Dress For Confidence: What Are You Practicing?

Author, Speaker, and Educator Rosie Molinary empowers women to embrace their authentic selves so they can live their passion and purpose and give their gifts to the world. She is the author of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance and Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina. You can find her at RosieMolinary, on Twitter, and on Facebook. These days, she’s coveting the Karina Trudy Dress in Navy Floral.

Recently, I asked a friend who was at a transition point in his life what he was thinking about all of it.

“Well, I am hopeful,” he said, “but I am also doubtful because I have never done it before. What if I can’t?”

What if I can’t?

That’s the rub right there, isn’t it? Because by “what if I can’t” what he was really saying was “what if I am not brilliant at it on day one and every day.”

And so as we talked about the nature of our big expectations and wanting to be perfect, I said something to him that has stayed with me as an important reminder.

Life is just about practicing.

It’s a concept that I really love– the idea of repeating something regularly in a journey to acquire proficiency at it.

Dress For Confidence: Mind, Body, Soul

The thing about practice is that it is always rooted in intention, the desire we have to do something in a certain way (not just how it comes out but how we are when we are doing it).

Take me for example. I want people to see me as compassionate and authentic and loving and supportive and creative and wholehearted and smart and wise. But let’s be real. I am not all those things at the same time, and I am not even some of those things singularly sometimes. Sometimes, though I want to be a compassionate person, I can be a little bit petty or though I want to be authentic, I give an inauthentic response because I don’t want to deal with what the truth will open up or sometimes I am impatient with my loved ones although that doesn’t feel loving at all.

And so rather than punishing myself with unkind words, I look at the situation that is before me, I take stock of what I want to be more of and I dedicate myself to the practice of it.

How we practice in life is a lot like how we have maybe heard our yoga teachers talk about the practice of yoga, the idea of returning to the mat to see what your mind and body and heart are telling you and then coming away from that with an intention that is bigger than your yoga mat.

Here is the magic of taking a “practice” approach to your life: nothing has to be set in stone; if you see something in your practice that isn’t how you want it or you to be, it doesn’t have to stay.  You always have the chance to shift.

Practice.  It’s really what life is about.  We try so hard to barrel into perfection and then maintain it, maintain it, maintain it.  But what if, instead, we shifted our thinking? What if we were always just practicing, like fingers on an ivory keyboard.  And if we hit the wrong note, we allow ourselves to go back and start over, realize the song does not have to be sung that way, does not have to be played on; it does not all have to go to hell in a hand basket like we sometimes think.

Every moment is a chance to begin again anew, to practice, to live with intention and authenticity and self-awareness.

Every morning, I can choose my practice: bathing others and myself in big ole’ swaths of love, choosing tenderness when someone presents in a way that is hard for me, embracing patience when the list doesn’t turnover as quickly as I hope, cultivating grace when things are made hard, stopping to celebrate rather than forcing my feet towards one more notch.

I want to encourage you to start the day by asking yourself what you are practicing. At the end of each day, ask yourself how your practice was that day and what you might need tomorrow.

Today, I am practicing giving myself and others grace for slower motion. What are you practicing?

Are you ready to dress for confidence? Rosie loves her Karina Dresses Trudy dress in Navy Floral. Karina Dresses are the perfect Fall wardrobe and confidence booster! You can find your favorites here in our online store!