I have nothing to wear!
By Brian McLoughlin
‘I don’t understand women,’ said Harry, in exasperation, ‘or maybe it’s just my wife. She’s got millions of outfits, yet far too often she comes out with that statement: I have nothing to wear, and off she goes shopping again.’
‘It’s not your wife you don’t understand,’ replied Jason, ‘it’s shopping. I understand shopping; I’m a therapist. I categorise shopping into three types.
'The first type is Shopping as Acquisition, which is groceries and the like. The woman knows what she wants. She gets the items. Or she sends her man with a list.
'Once, a couple came to me. The wife sent her husband shopping with their three-year-old. She made a list. When he came back, the list was fulfilled perfectly, but the three-year-old wasn’t there. Missing.
'They found the child in a shop, so happy ending. The wife gave out to the husband but I explained it was her fault. She who insists on a list must be all inclusive. Look after child, she forgot to put on the list.
'That’s Shopping as Acquisition. With me?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The next is Shopping as Art – the ing emphasised. This is the outfit for the female but much more. It’s the mystery, the purity, the art. Art always begins with a blank canvas. Just as a painter begins with a blank canvas, the pure shopper does likewise with that statement: I have nothing to wear. This is her blank canvas, dissociating all previous carnations of wardrobe to become the empty vessel on which purity of creation emerges.’
‘So that’s what I have nothing to wear means.’
‘You’ve just learned something really useful here. The woman doesn’t know what she wants. She goes looking for it, even though she doesn’t know what she’s looking for. But when she finds it, she’ll know what it is even though she didn’t know what it was. That’s shopping as art. As purity.’
‘How does she know the one to go for?’
‘The one, exactly, because it’s not choice; it’s flow. The outfit reveals itself. A present from the universe because she’s in the state of presence. The process is not rejecting outfits because that’s rejection. The outfits not chosen are honoured because they’re integral to the process that leads to the one, the one that perfectly reflects her particular essence of that day. Nothing is torn.’
‘Torn?’
‘Torn between two outfits is like torn between two lovers. Something gets torn and you lose. Torn is not creative, it’s artless. It can lead to addiction, because underlying it is not flow, but lack. Something is missing. Often the woman doesn’t feel loved.’
‘Loved?’
‘The woman’s shopping loses its art, its purity when it’s driven by a negative belief of herself. It’s not pure when she’s shopping out of a need to feel loved. She may buy many outfits, but if the identity she’s compensating from is not being transformed within, shopping will become addictive. That’s Shopping as Addiction, the third type. Everything hurts because nothing satisfies. Her wardrobe expands but not her happiness. All is sad, and she can’t look to husband to satisfy her because he’s not listening and therefore not loving.’
‘And where does retail therapy fit into this?’
‘That simply means shopping is done to feel cheerful. Perhaps if you cheered up, your wife wouldn’t need to shop as often to cheer herself up. Cheer up; it’ll improve things all around.’