No Longer Settling: Why *I* and Rebel Style Had to Become More..
For a long time, I tried to make my work smaller than it wanted to be.
Not because I didn’t care, but because focusing on style alone felt safer. And that is what people wanted. And as a master people pleaser and notorious ‘good girl’ - I always did what people wanted.
And yet, something always just felt off….
Because style, without identity, is just performance. And cutting identity out of the work felt like cutting out the very thing that mattered most.
Where I Was Settling (Without Fully Realizing It)
In 2025, one of the biggest realizations I had was this:
I wasn’t settling because I lacked ambition or clarity. I was settling because I was editing myself. I trusted the opinions of others far more than I trusted myself.
Instead, I stayed in conversations that centered on:
What’s my color code?
What’s my style personality?
How do I put an outfit together?
But what I was longing to explore - and quietly avoiding - were the deeper questions:
Who am I now?
What no longer fits? Not just in my closet, but in my life?
Where have I been choosing approval over alignment?
Here me in this: Exploring style isn’t wrong. Wanting to know your colors is a foundational aspect of style that is important to know! Style was never the issue. It was the entry point. Yet I craved MORE…
What I Learned When I Stopped Cutting Myself in Half
When I finally introduced identity into the work, everything shifted. But it did not happen overnight and it most certainly was not linear. As I was learning about the deeper identity work, I had to experience it for myself first hand and MAN did that have an impact.
Not because it was easier (hell to the no!) but because it was honest.
Here is what I’ve experienced:
If you look put together, yet feel totally disconnected, what’s the point?!
If you “do all the right things” and still feel unseen - you will feel overlooked and invisible
And this is a biggie: You can outgrow a version of yourself long before you are even aware that it’s happening until suddenly - it’s undeniable that it no longer fits and that is when the loss & grief hits.
And the finale: When you no longer fit where you’ve been, yet you aren’t quite at the destination of where you know you are going, the only true place left you can trust and turn to - is inward.
Key point: Even though I thought focusing on style and outward appearance was what people wanted, by doing that, I was unintentionally helping women polish versions of themselves they had already outgrown. And I was doing the same thing to myself. BOOM.
Choosing Alignment Over Comfort
2025 asked me to get a whole new level of uncomfortable.
To ask questions that didn’t have immediate answers:
What am I actually here to say?
Where am I playing it safe instead of telling the truth?
What would this look like if I stopped trying to be easily understood?
Rebel Style began to shift the moment I stopped asking, “What will land?”
and started asking, “What’s true?”
That choice - over & over again - is the work. And the work, my friend, is where the true magic happens.
What This Means for You
If you’re reading this and feeling that quiet nudge - that something in your life looks fine on the outside but feels misaligned on the inside - this is your permission slip.
You don’t have to burn it all down. But you do have to stop pretending you don’t feel it.
The hard work isn’t a new wardrobe. It’s asking:
Who am I becoming?
What am I tolerating that no longer honors me?
What would change if I trusted myself more?
Those are Rebel Style questions.
This Is the Rebel Style Movement
Rebel Style isn’t about rejecting style. It’s about refusing to use style to hide. It’s about:
Choosing identity over image
Alignment over approval
Wholeness and embodiment over convenience or surface level
Honestly? I’m still walking this path. I’m still learning where I’ve been settling and it’s a daily exercise in courage to choose truth over comfort - and I don’t always get it right - but I’m committed to doing the work.
And that’s exactly why this is a movement—not a destination.
Come Walk With Me
If you’re done settling for what almost fits…
If you’re ready to do the inner work and not just surface level…
If you’re willing to ask the harder questions and sit with the discomfort in the answers…
Rebel Style was created for you.
Not because I have it all figured out but because I’m committed to not cutting myself in half anymore.
And I invite you to do the same.