Authentic Style

The Illustrated Discovery Journal: Creating a Visual Autobiography of Your Authentic Self
by Sarah Ban Breathnach

1

Style is something peculiar to one person;
it expresses one personality and one only;
it cannot be shared.

-freya stark
“a note on style” (1942)

One of the truths I learned on my Simple Abundance journey is that you cannot begin the search for authenticity, you cannot embark on a spiritual path within, and not see it reflected on the outside. We're talking about style, fitness, and beauty. Girl talk. Sister stuff. Soul speak. Chick concerns. The eternal question: How do I look?

Let's start by making a quick cliché collage. Flip through your magazines and catalogs and cut out the images that embody style to you. Think about how you'd like to look. Money is no problem. You can have any body, any clothes, and any hairstyle. This collage should be your cosmic wish list. So cut out the most flattering designer clothes you want, the long legs you always dreamed of having, the eighteen-inch waist, and the cute, perfect nose. Select a few accessories, perhaps some shoes, and a few great haircuts. Paste them all down on the page.

Now step back. Do any of the women in the collage resemble you? Is your body, age, shoes, bank balance, or hairstyle reflected in the ones you see there? Or does looking at the collage only remind you (as if you need it) that there's a big gap between how you want to look and how you actually do? Mine did. But instead of being depressed, I got excited. So should you. Suddenly, at least I had an inkling of what the inner woman looked like. She had been a stranger for decades, and it was wonderful to make her acquaintance.

Remember that you are on the hunt for your authentic style, so eighteen-year-old professional models don't work as role models. Instead, become your own reality model. You're going to learn to dress, exercise, and style your Authentic Self. If you can learn to do that while enjoying both the process and the result, you'll discover that you're dying to show yourself off.

Doesn't that sound great?

Yes, you think. Great. But is it possible?

I promise it is. If I made it down this road, you can too. The hard part, as always, is getting over our hang-ups. You have to turn your self-loathing into self-loving, and you have to stop the lifelong habit of denying your intrinsic beauty. So many women suffer from “looking-glass shame,” which is what the English novelist Virginia Woolf called the malady of self-loathing that breaks all our hearts. Some person or event in our childhood marked us as plain, ugly, or fat, and now we have a hard time seeing our real reflection. Instead, we look at the faces and bodies in magazines and use their impossible, airbrushed comeliness to feel even worse about our own.

Women have always tried either to flee from the looking glass or to fool it. Archaeologists in Asia Minor have found the burial sites of women filled with elaborate cosmetic enhancements. It seems that the ancients too, from Egypt's first female pharaoh Hatshepsut to Helen of Troy, felt compelled to conceal their true images, camouflaging themselves even into the next world, comfortable neither here nor in the Hereafter with who they really were.

I don't want to carry that burden one step farther. I'm tired of spending so much energy fighting myself and avoiding mirrors. Aren't you?

Starting today, if you can't be with the body you love, be willing to love the body you're with. Declare a détente with your imperfections and lay down the brutal artillery of self-abuse-the potions, prayers, and punitive diets that bludgeon our souls. The cosmetic artifice and extreme, customized correction. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a place for hair color, makeup, and cosmetic nipping and tucking on your way to authenticity if it's going to help awaken you to your inner beauty. But I assure you that nothing will help you get over looking-glass shame if the transformation doesn't begin from within.

So let's start there.

If we are good to our bodies and spirits, our Authentic Self not only will be closer to the surface, she'll be more fun to dress. Being good to my own body always has been a tough one for me, as it is for many women. One way to nurture yourself is to take care of it. But when self-care becomes a chore, we give it up almost as soon as we start a new eating plan or exercise program.

Make a collage of the physical activities that make you feel joyous. When our bodies move and blood pumps in and out of our hearts, our physical and spiritual selves are happy to be alive. They rejoice. So even if you are adamantly opposed to the very notion of exercise, like I was, let's try to think of some way to trick your body into creative movement for a half-hour a few times a week.

Perhaps you enjoy playing doubles tennis with your friends? Gardening? Walking in the beautiful park down the street? Pushing your baby on the swing (a real biceps and triceps workout)? Making love? If you have a hard time thinking of more than one or two physical pleasures that delight you, think back to your childhood. I loved to ride horses when I was a child, and only rediscovered the passion when my daughter started taking riding lessons a few years ago. If there's an activity you used to love but gave up at some point, perhaps you should give it another try. The rewards are worth it.

Now that we've addressed the body and the spirit, it's time to think about what we want to wear. When you're in a department store, surrounded by a dizzying array of outfits of every color, cut, and make, how do you know which outfit expresses your authentic style? How do we know which one will be the most flattering? One thing we do know: It rarely looks as good on us as it does on the mannequin, an essential truth that can send even the strongest woman reeling.

© 1999 by Sarah Ban Breathnach

About the Author

SARAH BAN BREATHNACH'S (pronounced “Bon Brannock”) work celebrates quiet joys, simple pleasures and everyday epiphanies. The wisdom, warmth, compassion and disarming candor of her No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, SIMPLE ABUNDANCE: A DAYBOOK OF COMFORT AND JOY and SOMETHING MORE have made her a trusted voice to millions of women.