What’s On My Floordrobe — A Sea of Discarded Labels and Identities

I am a woman who has an outfit for everything, and an identity to go with it. After moving up to the woods five years ago to start fresh after consciously uncoupling from was-band #1, I noticed that my closet looked like Green Acres — a “farm living is the life for me” section (flannel, work boots, plaids) and “a New York is where I’d rather stay” section (a monochromatic sea of black, white and grey).

After spending five years communing with nature, living amongst a wonderfully weird and wacky community of healers, makers, burners, doulas and artists in Occidental, one of California’s top hippie towns, a new, brightly colored “hippie woo woo” section has emerged full of hot pink, orange, metallics and aquatic colors of the sea.

My virtual wardrobe of personal and professional identities is equally if not more diverse. The sea of discarded labels and rejected identities on my virtual floordrobe more varied still. Over the past five decades, I’ve tried on more virtual outfits than Beyoncé on a world tour!

In some cases these outfits were highly aspirational — worn for a long time before I grew into them. As a new student at Brearley, an all girls school in Manhattan, I found myself surrounded by passionate, articulate, opinionated young women. I envied the fluidity, creativity and freedom of their self-expression and the courage with which they put forward and defended opinions that were uniquely their own.

My intuition told me early on that envy and jealousy are, or can be, leading indicators of the change you wish to see (provided that you’re willing to do the work to be that change). Channeling this emotional energy into making that change (rather than soaking in it until it poisons you) is the path, and creates alchemy that transforms negative thoughts into positive personal growth.

My 13 year old self was a shy, fearful, introverted girl — afraid of everything, especially what other people thought, avoiding failure and risk taking at all cost. My envy told me that I wanted to be like these outspoken, extroverted young women. That underneath all that fear and desire to please others was a passionate, creative, one-of-a-kind soul that had her own unique take on life and who desperately wanted to come out of…