#7 - Getting Through Difficult Times With Style

Style With Intention Podcast

Whatever makes you feel good is what you should reach for, when it comes to your personal style choices. Even a difficult time can be made better if you find a way to raise your emotional state with your style choices.

Here are the biggest takeaways from this episode:

• The power you have over your experiences and emotions when you decide how you want to feel about the changes in your life.
• The importance of truly getting to know your own preferences (i.e. what makes you happy or puts you at ease).
• How self-knowledge can help create stability in your life.
• Some personal examples of how living a life of "style and intention" has helped me get through some difficult times.

Hey there! Thank you for stopping by today! In the past few episodes of this season, we've been circling around the concept of how our emotions are inextricably linked with the experiences we have in life - but sometimes the world can throw us curve balls - I know I’ve dodged my fair share! In the toughest of times, deciding how I want to feel about the changes in my life has been very empowering. What if I told you that you could use your personal style to help you manage your feelings and sustain you during difficult times? Well, I’m here to tell you that you can - and this goes way beyond the old adage, “when you look good, you feel good.” This episode is really about the strength you get from truly knowing yourself - I hope you enjoy it! As always, my goal is to make it quicker and easier for you to access more ease, joy, and intention in your life...because happy looks really, really good! Enjoy the show!

BONUS CONTENT

If' you're looking for a way to take back a little control in your life, you might want to check out our bonus content, "Own Your Day (and Your Life!) With These 5 Simple Phrases"! These simple phrases can help you set limits firmly and politely, speak up for what you want without being demanding, and even take yourself out of the impossible job of trying to figure out what will make other people happy. These are all skills which can help make difficult times a little easier!

Click HERE to get the bonus content

and we'll send it out right away!

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In case you'd rather read than listen, here's the

FULL TRANSCRIPT EPISODE #7

GETTING THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES WITH STYLE

Welcome to Style With Intention - I’m Annie Kip and today we are talking about Getting Through Difficult Times and how intentionally making choices that feel good can help with that! I’ve come to really appreciate how important style choices have been in my life and how knowing what lifts me up has helped me get through tough times. I’ve been through plenty of changes in my own life - marriages, moving, national disasters. Each time, deciding how I want to feel and then defining my personal style around that feeling has helped me get through it. I’ve always had a core to my style, but each time my life has changed, I’ve had to go back and think about how I want to feel and how I want to live in this next phase of my life. When I think about how I want to feel, I take into consideration where I am in my life, figure out where I can and cannot change things, and then decide what choices I can make. Even in tough times, deciding how I want to feel about the changes has been very empowering. One of the big changes in my life happened in September 2001. We were living in downtown NYC and on 9/11 our life changed dramatically - my family and I were evacuated that day and we ended up living in a rental house in Gloucester, MA for 3 months, while we decided what to do next. It was incredibly scary and disorienting -but we were lucky, we didn’t lose anyone. We left NYC that day without anything but the clothes on our backs, a few extra diapers, and some boxes of raisins for the kids. We didn’t have any of our familiar things for the whole time we were in Gloucester - so that was a time in my life when I decided to make my personal style - minimalism. I decided to embrace it and just live a simple life for as long as we were there. I had three little kids under 4 years old and we spent our days making things and building odd sculptures out of the debris we found washed up on the beach. Lobster traps, pieces of rope, driftwood, cans and bottles - we stacked them and propped them up decorated them with seaweed. One day, we realized that other people were adding what they found to the sculptures we were making and it was fun thing to go down to the beach each day and see what people had done and added. We never met any of the people who had added to our sculptures, but it felt sort of nice to be connected to people in this way. We were sort of isolated up in Gloucester, away from our home and friends in NYC. When you know yourself, you can pivot and adapt. You can make sure you have the basics you need to feel good and then let go of what doesn’t really matter. I know I like simple things, solid colors, and fabrics that feel good on my skin. We had nice cotton sheets in this rental house, they were patterned, but that was okay because felt great to get into bed each night.

• I know the outfits that make me feel best are the ones I don’t have to think about once I’m wearing them - and during this time, I happily wore my hair in ponytail with denim overalls and a white t-shirt almost everyday.
• my purse was a well-organized satchel full of snack and diapers.
• I found a beautiful mug to drink my coffee in each morning.
• I like simplicity in design and complexity of thought - and this time in my life was filled with that kind of thing, living in this simple beach house, trying to make sense of our lives and figuring out what to do next.

There’s definitely no right or wrong here and you’re always free to pivot and change your mind! - We lived a simple life there in Gloucester, but I remember deciding I needed a really good haircut at one point and I got that for myself, because it was what I needed to feel good. My hair promptly went back into a ponytail, but I did feel better getting it cut! Whatever makes you feel good is what you should reach for, when it comes to your personal style choices. Even a difficult time can be made better if you find a way to raise your emotional state with your style choices - from despair to anything you can feel good about. Focusing on the good parts, amplifying the happy moments, and appreciating anything you can find to be grateful for. As awful as 9/11 was, we made this a special time for our family. It felt good to be together there. It was unexpected and hard in many ways, but making choices to feel good where we could made it easier. Style With Intention is a constant process of assessing how we feel, deciding how we want to feel, and making adjustments to get to a higher emotional state. The good feeling can come from the way things look, or the environment we spend time in, or the quality of our relationships. You know what matters the most to you at any given time in your life and the style choices you make to elevate your emotional state, will be different depending on your situation. Just keeping your focus on making choices that will make you feel good inside everyday will make even the most difficult times feel a little easier. Thanks for listening to my story and I’ll speak with you again soon!

BONUS CONTENT

If' you're looking for a way to take back a little control in your life, you might want to check out our bonus content, "Own Your Day (and Your Life!) With These 5 Simple Phrases" ! These simple phrases can help you set limits firmly and politely, speak up for what you want without being demanding, and even take yourself out of the impossible job of trying to figure out what will make other people happy. These are all skills which can help make difficult times a little easier!

Click HERE to get the bonus content

and we'll send it out right away!

P.S. Remember, if you’re new to listening to podcasts, check out the free Podcast Cheat Sheet - it'll give you everything you need to know about finding, downloading, listening on the go, and sharing podcasts. Click HERE to get it! Header image by: Gary DeMaria