A Fashion Blogger’s Guide to Break-Ups: Yoga, Writing and Coffee Breaks.

A Fashion Blogger’s Guide to Break-Ups: Yoga, Writing and Coffee Breaks.

This season, the fashion world was abuzz with news of yet another estranged beau-tographer and style blogger. You can always tell when what was once a blissful marriage of camera and subject is now on the rocks. The selfies with peonies turn into cursive quotations about the universe’s timing, and the said blogger will chop her hair off, pictures come less often; her style goes from Kate Spade to Margiela.

A break-up is in every sense of the word a break with the way life’s been doing – the routine, if you will. Hence the disappearance of peonies and change in hairstyle (however cliché). A break-up is a time when your life changes. Change is hard. But sometimes, change is necessary.

Even though I’m currently in a happy relationship with my own beau-tographer I am no stranger to the terrifying perils and transformative powers of a break-up: the inevitable rite of passage most of us will, at some point, experience. All my break-ups, although I didn’t know it at the time, were actually paving the way for a happier version of myself.

The last breakup I went through was particularly hard. When my relationship ended, everything around me came crumbling down. I quit my job, I quit smoking (which I had taken up as a way to cope with my anxiety), and I almost quit my blog. I really felt as though I had nothing left to give to the world. This was a scary feeling – it freaked me out, but instead of running from it, I went towards it. I stopped everything that I was used to doing and sat in front of a blank space for about two weeks. I didn’t answer any phone calls, I didn’t blog, I didn’t see my friends. I didn’t do anything except visit a psychologist.

After a few sessions, I was able to focus on the next steps. It became very clear to me that I needed to do two things: Yoga and Write. So, I signed up for a Bikram class and gave myself one year to whole-heartedly pursue blogging.

Bikram yoga was both an emotional release of my past and an enlightenment to my future. There were moments in class when my mat would be covered in tears and sweat; I never felt more alive. Yoga healed my broken heart and gave me the courage to love myself (and my blog). Nowadays, there are resources like the breakupandmove.ca event happening at university campuses across Canada. They offer free yoga classes, relationship experts, and panel discussions on everything from health decisions to dating. I think it’s an amazing resource for young women as it was indeed through yoga, talking to a healthcare professional and breaking up with my old habits that ultimately helped me change my life.

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A year or so later, I found myself at New York Fashion Week with the love of my life. I picked up an industry magazine at an event, and one evening I decided to take a coffee break and flip through it. I read the following quote in the Editor’s Letter:

“Transformation [is] the ability to move on from what has been successful while it is still working. Changing a winning formula is not for the faint hearted, it requires the courage to stick your neck out and invite the idea of failure back into your life.”

Truer words were never spoken. Change is scary because beyond it lies uncertainty but sometimes you need to break away from what’s comfortable, break the routine, and invite transformation into your life.

Once I was open to moving on, it was alarming how quickly the universe moved everything around me to make things happen. It still amazes me to this day how fast my life changed when I truly let go of all doubt. Every so often I remind myself to shake things up, even now, because you never know what magic you can dream up if you give yourself the chance to break up with your routine, even if it’s only enough time for a coffee break, a yoga class or to write a blog post just like this one.

To get inspired to break up and move with not-so-great things in your life, check out breakupandmove.ca to track events happening all across Canada. For my lovely readers in British Columbia, the next event is on March 5th at UBC! 

8 Comments

  1. Mirella
    March 5, 2015 / 6:49 pm

    Excellent!!!! Well written!!!

  2. Suni S
    June 29, 2015 / 6:09 pm

    Love this!! Catching up on my favorite bloggers kinda evening :)

    • Justine Iaboni
      July 2, 2015 / 7:00 am

      xoxoxoxo

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