How Your Surroundings Help You Elevate Your Self Image

[MUSIC PLAYING] Did you know that you can have unshakable self-confidence? I'm Sherry Brazier. I'm an advanced certified style coach, personal wardrobe stylist, and seasoned hairstylist. I'm on a mission to teach women everywhere to see their true value and create self-confidence on the inside and then help you dress that way on the outside. Women, just like you, are creating strategies to dress your body shape stylishly. Tools you can use to help you love yourself and process disappointment and overwhelm, all while still looking put together when you leave the house. If you're ready to figure out your personal style and learn the tools to help you build and create more self-confidence, then you are in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, my friends. Welcome to episode number 95. How are surroundings helps elevate your self-image? This is going to be an interesting fun conversation and topic that I've chosen today. I'm putting together some things I'm always doing stuff, right? I'm always putting together little things. And this one that I'm putting together is a journal, like a daily practice journal. And as I was considering all of the things I wanted to put in there, it obviously goes back to my own experiences and what has helped me. And I'm always trying to think about and capture what is helping me elevate my self-image and what is helping me build a healthy self-image. And this journal has been a huge experiment for me, I guess, maybe. But it's also helped me tremendously. I've in this experiment that I've done. I've realized that journaling intentionally is what has changed the most in my life. It has been the thing that has helped me grow the most. And so I've taken a couple of different journaling ideas that I've used over the years and just taken the things I love about each one of them. And I'm creating my own little journal on how to create self-image and how to create and elevate and build a healthy self-image. And one of the things that I have learned about myself and about my clients and just about the world is that our environment really does play a big part in our self-concept and what we think about ourselves, what we believe about ourselves. And the environment that we're in for sure can consist of the room you're in. But it also consists of where you were born culturally and racially, it also lends to neighborhoods and religions and family and belief systems that your family have, your friends have, those kinds of things are all part of the environment that you're in and the surroundings. They all play a part. And as I have created this journal, a lot of the things that are around me have come into sharp review. And specifically, I guess, especially the people that are around me and that I have allowed or asked to be in my life. And the rooms that I've put myself in, the events that I put myself in, the meetings, the friend circles, the mentoring examples, like just everything, the places that I have intentionally put myself is because of who those people are and what they stand for. And as I up level myself image, my circle of influence changes as well. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that today and kind of give you some of my experiences and how those experiences have shaped my self image and who I am and who I want to be, who I'm creating myself to be. And one of the things that I've done for years and most of you probably have done the same thing is had goals for yourself for the year. Some of us call them goals, some of us call them resolutions. There's lots of things that we call them. But if we want to grow and learn and become a better person and become more mature and love people better, those kinds of things, that's why I want to be growing and maturing is because I want to be able to love people better. And the more that I know about myself, the more that I understand myself, take responsibility for my choices and my actions, the more that I give myself grace, the more that I love myself, the more that I acknowledge the things that I do, give credit to myself for the things that I do, those kinds of things, the more that I love myself, the more I can love other people. Because you can't love other people more than your capacity to love yourself because that's the only capacity that you have is your own capacity. So that's an interesting conversation too, is that you only have the capacity to love others as much as you love yourself. And I have clients that will say, well, I definitely love other people more than I love myself. But in my experience, as I've watched people and as I coach people, we tell ourselves stories. And we pretend a lot as people. That's just what we do. And we kind of fool ourselves. And when you really ask yourself some questions, whether they're hard questions or not is up to you, but some interesting questions that help you get curious about yourself, you start to understand what it means to love someone else at the capacity that you have means that's the capacity that you have to love yourself and accept yourself and your faults and your flaws and your accomplishments and your wins as well. So that has been kind of a fun and very eye-opening journey for me to go through the last couple of years. And so today, I just want to talk about how your surroundings helps you elevate your self-image. And it is directly related to the way that you see yourself for just ease of conversation. It's easy to talk about our homes, our cars, our office, wherever it is that we are relative to a place. How does that place that you're in? How does your home-- well, just take your home for an example-- how does your home reflect the way that you feel about yourself? Does your home-- is it spik and span and spotless because you love a clean space? And it makes you feel calm and centered and aligned and organized. And it helps you feel that way. Or is your home clean and cleanly because you're afraid that someone's going to stop by and judge you wrongly if your house is not at a certain level, whatever that level is in your mind. Both of those instances, you have a clean house. But why? Why is your house clean? Is it because it makes you feel good? You like the way it makes you feel? Or is it to control or manipulate other people and how they feel about you and how they see you? And it is probably a little bit of both. I know it is for me, a little bit of both. I have probably more coins in the bucket on the-- it makes me feel better than I do in the bucket of people are going to judge me if they come over and see that my house is a mess. Or they see that my house is clean. Either way, they're going to judge me. So that's an interesting thing to think about is the state of your home and why is it in the state that it's in. Now, let's say that your home is what we would call cluttered. Maybe you have things that aren't put away or-- whatever, you know, whatever your version of messy or unorganized or whatever is, maybe you think that your house is that way. And how does that reflect the way that you feel about yourself? So I have spaces in my home that are clean all the time, eight times out of 10, 80% of the time they're clean, right? And then I have places in my home where 80% of the time they're not clean. It's cluttered and messy and and unkept. And as I was getting ready to do this podcast, I just was noticing and and watching my spaces and which spaces are reflective of how I feel about myself. They all are reflected to how I feel about myself. Sometimes I feel like a mess. A lot of times I feel like a hot mess. And so the places that are messy are my most intimate places. And that was really interesting for me to see that the most intimate places in my home are the most unkept. My bathroom, my bedroom, my office are the ones for me personally that are the most unorganized and unkept. But the family areas where we where we hang out as a family, the kitchen, the laundry room, the living room, hallways, you know, those kinds of things are more organized and kept clean. And that was interesting for me to see how does that reflect my self image. And there's a lot to that specifically to the family areas because I I strive to be a good mom. That's in my mind. A lot is that I want to be a good mom. I want to make sure that my kids know how much I love them. And I want to make sure that I teach them the things that I think are important for them to know. And I enjoy cooking meals for my family. And doing the things that moms do. I enjoy doing those things. And so those parts of my home are tidier than my most intimate places in my home that I spend the most time myself just by myself. And that was really, really interesting because that does reflect my self image because I mean, I just said it on this podcast. I'm a hot mess. And a lot of and a lot of places I have a story. I have a thought and a belief that I'm a mess. And so those places that are the most intimate to me are a mess because that's what I in the back of my mind. That's kind of how I feel about myself as if I'm a mess. And that was really interesting for me to notice and get a light to show on that because I don't want to think that I'm a mess. I certainly don't want the most intimate, private places in my home a mess. That's not how I want to live. That's not how I want to think about myself. And so as I've done this journaling exercise that I'm putting together, I of course, I'm going to do the whole thing on myself before I put it out to you guys, right? And as I was doing my journal practicing and going through the steps that of this journal, it was really, really interesting for me. And I hadn't really considered it until this, until the question was posed to me in a journaling exercises. How is your spaces reflective of how you feel about yourself? And that was really an interesting thing for me to see is that I don't take the time. Let's just take my office that I'm sitting in my office right now recording this podcast. And I look around and it's not terribly messy, but there are things that are not put away. My desk is got half projects all over, right? Like, oh, I'm in the middle of taxes. And so there's tax stuff. And oh, I was reading this book and I have this workbook that goes with this book. And so here's the book and the workbook. And oh, I got a new journal. And so there's my journal in. Oh, I had a snack. And there's the the bowl of yogurt from from having my morning snack like just things that are just not put away, right? And as I think about it, it's because I don't want to get things out again after I like if I'm still working on it. I don't want to put it away and then get it out again. But why? I had to ask myself, why don't I want to do that? And it's if I dig down and just keep asking myself why it's because I'm worried, afraid, concerned, whatever, that if I don't leave it out where I stopped, that I won't be able to remember where I was in the project to get it completed. So there's that self-concept where I don't have the faith or the trust in myself to be able to pick up a project that's been put away and know where I was. And then we're to finish it that I would have to relearn or I'd be lost or I would not finish it correctly or those are all the things that come to my mind when I think that. And that's what that means is that's what I think about myself is that I am incapable of picking up where I left off if it's not open and out. The other thing that I think that I have a belief about myself is about surroundings is if I don't see it, then I won't remember it. And so I have done this forever. As I have done this work, I have realized that this is something I've done since I was a little girl. It's leave things out on purpose so that it reminds me to do the thing, to put it away, to call the person, to go pick up the thing or whatever, like just whatever it is, I leave things out on purpose to remind myself. And not that I think that's bad, I don't think that that's a bad thing. I just noticed that isn't that interesting that I would leave a project undone and leave it out on my desk because I'm worried I will be lost and won't remember where I am in the project and I'll do it wrong or whatever. And sometimes I want to leave it out to remind myself to finish it because I don't think I'll remember to finish it. And I just was like, that is really interesting. And not that any of that is wrong, I'm not telling myself that any of those things are wrong, they actually work for me. Those things work for me. That process or that system that I've created works for me. So maybe I leave it. Maybe I keep it. But what's interesting is to ask myself, is that a system that's working and do I want to keep it or is there another system that I could create that would work better for me? I don't know. Time will tell because right now I'm just in the curious stage, I'm just being curious about all of the things. I'm not judging myself and saying it's wrong. I'm not telling myself, well, no wonder your house is a mess because you can't get it together. I'm not like mad at myself because I leave things out to remind myself because I'm not capable. Like I'm not beating myself up over it and telling myself I'm wrong and feeling a bunch of shame and and you know, judgment towards myself. I'm just curious. Like isn't that interesting? That's why I do that. Well, maybe it's working and I want to keep it. And now I know that that's why I do the thing and I'm really I'm really liking the way that I do it and I'm going to keep it. Then maybe I think, you know what, I think there's a better way to remind myself of tasks that I need to do or I think there's a better way to remind myself where I am in the project so that when I go to get it out and work on it, I'll know where I am, but when I'm not working on it, it can be put away. Maybe there's some systems that I'm going to come up with as I go through this process. But that's what asking myself the question, how do my surroundings reflect my self image? This is what's been surfacing for me. And I just thought that it would be interesting and maybe even fun for you guys to hear what is going on as I do this work myself as I work on elevating my own self image and creating a healthy self image and then What is that creating in my life for me as I do that? Well, it's growing me for sure. I'm growing and learning and and having some really cool experiences. I'll tell you that. And I'm creating some really awesome things for my clients through this process, which that is exciting. That's the most exciting thing for me is being able to create things for my clients to help them achieve their goals because that's why I'm doing this. I want you to achieve what your heart desires. That's what I want. That is why I'm doing this podcast. That's why I'm building my business. That's why I'm doing all of the things I'm doing because I want you who are listening to this podcast to be able to create what is in your heart and what you desire the most. And if I can help you through my experiences, then I want to do that. And I feel like it's my duty that I have a calling to do that because other people have done it for me. And it's kind of that pay it forward thing. So this is just a kind of a short podcast today. But that's just what was on my mind. And that's what I've been working on in the last couple of days. Is journaling about what my surroundings are and who I'm surround myself with and the places that I go, the events that I'm that I go to the rooms that I'm in with the people. Those kinds of things like how are those things elevating my self image and how I think about myself. And it's a deep conversation. Just for me in this moment right now, it's my physical places that I am. But there's so much more to this environment and how it impacts our our self image and our self concept. And so I have no doubt that I will be revisiting this topic again as I learn more. But that's what was on my mind today. And so that's what I wanted to record this podcast for and just give those little tips to you and see if it can kind of get your brain thinking what what is that do for your brain. And and how does that change your belief or stretch your belief about yourself. And how can you look for things to create a healthier self image. What are things that you can do in your surroundings to elevate your self image and what can you take out of your environment that will help you believe what you want to believe about yourself. And what can you add to your surroundings to help you believe what you want to believe about yourself. It's just a tool to help us get to where we want to be, which is to have a healthy self image to create our dreams to achieve our goals to become more Christ like to love people better. That's my goal. That's what I live every day of my life wanting. That's what I have on my mind today. And I will be back next week with another episode. And until then I hope you guys have a great day. And also could I ask if you have a moment to rate and review my podcast. I need to get some ratings and some reviews so that I can reach more people with my message. So if you're listening to this and you just find it cool, will you do a rating and a review or me? That would be awesome. I would so appreciate it. And so would the people that don't know about this podcast. They would appreciate it too. So all right, you guys. That's what I have for you this week. And I will see you next time. Take care. Hey there. Do you want help right now creating your own personal style? I got you. Go to my website right now at Sherry Brasier.com and grab the style basics every woman should have in her closet guide. It's right on the front page of my website. Just put your name and your email address right there. And I will send you a document that's a checklist of the basics that every woman needs in her closet. This will help you get started creating your own personal style now. It will give you the ideas of what you need to look for in your own closet. And then if you don't have those things, I'll tell you what to look for when you go shopping. So go to my website, Sherry Brasier.com and grab that guide now.