See More and Change Your Style

Today I want to tell you about something that ruins your style without you even noticing it.

I came back from a week of vacation and I learned some new things ;)

I cretead a kind of glass, like my sister says. A glass that allows me to see what’s happening, but from outside.

Imagine this: you’re arguing with someone and that person blames you of something, you start defending yourself and you blame the other person and you start a fight that doesn’t go anywhere.

But if you see the scene “through the glass”, if you’re a bit distant, you can see that person is blaming you, instead of listening and accepting the guilt. Because you’re at a distance, you can decide what to do with that guilt… are you going to accept it or not? is it valid? And also how you’re going to respond instead of reacting.

The difference between responding and reacting is that responding is calm and thoughtful while reacting is what you usually do, what you’ve learned. It’s automatic and a lot of the times it doesn’t help at all.

So having this glass is very good. Because I used to spend my time reacting to things without knowing very well what was happening in my relationships. Now I can see more calmly and clearly and respond (at least when I have the “glass” protecting me).

For years I lived with a good dose of guilt, feeling guilty for everything. You probably feel the same way. The problem is that we were thought through “pain”. Our parents were taught that way and that’s how they teach. The idea is: if I annoy her enough, she’ll do it differently. For example: “I’m tired of picking the clothes off the floor, I’m going to change this now.” and the screaming begins ;) That scean already happened a lot of times in my house, actually ;)

So we were taught with blame: you didn’t do this well, this isn’t enough, clean up your stuff, why can’t you help? that’s selfish and things like that.

And we start to do the same to ourselves. And we blame ourselves. It’s automatic. It’s normal. And we accept that others blame us. That’s why forgiving ourselves is so important too, because we have all this accumulated guilt from where we feel we didn’t do enough. And we weren’t good enough.

What if you think that you’re always doing good? That everything you do is the right thing, and if it doesn’t work out, you can forgive yourself and keep going without putting yourself down?

So create a glass to protect yourself, that allows you to see from the other side what you’re being blamed for. Then forgive yourself and others for blaming you, because being ressentful won’t help you. Everyone is only doing what they were taught.

The key to liking your image, your style and your appearance, is liking you.

The key to everything really, is liking you. And for that you can’t blame yourself for everything that happens. Guilt will take you nowhere.

It’s natural to feel guilty when you do things that go against your values or that you think you shouldn’t have done. Then you can make new decisions, say your sorry or what you feel is best. And then move forward without putting yourself down.

Blaming yourself is a way to put yourself down, and that will make you have less self-esteem. And then you won’t feel like taking care of you. So you’ll neglect your appearance.

If you think you do things well, that you give your best, that you sometimes do things that aren’t aligned with what you think but you can change that easily, you’ll believe you deserve that care for yourself.

Act to change your image and style

Don’t blame yourself, accept everything you do as the best for you, because everything happens for you. The truth is you learn from everything you do, even if it’s: this isn’t the best for me and I’m gonna stop. That way you improve your self-esteem, you’ll feel like taking care of yourself and investing in your image and style. And that will make them change!!!

Love,
Lena*

P.S. Yesterday was the last day for the total makeover and learning how to create a style, makeup, hair and photos you love. If you want to change your image for real, doing a total makever and seeing yourself differently, send me an email to lena@lenapenteado.com. This service is only available in Lisbon, Portugal. You can still get the discount from the Summer Special Promotion. I’d love to help you!!! xxx

Photo by Averie Woodard