I think many women look at the gurus and experts of the self help world and think, “Those chicks have their stuff together.” We see everyone’s exciting lives posted all over Facebook, we see pictures on Instagram; we see tweets of success. Haha. Don’t be fooled.
We are all human beings with issues, problems, fears and bad days. We have bills to pay, children to shuffle around, husbands who want dinner on the table, careers that demand our attention, and let’s not forget our own desires and needs. And, if it makes you feel any better, I rarely feel like I have it all together!
However, I’ve stopped putting the pressure on myself to pretend that I do. Aaahhhh….life becomes so much more beautiful when you take that pressure off and just be real. In my opinion, this the art of being a powerful woman.
Just last week, I was in Paris with two of my girlfriends. Over a café crème and croissant, I turned to my friend Julie and said, “I feel like I need to go within and curl up with my soul for awhile.” (As a side note: France always holds a mirror up to my truth).
I need to put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on my life.
Of course, this brought up a lot of fear. What will people think? What will happen to my one woman business? What will happen to my friends if I’m not there 24-7? What will people think if I say no?
Sound familiar?
Then, I came back to my own core teachings/questions–
What will I think of me if I don’t honor myself?
Who cares what people think of me?
How do I want to feel?
What do I need?
As I type this, I’m sitting on my back porch, staring at my clematis vine, buds waiting to explode into a vibrant violet flower. I feel like that’s been my life for awhile now–budding, opening and shining for the whole world to see. For sure, it’s a beautiful thing. Who doesn’t love being the flower?
But, as I sit here, I realize that I want to be more like the carrot right now–digging deep into the soil of life, gaining nourishment from the ground so I can become sweet, rich and deep in my own being. I want to sit by the embers of my own soul and be warmed by my own truth.
At the beginning of the year, I chose trust as one of my words. I had no idea why, but it spoke to me. Something told me that it was what I was going to need this year. Now, I’m seeing it clearly. I need to trust my inner voice. I need to trust my desires. I need to truth my voice. I need to trust that the perfect people are showing up in my life to teach me what I need to learn. I need to trust that that I’m being guided towards my own sweetness.
So, for now, I’m putting up the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my life. I’m craving stillness, solitude, crazy self-care and truth. I want to write, walk in the woods, cook fabulous meals that are like art, share coffee with friends, plan a once in a lifetime Paris retreat for women to experience the Parisian magic that changed me (and continues to), curl up with my daughter, have long talks with my husband, plant basil, sit in bubble baths, slather my body in coconut oil, do headstands, meditate, clean out closets, reread the classics, sit and do nothing everything. I want to dream, scheme and plan. I want to go within, close the door and put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign.
I know that when I’m ready, I’ll take down the sign, step out into the world probably wearing a pair of Louboutins and lipstick! I’ll have more to offer, and who knows what it might be. I don’t need to know. You don’t need to know. It will be known when the time is right. But, I guarantee you this: it will be delicious, like a big, fat juicy carrot!
A French lady once said to me, “Darling, the art of being a woman requires solitude so that the artist can rest and dream.”
I’m closing my door for awhile to rest and dream, and I give you permission to do the same.
“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”
-Audrey Hepburn
People have said that I live a charmed life. What they see is a woman that travels, host fabulous dinner parties, hangs out with really cool people and has a passion for shoes, wine and great conversations.
Does this make a charmed life? Well, not necessarily.
The truth is that I have known many people who do very similar things as me. In fact, some of them fly around in private jets, don’t have to work, always book the penthouse, don’t blink at ordering a bottle of Petrus and have a closet packed with designer handbags. This is not my life. But, again, does this make one’s life charmed?
In all my travels, I have encountered the charmed lifestyle in the most unusual of places, like my friends who live in a schoolyard in Antibes or my old professor who lives by the river in a little bungalow filled with books and music.
I’ve come to experience the charmed life as something that can’t be bought because it’s magic does not come from things, but from experiences paired with seeing the world as a grand romance.
At the end of the day, it’s the small, little gestures, the simple pleasures and the little details that add sparkle to a woman’s being that creates a charmed life.
A charmed life is…
mornings of leisure sipping coffee and watching the sun rise.
defining success on your own terms, which will never be found in chasing money, a man or a certain body.
ignoring the incessant mind chatter and sinking fully into the present moment.
an elegance in how you walk, speak and live.
accepting things as they are. Now. In this moment.
simple, not stuffed.
not hurried, but slow and steady with occasional bursts of passion.
sipping a good Bordeaux while discussing what Paris must have been like during the roaring 20’s.
doing work play that you adore.
not obsessing or worrying over things outside of your control.
sharing who you are while also keeping a little mystique.
filled with hugs and kisses. Lots.
having brunch with girlfriends (with Champagne, of course).
spending time listening, playing and being with your kids.
sending handwritten thank you cards with a little spritz of your favorite perfume.
having the ability to carry on a conversation in any situation.
beautiful meals shared with people you love with stimulating conversations as the main course.
Exclusive, custom fit, made to order for a specific customer; made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses, often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques
Gwyneth Paltrow stepped onto the red carpet at the 2012 Oscars wearing a stunning white Tom Ford dress with a cape. Her hair pulled back, a simple cuffed bracelet and minimal makeup. No one could have worn that dress like Gwyneth. It was made just for her. It was haute couture.
The haute couture life is the same, designed and fitted just for you. When you wear it, you will look and feel fabulous. While living it, you’ll feel like you’re on the red carpet wearing an haute couture Dior.
If your life is not haute couture, what is it?
If you’re life isn’t being designed and crafted by you, it’s most likely a generic, off the rack, dollar store, or worse, a knock off Iife. In other words, it’s passionless, draining, boring, exhausting, stressful, black and white and ill-fitted.
Doing work that others think you should do, wearing clothes that don’t make you feel beautiful, finding yourself frequenting the drive-thrus and eating out of bags, hanging out with draining, uninspiring people and living a life of fear and anxiety are all signs of a knock off life.
However, there is some fabulous news. Go look in the mirror. Staring back at you is your own inner Coco who knows what looks good on you.
Channel your Inner Coco
Of all the people in the world, no one is more equipped and able to create your hautecouture life than you. Your soul is the designer and your mind is the seamstress. The former guides you towards your perfectly fitted life and the former is what helps you create it in the real world.
So, darling, take some deep breaths and channel your inner Coco Chanel. It’s time to create some haute-ness. Shall we?
Steps to Haute-ness
Refuse to buy Knock Offs
When walking through New York, I am sometimes approached by a street vendor trying to sell me a knock off Louis Vuitton or Prada.
No, merci! If I can’t afford the real thing, I don’t want it. I feel the same about life. I want the real thing. The life meant just for me.
So, the first step to creating an hautecouture life is to refuse to buy knock offs.
Here a some ways:
Let go of the draining relationships (e.g. the friend who’s always complaining, the abusive boyfriend, the women that you have nothing in common with other than you all decided to procreate, etc.)
Get rid of any clothing that doesn’t make you feel beautiful. This can be done piece by piece or you can do a massive purge
Start moving your body on a daily basis
Begin to treat time as a commodity. Spending time mindlessly or without strategy does not fit into an hautecouture life. Begin to rid your calendar of commitments that feel like you just walked into the dollar store (and you’ll know which ones those are because you’ll feel shackled by just the thought of doing it).
Become aware and work on your dollar store thoughts:
I’m not good enough
I can’t afford it
I don’t have time
No one will love me
I’m not smart enough
You must begin to create space for creativity, passions and inspiration. This cannot happen as long as you’re stuck in a generic, knock off life.
Clear and Clean. Then, collect and create.
Collect your Passions
Whenever a designer begins to conceptualize a garment, he starts with his inspirations–colors, a place, an era in time, a piece of artwork, certain lines, etc. Then, he begins to sketch.
The process is the same for creating an haute couture life. Begin to notice the things that inspire or interest you–people, hobbies, books, a charity, places, etc. Commit to infusing your daily life with at least one of your passions, hopefully more.
Focus on Quality
Imagine paying $60,000 for a dress that unraveled at the seams because the material was bought from some mass production factory in China. Not hautecouture.
If you want to live an haute couture life, you must focus on infusing your experience with quality–people, foods, experiences, books, etc. Rid your experience of cheapness–draining relationships, junk foods, crap thoughts, clutter, excesses. This will leave you with the resources to focus on pure quality.
Detail is the Sparkle
A vase of fresh flowers, a beautiful home-cooked meal, a trip to the farmer’s market, a handwritten note, a beautiful scarf, a meaningful conversation…these beautiful details are what adds sparkle to your life. It wouldn’t be haute couture without them.
Be Wild and Original
Many of the hautecouture pieces that you see grace the Paris runways during fashion week are wild works of art. You will not find them in the local department stores or the dollar store.
They are unique, one of a kind pieces.
If your designed life looks just like your neighbors, it’s not haute couture. It’s a replication, something you could pick up at the local Nordstroms.
Which would you rather have?
Slow Down…haute couture takes time
An haute couture gown can take up to one thousand hours to create. A customized life is no different. If you feel the need to hurry, I promise you that you’ll end right back in the dollar store, because hurry creates fear and anxiety. An haute couture life is created from a place of inspiration, joy and excitement.
So, slow down to savor your meals. Stroll around your neighborhood after dinner. Take the time to read a book. Take long baths. The hautecouture lifestyle is slow and sexy.
It’s Not about the Money, Honey
I have some dear friends who live in Antibes, France. By materialistic standards, they are not wealthy. In fact, they live a very modest life. However, when I visit them, I leave wanting more of what they have–a life filled to the brim with simple pleasures. Real wealth.
They rock out their hautecouture lives with bike rides to work by the sea, backyard cookouts on the weekends, taking dinner to neighbors, celebrating a self-proclaimed pastis day, quality time with family and a conversations that leave you changed.
Fortunately, for us, the haute couture life does not have the same grand price tag of a Dior gown, which only a handful of women in the world can afford.
The haute couture life does cost awareness, time and attention, but not necessarily a lot of money. It’s more about simple pleasures than gaudy adornment. In fact, some of the most generic lives I know are full of materialism and money. They’ve crafted a life based on a pattern not designed by them but by society. One that encourages them to work hard, buy things and keep up with the Jones, leading to stress, debt and a life of external wealth but internal poverty. In other words, a gaudy, knock off life.
When it comes to designing a beautiful, custom life, lean on the side of simple elegance and pleasures.
Many fittings will be required
Don’t expect to slide into and haute couture life without many fittings. The truth is that our desires and needs are always changing. The key is to stay keenly aware of when you feel like your life is not fitting you beautifully and knowing how to readjust or just add a little sparkle. At some point, you may want to retire your haute couture design and start again. As long as it feels good and is being inspired by your soul, continue with pleasure.
Flaunt it!
Love, you are beautiful, even as you are designing your most grand life. So, flaunt it. Make the world your runway and show us what you’ve got!
Will you Share your Haute Couture Lifestyle Secrets?
How have you learned what stays and what goes?
Where do you find your inspiration?
Do you have special ways of adding sparkle to your life?
Do you have some special ways of creating your haute couture life?
Please share and inspire in the comments below with your own designer secrets.
I woke up this morning with my mind swirling with things to do.
Sound familiar? Keep reading.
In my life at this moment, I am building a house, launching the Slim, Chic and Savvy 10-week Immersion, planning and packing for my French Kiss the World Society retreat in South Beach this weekend, filling out high school applications for my daughter, planning for a special LIVE event that I’ll be hosting on Thursday, planning an event for Paris in the fall, writing my book and helping a friend launch her business. I’m also dealing with a possible BIG transition that’s going to require a lot of planning. And, let’s not forget all of the little daily activities of cooking, cleaning, running a home and some me time.
Everything that I just listed are big projects. So, within each of them are many tiny steps that must be taken. One little decision and step at a time.
And, I’m not freaking out. I’m not going into overwhelm. And, I’m not heading to the fridge to avoid life (something that used to be my go-to for relief). In fact, I’m calm, excited and getting a lot of stuff done.
So, how do I do it?
Well, I’m going to be sharing my mindset and lifestyle secrets that help me create pleasurable productivity on a call with my friend and colleague, Melissa Cook, tonight on a very special call. She and I went on a European adventure last fall and noticed a culture that focuses on living, not working (something that many of us often forget). We took notes and have been incorporating what we’ve learned into our lives, and we’re giving it away.
She’s the diva of productivity, and I’m the queen of pleasure. So, it’s going to be a tres interesting call.
Pour yourself a glass of wine, take a deep breath and come join us!
I’m sitting in my office listening to “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO, and I heard this line,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle yeah! Do the wiggle yeah!
I realized that this is exactly how I’ve created success. One wiggle at a time.
Let’s rewind time, shall we? Sometimes it’s really hard to believe that this is my life, because quite frankly, ten years ago, I was a hot mess.
However, caught up in where I was, I had a really difficult time seeing what was possible for me. I kept trying to change my life from the same place that I had created it, and it wasn’t working for me. STUCK!
I needed to start wiggling.
So, I did something that others thought was crazy. I left a marriage that wasn’t working for me. Now, I was a single mom. From the outside, it didn’t look like I had taken a step in the right direction. I was broke and alone. But, it was my first wiggle out of a life that was no longer working for me.
Then, I quit my very secure job as a nurse and went back to school. Another wiggle.
Soon, I took up running. At first, I could only run for one minute without becoming hypoxic. Little wiggle. Later, I would complete two marathons within a year. Major wiggle.
I started drinking wine. Okay, that sounds strange, but I had grown up in a home that banned alcohol, so my relationship with alcohol (as well as most things) had been built in extremes (too much or none at all). So, I enrolled in sommelier school and began to study the art, science and business of wine. This experience taught me the art of moderation and savoring. Three months later, I was working as a food and wine writer. Wiggle.
I boarded my first flight when I was twenty-five. Actually, I flew to New Mexico when I was two, but because I don’t remember, it doesn’t really count. Buying that ticket was another wiggle out of the life I knew into the one I wanted to create.
I landed in Paris. This was more of a quantum shift than a wiggle, but all the little wiggles had led to this moment. Paris changed me.
I signed up for a cooking class. My taste buds exploded with flavor, and I realized that I could create a body I loved while savoring delicious foods: fine cheeses, foie gras, braised meats, fresh vegetables from the farmer’s market and haute-couture chocolate. For me, this was a huge wiggle considering I grew up on fried chicken and cheese out of a wrapper followed by over a decade of my life depriving myself through dieting. (By the way, I still love fried chicken!)
At a crossroads of life, trying to find my voice in the world, I hired a coach. She helped me wiggle out of the beliefs that still lingered in the crevices of my mind.
I gathered the courage to travel on an international trip alone. I remember sitting on the plane thinking to myself, “Is this really you?” That was a major wiggle moment.
I sat in the offices of the Prince of Monaco talking business. Do what? Yes, I had wiggled myself into the Disney World of billionaires.
My stories of wiggling my way to success are endless, and I share them with you only because I know the feeling of being overwhelmed and feeling stuck with where you are.
Love, you must start wiggling.
Instead of focusing on the big steps, what are some small ways that you can shake up your world?
I know of one for you. The Slim, Chic and Savvy 10-week immersion program starts on February 27th and today is the last day to receive the love offering of $100 off the investment of the program. Plus, I offer a payment plan option. And, when you join the program, you have lifetime access. So, it’s not just 10 weeks, but each time I run it, you’re in!
Now, here’s what you need to know about every time I’ve wiggled: my excuses would blaze.
But, I knew deep in my being that I had to do something different, take risks and stop letting excuses rob me of the life I desired. I had to let them burn.
So, what do you say? Want to wiggle with me? Want to finally burn those excuses?
Go check the program and get signed up ASAP. You’ll be joining a community of women who are wiggling their slim, chic and savvy selves into their dream lives: dropping excess weight, becoming authors, traveling around the world, attracting dream romances, becoming food snobs and starting their own businesses.
This is not a diet. It’s a lifestyle program that teaches you how to wiggle into your most slim, chic and savvy self.
@MSlimalicious Merci beaucoup mon amie! I'm happy you are enjoying them:) May 18th 2012, 00:12
Joie de Vivre Tip du Jour: Regardless of what problems you may be experiencing, if you stop and look around, you'll find some sense of joy. May 17th 2012, 20:05
- lipstick (always!)
- a sexy outfit
- flirtatious lingerie
- cute shoes
- a cup of tea, glass of wine or sparkling water will do
- a candle
- a match
- a burning desire
- a kissable attitude
Latest Insta
Success Stories
I pressed “pay now” because I was terrified of who I might be if I didn’t get into the Mastermind program. The fear of living a mediocre life made me do it. I am now un-recognizeable to myself after this experience...
I think many women look at the gurus and experts of the self help world and think, “Those chicks have their stuff together.” We see everyone’s exciting lives posted all over Facebook, we see pictures on Instagram; we see tweets of success. Haha. Don’t be fooled.
