Why Looks Matter.

Growing up many of us have been told that looks are not the most important thing in the world. We have been trained to ignore them as much as possible. The whole thing was designed to prevent us from becoming arrogant and shallow. If looks do not matter, why do companies have dress codes, even though only few of them are for safety? Why do lawyers and bankers show up in suits? It is true: looks are not the most important thing. But they do matter.

Looks are a form of communication. And they say so much more than just what my favorite color is, or that I like cats. Lawyers and bankers wear suits to tell their clients that they are competent. Doctors want to see their mental health patients before sending them over to a specialist of mental health, to assess how badly they are. But Clothes are not just a way to communicate to the world around us that we are competent, or that we know we are attractive.

It is also a way to communicate to ourselves. Taking the time to put on some jewelry or using some mascara, tells us, that we respect and value ourselves and our bodies. And that is something that we most definitely want to focus on, especially if we do have a history of self-harm. Dressing appropriately and nice is also a way to respect the people around us. Because they are the ones looking at us, all day.

But there is one more benefit in taking the time to create a nice outfit and that may be the most crucial one: It allows us, to check in on ourselves. It allows us, to figure out how we are feeling. Even if it is just how we are feeling about a certain piece of clothing. It is a first step to checking in on our actual mental state. And it tells us, how we want to feel. Our personal style reflects who we are. Are we playful? Are we serious and focused on achievements?

When it comes to clothes, many of us have intuitively chosen a style at some point in our lives. And some of us may have chosen clothes based on our body-type and skin color. We have tried to rationalize what looks best on us based on scientific evidence. I see one problem with both approaches: The first does not even acknowledge the power of clothes and dressing well, the second looses all mystery. The second focuses very much on what will look good based on scientific evidence and may easily forget that we only look good, if we feel good. Of course often times we intuitively choose what we should choose according to science. But just because our color season says we should wear green, does not mean, we have to wear green, even if we hate the color.

Clothes have more purpose other than being a form of communication. They should also empower us. Clothes empower us, not only by making us feel good. But they empower us, by reflecting who we choose to be. If you have not done so within the last 12 months I highly encourage you to adjust your wardrobe. Envision who you want to be. Maybe even write it down or make a Pinterest board. Then go into your closet and ask yourself for every single piece that you own not only Marie Kondo’s question “Does this spark joy?” But also: “Is this in line with who I want to be?”.

Why is this so important? What is around us, reflects who we are. Clothes are not just around us. They are on us. They are not only serving us, they are covering our bodies. Surrounding our bodies. Thinking clothes would be a minor detail in a human’s life is a fatal mistake. Because they are what we see when we look at ourselves. They make us feel a certain way. And we need to learn to use that to our advantage. We need to figure out, how we want clothes to make us feel. And then we cannot rest until we find those clothes, that make us feel powerful.

Having high standards when it comes to clothes may be an indicator for being spoiled. But it may also mean, that we know what we want. That we know what we need. It is wonderful, if we are able express our needs. It is so incredibly powerful to be able to choose what we need rather than just take whatever comes our way first. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is actually a skill that is so valuable and important and applies to so many areas in life. Clothes just being a very good way to acquire that very skill.

Do not make the mistake in thinking, that wearing the newest trend will empower you. I am sorry to bust your bubble, it will not. Trends are there for people who do not know who they want to be. Trends are there for people who need the mass’ approval of who they are. But if we wear what other’s want us to wear, we are not utilizing the power that clothes have. Maybe we are even working against ourselves, because we are wearing clothes, that embody values, that are the exact opposite of our own values.

Never adjust your values to what you are wearing. Adjust what you are wearing to who you are.

There is nothing wrong with trying a trend, but there is everything wrong with wearing a trend that is not in line with who we are, just because it is a trend. If we need external approval to that extent, we are very insecure. Insecure to an unhealthy extent.

Clothes are a tool. They can empower us to an incredible extent, if we know how to do it. And learning how to handle clothes properly, finding out what makes us comfortable and empowered. Is more than just finding a style that suits us, that looks good on us. It is about finding who we want to be. It is about respecting who we want to be and it is about learning to understand and communicate what we need. And this goes beyond clothing.

This is what real confidence is. Knowing yourself well enough that you are not pleased with something that is not right for you, just because it is trending right now. Confidence means not wearing a trend unless it suits you. It means not needing the external approval that comes with wearing something trendy. It means feeling comfortable and empowered wearing something that represents your values, regardless of what anyone else says. Because you are wearing what is right for you.

Not in a way that you walk around in inappropriate clothes. But that for any occasion there is something in your closet that is appropriate and the right thing for you. And when you wear it to that occasion you will not feel out of place and you will not feel like you are betraying yourself. This is confidence.

High Caliber Women

I have been mentally evolved in the thoughts of what makes a high caliber woman for a while now. It is no secret, that I am a woman and therefore it is obvious, where my interest in the topic is coming from.

Respect.

I have talked about respect a lot. And I believe the first and foremost quality a high caliber woman has, is respect. Respect for herself, for the ones around her. For opinions she is presented with. She respects the rules of the community she is living in. That does not mean, she has to like them, but she respects them and lives according to them. For instance this applies to respecting speed limits. Not because she thinks that the speed limit itself deserves her respect, but she respects the government who made those rules enough, to believe, that they make those rules with everyone’s best interest in mind, and therefore she will keep to those rules, because she respects others and she will never want to hurt them, therefore doing, what is best for everybody.

Integrity.

While respect is a very big topic and does affect many areas of a human’s specifically a woman’s life, integrity is even bigger. Much bigger. Integrity is about the character of a woman. Of course a woman gets to choose who she wants to be. She gets to choose her partner and she gets to choose to stay single. But once she chooses she makes a commitment. This does not only apply to relationships. This also applies to everything in a woman’s life. She will not make important decisions like how to spend her time lightly. She will make a decision and commit. Which means, that everything a high caliber woman sets her mind to she considers worth fighting for.

She makes those choices out of respect for herself and her surroundings. But it is impossible to make good choices, choices we can commit to, if we are not able to be honest. If a high caliber woman does not want to do something, she will communicate that. Respectfully. But unmisunderstandably. Because she understands that it is more important to commit fully to the things she does want to do, than to commit to a big number of things half-heartedly. A good woman will choose her commitments wisely, because she understands the importance of those choices. This is what separates her from an experimenting Teenager. There is nothing wrong, with trying out new things. We can also commit to trying something out, we can commit to researching how a new style of clothes would make us feel. But while the Teenager thinks this new edgy style is their new style that they will be wearing for the rest of their lives, a high caliber woman knows she is just trying something new. And once she knows how that new style makes her feel she will commit to wearing it sometimes or not. She does not need to commit to always wearing it, but she can do so, if she wishes to.

Integrity is also about the values a woman commits to. Integrity means that she knows and respects her values. She does not compromise them for momentary pleasure. She protects those values. And she will distance herself from anyone who tries to alter her values. Not because she is a coward. But because she is aware, that the longer she is around people who do not respect her values to more likely it becomes she will water down those very values, which is never something anyone with integrity should be doing.

And finally: She cares about her commitments. Which is exactly, why she does not change what she commits to on a whim. She puts effort into her commitments. She cares about them. And they are valuable to her. This includes her social commitments, her commitments to learning new skills and exploring new hobbies, and this also includes her commitment to herself.

Gentleness and Caring.

I have an entire blog post on caring. And this most obviously ties into commitment and integrity. But it is so important on its own, that I could not just skip it here. Not only caring about something is a very beautiful quality in a woman, but also caring for something or someone. This can be the people around her, her family, her friends, her community, or her pets or flowers or even just the things she own. And she does so in gentle manner. A high quality woman does not have the intention, to hurt anyone or anything, therefore she will approaches things with gentleness. This does not mean, she will fake and be sweet just to please someone, when really she thinks that that person overstepped the boundaries. A high value woman is also honest. But she will not try to put that person back into his/her place, as gently as possible.

But from this caring also comes the protective sides in a high value woman. Gentleness and caring does not make the woman weak. They makes her strong. And make her fight for, what she believes in and protect those dear to her.

Communication and Honesty.

In the section on integrity I discussed the ability of a woman to understand, that she is just researching. In order to know what her commitments are, a high caliber woman will always be honest with herself. This ties back into integrity and respect. Without honesty it is very hard, to make the right decisions and the right commitments.

A high caliber woman will always speak her mind, but she will not end up loud and harsh, doing it. She will stay respectful and gentle, but yet firm. She understands the importance of open and honest communication. She understands that her relationships depend on it. And she tries her best to not lash out on someone for telling the truth or get upset by it. She will try to make her surrounding a safe place for the truth.

Appearance.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Looks. Appearance. They say so much about us. And many people put a lot of time and effort into maintaining them. And I agree with the statement that looks are important. But they are not important in themselves. They matter, because they allow us, to know how much a woman (or a man for that matter) respects herself. Looks are not important to tell us, what social class someone is in. They are important to tell us how well someone takes care of themselves.

Do not be fooled: Appearance does not only include our hair and make up. There is so much more to it. Our level of physical activity, our grooming and our nutrition. A high value woman does not need a personal trainer or a dietitian. She does not need to get a professional to do her hair and nails every other week. But she will take care of her hair, such that it is healthy. She will take care of her diet and exercise such that she is healthy.

She does so, because she values herself. Her routines revolve around staying healthy out of respect. This is the direct counter-action of self-harm. This would not be a blog post of mine, if I would not be mentioning mental health at some point. But I am serious. We cannot be truly high value, if we do not value ourselves. It is not necessary to go crazy with self-care. But it is very much crucial, we communicate to ourselves, that we matter, and that we care.

Knowledge.

A high caliber woman does not only look good and has high standards for her own values and commitments. She also understands the power of knowledge. She understands that there is always more to learn. And she never stops learning. She may not have an interest in every subject out there. But she has respect for every subject out there. Therefore she knows a little bit of everything. And if she meets someone from a field she does not know a lot about she will not be too good to be taught some more about it.

A high value woman will keep reading about the things she cares about. And she will keep growing her knowledge in those fields.

Her relationship to herself.

This may be the most important part of all. A high value woman will always respect herself. This means, she will take care of herself. And she understands that it is her first and foremost responsibility to do so. Every other commitment is meaningless if she does not manage to have a healthy relationship with herself.

A high quality woman knows herself, including her feelings, her likes and dislikes and her needs. she is able to communicate those and take care of herself by satisfying those needs. She will also understand when she is reaching her limit and needs some help. And she will ask for that help.

She keeps herself to high standards and keeps improving constantly. She knows, that once she stops improving she will start loosing her qualities.

Relationships.

Allow me to say one thing: Every woman can be high caliber, if she chooses to. It does not matter whether or not she is in a relationship or not. It would be wrong to state that a relationship is just another commitment, because it is a very special commitment. But a woman does not need to be in a relationship to be high value. I would even go as far as to say that a relationship does not actually affect a woman’s value. Maybe it may seem like her value changes. But that is not the case.

For some women a relationship and the perspective of motherhood is a motivation to improve and grow on an individual level. And that is a good thing. Wanting to improve is always good, no matter where that will is coming from. It does not mean, that her improvement depends on the relationship. It just means, that her relationship makes her better and frankly that is, how it is supposed to be.

But wanting to grow is not tied to relationships. It is not tied to how we grow up. It is not tied to our friends or our environment. It is tied to who we choose to be.

High society and the rich

I have been watching a lot of YouTube on the topic of high society and elegance. And I realized that even though I always considered myself to tend to be overdressed, I am very middle class. And I asked myself if I was willing to put in the effort to become high society. But at some point I realized, that that was not the goal.

When we look to the rich and famous, we realize a few things

They respect themselves (and often times others)
They don’t crave approval
They care about one thing or another
They act instead of talking

But these things are all not exclusive to upper classes and the rich. Those things are simply things, that make us happy. And I truly believe, that this is the key: If we manage to implement these things in our own mindsets, we have a better shot at success (whatever that may be to us), because these things make us happier, better people, no matter which social class we are in.

We do not need to strive for elegance and affluence. We need to strive for confidence, respect for ourselves and others and a proactive and positive mindset. Because that is how everything else will eventually fall into place. Think about it: if you see something in your life, that you do not like, your proactive mindset will make you change it.

We don’t need to have high society approve of us. We need to have ourselves approve of us. I know that for me, that mostly means I have to approve of my own mindset and the way this mindset is put into action. There is nothing wrong with striving for elegance. Just remember one thing: Elegance is not just about looking and acting sophisticated, it is even more about being appropriate. Overdressing is not elegant. When I dress for an occasion, I will always think about what is the average level of elegance that will be worn there and then wear something that is 1-3 levels more elegant than that. This way I will look elegant, yet not overdressed. And this applies to every day situations as well. If I care I can dress very well even for university or running errands. But that is just how I feel comfortable, this is by no means how everyone needs to operate. I just find, that it helps me a lot with self-respect. But that is a whole other topic.

Disrespect.

I think I may have finally found the reason I cut. Or at least a mayor corner piece of that puzzle. I do not claim that it is the same for everyone. In fact I am pretty sure it is not. But I know that my core-issue is an issue many have and even though not all of us may develop self-harm as symptom working on it leads to a happier life.

When I got into therapy my goal was to find out, why I cut. Find out, what was “wrong with me”. I think my therapist was actually on to it. She said “there were just so many forces” driving me to do things which lead to me not knowing what I should do. I think the forces around me, the field of tension I was in however only brought out, what was really the issue. A lack of respect for myself. I actually realized that talking to a friend.

As long as we are not under pressure. As long as we are not tested, we just live our lives. But when we are put to the test and we need to do the right thing there are two key steps to success. First we need to know what we want. And usually that is not the thing that feels right. It is the vision we have for ourselves. A vision, that we created, while we were not in that field of tension. And then we need the courage and the strength to respect ourselves enough to act upon that vision.

And that is where I failed in the past. I did not respect myself. I was faced with decisions, I did not want to make. And I did not have the strength to make the right choice. So I turned against myself. I did not cut, because I hated myself. I cut, because I was trying to find an exit in a disorder. I was trying to escape accountability for my choices. And the fact that I did that, makes me be ashamed of myself, which is truly not helpful in building respect.

And I still get the triggers, when faced with though decisions. Which is exactly why I need to practice to respect myself. Respect my feelings, my emotions, my limits. My priorities. My vision. My values.

But I think this can be learned. When we are aware that we do not respect ourselves, we can do something about it. And I find that it is mostly recognizing, that we are more than good enough. Because trying every day to come one step closer to our vision is the very best anyone including ourselves could ever ask of us. The version of us, who is trying to become the best version of us is the best version of us. I have said that before: we cannot expect us to be perfect, when we wake up tomorrow. But we can make tomorrow the day we become a little better.

And if we hit a wall which we inevitably will, we can remember to respect that limit of ours and try again later. We do not loose at life, because we fail at something. We loose, the moment we stop trying. We are right on track even if we just try to try.

And the best thing about respecting ourselves, and acknowledging how we feel and respecting those feelings is that it makes us more confident. And it will lead to us being respected by others. Because when we respect ourselves, when we feel comfortable with ourselves, and every part of us, we will automatically demand respect.

I am not saying that we should not take responsibility for our actions, because we feel bad. I think sometimes all we need to do is try to feel a little better, try to get through a though patch, because we cannot improve ourselves, as long as we feel like the world is ending.

The journey to peace (roll credits *ding*) is not a simple one. And doesn’t end after a few weeks. And sometimes even if we think we are at peace, if we are not careful we might loose that peace. But the journey is one that we are all on. Everyone. Not just someone who is suffering from a mental disease. We all have to choose whether or not to take one more step towards peace hundreds of times every single day. We can all respect ourselves a little more.

I am so very glad I figured this one out. Because I can finally stop blaming my issue on other people. I can finally take responsibility for my cutting. Because its source is my own doing. But that also means that I can change it. And knowing this is so empowering. It is like the torch in the darkness.

I want to focus on what I want more, than I focus on what I don’t want. For one simple reason: if I focus on what I want, I focus on my vision, I focus on respecting that vision. Respecting myself in that way. Because I have known who I want to be for a long time. I just failed to become that person most of the time. Which is alright. But that will change. One step at a time.

Self-respect is not egoism. It is taking care of ourselves, and becoming the best version of ourselves, such that we can be there for others. Because we cannot do that if all we can think about is the blade. This is why self-respect is important for everyone: We are part of this world. And when we become better, the world does with us.