During the summer of 2017, my marriage took a nosedive (and in truth, it had been making a slow descent for years prior due to the mental baggage we had both brought into the relationship). As my husband became increasingly distant, I sought to reconnect the marriage, but eventually, things came to a head. In August 2017, he told me he was leaving for good, and my entire world crumbled. I walked around in disbelief for days and became a shadow of myself. In a blink, my world ceased to exist as I knew it. I was no longer a wife. I was no longer part of a “traditional” family unit. I would be a divorced woman and a single mother – something I NEVER saw for myself.

A few weeks later, in September 2017, my daughter and I went to NYC for my birthday. I didn’t want to go (honestly, I just wanted to curl up in bed and disappear), but I also didn’t want to disappoint her. Shortly after our arrival, we were walking through Soho, and I saw Mango – a store I had LOVED to shop at when I lived in Paris in 1998. I had never seen a Mango store in the States, so I was excited for the first time in weeks and filled with nostalgia. We popped in, and almost immediately, I was drawn to a green dress near the front window. My weight at the time was nowhere NEAR where I felt good about buying clothing (and my self-love was non-existent), but I decided that this dress would be my inspiration for a “new me.” I decided right there that everything would come together again, and this would be the dress I would wear as soon as I arrived. I’d be this new and improved version of myself – Jackie 2.0. I was having a complete Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman moment.

Well, like many big ideas, we went home, and life moved on. That dress got buried in the closet while I struggled daily to keep moving forward. The following year, I still felt completely lost and stuck, and I KNEW I couldn’t stay there. I needed help ASAP. I began connecting with coaches, mentors, teachers, and healers, trying every type of coaching and healing modality I could get my hands on. I was a single mom running two businesses now, and my ONLY goal at that time was to feel some lightness and freedom again while meeting all the new demands of my new life. And over time, step by step, things got better.

Months later, as I prepared to move into my new home, I encountered that green dress again. I was taken back to that moment when I saw an empowered, beautiful future for myself. And it hit me; it wasn’t about fitting into that dress, my weight, my looks – any of it. It’s about KNOWING and ACCEPTING when you’ve outgrown a version of yourself and being brave enough to EMBRACE and LOVE where you’re at today – the dress that fits right now. Once I lovingly accepted that these new realities and roles in my life were, in fact, the right fit – things got much better.

The green dress still hangs in my closet, but I’ve changed how I see it. It’s not about forcing myself to fit into a dress anymore but about the journey to embrace the one that was hiding in your closet all along. This is for you if you’re ready to stop shrinking to trying to fit something you’ve outgrown (or never fit in the first place). Let’s figure out YOUR green dress!

Much love, Jackie