Month July 2018

How to create a personal style

Priscilla Leave a comment

There are certain things that no-one can take away from you…learning, self-respect, attitude…and style!

Forget about fads – knickerbockers, bubble gum jeans, puffball skirts, crop tops.  There’s something way cooler, sexier and possibly cheaper than conformity.   It’s personal style and no one can flaunt it like you!

Jackie O’Fee, owner of Auckland-based Signature Style sums up style versus fashion.

“The reality is that every trend doesn’t suit every body…and yes, I mean that to be two words. Your shape is your own and we’re all built differently. True style is knowing what works for you, and then selecting the trends that suit you rather than letting them dictate what to wear.”

At a recent business conference, a presenter commented that the interviewer makes their mind up about a person within the first three minutes of an interview, spending the remaining time seeking pathways that make them right.  With limited time to communicate who we are, how we present ourselves at that first meeting can create unconscious bias about who we are.

Great personal style reflects our uniqueness and highlights our strengths. With the proliferation of online stores and import brands, the opportunities for style statement are endless and accessible to most budgets.

Finding your personal style starts with choosing complimentary colours, considering the context of your lifestyle and the characteristics of your body shape, so you can shop with ease and confidence.

Complimentary colours

Know your colours and stick to them.

Jot down your favourite colours.  Which do you feel good in? To open up your choices, consider which colours go together or would work well with a different accent colour.  I love green and pink, lemon and brown, brown and dark pink/nude and black with brown.

Knowing what you look best in is so helpful when building a wardrobe.  At Signature Style, one of O’Fee’s services is a professional colour analysis. “The colours that never go out of style are the colours that look best on you! You’ll always be able to find something in your colours in the shops.”

For a little self-help in defining whether you’re ‘warm’ or ‘cool’ and how to start creating a colour palette, Hungry Wardrobe has a few tips.

Do certain colours stay in fashion?  According to O’Fee, there’s navy, taupe and, of course, black and it’s variants.  “We’ve had navy hanging around now for about five years (hooray!) and there’s usually a version of taupe out there too. You can always find black (but it’s a bit boring – seriously), grey and cream.”

Context of your lifestyle

Like your life, aspects of your personal style will change over time.  To help shape your personal style, you could start with reflecting on your key weekly activities and the percentage of time you spend on each.  For example, you may spend time at work, caring for young children, doing the school run (I like the ‘athleisure’ options), nights out with friends, corporate functions, BBQ’s, etc. Knowing the current percentage mix in your life will help to prioritise spending and choose style options to support you as you transition through these roles.

Physical characteristics

Consider your personal characteristics and physical strengths to help you make fabric and fit choices that draw the eye to your best features.

  • Many style experts agree to accentuate just one feature with your clothing. You may be tempted to go for more (lucky you), but one is the most striking.  Retain a little mystery…and mix it up!
  • Consider your body shape and both what you want to cover up and reveal in the styles you buy. Where do you want the hemline to fall?  As O’Fee says, “Ladies who are short-waisted and busty are likely to feel ‘all boobs’ in a leather biker jacket.  If there’s more weight around the hips and thighs with a bit of a tummy, a long-line boyfriend blazer isn’t the best choice.”  Focus on where you want the eye to fall and make clothing choices that draw attention to these areas.
  • Consider your personality. Do you love the vivaciousness of florals or feel more comfortable in muted patterns?  Are you sensual and love luxurious fabrics like chiffon or cashmere?  Perhaps you want a mix of patterns to reflect different moods or settings.  Having an overall theme that you enjoy will help guide your choices on patterns and textures and how much you spend on staple items.

Start shopping

Once you’ve reflected on colours, your lifestyle and characteristics of your body-shape, you’re ready to shop for ideas!  Online is an ideal place to start – check out Instagram, Pinterest and designers’ websites for ideas.

The Recycle Boutique, H&M and Dressmart are ideal for budget-conscious options, as is Louvisa for accessories.  Similarly, online fashion brand Birdsnest offers a wide range of clothing for different body shapes, with a free online style guide.

Personal style can be admired, but not imitated.  With a strong personal style, there’s no need to buy on lukewarm feelings.  Personal style ensures that a first impression reflects your strengths and uniqueness and supports you to perform at your best in your ever-evolving roles.

Freeing yourself – and others – from entanglements of the mind

Priscilla Leave a comment

It’s all in the mind.  There’s no doubt that the mind has incredible power, but without an adjudicator, it can be prone to over-thinking, rehashing and creating its own melodrama.

Old, recycled thoughts can keep us – and the people close to us – trapped.  Feelings or difficulties that we haven’t been able to voice or work through to an agreeable solution can become wedged inside us.  Although when grief, sadness or anger resurfaces, we can simply swallow it back down, if not dealt with and cleared, it can be cannon fodder for the mind to replay the same message over and over, without respite.

“You are the sum total of your most dominating or predominant thoughts.”  Napoleon Hill

We don’t deserve to be held ransom by our thoughts and those connected to us don’t either.  There’s fantastic support available and many success stories of people becoming unstuck through therapies such as counselling, neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis. Perhaps they’re all tools that seek to achieve the same thing: acknowledging and releasing repressed feelings and thought patterns.

For me, the two most practical, cost-effective and timely tools to identifying and re-setting re-current thought patterns are meditation and mindfulness. I change my practice to reflect any current challenges, allocating just 15 minutes most mornings.  The interesting thing about practicing them is that I didn’t just wake up one day and feel marvelous.  Like anything organic or natural, progress is slow but sure – and ever-evolving.

Here are three things that daily meditation and mindfulness practice has taught me:

  1. Freeing my own mind from spiraling thoughts not only frees me, but also any person/s who may be subliminally affected by them. As I accept and respond differently to others, so they have more choice on how to respond, creating new possibilities for everyone.
  2. Over time, the load of hurts can be lessened. This creates more head-space to focus on other things more deserving of precious time and energy.
  3. Every choice has merit and is influenced by a person’s unique life experience. We can disagree one something and still both be right.  Let’s embrace that!

There are many guided meditations available to buy online and that’s one way to jump start and embed a regular practice.  After attending a couple of meditation groups, I veered down the non-traditional path of developing my own practice methods, rather than using a prescribed one.  Do what works and feels right for you.

Whichever way you start, here are a couple of simple meditation and mindfulness ideas to consider incorporating into your own practice:

  • Find one positive word, a mantra that you believe in, that sits right within you. Repeat that word in your mind, see each letter and place it upon each of the energy centres of the body, one-by-one (feet, base of spine, lower abdomen, stomach, heart, throat, between the eyes and top of the head).  Use your deep diaphragm breathing to slowly breathe in, focus on each centre, hold the breath, then release out, repeating your mantra as you visualise it touching each centre.
  • Tell yourself that you intend to set aside time to release any old feelings that no longer serve you. Sit and scan the body and wait for any to appear, then identify where the body you are ‘holding’ the feeling.  Where is the tension of this feeling held?  See the feeling and let it be seen.  Name it and accept it – voice this if needed.   Now imagine pure white light beaming into the feeling, holding and surrounding it, then carrying it away for cleansing and transformation.

Depending on the nature of the feeling/s held, you may devote many ‘sessions’ to a particular one.  Lightness in replace of tightness is a good sign that it is shifting or has cleared.   With regular mindfulness practice, repressed feelings are noticed and accepted without judgement, from which they can then be let go of more easily.

As a busy mum, these small yet significant practices maintain a daily habit of giving time to myself to restore my inner well-being, so I’m less likely to ‘boil over’ at surface stresses.  As I manage my own reactions, I have more energy for things that matter most and am clearer about the boundaries of what’s right to take on.

Sometimes life brings up people and situations that challenge us.  Rather than run away from these challenges, by using meditation to find that inner calm and releasing caged feelings through mindful awareness, you’ll begin to grow into acceptance.  You’ll love more and grow more…and free others to do the same.