Life Design Action: Take the dress. Please.

Requires: A dress, a changing room, a boyfriend/partner, an ability to receive.

Does not require: anything else. Nothing. No accessories, no cardigan. NOTHING.

***

Just Take The Dress 

Dear Girl in Top Shop changing room,

I saw you as I was walking in with my two-tone work dress. You didn’t see me. You were swishing around in a lovely black dress, peering over your shoulder into the mirror behind you. Your boyfriend was standing right in front of the changing cubicle I was about to use. He stepped out of the way so I could duck in.

Girl, at first I was a bit uncomfortable with your boyfriend standing RIGHT OUTSIDE the cubicle. After all, men aren’t really supposed to be in the changing rooms and lets face it – those curtains don’t ever seem to reach across completely. I think it is kind of wrong that he was there, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Instead spent several minutes twisting around trying to see OUT of the cubicle via the mirror to check he couldn’t see in.

Finally reassured that there were no revealing slits in the curtain, I began trying on my stuff. And listening. To your convo (cubicles in changing rooms – like tents – are not sound proof).

“Get that dress. Honestly, get that one,” he told you.

“Do you think so?” you asked him flirtily, yet unsure. “Why?”

“Honestly, trust me. Just get that one,” he insisted.

“I’m not sure … I’m mean I DO love it. But it’s quite a lot…”

“No. It’s gorgeous. Just get that one. Seriously. Trust me.”

Girl, I think he thought you looked hot. I’m sure you did look hot.

I, in my changing room, was also hot but not in the HOT hot sort of way.

You see, the combination of your boyfriend’s dress insistence, the fact he was standing right outside my cubicle, the heating in Top Shop, my current Yogic feat of getting the arms through the two holes in the dress whilst NOT tearing it or falling OUT of the cubicle sideways, had gotten me very, very Hot and Bothered.

“Get it! Just get it!” your boyfriend continued.

“Yes, bloody get it,” I muttered, my face pressed against my armpit, decidedly hemmed in  with black and white two tone.

“I’m not sure … I’m not sure if I should get it …” Your voice was muffled.

“It looks great.”

“But it is SO much.”

I started to feel claustrophobic in my dress over head situation …

Started to feel like Hulk in his tight little shirt …

“Look, how about I buy it for you?”

Girl! Did you hear that? He offered to get it!

At this point I paused mid-fight with my dress. Had quick debrief with Self and decided that it was probably best if I turned back and tried to remove dress instead of forging on. Took a few deep inhalations, preparing to reverse sticky situation.

You had no idea girl, what I was going through behind that curtain.

Instead you were giggling, “what did you say?”

“I said I’d buy it. My gift to you.”

“No no,” you trilled, “you can’t buy it for me.”

“Why not? I want to get it for you. Let me get it for you.”

“No. No. I can’t.”

“Why?”

YES, WHY? Why couldn’t he buy it for you? He was offering! In fact, bloody hell, I’d have bloody bought it for you.

At that moment, as my shoulders erupted out of the dress and I gasped for air and your boyfriend asked “why?”, I suddenly heard in his voice the throttled mixture of exasperation and desperation.

Girl, I suddenly realised what was going on with you and him.

1. You had dragged your boyfriend from shop to shop, trying to find The Dress.

2. He’d stood patiently outside countless changing rooms twiddling his thumbs and chewing his cheek.

3. By shop three, or four, his bright eyed bushy smile had probably turned into a five mile gaze.

4. Top Shop was the final straw for him.

5. He’d broken the rules and walked straight into the changing rooms and begged you, BEGGED you to put him out of his misery and buy the dress.

6. In last ditch attempt to end his torture, your boyfriend offered to BUY the dress for you. And now you were PROTESTING.

“Please, tell me why I can’t buy the dress for you,” he said, trying to disguise his impending crazed madness.

“Well, I just couldn’t. It’s too much. I’d feel like I owed you …”

A sigh. “But I want to get it for you.”

“I don’t know …”

“Please!”

“No, no, no …”

“Well, you know what? I’m never bloody coming shopping with you ever again.”

“What?”

There was a long pause then.

I had, by this time, finished getting myself dressed and was ready to run away. Abandoned my items in the changing room and as I pulled back the curtain I saw that the changing room was empty. You had gone into your cubicle to get dressed. Outside, in the knicker/bikini area, your boyfriend was standing. He looked quite flustered and his arms were knotted across his chest.

This whole thing got me thinking, girl.

I was thinking about how difficult we all find it to receive things. Is this a cultural thing? I don’t know …

We’re all so good at offering ourselves to others yet so many of us find it uncomfortable to receive something from another person. Imagine if your boyfriend brought you a box of chocolates. How would he feel if you handed them back and said “no thank you?” By saying “no” when someone offers us help or a gift, we are probably really upsetting them.

NB. I know he was only offering to buy you the dress to save his soul, but if you’d just said “YES!”, we would ALL have felt so much better.

So, there you have it girl. Just wanted to let you know  all of that. Oh – and I didn’t buy my dress. There is nothing worse than standing half naked in front of a Top Shop mirror in that awful lighting that just CREATES a corned beef leg effect; hot, grumpy and wishing you’d picked a different size but too pissed off to bother any more.

But I hope you had a great time at your party or wherever it was you were going.

Lots of love,

Me

PS. After I left Top Shop I saw you and your boyfriend walking through the M&S car park. And you had a Top Shop bag. And he had a smile. And you were holding hands. And you had your outfit and he had his freedom and everything was good with the world.

(KEY POINT: In my seminars, coaching and workshops one thing many people have a problem with is receiving. This is an issue, as being comfortable with receiving is paramount to creating a life of Gorgeousness. If you are not comfortable with receiving compliments, opportunities, money, help etc you are fundamentally rejecting the gifts of life. Everything on this planet works in duality; light – dark, male – female, giving – receiving. By encouraging the flow outwards and expanding the flow inwards, your life can continue to growth in boundless energy and abundance. Practise becoming comfortable with receiving. Make it your mission to become a more grateful, gracious receiver … even if it is just because it will make the giver feel warm inside.)