93 | Clothes That Fit

Our latest episode explores why mental clutter goes hand in hand with physical clutter and how decluttering your wardrobe can lead to mental clarity and self-compassion. 

It’s a gentle reminder that our bodies are ever-changing, and that's perfectly normal. By accepting our bodies as they are, your attention is free to go elsewhere.

Tune in to learn about acceptance, curiosity, and choice. You’ll discover how these elements can transform your relationship with your body and how to apply these insights to your own life. 

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Transcript

Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing An Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast will go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.

Amelia: Welcome to Episode 93, “Clothes That Fit.” Hey y’all! I can’t believe it’s November. There are nine weeks left in the year, and that feels slightly odd. This year has been such a whirlwind. The headspace I’m in these days definitely feels different from earlier in the year. I’ve been walking a good deal and watching the fall leaves fade away. I’ve been cooking more too – adding lots of new dishes to the rotation. I’m a solid cook, yet I think my youngest wishes I’d keep to the same old menu she’s gotten used to. With the seasons and the time changing, it makes sense to change up other things too.

Which brings me to today’s topic: clothes that fit. Once or twice a year, I review my clothing. It’s both decision making and decluttering. I’ve done the work over the last handful of years of finding brands and cuts of clothing that feel comfortable. I like to keep things simple, so I stick mainly to bright solid colors, plus black and white. I stay away from crowding my closet by limiting the number of styles I wear. I think carefully about the activities I engage in and aim to have basic pieces that work for many moments. Limiting myself to specific items leads me to wearing a “uniform” most days.

Well… over the last few months, I’ve found myself squeezing into my leggings and squishing myself into my undergarments. My standard tee shirts and long sleeves felt shorter at the waist and a little more awkward. I’ll be honest. It took me a while to understand what had happened, because I sure didn’t see it coming. Weeks before I got the formal data that I’d gained weight, I witnessed the shift in my clothes.

So, on today’s episode I’m going to share my internal response and encourage you to reflect on how you handle changes in your body. Full transparency, I am not someone who’s struggled with my weight, my mobility, or my body composition. In fact, I’ve had the life-long privilege of not having to think carefully about what I eat or how much I move. My dietary and movement habits have – for most of my life – been relatively in alignment. I’m not inclined to eat sugar. I do love to read, sleep, and languish in my bed, though, which does come into play. I share this to give some context. This isn’t an episode about weight loss. I will cover three things: acceptance, curiosity, and choice. I encourage you to take away the elements that may be helpful and leave all the rest.

As I mentioned, the first area I noticed my physical changes was in how my tee shirts laid on my chest. I looked wider. The length of the tees looked shorter. There was just an overall awkwardness that hadn’t been there before. I’d been blindly getting dressed each day until I noticed this pattern and got curious. Initially I thought perhaps that I’d put my shirts in the dryer one too many times and they’d shrunk. Then, I looked underneath. My immediate reaction was to go for a bra fitting.

Lots of women discover they’re wearing the wrong bra size when they go and have their measurements taken. Our bodies are all so different. Sizing labels are of little help because a DD in one brand can be a C-cup in another. Thankfully there’s no standard, yet the lack of standards makes shopping a bit of an adventure. It’s often a mission to find a style that works for your body.

My goodness, y’all! When I re-sized and fit all of my breast tissue into the cup, I immediately felt lighter. And this is the message I’ll repeat: when your clothes fit, your attention is free to go elsewhere. Landing on my correct size literally allowed me to breathe more deeply, both physically and metaphorically. The weeks prior, I’d felt the bra band. Now it fit comfortably. Weeks prior, I’d noticed the awkward shirt fit. Now, things were a bit closer to my kind of normal.

Mental clutter goes hand in hand with physical clutter. One can be a sign of the other. In this case, my growing physical discomfort manifested itself in my mind as well. Although my weight gain wasn’t initially readily apparent, there was a part of my mind that noticed the subtle changes. I could hear it in my self-talk. Upon reflection, I can now see the tiny internal criticisms I’d hear about skipping my walk because I had work to do. I was less critical of my eating habits, because they hadn’t changed much, but with less movement at age 44, the math of intake versus output wasn’t adding up.

So, my first offering is to listen to your inner signals and know they may be quiet. Perhaps it’s about your weight or your movement habits. Perhaps it’s about any of one million and one other topics. These subtle, sometimes fleeting statements are signs of inner friction. They’re messages about something that needs your attention. You’re more organized than you think. Awareness is the starting place for getting organized, both internally and externally.

Once I’d upgraded my bras, I moved on to my leggings and sports bras. The act of replacing my bras made me wonder if other items of clothing didn’t quite fit. And let me pause here and remind you that I hadn’t yet gotten the data about my gain, nor had the light turned on in my head. This was all a process that unfolded over a couple of weeks. It’s like the first bit of awareness opened the floodgates to it all. I became aware of how I was struggling to get out of my sports bras. My leggings were cutting my midriff. They were tight. My jeans were an effort to button. You get the point.

I think some folks would jump straight into fiddling with their diet and exercise routine – to fix the “problem.” You may spend months inflicting those tiny, painful self-criticisms about how you wish things would be different. The blame. The shame. I won’t dare to guess at what your internal judgements sound like. I do know how harsh and impactful they can be. Know that if your brain jumps into negativity mode that’s normal, and with patience and time, you can heal those automatic thoughts. Acceptance isn’t believing the noise in your head. Acceptance begins with noticing the judgments, the slights. The next step is beginning to see them as potentially untrue. They’re not facts. They’re long-held opinions you’ve been repeating frequently enough that the programming within your brain has made them automatic. “When our pants feel tight, we say this unkind nonsense to ourselves.”

In previous episodes I’ve talked about the importance of pausing. This is one of those moments. Redirecting your thoughts and making them more intentional takes practice. It’s one of the most impactful skills I teach when I’m coaching with someone. The key is to employ your version of self-compassion. For me, that looked like noticing the noise, interrupting it with a pause, and saying, “Actually, when my pants feel tight, I get pants that fit.”

There’s little need for shame when you choose to get bigger pants or a bigger bra. When your clothes fit, your attention is free to go elsewhere. My approach to solving for the discomfort was to buy bigger pants. This was my fix, and it felt loving. It felt amazing. Instead of trying to fix my body, I chose to accept it. I’m definitely a medium now. When I was this age, I was a small. When I was that age, I was an extra-small. One day, when I’m that age, I may be a large. I chose to circumvent the automatic, internal mental clutter by loving my current truth.

And I was ruthless. I went through each category of clothing and decluttered what didn’t fit. I upsized. I ordered a few new pairs of jeans. I ordered new tees. I ordered new exercise gear. Again, it was a two-fold opportunity: one to let go of styles and items that were taking up space in my closet, and another to replace those items with intention. When you’re spending in order to love your body as it is here and now, there’s no need to overspend. You’re replacing the essential mainstays you wear every day. Shopping has a clear purpose and goal, plus it gives you the opportunity to reassess what you need. I passed a few items down to my girls and donated plenty.

Our bodies change. Believing otherwise seems foolish. Now that my clothes fit, I can think more clearly. I’m not getting feedback from my waistband, my bra strap, my pants, or my shirts. I’m not distracted by the tiny thoughts about how my body should look or be. This type of acceptance feels like the perfect first step. The data shows I’ve gained 10 pounds this last year. It’s a fact. I’m in charge of how I interpret that data. Now that my clothes fit, my attention can address this number. It’s within my control. I can leave my habits as they are, if I so choose, because my clothes fit. Or I can aim to bring that number down by this time next year. By starting with acceptance, curiosity and choice become my next steps. I don’t need the negative self-talk, and neither do you. Talk to y’all soon.

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