable to bloom.

So, what keeps us stuck?

When it comes to style, there is a common thread I see amongst women and that is ‘I am not worthy’. It doesn’t express itself that way, it comes out more subtly.

You see a beautiful dress shining in a shop window. Your face immediately lights up. ‘It is so beautiful!’, you gasp. The moment is delicious. But then you quickly dismiss it. ‘Oh where am I going to wear that?’ ‘It will look beautiful on someone young’ ‘Oh no, not for me’.

You are the bud, the dress is the bloom.

We have been taught that we have to wait until we are perfect to feel worthy of beautiful clothes. So we wait until we are thin enough, toned enough. Until our skin has cleared up, after we have removed our body hair. We wait until we feel good enough to wear the things that we find truly inspiring, truly expressive, truly visible.

But that day never comes. We never feel good enough.

The thing is, worthiness isn’t something you have to earn. You are born worthy.

It is much easier to sell lotions, potions, pills and procedures to someone who feels unworthy. So, we are convinced that our inherent worthiness doesn’t exist. That our bodies are a problem to solve. That we are a problem to solve.

We wait for permission to be ourselves, permission that is never granted.

Instead we are given trend reports, wardrobe must-have lists and outfit formulas that tell us how we can look ‘right’, how we can look on trend, how we can be accepted.

But that doesn’t address the desire. The quiet yearning that is swelling inside. The bud that wants desperately to unfurl in all its glory.

You cannot outsource the fulfilment of that desire. Self expression is something that lives inside of you. It requires that you build a deep understanding of yourself - your colours, your body, your energy. Not what is on the latest ‘must-have’ list.

The only person who can give you permission is YOU.

This week’s embodied style practice

This week I want you to think of someone whose style you admire. Perhaps it's someone you know, a stranger you've spotted in the street, or someone famous. Ask yourself:

What is it that I actually admire? Is it their confidence, their creativity, their playfulness, their elegance, their willingness to be themselves?

Keep asking ‘why’ until you get beyond the clothes.

What we admire in others is rarely about the clothes.

The qualities you admire in someone else are often clues to the parts of yourself asking for expression. What is it within you that is trying to bloom?

After my catch up with mum, I was preparing to leave when she said ‘Wait I have something to show you’. She went off to get it.

Mum’s hands have been changed by arthritis. When this started happening several years ago, she got rid of most of her rings, deeming her hands unworthy of them.

Unworthy of being adorned.

When she returned she showed me a photograph of a beautiful shop in a city she had visited. ‘I bought myself something’. Out of a small bag she pulled the most beautiful statement ring. It was big, beautiful and powerful. The kind of ring you can’t ignore. The kind of ring that starts conversations.

She put it on and I lit up with excitement.

The bud was in bloom.

Julie x

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