Greetings to you!
Is fall coming on faster than usual or have I just been especially hurried lately? I can’t tell. I’m taking suggestions for places to live that are always a pleasant 65-85 Fahrenheit (send them my way so I can add them to my daydreams).
As some of you might recall, August 14th, 2026 marked 10 years since the passing of our dear Sandy, The Image Architect.
I have made sure that her original YouTube Channel is preserved.
One More Update…
I recently hired a coach to assist me in putting together a comprehensive online transformation package to empower women who want to build deeper confidence.
I got into education to make the world a better place, trained under Sandy Dumont, The Image Architect, to make the world a better place, and have learned a lot of strategies, but I still just want to make the world a better place. So, the math says, “Empower others who can make the world a better place.” I’m putting together my experiences to help smart, competent women find their true confidence, unmute their voice, and own their presence so they can go and champion their cause… and, of course, make the world a better place!
I think that sounds like a good thing to do for the rest of my life. If you’re a paid subscriber, there are also some sneak peeks into the 4-month transformation program in the paid section at the bottom of this post. Thank you so much for the continued support. Have an amazing day!
On To Drab Rehab Part 5
I wanted the Drab Rehab series to finish with something much more meaningful than just, “Hey, now you know we’ve all been socialized to wear drab clothes. Congratulations! Here are the clothes you should wear instead to bring out your natural glow.” Even if I could hand you the formula, it turns out the clothes might be just a tiny symptom of something much bigger.
I’ve been talking about wardrobes being drab, but what if our closets aren’t the only thing that’s been muted? What if they’re drab because WE OURSELVES have gotten muted in other places, too, and the muted clothes don’t feel out of place? What if the beige sweater and the gray cardigan fit into a much larger pattern we’ve been practicing for years?
I keep thinking about the woman who can handle almost anything at work but then calls her mom, best friend, or husband before making a big decision about her own life. Or the woman who says no, then spends the next hour rewriting the message because she’s worried the other person will think she’s being mean. Or the woman who can tell you exactly what her kids need, what her boss expects, what her husband prefers, and what everyone’s schedule looks like this week, but goes completely blank when someone asks, “Okay, but what do YOU want?”
None of that is loud or dramatic. That’s kind of why it’s easy to miss.
There’s already plenty of information on this Substack about the colors that might work with your skin tone and the kinds of shapes and cuts you can buy to create better proportions depending on lifestyle and occasion. If that was all it took, style reinvention would be easy. We would just figure out the colors, figure out the silhouettes, go shopping, and be done.
Here’s what I wish I knew about style reinvention before I ever started creating content for The Image Architect (before COVID) and now for Light Loves Color: it’s so much more than just what to wear.
A lot of us have been learning what gets a good reaction and what doesn’t since we were very young. We learn when we’re being “too loud,” “too sensitive,” “too dressed up,” “too opinionated,” “too emotional,” “too much.” Sometimes someone says it outright, and sometimes it’s just the look on someone’s face, the laugh in the hallway, the rolled eyes, or the moment when we suddenly realize everyone else is looking at us.
And we adjust.
That’s not necessarily a tragedy. In fact, a lot of those adjustments are useful. Being adaptable is useful. Reading the room is useful. Being considerate is useful. Being dependable is useful.
Those things can help us build good relationships, do well in school, succeed at work, raise families, and become the person everyone knows they can count on. They can make us very successful.
The problem comes later, when we’ve gotten so good at doing all of that that we stop noticing when the catering is automatic.
Women in particular have grown up absorbing a lot of ideas about being agreeable, composed, easy to be around, not too loud, not too emotional, not too demanding, not too much. We’ve been told to be quiet, not make a scene, not worry, not overreact, not be dramatic, not try too hard. Even the simple act of dressing up can make someone say, “Well, aren’t you fancy?” in that tone that somehow manages to make getting dressed feel like a personality defect.
And these days being “extra” is literally another put-down.
I choose the word “ordinary” here on purpose because this is all such an ordinary part of growing up. We figure out what gets approval. We figure out what gets corrected. We figure out what helps us fit in.
When we do ordinary things, we get ordinary results. If we want extraordinary, well, I guess that means we need to do extra. Maybe even BE extra.
I love this quote:
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable.”
— Octavia E. Butler
It speaks to the importance of habits because they’re more consistent and dependable than inspiration. Well, isn’t that a double-edged sword? If we’ve spent decades practicing certain responses, of course those responses start happening before we even realize there was another option.
Maybe the work isn’t becoming some brand-new fearless person. Maybe it’s noticing which habits still serve us and which ones are making choices for us before we even know there was a choice.
Oh If We Only Knew…
The more parenting books I’ve read, the more I’ve realized that not a single one of us was raised perfectly. And that’s okay. We love our parents. They did the best they knew how.
Our teachers did the best they knew how, too. They were trying to help us have a good future. Even worse, most of us are probably doing things right now that our own children will eventually have to sort through.
That’s being human.
Is AI Forcing Us to Differentiate More Than Ever Before?
But we’re living at a really interesting time because authenticity is becoming scarce. AI is writing blog articles, posts, scripts, books, emails, captions, magazine articles, and everything in between. Some of us are getting really good at detecting it, but it doesn’t even matter whether we can detect it.
This is a time for sorting ourselves out, too.
Our own humanity is the thing AI can’t supply for us. AI can be an incredible tool for helping us organize, develop, communicate, and amplify what’s already there, but it can’t live our lives for us. It can’t have our memories, our relationships, our humor, our disappointments, our triumphs, or those weird little moments that made us who we are.
It can’t know what your grandmother always said. It can’t remember the teacher you still think about. It can’t have the ridiculous story about what your kid did at Target twelve years ago unless you give it that story first.
That material belongs to us.
And when we get very practiced at fitting in, it becomes harder to differentiate. That’s the unintended consequence of not sticking out.
You also can’t differentiate.
Not just online. In a meeting. In a relationship. In the way you dress. In the way you make a decision. In what you ask for, what you build, and what you say when somebody disagrees.
Because eventually, if we’re always looking around to make sure our answer is acceptable before we say it, it can get harder to even know what our answer was.
And this is where I started realizing there’s actually a Step Zero before Step One of Drab Rehab.
Step Zero is getting back into the habit of consulting ourselves.
Other people and their opinions absolutely do matter. We live with other people, work with other people, love other people, raise other people, depend on other people, and sometimes those other people know things we don’t.
The point isn’t to stop listening. It’s to stop disappearing from the conversation.
I keep coming back to a few simple questions:
What do I actually think?
What do I want?
What do I like and not like?
What still fits my goals, voice, decisions, style?
What doesn’t?
What would I choose now?
Am I asking for advice because I need information, or because I don’t trust myself to decide?
Am I explaining because the explanation is useful, or because I’m trying to manage somebody else’s reaction?
Those questions are very different from, “What should I wear?”
And yet somehow they lead us right back to the closet.
The bright green jacket you keep picking up and putting back down is information. The dress you love until you imagine someone asking why you’re so dressed up is information. The closet full of things that are perfectly appropriate, perfectly practical, perfectly unobjectionable and make you feel absolutely nothing is information.
Maybe the beige sweater really is your favorite sweater. Great. Keep it.
Maybe you love the career you built. Wonderful.
Maybe your marriage, your home, your routines, your friendships, your Saturday mornings, and half the things you already chose are exactly what you would choose again.
The point isn’t to blow up our lives looking for some buried “authentic self” who supposedly knows all the answers. I don’t think there’s one permanent version of us hiding somewhere underneath the laundry and responsibilities, waiting to be discovered like a prize.
I think it’s simpler than that.
I think we get out of the habit of checking with others before checking with ourselves.
And maybe that’s why changing our clothes sometimes feels strangely difficult even when we know exactly what would look better. It’s not just about whether royal blue is more flattering than gray. It can also bump into years of habit around visibility, fitting in, being appropriate, not trying too hard, and not giving anyone a reason to comment. How many of you tried a bright lip color or bold earrings and someone just had to comment, “Wow, that’s bright,” or “Oh, those are big earrings!”
That’s a lot for one small brave move to handle. So, we stop trying the bold things.
However, as we get clearer about what we think, what matters to us, what we’re good at, what we want, and who we want to be in the world, we can strategically learn how to communicate it with confidence. And personal presence is communication, verbal and nonverbal.
Our words communicate. Our voice communicates. Our body language communicates. Our clothes communicate. Color communicates.
When we’re intentional about self-presentation, the goal isn’t to manufacture a more impressive version of ourselves. It’s to help the outside communicate the person who is actually there more accurately.
As I’ve said so many times, people form impressions of us incredibly quickly. They’re trying to read things like warmth, which basically means, Do you mean well? And competence, which means, Can you deliver what you promise to deliver? Do you have what I need?
An Invitation to Dig Deeper
So Drab Rehab, Part Five, is an invitation to dig deeper.
Because maybe some of us didn’t just end up with closets full of gray, beige, black, navy, and white because that’s what the stores were selling. Maybe the clothes fit into a much larger pattern.
Don’t stand out too much. Don’t inconvenience anyone. Don’t be difficult. Don’t disappoint people. Don’t look like you’re trying too hard. Don’t get too excited.
Don’t be extra.
And after enough years, nobody necessarily has to keep telling us.
We get really good at telling ourselves.
That’s the part I’m interested in because I truly believe that we can make the world a better place by empowering the people who have ideas that make the world a better place. There are already plenty of people in the world who just want to take, take, and take. This publication isn’t for them.
I Really Want to Hear From You
I’m exploring this question much more deeply right now, and I don’t want to make assumptions about where it shows up most for other people. I know where I see it, and I know what I’ve experienced, but that’s not the same thing as knowing what it looks like in your life.
So here’s what I’d really like to know:
Where do you notice yourself disappearing from your own decisions?
Maybe it’s a big decision you keep asking everyone else to make with you. Maybe you set boundaries and then relent when someone pushes back. Maybe you’re incredibly competent in your life but have absolutely no idea what you want next.
Maybe it’s the way you dress, the way you speak, the things you keep saying yes to, or the way you feel like you owe an explanation.
Maybe it’s something I haven’t thought of at all.
Leave it in the comments, or just hit reply to this email and tell me. It doesn’t have to be polished or profound.
I genuinely want to know what being muted actually looks/feels like in your real life.
For this week’s paid section…
A little sneak peek for my paid subscribers because I’m ridiculously excited about this.
As I mentioned, I’m building a 4-month program for women who have real ideas, real skills, and something they genuinely want to champion in the world, but don’t always feel as confident or authoritative as they actually are.
The whole thing is built around the concepts of CALIBRATE • OWN • UNMUTE.
It’s a culmination of over 2 decades of lessons from both my education and coaching background: clients will unearth their authentic voices, build true confidence and assertiveness, and of course, discover impactful self-presentation.
