DAY 8: 30 Day NO-BUY Challenge
Day 8: Quieting The “I Can’t” Voices In Your Closet
On Day 8 of the 30 Day No Buy Challenge, is all about quieting the “I can’t” voices and clearing out the junk that has piled up in front of your style joy. I walk you through that tiny door in your brain that leads to freedom, self expression, and play in your closet, and we look at how trends are basically obsolete (and only useful for inspiration, not for telling you if you are “in” or “out”). You start spotting where your “I can’t wear this” stories actually came from, practice squashing them, and reconnect the line from your brain to your heart to your body so you can wear what truly speaks to you, not what outside voices have decided for you.
ACTION STEPS:
Day 8 Action Steps
- Play in your closet like it is a dress up box, try on outfits just for fun, no rules
- Catch one “I can’t wear this…” thought and actually say it out loud or write it down
- Ask yourself, “Where did this ‘I can’t’ come from?” (a comment, a rule, a trend, a parent, an “expert”?)
- Break one tiny style “rule” today, wear the color, the cut, or the piece your heart keeps whispering about
- Unfollow one account that makes you feel behind or “out,” and save or follow one that makes you feel expansive
- When you see a trend headline, notice how it feels in your body, if it shrinks you, scroll away, if it inspires you, keep it as ideas only
- When you get dressed, ask, “What would I wear if no one was telling me what to wear?”
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Day 8: Combating Negative Voices and Reconnecting Your Style Heart
Hello, I'm Casey, your fashion bestie. You are on day 8 of the 30 Day No Bu Challenge. And together, we are sparking a fashion wellness revolution. Using style confidence to build a healthier relationship with your closet and yourself. Thank you for taking a pause in your buying with me. Let's dive in to day eight.
Okay, last time I invited you to play, I invited you to see your closet as a magical dress up box that you can feel, however, or be. however you want. And I'm not sure if you've gotten the time to do a session where you get into your closet and you just play. But if you have, I can only imagine the negative voices that have been showing up.
You might be hearing a lot of, I can't. Like, I can't wear this because of X, Y, and Z. I can't wear this because my tummy. I can't wear this color. You might be hearing yourself say, Ugh, is this in style? Is this not? I don't even know if this looks cool or not.
You might be hearing rules that you've heard in the past, or people's comments that you've heard in the past, all these negative voices are rising up when we start to play in our closet. And then it dampens the play factor. There's a few things going on here that I want you to imagine, and we're going to combat these negative voices so you can continue to play and have joy in your closet.
The Tiny Door in Your Brain
Imagine your brain, and imagine there's this tiny little door in your brain, and when you open it up, it's this magical world of freedom, and beautiful style, and self expression, and you're, like, frolicking through this door, into this world of beautiful expression.
But right now, that door is closed. It's in the very back of your brain, and it in front of it is piled with a whole bunch of junk from your past. It is negative voices. It's comments you've heard from people in the past. It's magazines telling you you can't. It's TV telling you, you need to look a certain way.
And all of this is covering this tiny little door in the back of your head that if you can uncover it and get rid of all that stuff, and you can walk through this door, there is freedom.
And so what I want you to imagine is every time we have a play based attitude, and every time we look at our closet as a playground, instead of this, you know, restricted box, that we are combating each one of those voices. We are combating all that stuff that is in front of the door.
But it takes work, and it takes practice, and it just takes consistency. So they're not gonna go away all at once. But every time you take a chance on an outfit, or you put really positive people in your social media feeds, or you do all this work to create a better relationship with style and clothes. You are going against all those negative voices.
Don't let them bring you down. Imagine every time you're coming to your closet, you're coming ready to punch one of those in the face, or maybe you have a sword, and you're just, like, chopping them down as they come at you. that even though it might seem hard at first, it gets easier, and it might seem frustrating at first, but keep going.
So I encourage you to just keep going, keep going, until we can slightly start opening that door. The voices might not ever go away. I even have my own voices that still arise. I've been in the fashion industry for over 20 years, and they still come up, but I know I combat them, and I know that they are not the real thing, that the joy I feel from my closet is actually the real feeling.
Just keep imagining, keep your eye on the prize of that little door in your brain, and know that it's there and know that it's possible.
Reconnecting Your Brain, Heart, and Body
The other thing I asked you to do was wear things that speak to your heart. And you might be thinking, I don't know what that is. Nothing speaks to my heart right now. And I want you to know that that is normal, as well.
That also takes practice, because what we want to try to do, when we are learning about style, and our goal right now in fashion wellness is to connect our brain to our heart, to our body. So when we do try on things, we can feel it in our heart.
Right now, with all of our upbringing and everything we've been taught about style, those connections, imagine, like, a line from your brain to your heart, to your body. Those lines, those connections, are numbed. They have numbed everything about him, and right now you are solely in your brain, and you're thinking rules and trends, and this and that. And you're just thinking too much and not feeling from our heart.
And so by playing, and continuously having a play based attitude about your clothes, you're slowly reconnecting all of those relationships. Again, also by doing things like listening to me and being encouraged by me, or curating your social media feed, so you don't have those naked accounts anymore, and said you were following positive style advice. You are then strengthening those connections from your brain to your heart, to your body.
And that is what fashion wellness is all about. It's connecting your mind to your heart and then expressing it outwards on your body.
I know it might be hard, but every time you go into your closet and take a chance at every time you wear something, not because it's trending, but because you want to, you are reconnecting those really amazing connections from what you think, to what you feel, your brain, to your heart, and then you express it outwards in your body.
I just wanted to combat these negative voices that you are hearing, and let you know that it does take just a little bit of practice and consistency.
Trends Are Obsolete (And How To Use Them Anyway)
So let's go back to addressing the actual things. Let's talk about trends. Trends are obsolete. They really are. I'm gonna dive deep into this because I have a love hate relationship with friends.
Let's talk about the hate part first. Okay, hate's kind of a strong word, but we'll just roll with it. When I hear, you are out of style, if it makes me cringe, and makes me so mad, because I want to let you know that you are not out of style anymore.
There once was a time when information moved slower, and Trents did move around the globe in a slower fashion. That is not the case anymore. With the internet, with how fast things can be produced, every style is being produced now. Fashion is being produced so fast, companies cannot even keep up with trends because they need more styles to produce.
So they are producing every single style right now, and the fashion industry is trying to hold on to the idea that there are trends, because that is how they sell you things. And if they don't have trends, they can't tell you you're out of style, so they are holding onto that really deep, and it's just not true.
Find what feels good for you. Find your lane, add a few things into it, try a different style. Just try out different things, but understand to take the heaviness off yourself that you might be out of style, because you're not.
Okay, let's talk about the love part of trends. I don't want you to completely ignore every new inspiration that is coming out, because that's actually how we grow our style. I like trends for inspiration, not to tell me if I'm in or out. I like them to expand my style.
So that is why I will look at trend reports. I also am numb to the language of, You're out if you have this. I don't care about that anymore. No one can tell me anything is out, because it's not, and I don't really give a shit.
But I do look at it because they might come up with an outfit, or a style, or a way to wear something, then I didn't think of before, and then it expands my personal style, and my creativity. So that is where I love trends, but I hate trends in the sense of trying to make you feel less than, so you buy more.
So understand when you are looking at a trend report, that's when someone tells you, this is what's in style, how you are feeling. If they are making you feel less then, get rid of it, don't look at it. If it makes you feel expansive. Like, wow, I can expand my personal style. That is when you look at it, and you follow it.
That is what you can know about trends now, and when you hear those voices, when you're getting dressed, squash them.
Spotting And Squashing Your “I Can’t”s
Second, your eye can't. Identify where all your I can't are coming from, like, I can't wear this. I can't wear that. I can't wear this color.
I'll tell you a story that when I had my boutique on Melrose, so many times, women would come out of the dress room, looking fabulous, and all I would hear out of their mouth is I can't. I can't wear this 'cause of my arms. I can't wear this because of the color. I cant wear this, blah, blah, blah.
And I would be stunned, because all I see in my eyes was just a beautiful outfit on a beautiful person. And so it killed me, and I always wondered, Where do these, I can't come from, and why do we see them so strongly in the mirror when somebody from the outside doesn't see them?
I want to lessen your I can't, and to look at yourself from outside point of view of why are you saying these I can't?
When I was young, my dad said Asians don't wear cream. I have no idea. He probably doesn't even remember saying that, but for some reason, it stuck with me, and I never wore green growing up. When I got into the fashion industry, I started taking chances. I started wearing green, and now it's, like, my favorite color to wear, and so it's weird, these voices on our head. And it's weird, these I can't set we hear when we get dressed up.
So start to identify the icans, get to the root of them, and start to squashing. Like, who cares about the eye canes? Who cares about the rules anyone has given you? Who cares about that?
I have another story of a friend. This was just recently, and she showed me this outfit that had this big bow on her neck, and she said, My friend, who's a color stylist, told me never to wear this because it's swallowing me, and it's just too big.
And I looked at it, and I was like, Um, no, you need to wear that. That's fabulous. And so she was about to get rid of it. She decided to wear it to our holiday party, and everyone was raving about it.
So when you imagine, these, I can't, imagine where they're coming from, her heart was telling her she still wanted to wear this, but she was listening to the I can't of this color analyst, and was listening to her because she was a professional, right? And so if it's still speaking to your heart, and you want to wear something, just wear it. Squash the, I can't. And go with yourself and your heart, and just wear it.
What’s Coming Tomorrow: Outfit Planning
So that is where we're gonna stop for today, tomorrow. I am gonna go into my outfit planning. How I have made my mornings so much easier, how I have saved so much time during the week when it comes to style.
We're gonna dive deep into the details of outfit planning, putting aside time for you to really enhance and find your style.
The Big Question: What Would You Wear If No One Was Telling You?
But I'm in a close with this. When I'm on stages, this is my one big thing I ask at the end of my presentation. I say, What would you wear if no one was telling you what to wear?
What if there was never fashion magazines? What if there was never rules? What if there was never influencers? What if there was never an outside voice? How would you know what to wear?
You would follow your heart. You would follow your intuition.
So as you go through today, and as you go through your closet, and as you go through life every day, ask yourself, what would I wear if no one was telling me what to wear?
I closed with that. I hope that brings them inspiration to you.
As always, if you have questions, send them to me. I always wanna hear how you're doing, how you're feeling about this. You can respond to the text messages, to the emails, and friends. I love you. You got this. Continue forward.
I am your biggest cheerleader, signing off, Casey, your fashion bestie. I will be back tomorrow.