3 Reasons You Should Be Dressing As Your Real Self

1. It makes you feel better about yourself.

Your true physical self is very much part of who you are.

When you feel free to be your true physical self, you feel happy.  

Mental health is in no small measure about feeling like we are free to be our true selves.  Dressing as your true lines and colors is uplifting and freeing. 

2. It gives you social power.

When other people can see that you look like yourself -- that you look how your natural lines and colors dictate you should look --  they unconsciously assumes that you are

 a) highly self-aware,  and

b) brave enough to be your natural self.

Both of those qualities -- self awareness and courage -- are impressive, even intimidating, to other people. And that gives you power in your social interactions.

Social interactions are largely about power; in almost any interaction, one person or the other has an upper hand.  

Now, "power" isn't a bad word.  Power doesn't mean hurting people. In fact, power is necessary to help people.

In order to parent effectively, to inspire, to lead, to change the world, you must be able to influence people. You must have power.

So you want power in your social interactions, always -- not to hurt or dominate, but to lead, teach, inspire.

And also just to get what you want, of course. 


3. It helps you be a person of integrity.

Speaking of power: in social psych, I learned to define power as 

the ability to influence others and to resist their influence on you. 

That second part is interesting, right? 

Consider a crying newborn: it's  powerless, because although it has the power to affect others with its cries, it has no power to resist others' influence on it.

So, in order to have power, in addition to having influence, you must have integrity.

Integrity is about being whole, sound, undivided, the same through and through. Honesty. Consistency. Steadfastness. 

A person of integrity -- a person firmly rooted in the truth of herself -- is easily able to resist others' influence on her. 

Looking like yourself is about integrity.

When you dress yourself in a way that is visually consistent with the lines and colors nature gave you, you create a visual impression of integrity. This promotes the sense in the viewer that you are a person of integrity. And the viewer treats you as such.

And it promotes *your own* sense of yourself as a person of integrity, when you look in the mirror. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Bonus: as a person deeply rooted in the truth of your own colors and lines, you will be free of the fashion world's control over you.

I know I'm Ethereal Natural and a Soft Autumn; because of that, no magazine can ever convince me I should buy a crop top or a fuchsia lippie. I seek out the colors and lines that I know are right for me; I am completely unmoved by fads and trends. 

Part of my mission is to bring DIY color analysis and style analysis to people who can't afford to pay "experts." Make today the day that you figure out your true colors and lines.