What does your inner voice have to do with living a chic life? Style, simplicity, and self-care are the key elements of a chic life. Together these give you confidence, poise, inner peace, an elegant way of being in the world, meaning, the emotional resources to be kind and compassionate, grace, joy, personal power, and so much more.
Yet there’s an even more basic factor beneath style, simplicity, and self-care, something without which it’s impossible to be truly chic.
It’s the ability to hear your inner voice.
To trust your gut you have to have a relationship of trust with yourself
There’s a little compass in your heart telling you what you want, what feels wrong, where your boundaries fall, what gives you joy, where excitement lies. Tuning in to this internal sense of direction is what I mean by ‘hearing your inner voice’. And to follow its advice is to ‘trust your gut’.
For some lucky ones the voice is crystal clear, and a lifetime of listening to it has created a bond between you and that voice. It knows it will be heard, it knows it will be heeded, within reason. There’s self-confidence.
For others, the voice is a whisper. I have drowned it out by a chorus of other people’s shoulds and external expectations and convention. After being ignored so long, it’s lost faith in us.
My inner voice was distinct and strong in childhood – I remember a sensation of being right with myself. But over time it faded. A conscientious personality that thrived on being ‘good’, 13 years of Catholic school guilt, and a hyper-developed radar for other people’s expectations all filled my head with loud, aggressive voices that were hard to ignore. Hearing my timid internal whisper was impossible over the cacophony of Other People’s Demands, which blared in my head like talkback radio I couldn’t turn down. To ‘trust your gut’ became a mystery.
It’s taken me a lot of work to excavate my inner voice again. To reassure it I’m listening. Recognize what it sounds like (various fluttery feelings in my lower gut). Push through the guilt of saying No to other people’s shoulds (that’s a whole other topic!). But it has been worth it, and I now relish every sensation of dread, resentment, excitement, or joy – precious clues from my inner voice.
Hearing my timid internal whisper was impossible over the cacophony of Other People’s Demands, which blared in my head like talkback radio I couldn’t turn down.
3 Ways Your Inner Voice Can Make You More Chic
To live a genuinely chic life, as opposed to following social media or fads or someone else’s rules, you need to listen to your inner voice and trust your gut. To embrace style, simplicity, and self-care, your internal guidance system is always the starting point. Why?
1. Style
If you can’t recognize your unique tastes, then you’ll be a fashion victim, a slave to trends. But when you are in touch with what you like, what looks and feels stylish to you, then you have the starting point for a sense of personal style.
2. Simplicity
Unless you’re clear what matters most to you versus what you can reject as other people’s standards, simplicity will elude you. However, by claiming your own priorities you know what you care about – and can do less, buy less, worry less about the rest.
3. Self-Care
Only when you can sense your deepest needs, can you take steps to meet them and practice proper self-care. Otherwise you are out of touch with yourself, reactive, easily stressed, and slow to calm down.
The essence of ‘chic’ is being yourself, expressing your uniqueness in a deliberate and elegant way. You cannot do that if you don’t know who you are.
The essence of ‘chic’ is being yourself, expressing your uniqueness in a deliberate and elegant way. You cannot do that if you don’t know who you are.
Can you hear your inner voice?
You know who you are? You hear your inner voice? And you trust your gut? Wonderful.
Not so sure? Don’t worry, I’ll help you. That’s part of being who I am.
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