I am a fashion stylist. I love clothes. I love fashion. I love learning everything about shopping and silhouettes and color seasons and body analysis, BUT this post is not going to be about fashion. Really what I’m here to do isn’t about any of that. This work isn’t about looking pretty. This is a revolution. This is about burning shit down and shaking shit up. This is about not playing small anymore!
I’m not here to help you just fit into the trends and blend in and look thinner. I am here for you to stand out! I am here for you to claim your birthright of being awesome.
The world tells us that we are here to serve the systems and structures in power; that we are here to serve others above ourselves. NOPE. I believe we are here to live out the purpose of each our souls. (That usually ends us up helping others BUT we are not starting there!) We are starting with you! You are brilliant and a beautiful light. Your Being is magnificent and deserves to be celebrated! The world is a better place with you in it! And I am claiming that for myself alongside you!
I want to tell you about the time in my life when I had the best style. Style that was uniquely me, felt really good, and fostered excitement towards getting dressed. It was after coming out of eating disorder treatment. I had left my undergrad program at the University of Connecticut on temporary medical leave. After finishing many months of recovery programs, I was taking classes near my parents’ home in Pennsylvania at Temple University. I was not enrolled for a degree. The goal was to get back in the swing of being a student and see if I could do that while still feeding myself. I was taking two political science classes for FUN and I loved getting dressed up to ride the train to campus two days a week. I had almost perfect- if not perfect- attendance that semester. One of my professors even pulled me aside at the end of the final exam and said what a pleasure it was to have me in class and how well I did!
I still remember this pair of dark blue floral print tights I would wear with a khaki button-front skirt, a v neck tee, and my gray Toms. I had really short hair and always wore earrings. That was when I got my nose pierced too. I spent a lot of time in thrift stores looking for vintage-y cool skirts and brand name cardigans. I still think about this brown tweed pencil skirt I had back then. The skirt/tights combo was my trademark.
2014 Breanna: The khaki skirt, a sweater I thrifted, a scarf I knit and mug cozy of R2D2 (from Star Wars) which I also knit. This photo was actually taken at a craft fair where I sold (3) hand-knit items. This hair was actually me starting to grow it out. (I feel it is important that you know it had been shorter than this).
Anyway…What made that semester possible is that I had taken permission to be a person in the world. I had come out of months of listening to people in various authority levels (doctors, therapists, nutritionists) tell me that I deserved to eat, that I deserved to have my needs met, asking me what I liked to do, what brought me joy, what was going to make my life worth living.
You know what happened in that following semester when I enrolled for a degree like I was supposed to and decided to just get my degree in sociology because it was the logical thing even though my heart was in women’s/gender studies? I almost didn’t graduate. I had to drop one class because I missed so much and was going to fail it. I was restricting again, having panic attacks, emailing teachers left and right about not being able to finish work on time. And I had stopped dressing up. I was wearing leggings and old t-shirts and feeling like shit all the time. I had lost the conviction that what I wanted and needed mattered and reverted back to old patterns of considering what everyone else might want or expect first.
Guess what else happened, after graduation, as I continued this way of life (putting myself last, doing the “right” things). I got even more sick. I traded in an eating disorder relapse for less of an eating disorder and a whole lot of other physical symptoms. I struggled to have any kind of job-- always having to quit or take a break because of sickness. That is not a coincidence. I know that when I live in my purpose and my desire, I feel physically better/my symptoms clear up. And when I’m out of alignment, I get sick (or injured– stories for another time).
A lot happened in between then and now (which I’m sure you’ll hear about in later posts. I haven’t told you the worst of the sicknesses or the best of the healing yet.) For the last three years I’ve been a stay-at-home mom- not exactly by choice. And now I am a fashion stylist and spiritual life coach.
My plan for these newsletters is to write about practices for healing and connecting to your true desires as well as how to dress like the person you know you are so the world can see more and more of the beauty inside you.
I am now holding myself accountable. This is what I’m here to do. I think I’ve held off on sharing in this way because I don’t want to focus on illness and struggle as a way to make life meaningful. Life is meaningful when I am whole, when I am enjoying life, when I am connected to those I love. I can sometimes think that all I have to offer the world is stories of my suffering.
However, what I have to offer the world is that I can see things. I can see a bigger picture and deeper connections. I can see when people are bullshitting themselves. I am not the only one that has this gift, but I am damn sure going to use it. Sometimes I make fun of myself saying things like I make “everything mean everything” but you know what– sometimes it does! And I’m going to stand by that. And I’m going to claim that. And I’m not going to stand by anymore while people are being oppressed and told that who they are is wrong and how they express themselves is too much. The world is better off and safer for all of us when more and more of us shine bright. That’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to be courageous and shine and guide others as they seek to present more and more of their truest, most beautiful selves to the world and I hope you will join me.
Talk to you again soon! <3
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