Journaling about your clothes helps you to get closer to yourself. Closer to the real you.
This blog post will help you do exactly that.
By asking yourself the question, “how do I feel about my clothes today?”, you are making a gentle enquiry of yourself as to how you feel in general about yourself.
And this will help you get closer to the real you.
How do I feel about my clothes today is an exercise that we do in Wardrobe Journaling. Wardrobe journaling is our course which combines two of our favourite activities: journaling and clothes. Wardrobe Journaling takes you on a journey about you, your clothes and your attitudes to your clothes. It helps you to look at yourself and how you feel about yourself and evaluate your personal style in a kind and compassionate manner.
Wardrobe Journaling enables you to see what aspects of your personal style you would like to address. If you would like to know more about Wardrobe Journaling, click HERE.
How do your clothes make you feel?
The clothes we wear can affect our confidence, mood, and even our behaviour. Wearing comfortable clothes that fit well can make us feel more relaxed and at ease, while dressing up in formal attire can make us feel more confident and empowered. Similarly, wearing clothes that we feel express our personal style and identity can make us feel more authentic and true to ourselves.
In addition to these psychological effects, there are also cultural and social implications associated with clothing. In some cultures, certain types of clothing may be considered more modest or appropriate than others, while in other contexts, fashion and style may be valued more highly.
It’s important to choose clothing that makes us feel comfortable, confident, and true to ourselves.
The downside of not tuning in to how your clothes make you feel
Back to How you feel about your clothes today. If we are not intentional about our clothes and what we wear daily then any of the following may happen, and you may have experienced these already:
- You go onto ‘auto-pilot’ wearing the same clothes day in day out without really thinking about what we are doing – leading to feeling dull and boring in our clothes.
- You don’t plan what to wear, so you wear anything. This leads to feeling out of control with your clothes/wardrobe.
- You start to dread getting dressed, open the door to the wardrobe/closet each day, grab something and run!
None of these scenarios is good for your soul or for your mental health.
How do you feel good about what you wear?
Feeling good about what you wear is a combination of how you feel about yourself and what you feel you deserve. Doing the exercise below may have give you an insight into how you feel about yourself and what thoughts are holding you back from being the best version of yourself that you can be.
You can also ask yourself how you want to feel when you wear your clothes? Do you want to feel sexy, sophisticated, capable, empowered, glamourous? Or something else? All these are available to you, you just need to decide how you want to feel.
How do you talk about your clothes
How you talk about your clothes to yourself and to other people will tell you a lot about how you feel about yourself.
Clothes do also influence how other people react to you. We are always picking up signs and cues about the world around us. Those signs and cues can be about the new haircut your friend has and how she looks five years younger, or how another friend was looking very drab and not at all happy and maybe you should spend some time with her and make sure she is ok.
Observe yourself and see what your speech is like around your own style:
“This old thing? I’ve had it ages”
“Oh I normally just wear it for walking the dog”
“I can’t really justify buying new clothes”
And then ask yourself, Is this something I want to change?
What the “How do I feel about my clothes today?” question will do is gently bring you back to a place of intentionality about you and how you life your life.
So, let’s get started.
How do I feel about my clothes today – The Exercises
Find somewhere comfortable to sit. Here are some tips to prepare yourself:
- Start by taking a few deep breaths and centring yourself. This will help you focus on your thoughts and feelings.
- Try and clear your mind. If necessary keep a piece of paper and pen by your side. If any distracting thoughts arise note them down for later.
- Make sure you are warm, but not too warm.
- Try and have silence around you.
When you are ready start to ask yourself the questions:
- Look at yourself in the mirror if necessary and take note of what you’re wearing.
How does it make you feel?
Do you like what you see?
Are you comfortable in your outfit? - Write down your initial thoughts and feelings about your clothes.
Be honest and don’t hold back.
Write about any positive or negative emotions that come up. - Consider why you feel the way you do.
Is it because of the fit, colour, or style of your clothes?
Are you self-conscious about something?
Do you feel confident and happy in what you’re wearing? - Write about any memories or associations that come up as you reflect on your outfit.
Maybe you wore something similar to an important event, or maybe you associate a certain colour with a particular mood. - Finally, think about what you want to do with this information that you have learned about yourself.
Do you want to change your outfit or keep it the same?
Do you want to change your style?
Do you want to explore your feelings about your clothes further?
Remember, journaling is a tool for self-reflection and exploration, so be gentle with yourself as you explore your feelings about your clothes. You may uncover deeper emotions or issues that you weren’t aware of before, and that’s okay. Just keep writing and see where it takes you.
Why are clothes important
the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer’s psychological processes
Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Scientific experiments, looking at the psychology behind clothing, have shown that what you wear affects how you feel about yourself, how you act and how well you think you will do. The most well known experiment is with the lab coats. Some people in a group were given lab coats to perform a certain task, and others were not. The group who wore lab coats outperformed the group who did not.
So what you wear matters.
And how you think about yourself matter.
This is why I created Wardrobe Journaling.
Wardrobe Journaling is a short course designed to help you think about what you wear and how you feel about what you wear. It was created out of my business Working Frocks. I wanted to give women a method of understanding themselves better and of changing their style to better reflect who they think they are and who they want to be.
Wardrobe Journaling is a 6 module course and it is self paced so you could do it all in one day, take six days, or six weeks. It’s a great course to come back to each time your life changes, or you want to feel differently, or want to change your style.
It’s also a great programme for when you are facing a challenge and need to be mentally and physically prepared for life in front of you. Knowing who you are and how you want to show up is a big step in preparing for life’s challenges.
If you want to change how you feel about yourself and your style then get journaling! And check out the Wardrobe Journaling course. Wardrobe Journaling will guide you through the journaling process to help you get clarity on how you feel about yourself now and how to create new thoughts patterns for yourself which will help you be the person you want to be.
To your beautiful style!
If you liked this post you may also like:
Learning to love yourself and what you wear by journaling
Personal style journal: How to do a wardrobe scan
65 journal prompts: How to find your personal style through self identity
