Most of us understand that we look to others in order to get our needs met, and we can also understand that this is not healthy.  What we may not realize is that we look to our things to meet our needs as well.  On a surface level, our objects really can do this.  A tea kettle gives us hot water, a vase holds flowers, shoes protect the soles of our feet, an art book gives us inspiration.  Yet, we are the only ones who can truly meet our needs from within.  Learning this is is a process, which includes stripping our conditioning and false ideas of self; however, we can start this process by leaning into each moment.  What do I need right now? Grounding? Self care? Inspiration? To just be okay alone?  All of these answers can be met by simply taking a walk in nature and/or meditating.  So rather than looking to our things to fulfill our deeper needs (when misused this often looks like projecting a false sense of identity, power, or status onto objects), we can look to them to help us do the work.  We can transform “I want that because it’s pretty,” to “how can this serve me?”  Perhaps a vase will help you to create a ritual of foraging greenery once a week.  A tea kettle that you love will inspire you to make more tonics or simply to sit down once a day with a cup of tea on your porch.  An art book will inspire you to flip through its pages instead of Instagram photos.  A small ceramic plate will hold space for your palo santo, which will remind you to light the incense and take 15 minutes to meditate.  

Our objects are an extension of us not because they communicate who we are, but rather because they are the vessels in which we transmit connection.  As I’ve mentioned before, our objects are mirrors, reflections back at us.  Unlike humans, objects don’t have agendas or egos.  They don’t even have life or breath without us, so we can really see ourselves clearly in our relationships with them because they are incapable of projecting anything onto us - the reflections back are solely from our own projections.  These projections reveal what we need to shift within ourselves.  Our objects are simply there to serve us.  They can be used as gateways to discovery and learning - not only by aiding us in our rituals, but also by looking at the ways in which we project onto them from our ego space.  What if you only acquired objects to aid in your growth? What if you transformed your relationship with the objects you already have in order to serve a greater purpose?  Start with one object.  Ask it how it serves you.  If the answer that comes through is that it serves something coming from the ego, then ask how it can serve you from your heart space?  How can it aid you in order to meet a need from within? 

Photography by Angi Welsch & styling by me, for Jenni Kayne.

Last week I got an accidental haircut.  I went in for a complimentary touch-up (less than a trim) and came out with 4 inches of less hair.  I cried as soon as I stepped out of the salon door and continued in my car for the whole hour-long drive home, and for two more days after.  I felt ugly, but more specifically - I didn’t feel like myself.  When I looked in the mirror, I felt like a stranger in my own skin.  I’ve had so many different haircuts and styles over the last three and half years, so I was surprised by my reaction.  I had very long hair for most of my life and decided to chop it in 2014.  This initial cut was such a freeing experience, and has continued to be over the last few years.  I was once told that I would only look good with long hair, and I truly felt that was true... until I cut it.  I felt like I didn’t have to hide behind my long locks anymore.  I can feel pretty and sexy and confident with short hair?  Yes, and even more so than I had ever felt before.  Why? Perhaps because it was an external form of stripping (in this case shedding).  Shedding the physical hair, yet also the ideas and lies I had been fed and continued to feed myself.  “I’m not the kind of person who looks good like x.”  I’ve since experimented with many lengths ranging from my chin to my shoulder, and a few different styles of bangs.  So why was this recent haircut such a shock?  Beyond not setting out to do it on purpose and it being such a drastic change - conditioning.  In this case, I felt like I couldn’t have hair shorter than my chin because I have a strong jaw and long chin, and therefore the proportions of my face would be accentuated in an unflattering way. 

I have felt like that often throughout my life, and not just with my hair, but also with much deeper subjects.  This conditioning can be so insideous.  In the beginning of this year, I vowed for unapologetic self-acceptance.  I believe this haircut has been a small part of that journey.  After I let myself cry and complain and feel the emotions, I knew I had to face myself.  Why am I so hung up on how I look?  Why do specific hairstyles help me to feel like me?  This is a heavy topic.  What makes us who we are?  Our hair certainly has nothing to do with it.  How can I learn to feel “like myself” right now, without something that shapes my identity in the way I want to be seen?  I’m not going to wait for my hair to grow out again to be able to sigh and go, “okay now I feel better.”  Fuck that.  That is such a restricted, stifled way to live, and I’ve lived too much of my life that way already.  So I went within.  I listened.  What came up is that I still seek approval from my mom.  I don’t allow this to effect my actions (hence cutting my hair off and dying it red as a teenager and chopping it again a few years ago), yet I still want her to think I’m beautiful.  Because she put so much emphasis on beauty during my upbringing.  Because she was always more noticed and accepted for her beauty than I was.  This is all bullshit because it has nothing to do with the truth.  It simply stems from barriers I created as a result of the environment I was conditioned in.  Once this clear truth (the truth of the conditioning) came through, I was able to let it go.  I talked to her.  I told her she was beautiful and had something to offer the world.  I told her that my hair has nothing to do with her (something she already knows), that she is who she is regardless of appearances, circumstances and beyond.  She is infinite.  She is my essence.  In her highest self, she has no fear.  She is always in the truth, and she is courageous in her truth.  She is me.  I am her.  

I know this, yet I get caught up in my humanness (as humans do).  In my appearance, my identity.  So what’s all of that for?  Perhaps mirages for us to grow through and overcome.  Yet also, without our identities, we would all appear the same.  The beautiful thing about the external world is that we get to choose.  We get to choose how we present ourselves - with our clothing, hairstyles, spaces.  We have the freedom of self-expression.  What hairstyle (and outfits and home items) would you choose if you broke down some of the conditioning around identity?  If you detached from your identity and made choices from your truest form, without trying to prove anything to yourself or others?  In this case, I didn’t make the choice of how my hair would look, but I choose to embrace it - to see myself clearly regardless.  The importance does not lie in the choice itself, it lies in the intention behind it.  When we don’t have motives, or when the only motive we have is to feel connected to ourselves, we become free.

Photo by Jamie Arrigo

For someone who is obsessed with skincare, my routine is extremely simple.  I have only a few great products in my rotation.  In the morning, I cleanse with Pai's cleanser, followed by an oil of my liking, then Ursa Major of VT sunscreen.  In the evening I do the same sans the sunscreen - that’s it.  I will occasionally add in a serum or an extra oil, and I do a mask once a week.  My skin loves simplicity and has been so much calmer since I stripped down my routine.  I still get breakouts, but they’re usually less severe, and when I do get them, I just allow my skin to be where it wants to be.  

I recently started to use F. Miller Skincare products, and I am in love with everything I’ve tried so far.  I’ve been using the face oil day and night, and my skin loves it.  My skin has been less red/irritated and very hydrated and dewy (without being greasy).  I’ve also noticed a reduction of the small comedones I get on my chin and forehead.  It doubles as a beautiful essential oil blend to inhale before applying - with neroli, jasmine, frankincense, and bergamot.  These are some of my favorite essential oils, and they smell so delicious together.  

I’ve also been using the eye treatment oil.  I especially love the stainless steel roller - it’s incredibly cooling and refreshing to the touch.  The skin around my eyes is easily irritated, and I often get eczema on my eyelids, which is why I can only use select oils/creams on my face.  Typically, when I try something new, it’s an immediate no.  This product is so gentle, and it has the opposite effect - it’s calming, and it reduces my puffiness in the morning.  I'm completely in love! 

The body oil is so yummy and luxurious.  I’ve been using it after every shower, and it soaks easily into damp skin.  Try it.  You'll love it.

I’ve never used hair oil, and I have no idea why because I have very coarse, frizzy hair.  This hair oil does not make my hair greasy at all, and calms my frizz.  I use it on both my naturally-dried and blow-dried hair.

Not only is this line ton-toxic and cruelty-free, it's also independently owned by an incredible woman, Fran.  I had the pleasure of meeting her recently, and she's amazing.  If you try any of these products, your skin and hair will thank her.

I’ve always known this intellectually, that I am enough.  I am whole on my own.  I don’t need anyone or anything to aid in being enough.  Yet, as I’ve been examining areas and experiences in my life, I’m finding that I’m not fully “there” yet.  I still at times experience guilt and shame for simply being me.  This is absolutely from past conditioning, which I’m working on stripping (it’s a process), hence the name of this series. 

When I dove into the feeling of not being enough, I realized that it has in the past manifested as presenting myself a certain way in order to be seen for who I am.  This has typically been tied to my possessions, not my personality.  It was extremely difficult to accept this as true because I’ve never used my “things” to prove anything to others.  But I have used my things as a way to feel like myself.  Perhaps it was filling myself with a false sense of authenticity - even if the objects resonated with me.  This is why I stress that this work is rooted in the relationship we have with our objects, not the objects themselves.  I can only be myself and feel like myself in my nakedness.  So when I’m seeking something from them (objects), I am unable to seek the same subject or theme from myself.  In simpler terms - I’m looking in the wrong places.  I have everything I need within, so when I look to external sources, even for self-confirmation of any kind (even if the sources are healthy people we love or ethical objects we love), I’m reverberating that in some capacity, I am not enough.

Lately, I’ve been going through the process of ridding myself of almost all of my things.  Not because I made the decision to, or wanted to, but because in a higher sense I am being asked to.  I’m simply choosing to follow that nudge.  At the same time, I’ve had some illuminating, painful, and beautiful realizations and “aha” moments (through Unblocked Reparent, meditation, and other intuitive work).  I realized that growing up, I had to deny so many parts of myself in order to exist in my environment - I was not able to simply be me.   The process I’m going through now - while incredibly uncomfortable - feels like a beautiful gift.  A gift of being born again, in order to rise as my true self.  I’ve been given a clean slate, to metaphorically go back into the womb, as a gestation period.  So rather than adding things into my life to fill any emptiness I may be feeling, I’m shedding life as I know it (ideas, ways of being, things) in order to open the space for me to be enough without any of it - with nothing but my naked self.  I have no crutch to fall back on, and I don’t need one.  No one does.

This work is not about curating a perfect lifestyle.  It’s about warmth and invitation - to yourself.  Your needs, desires, fears, flaws.  It’s an invitation to all of it.  To examine it so that you can form a new relationship with yourself in order grow.  Just like our relationships with people, our objects are our mirrors.  Examine each one of your objects.  First check-in with yourself, and then ask the object - what are you here for?  What are you showing me?

If you are looking to go deeper into this work, you can book a one-on-one session here. 

Photo by Claire Cottrell.