Why it's important to reuse and share clothing

There are obvious benefits to the environment of reusing clothing. But the ability to share your style, experiences and energy with another woman is of great importance.

When a friend has a baby, we happily gather up all of our precious momentous from the special women before us to the future women of motherhood. Not only passing our stuff on but our experiences, our advice. It’s not just a life cycle of stuff. It’s a life cycle of knowledge and empathy.

We do this with our children’s clothes, passing them down to younger cousins or friends. We find great joy in this and the experiences they will get out of using the clothing our children have worn, time and time again.

We carefully select gifts for our mothers-to-be, throw them baby showers and ensure that they are set with everything they need prepartum. Almost like a responsibility.

Including the women in our lives as individuals and making them feel good as well as their children is incredibly important. Allowing ourselves as women to dress up and wear beautiful things and feel beautiful is something I want to encourage. Giving ourselves permission to treat ourselves.

To style a woman, you must first get a sense of who they are. What they represent. What they have been through, their story and how to make a woman feel confident on an individual level varies for each woman. Style and who you are encompasses much more than just being fashionable.

Style is not just fashion. Style is energy.

The ability for us to give warmth and light to others through colours and looks

Your style is your signature, the way you move, the way you laugh and create others to do so too.

It is the way you light up others’ smiles and warm hearts that gives you the most impeccable style.

What you wear is a representation of how you feel. Is there anything better than making a woman feel great?!

Inspiring and uplifting women?

Instead of competing?

The competitive nature of women has possibly been a long-standing barrier to the idea of wanting to share our style tips, clothing and accessories.

As The Dalai Lama says “if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. The act of sharing can bridge the heart and mind, contribute to a sense of our own integrity, and ignite new possibilities.”

Recognising that small things can give us great comfort, especially in times of need. A small gesture can help someone out along the way. Sharing food, sharing gifts, sharing clothes.

Prosocial traits like kindness and sharing are essential to being human and living in a community. We thrive when we are helping others.

We are all part of humanity, and each of us has the responsibility to improve humanity and to bring it additional happiness in order to make it more peaceful, friendlier and compassionate
Dalai Lama

We are all connected, and what connects us is our compassion and kindness for one another. It is completely natural for women to want to help one another. But we can often deny this natural right due to fear of judgement, competition, or jealousy.

‘our sweetest existence is relative and collective, and our true self is not entirely within us’.

Stated Philosopher Jean Jacques

In my own book “Free”, I have also spoken about the possible reasons for the hesitancy to prop another woman up. The lack of sisterhood can sometimes be built upon the scars of the witch hunts that persecuted women for centuries. In her book, Lisa Lister describes this as a ‘healer holocaust’ Lister talks about how women were encouraged to mistrust each other and learnt to live in fear of themselves. Women had to testify against each other.

She goes on to say:

‘the patriarchal institution wanted to break down and destroy the strong, powerful women who threatened them. They wanted women to fear them-and each other-so that they never knew or experienced the magic and power that they had within them. They wanted to dismember the Goddess and the divine of sisterhood in women that she represented.’

Sadistic tortures were inflicted on women thought to be witches. Women became fearful and submissive after these witch hunts. They accepted their new roles as subordinates, whereas women were once goddesses, at one with nature, the creators of life

So in 1484

‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ was printed in the bible exodus 22:18

Authority was given to find witches and kill them, denying them all rights to a fair trial.

We have spent the last few hundred years since this time dimming our lights, so men can’t see our strong healing ‘witch-like’ abilities. Because the men in 1484 were threatened by this natural woman intuition.

This all sounds very intense! But it is always important to go back to the roots of trauma and why humans behave in a certain way. How it affected our DNA.

Women can tend to mistrust other women at times. However, I believe this is learnt behaviour; naturally, we want other women to succeed. Wanting everyone to be their best and look their best are the themes that I think represent sharing our beautiful things.

Secondly, there’s the learning to let go of stuff. Attachment serves us nothing but suffering.

As Anias Nin says :

‘To change skins, evolve into new cycles, I feel one has to learn to discard. If one changes internally, one should not continue to live with the same objects. They reflect one’s mind and the psyche of yesterday. I throw away what has no dynamic, living use. ‘

Personally, I definitely have a problem with holding on to things I don’t need!

Why did I cling to clothes?

Am I clinging to memories?

How did they make me feel when I wore them?

Am I clinging to my youth?

How can a self-proclaimed hoarder of clothes part with things? I would buy a beautiful dress for an event and then never wear it again.

What if I could give these clothes another story, memory, or experience?

What if there could be many stories attached to this item of clothing and not just mine. Would that not be the best outcome?

I wanted to challenge my attachment to things. I have always had a strong desire to help other women and am known to be a lending ear to those in need, seeking advice. I would not describe myself as someone who gets jealous; I want other women to realise their potential, succeed, look fantastic, and live their best lives!

To help each other, just like men do. We can be great at supporting the village that helps with child-raising, but lifting one another up, can be harder for us to do.

So, let’s do that in any way we can. Make people feel great. Focus on the good in people. The moments they were kind, and not when they let you down.

Let people shine!

And if we can, help them to do so.