Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Okay,
Speaker 1: welcome back to I Choose Me. Stacy London and I
Speaker 1: have been having the best conversation about mid life and
Speaker 1: how this chapter isn't a decline but it's a real
Speaker 1: power shift as we grow and we regenerate. Because here's
Speaker 1: the thing. We can talk all day long about what
Speaker 1: to wear as we age, but the harder part is
Speaker 1: standing in front of the mirror and loving what you see.
Speaker 1: So let's start there. Okay, you talk about being able
Speaker 1: to look in the mirror without emotion and say I
Speaker 1: love this part of me. I don't love this part
Speaker 1: of me, so that we can dress the good parts.
Speaker 2: How do all the parts?
Speaker 1: Well, all the parts?
Speaker 2: But how do we do that?
Speaker 1: First of all, how do we look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and have no emotional connection to saying oh, I don't
Speaker 1: like this about myself?
Speaker 2: Well you can't. You will if you stare in the
Speaker 2: mirror long enough. When your shirt you're going to be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I don't want to look at these
Speaker 2: stretch marks. I hate this silly light. When did my
Speaker 2: ass melts into the back of my knees? You got
Speaker 2: to stand in front of that mirror while all those
Speaker 2: all that negative self talk just plays over and over
Speaker 2: and over again, and then eventually you're going to be like,
Speaker 2: all right, girl, we get it. You don't like your ass,
Speaker 2: you do like your shoulders, you like your arms, whatever
Speaker 2: it is. But you have to stay there until the
Speaker 2: embodiment of those feelings, the hatred of your knees or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, burns off, because underneath that is just
Speaker 2: the understanding that your knees are not your favorite body part.
Speaker 2: Right once you can take away the emotion out of it,
Speaker 2: just say, my knees are not a part of my
Speaker 2: body that I love, but my arms are. Then you
Speaker 2: start to think about, Okay, maybe I'm not going to
Speaker 2: wear a miniskirt, but I'm definitely going to do a
Speaker 2: trouser that you know, with like a really sexy because
Speaker 2: I love showing my shoulders in my arms. You start
Speaker 2: to think about how you consciously camouflage. And I know
Speaker 2: that sounds a little Gwyneth Paltrow, but I really do
Speaker 2: mean it. I wrote it in my book fifteen years
Speaker 2: ago that really consciously camouflaging means that you know you
Speaker 2: don't love the way something looks, but you are honoring
Speaker 2: the fact that you don't love the way it looks
Speaker 2: by figuring out how to dress it right. So you're
Speaker 2: not saying I'm going to ignore it. Nine times out
Speaker 2: of ten. If you ignore something you hate about your body,
Speaker 2: it will show in the way you dress nine times better.
Speaker 1: How do you stop the feeling of like you have
Speaker 1: to fix something about yourself in order to be fully happy.
Speaker 2: I really think that, honestly, this is a this is
Speaker 2: a it's a time honoring exercise because you do need
Speaker 2: to really set aside time to get past the visceral emotion. Right.
Speaker 2: That's really all it is is. You just have to
Speaker 2: stand there and stare at yourself until you can say,
Speaker 2: I get it. I'm tired of listening to my you know,
Speaker 2: critical mind. But what it means is that you're willing
Speaker 2: to accept that you don't like something. This is a
Speaker 2: little bit like radical acceptance in dialectical behavioral therapy. It's
Speaker 2: still there. So either you can ignore it and it'll
Speaker 2: look like crap, or you can say, I don't love
Speaker 2: this part of my body, but I'm going to give
Speaker 2: it the same loving attention that I do to my
Speaker 2: shoulders and my arms, because I love them and I
Speaker 2: want to show them off. So what that means is
Speaker 2: I want to find a pair of treasures that aren't
Speaker 2: skin tight so that my knees don't look like they
Speaker 2: you know, are like have creases. Whatever that means is
Speaker 2: you're allowed to prioritize certain parts of your body because
Speaker 2: you like them, but you can't prioritize them to the
Speaker 2: point where it's you know, at the it's at the
Speaker 2: deficit of the rest of your body. You are still
Speaker 2: one body. And the more that you can say I
Speaker 2: like this and I don't like this without the emotions,
Speaker 2: then you can reasonably think this is how I dress
Speaker 2: this part of me, and this is how I dress
Speaker 2: this part of me, so all of me feels great.
Speaker 1: Right, It's all a package.
Speaker 2: It's a package deal, but you have to kind of
Speaker 2: maybe split it into parts first. You have to and
Speaker 2: it's not easy. I'm not saying this is easy, but no.
Speaker 2: I always refer to it as the yes and the
Speaker 2: improv exercise, right, meaning that if you and I were
Speaker 2: improving together and you said to me, here is a
Speaker 2: tabby cat Stacey and I said no, well, okay, then
Speaker 2: I've shut down any possibility of the scene going anywhere
Speaker 2: of us doing anything interesting in improvisation. But if I say,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Jenny, thank you for this gorgeous, large
Speaker 2: tabby cat who happens to sting opera and also be
Speaker 2: a private detective, Well now we've got a whole story
Speaker 2: to work with. Right. So the yes is just saying
Speaker 2: I accept what has been given to me. I accept
Speaker 2: my body on its own terms. I may like something's more,
Speaker 2: I like something's less, but it's okay. Yeah that is okay.
Speaker 2: And then the and is coming up with the cat's
Speaker 2: a private investigator or an opera singer at all, and
Speaker 2: is recognizing that you love the color purple or that
Speaker 2: you love wearing metallic sneakers. The creative, investigative fun part
Speaker 2: of the yes is that you then turn it into
Speaker 2: something more than just acceptance. You turn it into creativity
Speaker 2: and passion and joy.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you though, how do you
Speaker 1: dress for the body that you have today and stop
Speaker 1: grieving the body you had yesterday?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That's hard. I think a lot of it is hard,
Speaker 2: and as we change, of course, we change. But the
Speaker 2: one thing that I would definitely say is if most
Speaker 2: of your wardrobe is comprised of pieces that no longer
Speaker 2: fit or you know, to fit differently, and you're buying
Speaker 2: cheap clothes that are kind of like stand ins for
Speaker 2: your you know, they're like extender pieces just until you
Speaker 2: lose the weight. You're never going to lose the weight,
Speaker 2: and you're going to be miserable in your closet.
Speaker 1: Or or if you do lose the way, which is
Speaker 1: you know, a possibility. Of course, you can invest in
Speaker 1: updating your style, like yes, get some new, updated things
Speaker 1: that make you feel even better than those old clothed
Speaker 1: it because probably they're out of style anyway exactly.
Speaker 2: And even if they aren't, that's fine. Keep I say,
Speaker 2: one to three pieces out of any old wardrobe. But
Speaker 2: if you have been a different body shape or size
Speaker 2: for more than a year and eighty percent of your
Speaker 2: wardrobe doesn't fit you correctly, then you're not thinking realistically.
Speaker 2: You're not thinking in a way that's going to bring
Speaker 2: you joy. You're just using your closet to torture your thoughts.
Speaker 1: So true, you know that I.
Speaker 2: Think is worse than throwing everything away forget. You know,
Speaker 2: obviously you can donate, you can put things on consignment.
Speaker 2: Poshmark Deep pop all of these sites. The real real
Speaker 2: sell whatever you want to sell. But all I'm saying
Speaker 2: is if you hold on to that stuff, all you
Speaker 2: do is make yourself feel inadequate. You make yourself feel
Speaker 2: like a failure. And that is not the point of style.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Point of style is to be who you truly are
Speaker 2: and who you want to be, not this self deprecating
Speaker 2: play it small person. And if you're sitting around with
Speaker 2: a lot of clothes that make you feel that way,
Speaker 2: then I really, really, from the bottom of my heart,
Speaker 2: suggest that you start thinking about a new wardrope, not
Speaker 2: even what your new style is going to be, just
Speaker 2: the fact that your clothes should not make you feel
Speaker 2: badly about yourself. Your clothes are meant to work for you,
Speaker 2: not against you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely you mentioned before finding pieces from different designers within
Speaker 1: a curated sort of space or intention like QBC does.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about the ten things we should have
Speaker 1: in our closets so we can grab them when we're
Speaker 1: in a hurry and just get dressed and ready to go.
Speaker 1: Besides your beautiful put the outfits together, which I think
Speaker 1: that's going to change my life, But what are the
Speaker 1: ten things we should have in our closet.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is hard for me only because not
Speaker 2: everybody needs the same ten things truly, right, But I
Speaker 2: will say more generally, I can talk about a few things.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Obviously, denim is essential, and when I talk about denim
Speaker 2: as a category, I'm talking about jeans for a second. Right.
Speaker 2: We can talk about denim jackets and shamberry shirts and
Speaker 2: all of that, but let's just talk about jeans. My
Speaker 2: feeling is you really should have five pair of jeans,
Speaker 2: probably more, but I'm going to stay five for you know,
Speaker 2: the average person who is not completely obsessed with like
Speaker 2: whatever leg style is in. But what I find is
Speaker 2: that if I have one of every style that I
Speaker 2: really love, that you know your jeans are there to
Speaker 2: make your ass look great. So if your ass doesn't
Speaker 2: look great, just kick them to the curve. But I
Speaker 2: have a flare pair, I have a wide leg pair.
Speaker 2: I have a boot cut pair. I have a stretched pair,
Speaker 2: I have straight pair, I have a skinny pair. All right,
Speaker 2: that's already six, right, But I know that these are
Speaker 2: the styles that I look best in. So I go
Speaker 2: I pass over styles that I won't even wear that
Speaker 2: don't look good on me, period, Like You're never going
Speaker 2: to see me in a low rise kick flare ever. Again,
Speaker 2: That's never gonna happen these days. Those days are. But
Speaker 2: I will take the most relevant legs silhouettes, find the
Speaker 2: genes that I look best, and have one of those,
Speaker 2: and I may only wear one of those for three years.
Speaker 2: I may only wear the boot cuts from now on.
Speaker 2: But when I want a wide leg gene, I know
Speaker 2: it's in my closet. Those are just Denim is the
Speaker 2: blank canvas to try any single trend. So whether or
Speaker 2: not you get the leg right, as long as you
Speaker 2: have denim, you can do. You can go wild on
Speaker 2: the top right. You could do let's say, I don't
Speaker 2: know sexy secretary is in. You can do a pussy
Speaker 2: bow blouse and a really cute little blazer. But do
Speaker 2: it with jeans and it's much less of a risk.
Speaker 2: So having genes to be kind of that clear palate
Speaker 2: cleanser for any trend you want to try is essentral.
Speaker 2: I also think it's important to have a pair of
Speaker 2: faux or real leather trousers. They could be a baggy trouser,
Speaker 2: they could be a five pocket gene. But a leather
Speaker 2: pant does something to a wardrobe that is like magic.
Speaker 2: It just it elevates it almost automatically. Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: do this really with lots of different kinds of leather.
Speaker 2: This looks great. A leather trench coat will do that trick,
Speaker 2: a leather jacket will do that trick. Even a leather skirt, right.
Speaker 2: I generally think personally, as I've gotten older, I wear
Speaker 2: a lot less, a lot fewer dresses and skirts than
Speaker 2: I did before. But I do think like a leather
Speaker 2: pencil skirt or MIDI skirt, really it looks incredible. And
Speaker 2: the things that elevate the wardrobe without you having to
Speaker 2: do very much at all, then I guess there's something
Speaker 2: that I do think that you really should have. I'm
Speaker 2: going to call this category character builders. Is that one
Speaker 2: wild piece, whether it's a crazy print, crazy color, crazy embellishment, whatever,
Speaker 2: it is a few of those in your closet that
Speaker 2: do the same thing that a great pair of leather
Speaker 2: pants are going to do, just elevates the outfit into
Speaker 2: something that you don't have to do the work except
Speaker 2: put it on. And it's a w it's wild and
Speaker 2: it goes with any neutral that you have. Then I
Speaker 2: do think you need a suit, whether that's a pantsuit
Speaker 2: or a squirtsuit. You need something that is the shell
Speaker 2: in which you can put any filling and it will
Speaker 2: work right. So I can wear a pantsuit with a
Speaker 2: T shirt and sneakers and that's casual, or I can
Speaker 2: wear it with a blouse and heels and go to
Speaker 2: a job interview. Having a suit means that you always
Speaker 2: have something to wear, and then I can wear that
Speaker 2: blazer with a jillion other pieces and has the sweaters exactly.
Speaker 2: So getting a suit is always your getting bang for
Speaker 2: your buck, and then I do I am a sucker
Speaker 2: for outerwear. I'm a sucker for outerwear.
Speaker 1: If you make beautiful outerwear, oh.
Speaker 2: I just love it so much. And I feel like
Speaker 2: if you have a coat, a bag, and a shoe,
Speaker 2: anything you wear underneath it fine, as long as that
Speaker 2: coat somehow has personality and is outstanding that bag. The
Speaker 2: thing about accessories, bags and shoes in particular, the less
Speaker 2: they go with anything, the more they go with everything.
Speaker 2: So I love shiny and prints and pony skin and
Speaker 2: fur and all sorts of things that you can do
Speaker 2: in your accessories that look like you're participating in a trend.
Speaker 2: Let's say Leopard was really big this season. Let's say
Speaker 2: you don't want to wear Leopard. Do a Leopard bag,
Speaker 2: do a Leopard shoe, do a Leopward scarf, and immediately
Speaker 2: you're relevant in that you're participating in the trend, but
Speaker 2: you're doing it in a way that's personal and personally
Speaker 2: stylish to you.
Speaker 1: Yes, such good tips, do you. I'm curious you believe
Speaker 1: in buying the same thing in multiple colors.
Speaker 2: Not really, not unless it is such an incredible cut
Speaker 2: on you that there's no way you could find it
Speaker 2: from anybody else. So if you're buying, like the uniclosed
Speaker 2: sweater that you love, in five different colors, I think
Speaker 2: that's a waste of time. Maybe two maybe maybe. Generally speaking,
Speaker 2: I only like multiples for things that I know that
Speaker 2: I'm wearing consistently and that have such a special shape
Speaker 2: to them, that are really flattering, or that the color
Speaker 2: palet is a really flattering In those cases, yes, I
Speaker 2: think you can do copies, but I don't think you
Speaker 2: ever need to do more than three of anything.
Speaker 1: M I agree, because it's boring.
Speaker 2: It's boring, and then again you're locking yourself in. I
Speaker 2: know this shirt looks good on me, so I'm gonna
Speaker 2: buy it in every color.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What about the opportunity to find a different kind of
Speaker 2: shirt that looks good on you that works with three
Speaker 2: pairs of pants that you own instead of just two.
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, I love this question because we talked about
Speaker 1: the term self care on our other episode and which
Speaker 1: you said are not all bubble bath based, right, meaning
Speaker 1: that it's not only just for you. What are some
Speaker 1: things that we can do right now in this world
Speaker 1: that are self care?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that self care. There's two ways to
Speaker 2: look at it, right. There's self care that makes you
Speaker 2: feel good because you've done something for yourself, and self
Speaker 2: care that makes you feel good because you've done something
Speaker 2: that has a retal effect. So really, the first thing
Speaker 2: I'm going to say for self care is volunteer. I
Speaker 2: just got my application to start volunteering at a pet
Speaker 2: shelter because there's just so much need in the world.
Speaker 2: There's just so much need. Right you can sort of
Speaker 2: code drive because it's freezing, I mean, oh my god,
Speaker 2: the East Rivers filled with ice today. It's so cold,
Speaker 2: and so doing something for others, contributor, donate to your
Speaker 2: community garden, whatever it is, I think is a way
Speaker 2: to get out of the way of our own ego
Speaker 2: and feel good about something that does not require looking
Speaker 2: in a mirror or purchasing something or putting something on
Speaker 2: your face or getting in a bath or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: Another great way to do self care is to really
Speaker 2: think about what do I need to take care of
Speaker 2: myself in order to be a vibrant member of my community.
Speaker 2: So self care may look like a facial to some people,
Speaker 2: but it may look like a Texa scan to others. Right,
Speaker 2: how do you know the status of your own health
Speaker 2: and are you on a track to keep you strong
Speaker 2: and you know, allow you to live a long life
Speaker 2: so that you can be around other people that you care.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing is not just for you. That's
Speaker 1: not a selfish thing to take care of yourself in
Speaker 1: that manner. It's for the people around you that love you,
Speaker 1: that depend on you, the people that need you, all
Speaker 1: the people. So I sometimes self care, or when I
Speaker 1: talk about choosing yourself, people can see it as this
Speaker 1: very selfish or self absorbed thing. But I am just
Speaker 1: here to blow that perception out because we're stuck on.
Speaker 1: Like we've talked about before, making everybody else happy and
Speaker 1: doing what other people want us to do and saying
Speaker 1: yes to everyone.
Speaker 2: And thing us to everyone. You know, also that you know,
Speaker 2: you've got to be really careful, right, Even volunteering can
Speaker 2: wind up being a people pleasing thing if you're not
Speaker 2: doing it with boundaries. And I think certainly when it
Speaker 2: comes to self care, the stronger your boundaries, the better
Speaker 2: your self care is going to be, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: So if there's something you know right now that you
Speaker 2: want to think about in terms of self care, think
Speaker 2: about the kinds of boundaries that you have with your
Speaker 2: friends and family. Do you feel secure in them? Do
Speaker 2: you feel like they have been, you know, broken? Do
Speaker 2: you feel like people are trying or disrespecting you on
Speaker 2: a kind of very base level of your belief system?
Speaker 2: How can you rectify that? How can you at least
Speaker 2: communicate that in a way that is good for you
Speaker 2: and good for the people around you. But this is
Speaker 2: not about people pleasing. This is really truly about how
Speaker 2: we continue to fortify ourselves and become more of who
Speaker 2: we are so that we can be in community with
Speaker 2: other people. And maybe that is a treat, Maybe that
Speaker 2: is wharing, you know, getting a new red left stick
Speaker 2: or getting your hair done or taking them. It's just
Speaker 2: not limited to that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so good to remember everybody you you're just an inspiration.
Speaker 2: No only please, No, it's everything that you're doing. I
Speaker 2: feel the same way. And it really is funny. It
Speaker 2: is interesting to think that like a company, a company
Speaker 2: brought us together to do something that I think has
Speaker 2: such a higher purpose. You know, in a way, it's
Speaker 2: like thank god a company thought of it, because we
Speaker 2: should be doing you know, we should be discussing the
Speaker 2: age of possibility anyway all the time, because.
Speaker 1: This is this is it, This is this is it.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are right now is it?
Speaker 2: It's it? Yeah, it really is. And I feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, look, times are hard. They're always going to
Speaker 2: be hard. Things are going to be hard. But the
Speaker 2: more we have conversations like this, the more that we're
Speaker 2: willing to be open and vulnerable and kind and afraid
Speaker 2: eat the better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well you are, like I said before, reppin my friend,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love having our conversation and I
Speaker 1: hope everybody listening has taken something away from this conversation,
Speaker 1: because I know I have. Thank you Stacy