Time to Try Minimalism: A Project 333 Experiment

As a Type 4, minimalism is something that is supposed to come naturally in theory. In practice, the habits and accumulations of life lead to stuff building up.

I've read the purging challenges of the Mary and Martha book. Sarah Mae doesn't go into any depth about purging your wardrobe, but I felt that was a natural place for me to begin anyway.

I've had thoughts of doing a capsule wardrobe percolating in the back of my mind for some time now, and so I have now begun. I've heard of the 10 Item Wardrobe, but my lifestyle doesn't match wanting to do laundry more than twice a week and my little bit of Type 1 balks at having so few options to rotate through. And as I've looked more at this system, it seems a little confusing to me to only have 10 core items and then extras. So I've settled on an extended version of the Project 333 format. Project 333 means going 3 months with only 33 items, including clothing, accessories, and outerwear. This seems easier than deciding what constitutes a core item or an extra. Project 333 kind of lumps things together and counts everything (except pajamas, workout clothes, and lounge wear, which are all the same for me). I've stretched it a tad. I may be closer to 40 items. I justify this by saying it's winter, so I have an extra coat to count and then I had a hard time narrowing down my jewelry choices.

In choosing my items I used the Vivienne Files All Seasons Packing format as a starting point keeping this post about color schemes in mind. I kept to a concise selection of black, white, cobalt, teal, and red. It's a beautiful thing really. I'm only a week into my 3 months, but I'm still having fun making different outfit combinations.

Here is my new closet and the color palette broken down.

 

So simple and so Type 4. I'm sure more refining will happen and there are some gaps I'd like to fill while keeping a "one in, one out" mindset. But already I'm loving how streamlined my outfit making has become. Dressing Your Truth got me to one level of clarity with keeping only one color family on hand, but Project 333 and pared it down even more.

I really like the Project 333 motto of "Be more with less". I'm hoping to carry that through more of my life in the coming months as I follow through on doing the Martha challenges.

Let me know what you think and Enjoy this holiday season!

Something is Different!

Happy Birthday to Me! In honor of my 25th birthday I made a big change.

I've actually been looking forward to this for about two years. That's about how long I've known about Dressing Your Truth. This is not a total coincidence. Part of having my own DYT course is having a personalized Fashion 101 class, basically. The Type 4 course provides guidelines for what will look best on my Type 4 body to match and express my Type 4 personality in a beautiful way.

These guidelines are actually quite thorough. Everything including clothing, makeup, accessories, and hair are seen in terms of design line, texture, fabrication, pattern, and color and many examples are shown. Now, all Types can have long or short hair. I've had long hair for most of my life. I've even cut and donated it a couple of times. But I'd never gone this short. After DYT, I had the confidence and knowledge to know that I really could do a pixie cut.

So two years ago, I decided that I wanted to give it a try when I turned 25.

Unfortunately, the place I went to get my hair done doesn't have WiFi (weird, I know), so I wasn't able to show them the Pintrest picture of the exact cut I wanted, so I'm not fully in love with the details of the cut that I got. Fortunately I am very familiar with the fact that hair grows and I can get it fixed in a couple of months. Here is the picture of what I really wanted:

Gorgeous, right? The cut, not the color. Sorry, but I don't think I'll ever go blonde. I did however also die my hair when I got it cut. I went darker to an ash-based brown a couple of shades darker than my natural brunette and I LOVE it!!

For such a big change, I've only gotten positive feedback. My babies didn't freak out. Charles didn't really care other than he was happy that I was happy. And everyone else has been really supportive as well. All the compliments are right on point with what I was going for.

The whole point behind changing my look was to turn up the dial on my Type 4-ness and the compliments I've gotten just prove that I got it right. Each Type has a list of great descriptive words and you'd think that people were just reading off my list. my favorites have been, "Chic" and "Stunning". Stunning is actually the "Beauty Code Word" for Type 4 as a whole.

Another reaction I got a lot at the beginning was remarks at how brave I was for going through with such a big change. I don't feel like "brave" is the right word. I feel that I've been "bold" (another T4 word). I think that is the power of the empowerment of the Dressing Your Truth program. They give you all the guidelines and then you are left to follow your (more informed) "Beauty Sixth Sense" in creating your own style.

I don't think you should have to be "brave" to live and dress your truth. That makes it sound that most people are in fact scared to do so. Admittedly, I know that without the DYT program most people are left to guess their truth in a world that doesn't give us great tools to navigate a trend-driven fashion industry. That's why I'm so passionate about sharing this "makeover system" that goes far beyond just the surface appearance.

Currently there is a very exciting sale going on. Until Nov. 22 the courses for all 4 courses are being sold as a bundle for only $100. What an investment! Please use my link to get registered and start learning what Type you are before you buy it so I can get some referral benefits. I'm here if you have any questions or if you want a closet makeover. I'm particularly gifted in being able to sort clothes by Type.

I want everyone to feel empowered to look amazing in their own special way.

5 of My Most "Grat-ifying" Affirmations

Back in September, Carol Tuttle invited her community to join her in focusing on a theme of loving the life you have and using a script of daily affirmations to help you love your life more or to begin loving the life you have if you were struggling with that. I don't do anything with hashtags, but I joined the challenge and that was how I started my day during the whole month of September.

I've decided to take up that script again because I felt that the biggest benefit from going through this list of affirmations was that it inspired a spirit of gratitude. It being November now, this seems appropriate with Thanksgiving coming up and all. Granted, I definitely believe that we should always go about life with a spirit of gratitude, but this is a fine time to give it some extra focus.

Not all of the affirmations listed start with "I love..." which can easily be switched to "I'm grateful that..." but I think each could still be altered to reflect a greater level of gratitude. 

The full list has 23 affirmations. But 23 is not a pretty number in my world, so I've been able to distill that full list down to my favorite five which is much better. (Five is the square root of my favorite number, 25. Yeah, I'm weird like that in playing with number patterns wherever I can.)

So here goes my short list with my revisions to make them into personalized gratitude statements.

• It's as if the universe knows who I am and what I want and things flow to me in such a timely way. 
• I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows me individually and answers my prayers, spoken and unspoken, to bring me the things I need when I need them, even when I hadn't realized I was going to need it ahead of time.
• I am grateful for the spiritual support and the angelic help that is taking care of the details and is making sure that this day is going to unfold in a magical way.
• I am grateful for my angels (seen and unseen) that help protect me ad mine and their help in making my day go smoothly.
• The people who come to me are benefiting from their exposure to me. And I am thankful for all the wonderful people in my life.
• I am grateful for all the wonderful people in my life and I am grateful for the opportunities to grow in my own talents as I go about serving and interacting with them.
• I love connecting with the infinite power and knowledge of my life.
• I am grateful for my spiritual gifts and talents that help empower me in shaping the life I choose to live. 
• I love my life!
• I am grateful for the safe and dependable job of my husband that facilitates our needs and reasonable wants being met and that it allows for me to be at home to be the mother of our children. 

I hope this in some way inspires a greater spirit of gratitude in your own life and I would encourage you to check out the full list of Carol's affirmations and go through this same exercise of making them into your own "grat-ifying" statements.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Bucket List Report Item Five: And My Inspirations for Living a More Uncluttered Life

This one is obviously going to be a life-long process, but I feel like I have been making some really good efforts in cleaning up my external and internal spaces lately. So I consider this item of my bucket list as being closer to mastery then it was six months ago.

I believe the big reason behind my success has been that we have been able to settle into a reliable routine. The funny thing is that we got to this point in a rather organic way. But I recently began reading through and do the challenges in Having a Martha Home the Mary Way by Sarah Mae. The basis of this book is having a more spiritual motivation behind your homemaking efforts. It is a 31 day challenge I guess you could call it. I'm only on Day 6 but I feel like I'm benefiting from the Mary challenges already. (I haven't started doing the Martha challenges yet because I'm already in the middle of a different cleaning assignment I've given myself of washing all our walls.)

Day 3 was actually about establishing a workable routine. I don't feel a need to change much of our current routine (other than my own bedtimes and wake-up times), but I still like what Sarah had to say about not seeing my routine as an hour-by-hour schedule and thinking in terms of "anchors" instead. These anchors are the activities that consistently happen everyday at about the same time. For us (and most people) these include meal times and (for our stage of life with little ones) nap time. (David is finally making the transition to just one nap at about the same time as Jon. I am soooooo excited!)

My point here is that having a routine in place helps tremendously with a level of mental clutter for me. I don't have to worry about what I need to do during any given day. I just focus on what I can do in working around the anchors of our day.

The next level of mental clutter elimination is the omnipresent To Do list. No joke, this is the best secret weapon for getting anything done. Now, not everyday gets a full list for me, but when I need it, I sure use it. Sarah Mae's Day 5 actually talked about this as well, but she takes it the next level. The big piece of advice she gives comes from Ivy Lee's Six List from the 1920s. Instead of writing down everything that you could possibly do in one day, you write down the six most important things you want to get done the next day the night before. Talk about decluttering if the To Do list is getting streamlined as well.

On the days that do have more going on or more that needs to get done, I've already been making ample use of my white board in the kitchen to make To Do lists. It helps me get the big picture of my day out of my head and into a visual form which then makes my head feel less cluttered. Sometimes I have to make these lists for the day the night before just so I can go to sleep without those thoughts running in circles in my head in an effort to not be forgotten in the morning. I really need to just get a small notebook and pen for my bedside table. I just haven't gotten around to that yet.This is probably because I don't need it all that often, but it would be nice knowing it was there anyway.

Now that the inner realms feel less cluttered it's time to address areas of physical clutter that I've been able to get under control. In Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer Scott there is a chapter entitled "Clutter Is So Not Chic". It contains this definition of what clutter is:

Clutter is an accumulation of miscellaneous things that do not belong where they currently are.

I think Jennifer goes more into detail in talking about clutter "hot spots" in her other Madame Chic books, but they are basically any spot that ends up accumulating clutter like a little magnet because of location and convenience. I've been able to tame some of my hot spots.

My big examples are the top of my bedroom dresser and my entire craft room. A month or two ago the top of my dresser was just driving me crazy. I had several baskets containing odds and ends and they were getting close to overflowing and I realized that I really didn't need all of that stuff out at all. So I attacked! I kept out only the very basics of my toiletries that I use every day (lotions and scents, mostly) and I couple of other items I like to have easy access to (nail trimmers and a file and a couple other things). I then went the next step and made it pretty, because why not? It is so nice having a tidy surface to greet me whenever I get anything out of my drawers or just when I'm passing through when going about my day.

My craft room was another space that had just gotten ridiculous to the point where I wouldn't want to actually use the room for its intended purpose. I had boxes of stuff covering my craft table and things just weren't where they needed to belong. Plus the feng shui was just off with how the big items were arranged anyway.

So, after a solid day I was able to get the boxes consolidated and in the closet, got the tables switched around (the craft room also has my massage table in it), and things just tidied, and now it is a much more welcoming space. And just today I went another level and went through the boxes in the closet (I was looking for something among the randomness) and did some more consolidation and gained a view of what the next level of organization could be... maybe in another year.

Part of the clutter in the craft room was a stack of art that I hadn't gotten around to hanging. After being in this house for a full year, I finally got some of it hung. So that stack is smaller if not fully eliminated yet. I just don't have a vision of which walls they will go on yet.

Having a workable routine, a high comfort level with To Do lists, and taming my hot spots has brought more peace to me on more than one level. I look forward to continuing the Mary and Martha challenges as well as taking opportunities to live more chic-ly in creating the higher quality of life that I wish to achieve.

Hope you have enjoyed these bucket list reports  (1, 2+3, 4). I've enjoyed making these improvements in my own life.

Bucket List Report Item Four: Scar Removal

We're almost done with the bucket list reports (see reports 1, 2+3 at these links). It is time to reveal the results from my most recent attempts to remove my acne scars.

Previously I had found an oatmeal mask on Pintrest. Here it is again:

 

I've gone ahead and done the course of using the mask for the full four month program. And I took notes as well as pictures, which I'm really glad I did.

At the beginning, my face was a lot more sensitive to the cinnamon in the mask so I did a layer of aloe to help cool down the redness. That lessened as the weeks went by, but I suspect that may have been because the potency of the mix may have lessened as it sat in the fridge for a couple weeks. The consistency of the mask also became more thick. 

So after the first month of doing the mask every week, I went ahead and made a fresh batch of the mask. That brought the potency (read: redness and burning sensation) back. If I ever do this mask again I think I will make smaller batches to keep it fresh for all the applications.  

The third month brought the beginning of our Whole30 diet, which was pretty good timing to get that Before picture. It was less than a week into the diet and I had already noticed that I was having less new spots showing up and healing was already happening. 

With the last application I had the thought of separating the cinnamon and oat aspects of this mask. Some mind of cinnamon paste to get the burning-scar fixing effects and then some kind of oat rinse to then get more anti-inflammatory benefits. I didn't actually do that, but it would be worth further experimentation.

Now to get a little more into the Before and After. (My favorite part!)

So, some things got better, but there are some new spots. In general I'd say my face felt better, but I think I attribute that more to the healing benefits of the Whole30 than to the mask. My face would be even better if I were to stick with that program or at least cut more sugar out of my usual diet because I think that is the main trigger for my acne.  The mask just added a feeling of having more toned skin and tightened pores directly after the applications.

Fortunately I've mastered makeup enough to be able to hide all the spots I end up with. So I can still look amazing when I feel like it. Thanks to Dressing Your Truth, I feel like "putting my face on" more than you would think for a stay-at-home mom who doesn't really go anywhere during the week. That is not the only reason to feel and look pretty. But this is not the place for that particular soap box.

Bucket List Report Items Two and Three: Food and Diet

In my bucket list post I had two food related items. I made it a goal to figure out planning lunches and snacks to get a better handle on my less-supervised eating. And then I wanted to complete a Whole30 diet.

I can't say I've had huge success in the lunch department. Of course we did just come off of our Whole30 and lunches were the hardest part of that too. I'm still great at dinners, comparatively. At this point I'm getting used to the idea of letting lunches be a little more repetitive where dinners can be more varied. Lunch is now a sandwich or leftovers.

As for snacking, the easy answer I learned during our Whole30 was don't. Simply put, I think our Whole30 was as effective as it was this time around because of cutting out snacking entirely. Or if we do get hungry between meals it's better not to turn to the easy, processed, snack foods. It's better to see a "snack" more as a mini meal so that you can make better food choices and be more satisfied with what you eat rather than just turning into a mind-less grazer. That is one lesson that really stuck with me from my nutrition classes in college: avoid mind-less eating where it's more about going through a motion rather than eating with intent to actually focus on enjoying what you put in your mouth. You end of eating less this way, but you are more satisfied.

Now, I failed to take any Before and After pictures of us for this round of Whole30-ness, but we wrote down our starting and ending weights and I also have my body composition numbers thanks to our smart scale.

I am pleased to announce that Charles lost 20 lbs and I lost about 13 lbs. But that's not all! Charles says that the only other change he noticed was that he just felt tired and hungry all the time. I didn't ever really get into a good "Tiger Blood" phase myself (more on that later) but my body composition numbers all settled into the healthy ranges where they hadn't really been before. Towards the end, my muscle mass actually squeaked into the High range. That is probably because of my exercise program. That right there is probably why they stress so hard the rule of not using the scale during the month; because there are other changes at work besides straight weight-loss. (Weight-loss isn't even a main focus of the Whole30 program at all; it's simply a pleasant side effect of the body healing itself.)

Confession: in truth I think we really only should get credit for half of a Whole30. We did a pure Whole18 before we "took a break" when we went out of town for a weekend to spend time with family. When we got back it was rather difficult to get back in the saddle. Part of it was because I was sick when we got home. After eating just about everything on the "no" list, it really isn't surprising to me. I'm just a little jealous that Charles' system is less sensitive than mine so he didn't get sick at all from our lapse. But that is why we didn't get any "Tiger Blood", because we didn't stay faithful to the program for the full amount of time so we did not reap the full benefits.

But we still lost weight, my face did finally clear up, and I'm very happy with my body composition numbers. So it was still worth it.

It seems that every time we do this diet, we get a little better at it. Last time we cheated on the snacking rule but stayed "true" for the whole time. This time we did lots better about not snacking but we cheated on the scale rule. It was fun to see the weight slough off, especially at the beginning. I was surprised how fast the weight came off at the beginning. So we actually exceeded my expectations in that regard. Next time I can hope we shall continue to improve.

Bucket List Report Item One: Exercise

October is approaching and so the dead line for my mini Bucket List is nearing. It seems to be time to start reporting my progress.

In my bucket list I talked about my plans for exercise. So far I feel like I'm making progress on that. I'm still doing my yoga every morning during the week. I've also added in some toning moves from a WIC pamphlet for post-pregnancy. Those added moves are some leg lifts, some light crunches, and a round of Cat-Cow moves.

In addition to that, I've started implementing the fitness program from the Change One diet book. The Change One diet is a 12 week program and the fitness program is an 8 week regimen. I'm currently on week 5.

The full 8 week program looks something like this:

As you can see, it starts out quite easy and gets progressively harder, but still do-able. For me, it's the added walking that feels like it's making the most difference, but that is what I've been doing the most of. And the boys love our walks to the park.

The new stretches are quite easy to do right after my usual yoga. Today was my first strengthening session, again right after my yoga. The steps are clearly illustrated in the book and for the 5 step routine, don't require any added equipment. The 8 step toning exercises only call for a resistance band and a jump rope. No weights needed for these toning exercises! Which is great since we don't have any yet. Fortunately I recently acquired a set of resistance bands from my mother. So I am set.

It's kind of funny because I'm starting this exercise program at the same time as doing our Whole30 diet, so it's hard to really tell how much of my toning is happening because of the diet cleanse and how much from the exercise itself. I expect to keep seeing results in the following weeks as I do more of the toning routines of the 8 week program.

Face Mapping and Why I'm Doing a Whole30

In my Bucket List post I talked about doing a Whole30 diet and I want to work on fixing my face as well. It turns out that these things go hand in hand.

Some time ago I found a link on Pintrest that piqued my interest because, like so many others, I have my troubles with acne and would love a cure of some kind to this ill. Face mapping seems to give a guide to underlining cause to one's spots.

I've seen a few different maps that say different parts of the face point to different bodily issues. But a theme arises. The very fact that it there is a connection between the face and distinct underlining causes tells me that simply dabbing various potions isn't going to do much on its own.

That is why I'm doing a round of the Whole30 diet right now.

(Note: I'm not affiliated with the Whole30 program directly. This is a free program that anyone can do on their own.)

The Whole30 diet in a nutshell:

Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health.

I love this idea of hitting a reset button. And it's a button you can hit as often as you feel a need to do so. We did this once already back in February 2015 and I felt it was time to do it again. Mostly because my face has been giving me some rather red flags. I believe this linked to systemic inflammation.

Systemic inflammation is a condition where your immune system is constantly working to try to get to a baseline healthy state but is overworked so it can't put any focus on a variety of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions like:

high blood pressure • high cholesterol • type 1 diabetes • type 2 diabetes • asthma • allergies • sinus infections • hives • skin conditions • endometriosis • PCOS • infertility • migraines • depression • bipolar disorder • heartburn • GERD • arthritis • joint pain • ADD • thyroid dysfunction • Lyme disease • fibromyalgia • chronic fatigue • lupus • leaky gut syndrome • Crohn’s • IBS • Celiac disease • diverticulitis • ulcerative colitis 

The list really goes on and on. This is also known as "silent inflammation" because we don't usually know what to "listen" for. But since systemic inflammation starts in the gut and then goes everywhere the blood stream goes, it makes sense that the whole body can be affected in different ways. 

And that's why, according to face mapping, I have spots all over my face right now. 

I was already planning to do a Whole30 back in May. That was before our travels in June and then the rest of our summer activities. After eating more junk than I'd like to admit, my face feels like it has been exploding. 

We are only a week and a half into our 30 days (40 with the Reintroduction phase) and I'm still waiting for my face to be fully clear. At least I've seen fewer new spots appear.  

It isn't an easy diet, to be sure, but it is worth it.

Why Do We Love To See The Temple?

For those of us who are familiar with LDS Primary songs, we are familiar with the title "I Love to See the Temple". It is a very sweet song. For those who aren't as familiar with this song, here are the lyrics:

1.  I love to see the temple.
   I'm going there someday
   To feel the Holy Spirit,
   To listen and to pray.
   For the temple is a house of God,
   A place of love and beauty.
   I'll prepare myself while I am young;
   This is my sacred duty.
2.  I love to see the temple.
   I'll go inside someday.
   I'll covenant with my Father;
   I'll promise to obey.
   For the temple is a holy place
   Where we are sealed together.
   As a child of God, I've learned this truth:
   A family is forever.

It amazes me how much doctrine can be fit in such a small package as a song. And it's all true!

The goal is to be worthy to go to the temple to receive the ordinances and make special covenants therein for oneself first and then we get to go back again and again to do the same ordinances for the death by proxy. This is the sealing power at work. And it is a sacred duty to do our part to also do the family history work to find those of our ancestors that have not yet received this work. The youth of today are getting very good at that part of the work and they are blessed for it.

We also go to the House of the Lord to be closer to the Spirit at times when we feel an especial need for personal revelation to help us in our daily lives.

But I think the best parts are the sense of love that permeates this holy buildings. Not only is this because it is a place of service but the sealing of families is a paramount purpose of the service.

Our most recent experience of going to the temple was to support my brother in receiving his own endowments in preparation of going on his mission. It was an interesting experience for me because it was the first time I did Initiatory work for the dead. I received my own Initiatory prior to receiving my own endowments before my temple marriage but had not done that work for the dead in the five years since. It was a great reminder of more of the covenants and blessings we receive in the temple. I feel that when I do this work for the dead I also re-receive some of the blessing for myself, if only in the form of a remembrance.

But my favorite part was when my brother joined us in the Celestial Room at the end of the endowment ceremony and we were able to welcome him with open arms. That is what I imagine death will be like. All of our deceased loved ones are just on the side of that other veil waiting to be reunited with us.

And just a brief word on the temples chosen for my title image: We were married in the Rexburg Temple and are soon to be in the Star Valley Temple District after it is dedicated in October (and I'm in one of the dedicatory choirs). All the other temples are ones that we have been to together since getting married. If I included the ones we've been to separately I'd add the Columbia River Temple, the Nauvoo Temple, and the Boise Temple.

What temples have you been to and what do you love about your temple experiences? Leave a comment.

Closet Before and After: Maryann

As a DYT veteran, I can't help but try to share this knowledge with everyone I know. Of course I do try to be tactful and wait for "opportune moments".

One such opportune moment came this Memorial weekend. I'll admit I only briefly mentioned this part of our big road trip in my post about it, but for me this was kind of a big deal. Being the catalyst of someone's journey of self-awareness through this program is exciting. And to have this gift so well-received was much appreciated.

Maryann is my father-in-law's wife and we have become friends. During that weekend we bonded over gardening and how cute my boys are. In fact, I can attribute the "opportune moment" to them.

We were discussing how similar yet different Jon and David are. To me, this of course makes sense because of their shared genetics and different Types. So, yes, I approached Dressing Your Truth through The Child Whisperer.

Explaining about how I can approach parenting my babies differently with the intent to honor their true natures segues quite nicely into introducing others to how they can discover their own natures in turn.

Plus I was able to point Maryann to my own experience as recorded here because I was also finishing the post about my closet purge while we were there.

The bonus for me was that Maryann was very open to watching the free Beauty Profiling course while I went through her closet. How nice of her to let me scratch my organization itch.

After viewing the course she decided that she is a dominant Type 1 with a secondary Type 4.

The course is fairly short and I wasn't done in her closet yet, so I pulled up some YouTube videos I had compiled to give some more context for the program.

Now, we know how I love makeovers but Carol had gone the next step of having members of her crew try on all the Types and share how they feel when not dressing their truth. Watching these was where Maryann got her big "Ah ha!" moment in seeing what a difference dressing your truth can make in your attitude, demeanor and confidence.

Unfortunately, there seems to have been a major pruning session in the online realms and those videos are now private. Furthermore, the Carol Tuttle online space recently went through a major consolidation as well and I cannot kind those videos anywhere.

Fortunately my angels listened to my frustrations and there is a new version of Carol in the other three Types. I just hope they will do the same for the other Types because I recall that each Type reacts to the other Types differently.

There are still plenty of makeover videos to watch at liveyourtruth.com. (Real Women, Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4) For those not already in the program, seeing these women's stories can be a great first step to be able to say, "That sounds just like me!"

Now, back to Maryann's closet.

This was her closet when I first walked in.

A fairly ordinary closet with straightforward organization but not much by way of cohesion or theme. most of us would be familiar with such a closet.

And here's her closet after my first go-through.

I was able to get it all sorted by Type and then the blouses by rainbow order within the Types.

Since then, they have finished a big closet remodel and Maryann has done some eliminating of her own. Here is her new closet or at least the sections of tops.

I can tell that Maryann is doing more to embrace her truth because the colors seem much brighter and happier to reflect her Type 1 nature. (I also suspect there is better natural lighting in the new closet.) She is still at the beginning of her journey but she can recognize what items aren't really her colors and being okay with the fact that she isn't quite ready to let go of all of those off-Type pieces. It took me a while to get rid of everything not Type 4 as well, so that is very normal. Just the awareness of what is truly right for you is a big first step.

With (DYT) I am more aware what is better for me inside and out. And now I see happy colors in my closet associated with my personality. What an education now to being clued in! With this new knowledge I am able to shop for who I am. It is really strengthening. -Maryann 

I wish Maryann all the best in her future journey and extend my assistance to anyone else who would like help in starting their DYT journeys. I can do the closet sorting but the true first step is figuring out what Type you are. My personal referral link is heatherh1.dressingyourtruth.com. It takes you to a login page so you can get signed in the system before viewing the Free Beauty Profiling course. I think my referral benefits kick in once you buy your Type's course.