How Self-Care Can Help You With Your Personal Style

Your clothes have a TON to do with how you feel and how you move through the world. 

The term “self-care” gets thrown around A LOT these days and for good reason. The pendulum always swings! After years of not putting ourselves first resulted in burnouts and give-ups, we have finally been sprung into mindfully listening to our bodies and giving ourselves the much needed time for care.

Clothes can affect how we feel about our space, body, confidence, and comfort every day and our wardrobe should be treated, built and viewed with care.

Self-care seems like it would be a common-sense practice that we would naturally know to do, but it actually takes a lot of mindfulness and self-awareness. Keeping yourself calm and listening to your body is extremely important in creating a happy and meaningful life and that does not exclude your closet.

Your clothes have a TON to do with how you feel and how you move through the world. Clothes can affect how we feel about our space, body, confidence, and comfort every day and your wardrobe should be treated, built and viewed with care because of this.

No one feels good in ill-fitting, worn out or outdated clothing, right?

 No way! No one feels good in old crappy clothing, BUT we tend to hold onto things we don't need and live in cluttered rooms and dig through overly stuffed closets of things that don't bring us joy. This can create feelings of overwhelm which ends up leaving you with a dull style that doesn’t truly represent you or how you feel.

 Decluttering your space and analyzing exactly what you want and love is the first step to bringing self-care to your closet.  This is easier said than done though.

So it is important to dig deeper and pay attention and question why you keep the things you do in your closet and space.

By understanding why you can’t or don’t remove items that aren’t serving you, you can actually help encourage yourself to feel comfortable parting ways with them.

WHY you keep all of those items in your closet even if they aren’t serving you:

#1

It is brand new and you feel guilty about never wearing it so it feels like a waste of money

Maybe it got damaged right after you bought it or it is just super uncomfortable or doesn’t fit in with the rest of your clothes. If it isn’t serving you, you should find a new home or purpose for it. You won't be able to get your money back at this point and it is only bringing negative feelings to your day by staring at you every time you go into your closet.

If the item is sellable, try selling it online or at a local consignment shop!

That money you could put towards a quality item you really love later.

Use the ‘5 questions’ from last week’s post to prevent this from happening again in the future!

#2

It is something you are “supposed” to have - but you NEVER wear it

This is something I see sooo often with friends, family and so much with my wardrobe development clients. You feel the need to follow this arbitrary set of rules you heard somewhere at some point and you keep that unflattering khaki blazer in the back of your closet just in case you need to dress more professional one day.

My number one question when I see examples like this is “But do YOU actually LOVE it?” and “Do you feel confident in it?”

I think a lot of the time we hold on to pieces like the blazer example because it feels like we should have that and we don’t realize that if it isn’t something we love and that fits our personality that it isn’t really checking off any boxes for us.

Donate it and search for something that you really love and fits your lifestyle instead. You can show off your personality even when being professional and maybe you love blazers, but that specific one just wasn't the one!

#3

You still find it attractive and it looks good on you, but you are super sick of it

If it feels dated or has damage or doesn’t fit your lifestyle, weight or style any longer than donate it.

If it is something that you can truly see yourself loving again or you just need some distance from it then get a container and store items away and then next season or next year. This will either be a fun thing to find later or you'll have enough distance that you will later realize why you were sick of it in the first place. Either way it wont be crowding your closet and distracting your view with any negative feels.

It is OK to get sick of something and upgrade pieces you once really loved but they no longer serve you with happiness.

It could be that you have out grown that style, and that is really okay - so let yourself explore your evolving self!

#4

Sentimental value and it seems sad to get rid of

One example could be sports apparel or college gear like Greek life t-shirts.

If you have 50 sorority t-shirts that are taking up valuable space in your drawers or closet and you are past that point in your life, I would say it is time to go through them and pick the 3 most special ones and donate or re-purpose the rest. (You could make them into something else if you are crafty like that)

The ones you can’t part with can be used for pj’s or stored away so you can have space and mental clarity with your closet, but not feel like you had to get rid of your sentimental values.

Our spaces are very important to our mindset and daily routines, so don't let your space be controlled by sentimental items that don't have purpose in your everyday life.

If you can't bare the thought of parting with items just yet - get a storage bin and tuck the sentimental items away so you have the peace of holding on to them, while amplifying the peace of your space!

#5

It was an impulse buy and is way too trendy for your liking

We have all gotten excited about a new look and bought something on a whim that is super trendy before. It is the shiny object syndrome that has gotten the best of us.

Unfortunately, super trendy items have a tendency to be very cheaply produced and because of that low quality detail usually fall apart before the trend even goes out of style. So maybe you are drawn to these super trendy looks but find yourself full of a closet of low quality items that fall apart after a wash or two. This would be something that would need to be a change in your mindset so you avoid buying these impulse buys later.

Besides the low quality detail, trends are created faster than ever these days and can be hard to know how to wear which makes us uncomfortable or unconfident in even knowing how to wear it. I would say you should avoid the trendiest of trendy items as much as possible.

This can be hard because sometimes those trends are just so cute you can't help yourself.

A trick to this is to look at the trend and analyze what draws you to it. Is it the color? The shape? The fabric? Whatever it is see if there is a way to accomplish the feel of it without diving head first into a head to toe trend driven look.

~ Try to keep it timeless ~

xoxo