Delores Liesner
Activating Faith in everyday life
Shapley Girl Month Countdown: Goal -3
Shapely Girl Fitness review begins Monday for the month of August, and so I continue the preparation. 
Have you read about women who clean house because the housekeeper is coming? (I’ve never had a housekeeper, but it makes perfect sense to me – and will to my friend, Barb).
Barb offered to come over during the first week in October to help me thin out my closet. In preparation for that visit, you guessed it, I did the first step – the worst part –
A closet detox!
When detoxing, you first of all admit you have to something to get rid of …something that is superfluous to good health and being a steward of nutrition, time and energy. This closet has been draining me in all three areas.
Detox is a physical practice of removing through elimination and cleansing, energy-deteriorating compilations in the body that cause weight retention, sluggishness, and many other outward manifestations of long-term results of unhealthy habits. It’s often the result of the accumulation of an emotionally driven habit.
In a closet?
Well, yes, if you are like me! My closet is filled with emotional purchases as I have collected more and more clothing believing that they would make me look slimmer or taller or younger, and the longer I have kept these ‘false promises’ in my closet, the only way they have changed is to become smaller!
The jammed closet all too closely resembles the chaos of my health habits, and it was time I admit the truth. The emotional truth. I have been a clothes junkie depending on fabric and color and design to try to hide what I once confronted at an introductory visit to Curves. After taking my measurements, the woman asked me what size clothing I thought I wore, because I was wearing clothing one-two sizes smaller than my measurements!
Embarrassing. Humiliating. And I thought I hid the truth by wearing 2 or 3 “slimming” or “smoothing” undergarments. Not.
So, I did it. I tried on every piece of clothing and removed those that don’t fit. First the slacks and jeans, then skirts, then tops. Because I have only 6-8 dresses, I left those for the second purge with friend Barb. The point is that it took two days to complete this ritual, and it resulted in the removal of about 150# of clothing (per my husband, who lugged the bags up to the attic for future visits (i.e. a size smaller or a rummage sale next summer).
Also removed was hours of maintaining what I was not really using. Trying on and finding they don’t fit yet, they don’t make me feel great…you know – those things that get moved around until they get washed and hung again to squish and wrinkle the few things that DO fit. So they are gone – several sizes of them. Did I really think I would be a size 4 again? And even if I were, it is unlikely the same item would be in style again.
So what have I left for Barb? Plenty. Though all fit, a second set of eyes will tell me if some are loose enough to be sloppy, too bland for my now silver hair, or if the cut of an outfit that is in a color I love just doesn’t do me any favors.
Let’s be realistic. It was painful, but I’d have been much more embarrassed to make my friend sit here for 16-20 hours while I tried to shimmy into those bags of clothes now in the attic. Personal humiliation is bad enough, thank you very much.
It felt great to go into the closet this morning and grab an outfit and know it would fit. It gave me hope to know when I start using the ShapelyGirl Fitness video on Monday, I won’t look like, or feel like, a sausage in my exercise clothes. I will be comfortable and comfortably on my way to a lighter heart, body, and closet!
Luke 12:22-23 …do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. “For life is more than food, and the body than clothing.”
Are you getting ready to join me on a month of health? Anything you need to detox? I want all those emotional crutches out of my house by Monday. Two more days of preparation to go. Looking forward to Monday… Go Shapely Girls! 
3 Comments on “Shapley Girl Month Countdown: Goal -3”
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Be the Miracle! – with journaling pages
Delores Liesner: Author
American Christian Fiction Writers Association
Delores Liesner 
I just got rid of a bunch of clothing in my closet yesterday. It felt good to get rid of things I haven’t worn in 2+ years.
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Kaylyn,
I’m so glad to hear you took the initiative to do that! It’s not just the clothes, we put out, but the unseen that uses up our precious time! Have you ever read the little booklet, My Heart, Christ’s Home by Robert Munger? Any kind of cleaning always brings me back to that story of going through room by room of my heart, cleaning out each area, so I’m not ashamed to open the door for Christ to see it all. The closet to me, represents a lot of hidden emotions- efforts to cover up what is real, to seek approval of others, while glossing over what I need to do before God. (Kind of like when I got company unexpectedly and shoved all the unclean Tupperware and dishes in the oven. Later I forgot they were in there and melted some!)
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Yay for you! You have been an inspiration to me in many ways. You have such an eye for beauty…and it was fun hunting for that beautiful bag. I think of you and say a prayer for you every time I use it! I know also that Ken wishes I were more like you in the areas of organization and neatness 🙂 Amazing our different styles of organizing chaos have survived each other!
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