Shopped Til You’ve Dropped But Still Nothing to Wear?

Posted by Jill Chivers in Attitudes and Habits, Shopping, Clothes and Emotions

If you have been shopping, and shopping, and shopping and have accumulated a large wardrobe, it can be utterly frustrating to look at it all and lament – how can I have nothing to wear?

I can’t tell you the number of women I’ve met who have that exact problem. They just don’t know how it could be this way, after all, they’ve got All This Stuff!

But here’s the thing: Their problem is NOT that they have nothing to wear. It’s that they have nothing they love to wear.

And therein lies the difference. And what an important difference it is.

Getting stuck

Women who have been shopping and accumulating and trying to build a working wardrobe but haven’t succeeded are stuck. They often end up in a cycle of buying and buying and buying – but nothing seems to ever work. Finding the perfect outfit and creating the perfect wardrobe seems an impossible task.

If you have been struggling with an overshopping problem, however it started for you, it can seem like you are at the bottom of a very large mountain. With large craggy rocks and undefined, unclear paths leading to an uncertain destination. You might not even be able to see the top of this mountain.

You look at this mountain — this compulsion to overshop — and it seems all too… big. And hard. And unclimbable.

It just doesn’t seem worth starting. After all, you’ll never reach the top, right?

Staying stuck

So you do nothing. You sit at the bottom of this insurmountable large mass, and hope and wish that something would magically change. It seems easier than doing anything else. After all, it’s just too darn big, isn’t it?

Who could ever get to the top of that thing?

If this is where you are at right now, I know what it feels like.

I have stood there myself. I’ve lain on the ground and thrashed around for a spell. I’ve squatted on my heels and peered up toward the top. I’ve cried a few tears of frustration.

I’ve sighed. And wished. And hoped.

Starting to get unstuck: turning on the light of awareness

Perhaps you’ve only just started to truly acknowledge that your shopping is out of control, and you have too much stuff that you don’t utilise enough.

Perhaps you feel bad about your shopping – you feel guilty at everything you bring home, or you feel embarrassed or even ashamed about the shopping you do.

Perhaps you return a lot of what you buy, or you consign it at a fraction of what you paid for it, or you give it away.

Perhaps much of what you buy hangs and sits unloved and unworn in your closet. Silently mocking you, with those fancy cardboard tags still attached, reminding you of how much you’ve spent and how little you’ve got in return.

Perhaps you don’t understand what drives your shopping. Why did you feel you simply had to have this thing – and yet once you owned it, it lost its allure almost immediately.

Perhaps its something else for you – but you know your shopping ain’t right. It just… feels wrong. You don’t feel good about yourself, or your purchases, before, during or after you shop.

Getting more unstuck: taking that first step

But you aren’t sure how you can stop. After all – woulddya get a look at that mountain? It’s huge! Who could climb that thing? It’s all too much.

Far easier to sit here and do nothing. At least you know the scenery and there’s no scrabbly tree branches to scratch you up, or Buick sized boulders to fall over or off.

But here’s the thing. Nobody says you have to climb that mountain. Climbing the mountain is NOT the goal. Yes, you read that right.

The goal is this: to take one simple step. And then another. And then another.

You can stop at any time.

You can stop and rest. You can stop a stay a while, enjoy the view.

You can stop, acknowledge how far you’ve come and climb back down again. You can stop and breathe, and continue on further.

The secret to staying unstuck

That’s not only all it takes – it’s all that is possible. It is physically impossible to climb a mountain any other way than with one step at a time.

But here’s the thing: those that reach the top do something that not everyone does. They repeat that one step. That’s all they do. That’s their “secret”.

But it all starts with one step. That’s all you have to do. Take that one step.