Style Heals All Wounds with Kara Allan
Looking good can be hard when you are managing the emotions of a breakup. Personal Style Coach and Makeup artist Kara Allan understands that, and works with her clients to foster a powerful presence through their appearance. Here she is with tips to get out of your funk with fashion and feeling.
As a stylist, I spend hours in my clients closets creating a wardrobe for the lifestyle they live and outfits they can’t wait to wear. I’ve seen my share of broken hearts and dreams when relationships and marriages end, sometimes under the most devastating circumstances. The one common thread among every person in the world is we all want to be loved and look good even if we don’t admit it or talk about it.
Style is not just about what you put on your body, it’s about who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve seen and learned along your journey, and when you have a good sense of those things your style begins to evolve with you. How can that happen when your world has been upended?
Here are a few tips to get started:
1. Spend some time alone every day in a place you feel safe and peaceful, allowing yourself to feel whatever you feel, sad, lonely, angry, depressed, annoyed and don’t judge what your feelings, allow them to be.
2. Find some music that resonates with your pain, and play it as loud as your neighbors will allow without calling the cops on you. Scream, cry, and yell or whatever helps move the emotion through and out of your body. Do this before you have to be anywhere important, i.e. work or meetings so you can take a little of the edge off.
3. Next, dance it out to your favorite get moving music. You should feel much better, if you don’t repeat as much as time allows.
4. Lastly go to your closet and chose an outfit that makes you feel amazing, like a dress that makes you feel like a goddess or a suit that makes you feel like a boss because half the battle is just showing up and looking fantastic completes the mission. If you don’t have anything, it’s time to go shopping and find some things that fit the bill ASAP.
5. Walk into your meeting, work or wherever you have to be like you are a star, because you are. Decide that you are going to have the best day of your life and you will!
I know this sounds crazy and it works. Your brain responds to how your body feels, so comes the saying fake it til you make it. It’s important to care for yourself as you move through the recovery stages which includes working out, eating well (a little ice cream never hurt anybody), spending time with people who love you and looking great is always the best revenge. Know that the sadness won’t last forever and time really does heal all wounds.
When a relationship ends, it’s a good time to go through your wardrobe and purge out things that no longer resonate with who you are, where you’re going in life and only have things that you love and feel amazing wearing. Also review your hair, makeup and grooming to see if some updates are in order. I cut my hair off a la Halle Berry after a breakup and I love it!
Life is too short to be unhappy and wear bad shoes!
Kara is a Personal Style Coach and a Makeup Artist who was personally selected and trained by the Ahhmazing Stacy London and has been styling for 17 years. Contact Kara via email: kara@karaallan.com, follow Kara on Instagram @KaraAllan, or check out her site at www.KaraAllan.com