For years, shopping was my go-to activity for when things weren’t going well in my life.   If I had any sort of bad feelings, I did my best to banish them by heading out to the shops, browsing online stores, or perusing fashion blogs and forums.   I distracted myself from feeling anxiety, worry, fear, sadness, and a whole host of other distressing emotions by means of what many people call “retail therapy.”

Have you ever tried to “fix” your problems through shopping?

I convinced myself that my tactics worked because I did feel better, at least for a while.  But now that I’ve been on my recovering shopaholic journey for almost two years, I feel quite differently.  I now know there are many, many things in life that shopping can’t fix and only one thing it can.   If you head out to fill a legitimate wardrobe gap, you may be able to fix that problem via shopping.  Of course, there’s a fair amount of luck involved in even such directed shopping, but it is possible to fix a defined closet need.   However, that’s the limit to what shopping can do in terms of the problems in our lives. Continue reading →

I’ll start this post off with a story.   Last night, my husband and I had a “date night” to see a movie (“The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” which I really enjoyed).    I decided to wear a dress that I had purchased back in August and had worn once during September.   I didn’t try this dress on for the “first impression test” two weekends ago, as I had worn it so recently, but I really should have.

Do you wear things you don’t love because you feel guilty?

The first time I wore the dress, I didn’t love it.   I partially chocked up those feelings to being bloated and hormonal, but I also I felt the dress was too voluminous.  So I did what I’ve often done in the past.  I brought it to my tailor to have it taken in.   After I picked it up, I tried it on to make sure the alteration had been done correctly.  It seemed fine, so I hung the dress back up in my closet. Continue reading →

About a month ago, I went to the mall in search of a few of the items on my shopping priorities list.  Since I was looking for very specific things, I probably walked into and out of close to half of the stores in the mall.  During the process, I observed many other shoppers and later jotted down a few notes to potentially explore in a future post.  When I shopped again this past weekend, I was reminded of my impressions from the June excursion.

In today’s post, I write from the perspective of a recovering shopaholic who has emerged enough from my compulsion to see it in a different light.  While it’s true that I am not yet completely recovered (that may take a while…), I am sometimes able to view the folly that shopping can be with the wise eyes of an outside observer.  It is my hope that my observations will be helpful to you and will provoke both deep thoughts, as well as lively discussion for those who wish to chime in!

Do you shop til you drop but not have much to show for it?

Continue reading →