On being inclusive…not exclusive

This is just the first of my random ramblings on many issues affecting women/men/children/adults. Style is my focus but self-acceptance is where it begins. If you love you, you love others. And others love  you. The key is loving you first and treating yourself with respect while doing the same with everyone else you meet.  It’s about loving people in all their varying shapes/sizes/personalities and nationalities. Acceptance, not judgement. That’s what being stylish is all about – that’s where it all begins!

How often have we thought that it’s something great to be EXclusive? I know I have! Only YOU get access to to use a particular event or product. Only YOU get to feel special, having reached a certain level of use/loyalty points etc? You feel special as result, right? WELL, let me throw something else at you!…

Isn’t the attractive/enticing part of wanting to feel EXclusive that we actually feel INcluded? Don’t we only feel EXclusive because we are INcluded in something we perceive as important or special to us? Because we feel that we are a part of a certain group of people? A part of something “special”? Why then don’t we promote the very thing that makes us all feel special – feeling INcluded instead of the EXclusivity of something?

I’m sure all of us carry some style of baggage and bear some scars from our emotion-charged teenage years or childhood experiences.  Don’t we all remember times when we may have felt less than “included” during our childhood? For some of us, those times were short-lived and didn’t cut too deep. For others, the wounds are still sore today and in some ways at different times, we feel haunted by them as we navigate our way through life as adults.

Self-esteem is a complex issue. It’s not just about how we think we look, what weight we are, or the clothes we wear. It’s more about how we see ourselves. How we feel about ourselves. Whether we feel good enough. Accepted or outcast. A good fit or not. A square peg in a round hole. Included or excluded. The quest for healthy self-esteem begins long before we realise and as none of us are perfect beings, we will all struggle with feelings of self-worth at various times and stages as we go through the journey we call life….