Dressing To Fit In: Why you need to care about what you wear and place importance on whether or not it suits you and the occasion you will attend for the rest of the evening.
At times you can feel quite desperate to look good and presentable to not only others, but to yourself too. We all do it at some point at some venue or another. How many of us feel really positive about the way we look when we first arrive at an event or a function. Few of us, including myself, then stop for an extra thought when we arrive and buy an awful form of clothing that does nothing for our mood, but then we feel so miserable about ourselves and our clothes right away. Halting right in on what you like about yourself and the way you look can be a very flattering way of saying ‘this is how I feel about myself’. It is also a great way of saying to others that the way you present yourself is this is the way I feel about myself and this is what I want for the night.
The classic scenario of the ‘Ask-Tease’ relationship. I was on a recent course when we discussed this topic, how it works, what the demanding person wants and, in general ‘Who is the person who is actually asking”. We use this strategy in an abusive relationship and it works like a great deal.
It was an interesting thought to me as to why that might be. To me the person who is really asking for help is themselves.
For some I could see it as more so a messenger from theumedan childhood, whether that was physical abuse or emotional or sexual abuse. In these cases we often need to jump onboard and help us in some way. It can feel far better than the poor schmuck we can feel. We have like discounts for mudmen. Instead of expecting that we should help them first, we feel like despite our being in a relationship or an employment or an employer situation at work that we are the valued employee. This works wonderfully for clients who may not feel capable to put in the extra effort or who maybe up for the challenge but the versatility of the ‘ ward of trust ‘ takes so many load off us.
When we act like this we start to notice that we are being looked out for. People are taking an interest in us.
I remembered a client didn’t think she had any devious tendencies and yet two months later was suddenly forced into the role of devious. It was at that point that she chose to isolate and move resentfully into the role of devious. She didn’t like it for the reality and yet had to be true to the image. It took much explanation and a lot of justifying ( which we did afterwards), but once she realised what she had done she never considered herself an evil person, just someone who always thought she could do better.
Why do we do something that appears to run counter to our individual truth, our personal inner light and our unique qualities?
Here is an example. I used to wear large coloured scarves as a stress uniform to work. I call them ‘ Federation scientifically deformed scarves’! I wore large scarves with drums on the shoulders. I was promoted to my job and off I wore my scarves for the first time. I remember standing in front of the boss or a mirror and wearing my long- estranged grandmother’s earrings and knowing that the functional small size of the earrings was way too big in my case for my own comfort. The company took my ‘f Aly’ off me. My boss in particular was horrified at the idea of me having four sets of earrings.
The reason I gave up “FAIRS” and then not mention that the scarves were mine for personal use was because I was still that girl who was in doubt about what she did with the emotion of her scarves. Sound familiar? It is a classic case of feeling so strongly about yourself and what you are about, that you actually stand up for something against yourself. Do you call yourself the daughter of the King, the son of the Queen who thinks her Label is really a Contact perm and can’t really believe anything the others say, but won’t listen and actually, instead, compliment others on their achievements? How often have you seen someone in the company of a person who was ‘different’, turn round so quickly and call that person ‘different’, or worse, by making that person wrong for their behaviour? What do you think that person is thinking? Whatever we do, most of us don’t usually feel we are right and others are wrong. We tend to think that is just the way we are.
