Tools for Self Love

We all love to feel good and what better way than wearing something you feel good in! All my experience and research into fashion and personal development leads to using Fashion for Self Love - yes it’s a must. In fact I’ve just started a Weekly Video Series (quick and fun) to inspire you to do just that. So I wanted to share some tips and ‘new thinking’ with you on how to use your wardrobe to feel better about your day and YOU.

Firstly let me share some interesting statistics.

- Only 4% of women think they are beautiful

- Young girls are more afraid of being fat than getting cancer or nuclear war or losing their parents

- People with low self-esteem are less likely to start their own business and less likely to leave an abusive relationship

- 80% of women are told negative things about their body from friends and siblings

- 51% of women wear jeans when they felt sad or depressed and 33% of women would wear jeans when they felt happy or positive.

The jeans statistic always amazes me because personally jeans are the LAST thing I go for! I have to be feeling pretty fit and slim to put mine on - so love to know if you wear jeans if you are feeling good or down…

Now how can fashion help? Fashion has been used for hundreds or thousands of years to do 2 things it seems…

• Keep us protected from our enemies, animals & weather

• Communicate our Wealth, Status, culture and religion

So these 2 important uses helped us survive and attract the right partner in love and in work.

They also did more research into the affects of fashion on people’s mood and behavior, some telling results give us the answer:

- Students wearing white lab coats responded more accurately than those wearing casual clothes

- When Students wore a Superman T-shirt they tested to be more confident and slightly stronger physically

- When a group of men and women took a Maths test in their swimming costumes, the men performed better because they were less worried about their bodies (unclothed Cognition)

Yes, our clothes affect us for sure and you can see that self esteem is an issue for so many. I’d love to give you some tools in order to use your wardrobe to help you start your day on a ‘self-loving’ note - because remember, if you don’t love YOU no-one else will.

• Wardrobe Cleanse

Clothes can often remind us of good and bad times, get rid of the clothes that make you feel bad.

• Pick your Winner Outfits

When you have some time, pick out 3 ‘go to’ outfits that you know you feel good in when you have a 'bad hair day'.

• Know what works

If you like a certain top, pants or dress and it makes you feel good, work out why and see if you can find similar ones!

• Don’t hide

I know this seems like the worst thing to do when you feel fat or ugly or just nothing’s working - giving your body shape will help you to step into your body and OWN your feeling. Shine a light on that darkness and magic happens!

• Nurture with Time

Give yourself time to dress, that time to nurture your self is so important. The time to put your ensemble together, that piece of jewellery with that hairstyle, that belt with those shoes. The key to self love is nurturing yourself in the smallest of ways but everyday and funnily enough, I promise you that day you’ll get it reflected back to you in some way. A compliment, a job offer, a date, something will reflect back to you that the world cares - just because YOU did. What you put in, is what you put out.

• Black is Back

Give yourself permission to wear black. Black can be a great canvas for wonderful pair of shoes, necklace, bag or jewellery, so if you are feeling like you need to wear black (to hide a bit) then sprinkles yourself with some glamour. Same with boys, a great tie, bag, shoes and viola!

• Be Comfortable

Make sure you are comfortable! Not being able to breath or if you know it doesn’t fit as well and you are not able to move fluidly then that restriction will energetically block you. Plus sometimes I put a pair of high heels on and they feel awesome and ready to jump into life and then I’ll put them on and I feel gawky - that’s my intuitive self saying, not today Glam Rabbit, today is about feeling grounded and earthy and I put my gold Birkenstocks on and off I go!

• Dress for your Future Self

One thing is for sure, if what we wear affects our mood and life, then why not wear what the ultimate YOU would wear! As many ‘law of attraction’ experts say ‘Fake it until you make it’! It just means if you dress the way you would want to look if you were the person you dream of being, whether it’s successful business person or a famous celebrity, dress as if you WERE that already. Try it and see how your day unfolds!

Don’t underestimate the colours you wear, I’ll share about that next month and how you can wear things to make you lucky!

Stay bouncy and have a awesome day!

#fashion4selflove #iamsharing #quotestoinspire