Let's Talk About Soulful Shopping
Can Spirituality & Shopping Coexist? I thought it didn't until it did.
So, I’ve decided to start a newsletter about Soulful Shopping.
First, let me point out that the word “soulful” has not been given justice. The soul is a bright, beautiful, light-filled essence I don’t even know why it is lumped with words like sorrow, sadness or tenderness. The soul is the sum total of all our feelings, a deep expression that is more than just melancholy. That said, I’m here to shake things up, correct misconceptions and undo belief systems, and thought I’d start with how we were taught to shop and dress up to look “fashionable”.
But before we get to all that, I’ll preface this with an origin story.
I had my first existential crisis happen when I was five years old. My Mom and I were in the dining room and I remember (like it was yesterday, yes it was a core memory) asking her a barrage of questions, “Why am I me?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Why am I in this body?”. She looked at me quizzically, so I explained further.
“Why does it feel like I am in the center of things looking at everyone, and everyone else is just surrounding me?” (In Filipino, as said in the perspective of a child’s inquiring mind - “Bakit parang ako yung nasa gitna nakatingin sa inyo, and lahat kayo parang naka-ikot lang sa akin?”)
“That’s a bit self-centered!”, my Mom replied and left me pondering on my own. She never answered my question and punctuated it further with a judgment so instead of getting resolved, it occupied my mind for years - I would look at my hands and wonder how did I get into “this”. Why am I in this body and not in another’s? It didn’t feel self-absorbed to me, they were legitimate questions in my head, but by then I was afraid to verbalize something my own mother could not really understand or answer.
When I was not immersed in my thoughts, I gravitated towards Lola Imas, my grandfather’s older sister who owned the sprawling bungalow we lived in. She rarely spoke but had a calm and loving energy. I enjoyed snuggling up to her, squeezing her plump but saggy upper arms and playing with the paper thin skin on the crook of her elbows. I must have been annoying but she doted on me. She was always well-dressed even at home, in airy cotton nightgowns with a light floral housecoat and terry ballerina slippers she would buy at Macy’s in San Francisco. She smelled of Joy by Jean Patou, which she said was the most expensive perfume in the world. I enjoyed slipping into her air-conditioned room (a big deal in the 1980s) to watch her get ready for for going out. For long drives to their hometown of Pila, Laguna, dark glasses and a silk head scarf to wear over her hair. For parties, she would put on a silk chiffon dress and her granny Naturalizer sandals in buttery soft leather and bring out her jewelry which all looked impressive to me.
It was her influence that instilled in me an appreciation for beautiful things. By the time I discovered the joys of shopping for clothes and shoes in the US at age 7, spending an entire summer with my Mom and sister Trina visiting Lola Imas at her Larkin Street home in downtown San Francisco and then meeting up with my Dad who was wrapping up his studies in Georgia, I found myself happily immersed in the highs of looking for interesting things and acquiring them, that thinking about why I even existed had lost its appeal. It was literally shopping giving me life!
By the time I was in my teens, I thought I had found my purpose - I was the girl who knew all the must haves, the one to ask about all things cool and trendy. And I knew where to buy them (this was pre-Google, kids). I was not interested in the pursuit of academic excellence, popularity or looking attractive to boys (which also happens to be a quality of stylish women - they dress for themselves and maybe sometimes, other women but never for men). While every girl in school who was not into grunge or heavy metal bands seemed to be obsessed with either Johnny Depp, Jared Leto or Leonardo di Caprio, shrieking through Tiger Beat magazines during recess, I really couldn’t care less about anything else, except fashion and shopping. Well that, and having good skin. My seatmate Xsa, the smartest girl in our class, had a Kerokerokeroppi pocket mirror that I would often borrow so I could check on my bangs and skin. She was very patient with me and thought I was amusing, and I thought she had good taste in stuff, we struck a friendship and remain good friends to this day. Why I never got my own pocket mirror I can’t explain, but the skin obsession is another topic we’ll eventually unpack later on. Watch out for it. LOL.
In my college years, I devotedly devoured all the Vogue and InStyle issues I could get my hands on and read all I could about my favorite style icons - Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Onassis and the quintessential French Girl, which I realized was a British obsession even way back in the mid 1990s (British Vogue always had an article that referenced a fascination with the women on the other side of the pond). When traveling abroad, I would mentally take snapshots of chic women, the most iconic ones still captured in my memory.
Ultimately, I reached a point in my life decades later (exactly when is a bit embarrassing to admit), where I had a closet literally bursting with everything I ever wanted, and still felt incomplete. The Law of Marginal Diminishing Utility had caught up with me (ok, I admit I am a bit of a nerd too).
Where was the meaning in all of this? Did I just waste my life in the pursuit of temporal highs? I felt petty and shallow. Shopping and writing about pretty things no longer brought me joy.
I sought for life’s meaning in trauma therapy, healing modalities, talking to a life coach and a shrink, and cultivating a mindfulness practice in meditation, tidying and journaling. It was messy, it was expensive, it took a long time for things to click, but in the end, it was all worth it.
In the course of all this inner work, I realized that everything I went through served a purpose. I realized it wasn’t fashion I was interested in, but the pursuit of knowing myself and shaping my identity through tangible things, physical stuff that I could see, feel and make sense of. In developing my own personal style, I discovered what I liked, what I found value in and why I buy what I buy. It didn’t tell me who I was, but it gave me a sense of who I was becoming and who I wanted to be. It also led me to create - clothes that I wanted to wear but couldn’t find locally, start Tilda, an online store I co-founded with friends filled with thoughtfully sourced items from brands who share our values, and @sparkjoy.ph, a tidying practice with the advocacy of surrounding ourselves only with what sparks joy. Most importantly, all those decades spent shopping honed my eye for quality and gave me an innate feel for “without fail” wardrobe classics. Tidying countless spaces helped me attune to the energy and vibration of things and spaces. After all, as a @sikodiwa post on Instagram shares, “Spiritual things have material dimensions too.” But yeah, I’m not gonna lie, I still get a thrill slipping into a pair of Lasso Jeans from BSides or knowing that our shipment of handmade Ancient Greek Sandals made from chemical-free leather finally arrived.
So who am I and why am I here? The stirrings of “awareness of self” started early, but the awakening did not happen until much later, when my logical brain and physical body finally caught up with my mind and soul. And our soul is who we truly are. We are spiritual beings having a human experience and that is why it seemed so strange for me to be in my body. Awakening to this realization is especially scary when you discover very few come to terms with it (not even our loved ones do), and even fewer tread the path to spirituality.
Long and circuitous my path may seem, it came together in perfect timing. I realized waking up at this point in time placed me in a position to help those who are also figuring out how to straddle the material and spiritual dimensions. I feel called to help clear the path to making thoughtful choices. It may be a newsletter about shopping but I am not here to encourage you to shop more, or to loop you into “budol” (something like an impulsive action done in a trance-like state) buys. We’re here for soul filled finds, to come together bonded by a pure appreciation for objects and crafts made with intent and care, that connect us to artisans and communities, and help us build a mindful, more sustainable world.
So when our kids ask us, “Why am I me?” We can answer, “Because your soul chose to be here now. In this beautiful place that celebrates heart-centered creations, growth and transformation, where you can expand your consciousness to fully and authentically live your true essence.”