By Sarah Jane Bailey
I was raised in a Baptist Pastor’s home, and my life was (let’s say this as sweetly as possible) ordered by a certain set of guidelines that, my parents thought, were the right way to show up as respectable kid, who represented the standards of the pastor’s family! There were six of us….and I was the baby! I can hear you now! “She’s a DOUBLE WHAMMY! A Preachers kid AND the baby…. this one must be a wild one!” Well…. maybe, just a little! LOL It certainly was the perfect breeding ground for those wild-child moments, mixed with lots of good and kind service, mixed with a whole lot of expectations being placed by my parents, the church, GOD….and anyone else who might be watching with a judgmental (let me try to make that nicer) or assessing eye! In my world, EVERYONE was watching, and everyone had an idea of who I was, what I should look like, act like, think like….BE!!
You might not resonate with this, and you might even be saying “thank GOD I didn’t live her life”, but if you dig in and read between the lines and exclamation marks, you might just find a piece of yourself!
One of my very favorite things about working at C’est Sera with Kelly, and the amazing team she has attracted, is how we intentionally and with thoughtful, kind, fun, deliberation, PUSH THE FASHION BUTTONS of the women that grace us with their delightful presence. It is quite a unique shopping experience, as I observe and share in, to have women walk in and say “I’m looking for a blue dress, conservative and easy, limited color, NEVER yellow” and to fill their dressing rooms with what they have asked for, and a little bit of what they didn’t! We love to have you look through the store and select things, but, as most of you have grown accustomed to, we are happy whirling dervishes pulling other fashion ideas for you; filling the dressing room with a whole lot of beauty! I love the moment as you walk towards the room, when we lock eyes and we say to you, “I did a little shopping for you…. just give it a go!”
Without fail, you look at us and say, “I said…”, and we giggle a little and say “yeah, I know, but you’re already taking off your clothes, so why not push the envelope a little!” The beautiful thing is that, due to relationship and trust, most of the time you just put on the damn clothes! LOL The most rewarding moment for everyone is when you look at yourself in the mirror and say “I would have NEVER…. but I love it!” We know that you cannot see yourself in a way you have never seen yourself before! We know that you can’t IMAGINE how that would work for you, and yet we CAN! We see it! We see what you can’t!
I think that we do this a LOT to ourselves as women (I’m sure men do too, but I just get women….and I am talking to you, after all!!). We have a notion of what we are, who we are, how we do things, how we look, how we act, what we think….and yet when we actually stop and think about it, we either can’t remember the origin of the thoughts or we realize the thoughts are so OLD, they no longer fit us! We “supposed to” ourselves so much, that we can very easily loose connection to our “what if”!
Here’s the truth; not everything you try on will be a win, but unless you try it on how do you know it’s not a win? How do you know it doesn’t suit you or won’t fit you or doesn’t work for your body? How do you know? Who says? Why? Because “they said so??” …. hmmm…. Let’s try again!
So many of the ideas that we have rolling through our minds, the stories we have rolling through our hearts, are simply paradigms! Paradigms are not always a problem! Some of our habitual thinking and acting works really well for us! BUT sometimes our paradigms sit inside of us as someone else’s story and expectations that had nothing to do with you in the first place! Sometimes these ideas and attitudes were placed on us as littles, and they just stuck to us…. because they are powerful and that’s what they do!
The other day I was listening to the teachings of Abraham, and something was said that stuck with me in such a big way! They said, “it’s time to start seeing yourself through your own eyes.” What happens if we begin to truly see ourselves through our own eyes? What happens if we give ourselves the permission to, with great love and acceptance, see ourselves through our own eyes?
Here’s the magic about changing our thinking…. changing our paradigms; we actually don’t have to think about the paradigm that doesn’t work for us, we just create a new one and starve the old one to death! We create new thoughts, new ideas, new behaviors, new attitudes, thereby leaving the old ones in our dust!
Buckminster Fuller, who was an American architect, theorist, author, designer, inventor and described as a ‘one of a kind thinker’ gave us one of my absolute favorite quotes, which fits beautifully with what we are talking about. He said “We never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, we build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
What obsolete ideas or thoughts are you ready to let go of! You don’t have to fight them, overpower them, or aggressively silence them! With ease and grace, energy and gratitude, expectation and desire, and repetition…. you can build a new model!
Does this sound like something you are ready for? Sometimes, when we are ready to put something on and take it for a spin, we want a friend nearby to affirm us and support us…. even cheerlead us through our decisions!
You have a friend in me…. with love! I’d love to hear from you! Your successes and challenges, your anxieties and excitement! Sometimes we just know we shouldn’t do things unattended!
I’m here…. and I’m listening!
Sarah
To connect with Sarah Jane Bailey, please visit her on FaceBook at
Sarah Jane Bailey, Coaching and Consulting
Or via Email at :sarah@sarahjanebailey.com