664 thoughts on “My Relationship with the Fashion Industry – Changed by the Way I Live”

1. I’m not in the fashion industry, but I understand the falsities of glamour and thinking that it must be great to travel around the world. Why do we do this? Why do we think another job is better than another?

   I used to get the same reception working in the health care industry, thinking working in maternity must be fantastic with the babies. It is a far cry from this. We meet people at their most vulnerable times, we see many things play out that often plays out in their lives.

   When we invest in images, it serves us not. If we go to any industry with no expectations of how we think its going to be, but we know what we can bring to it, then our lives are different.

   Every industry has a role to play in the world, so let not the industry own you, you own you and the industry will be what it will be – for the time being…

2. Making working in the fashion industry about people brings beauty to where it is most needed – on the inside.

3. Adele its amazing around the world how many industries allow abuse just so that they can look the best. It’s interesting in particularly the fashion industry has come under scrutiny with how the models appear more and more emaciated and there’s more acceptance of bigger sized models.

   I used to have this image that it would be awesome to travel, show your beauty around on the catwalk and that it was always a better life somewhere else. Yet we can change those thoughts in a heartbeat and realise all of those desires and needs are within us all and in that we can say no to what does not serve.

   It is ultimately down to us what we say yes and no to and when we follow those impulses that are loving for us and our bodies, then any industry is offered a reflection that there is another way to love and live. Let us be that beacon and reflect that to others no matter what is going on around us.

   1. Saying no to abuse, and yes to self-care and self love, ‘ I simply began taking deep care of my body. The first thing that I did was to change my sleeping patterns by starting to go to sleep around 9pm, simply because I could not stay awake at night.’ Sleep is a super important element of looking after ourselves.

   2. The reflection may not change an industry, but it can inspire others to take care of themselves when something in a person sees a movement in you that is different to everyone else. It only requires you to be consistent for another to observe what is in you, and the ripple can be felt even it’s unseen by the naked eye.

4. Being joy-full in life eventually takes us down the path of appreciation, and thus a re-connection to our divine essences (Soul), which is what the abusive behaviour’s we all have had try and keep us away from.

5. What I love about what you have shared Adele is that looking after yourself does not mean you cannot work hard and have ‘intense’ projects. Looking after yourself is about consistently making choices that will support you with work and all other commitments in life. This is important to realize as it is not necessarily about stopping all the work one does, but rather about looking at how one does it and then ensuring the care is in this to the maximum and that the way one is in the job is not depleting oneself.

   1. There is working hard in drive which keeps you in a cycle of turmoil, or working hard by staying with yourself and the love of serving others, then there is no exhaustion and burnout. A BIG difference to the way we live in our work.

      1. Shushila I agree with you that when we are living life from drive and the need to get something done, then there is a tendency to go into overwhelm and stress. When we take care of ourselves as we work then there seems to be more space so that there is no sense of rushing it is a completely different way to live and is deeply satisfying.

   2. Making consistent choices to support you with life and work is important, ‘I further deepened this care by nourishing myself with fresh and healthy foods and drinking more water, and taking the care to make lunch for myself and to bring it to work.’

6. Being a chef is another industry that is renown for unhealthy choices, and so is the building industry, and being in the Police force etc so there are many careers one can choose from that do not have the care and consideration of the body as a focus first and foremost. That said most careers in our society are not a package deal with care added to it – it is something that we must choose for ourselves. Even working as a naturopath, in natural medicine, one still has to make the choice to look after oneself as no one else can do this for you – late nights and early mornings can be a part of a busy clinic and juggling staff and ensuring that there is harmony in the team etc. Stress can follow us around and we cannot assume that is due to the career (though admittedly there are some careers that are certainly more wearing than others). Amazing sharing Adele as this really does open up a can of worms to see the lack of care in our society.

   1. There are some industries that are pretty abusive on our health, it is up to us to choose to take care of ourselves no matter what, ‘ My body felt desperately exhausted and therefore my whole demeanour was shouting exhaustion – my face looked tired, my posture was limp and had no vitality – and that is what the fashion industry has made as a trademark for ‘cool’.’ I can back this up, because when I first saw you, your appearance had no vitality!

7. Adele, amazing to feel the turnaround that you have done here. And though this is an example from the fashion industry, this is applicable to so many other industries too and hence we can all learn from this that we do have a choice in the matter and that our body and who we are matters and the only person who will make that choice and that change is us.

8. The truth of the fashion industry revealed. Also shocking how because of status or positions people are in they think they can get away with anything ‘and many stole from us as well, but we were not allowed to say no to them’. However, what I absolutely love is that within this abusive industry you have completely changed the way you work loving and honouring you first … very cool and a ripple affect out to all that it is easy for us to do the same ✨

   1. Absolutely Vicky, one day it will be “cool” to be fiery (Soul-fully connected) and an instrument of God in every industry.

   2. People will have Adele’s reflection, and so question their way of living, ‘On the odd occasion when big styling jobs drop me because of the way I choose to live and respect myself, I come back to the focus that no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.’ Absolutely.

9. What I am noticing is that the more loving and self-caring I am the less anxiousness I feel. I now place myself in situations where once upon time I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing and the beauty of it is that I am really enjoying myself, the joy in the connection to me.

   1. A very powerful realization Caroline – and wonderful when we can share such an experience and how it has supported us in our lives.

   2. Beautiful to read how you now enjoy yourself, and in situations that previously you would have said ‘no’ to.

10. A beautiful sharing Adele, of making choices that were true and loving for you… the ripple effect of that is far reaching.

11. We can bring change to every industry if we just live true to ourselves.

    1. This is spot on Elizabeth – others will see and feel the choices we make and hence this can then in turn inspire them to do likewise. This is the true power of change – living the change so others can then choose likewise.

12. No matter how alluring something looks, we always have to ask what is really going on? So often people put themselves through all sorts of hoops to get the position and like the swan, it all looks good above the water, but underneath we are working like crazy to maintain our composure.
    What if we flip that, and start with the natural stillness, and then let that roll out across our lives, our work, our family… never give up on that quality and always offer it to others? That would be totally different, bold, beautiful and inspiring.

    1. That would be the true way to truly remain in the industry to serve and grow rather to burn out and feel fed up.

13. This part about the abuse from customers in the shop is appalling, and really breaks down the illusion that everything is better once you have lots of money or work in a glamorous place.

    1. The customer is not always right. Because when we allow the customers to abuse us, in turn the shops abuse the customers in their own way, it is unavoidable.

14. “But just like everything in the fashion industry, what we see on the outside is far from the truth.” This could be said for many industries, but what you have shown us here Adele is that by coming to deeply honour yourself first, it is entriley possible to change the relationship you have with your work and who you work with. Something that we can all take inspiration from.

15. How one’s career can entirely change when there is the presence of self-love.

    1. That is the simple way. But maybe too simple for us to think it would be life-changing.

16. “I choose to live and share this way because this industry is not just a name for me, this industry is all the friendships I have made over the last 20 years, it is everyone I have ever met and deeply care about. To me, this industry is a relationship.” Most beautifully said and brought to the true importance in life, it is the people, us people, in life that count more than anything else, and if we understand this and start living that way harmony and love will become our focus instead of security and personal profit.

    1. Judgement is easy when we don’t know the person. Sure it still happens with those we know but with the initial realization that we are all people, with flesh and blood and feelings. We are all made of the same stuff, love, as we all feel hurt with loveless comments and judgments. So if an industry is a relationship, we understand and grow together. And yet, this starts with the relationship with ourselves. As an industry may not wish to have any relationship other than that involving money or self-gain, that again, has to be understood. But what we can offer our industry, can always be from love, no matter what.

    2. Esther I have always said that what ever industry we all work in it is about relationships. I have worked in sales for most of my life, however I have always made life about people and not about trying to sell something to them. We are in constant relationships with everyone we meet what we are trading is energy we can feel energy all the time. When we are trading positive energy people naturally want to be with you, when we trade negative energy people stay away, simple.

17. Everything is a relationship including our industries, for they’re made up of people, and how we are with them starts with how we treat ourselves – they take their cue from us, so when we stop abusing ourselves we give ourselves a greater opportunity to see and feel abuse and to say no to it.

    1. The state and quality of our body and being lead the way.

    2. I so agree, everything is always about people and thus the importance to always make it about people first and foremost.

       1. Connecting with people, and how we are with each other is always remembered, ‘ Clients and crew do not just remember how stunning the final product is, they remember how deeply met they have been and this feeling will always remain – longer than the fashion images will.’

18. The workplace for so many is a place where one shuts off from how one truly feels and simply plugs oneself in like a computer almost… And just get the job done at the expense of everything.

    1. True, for many this is the case but this choice can never be free of its consequences. The distraction we use work as a relief is never permanent and that which we want to not deal with can feel quite overwhelming when we are forced to look at them by our most loving and honest body.

19. This is what we all need to come to that no job, no task at hand, no money is more important than our own well-being. The world is blessed when we are in it with our fullness, as soon as we compromise ourself in our truth we compromise what we do and thus bring.

20. I had a similar response to my industry – having got to a point where I just wanted to leave because I was not enjoying it, it felt flat and just did not seem to be serving a purpose. When I started making some changes to my relationship with it (taking better care of me, so I had a chance of being in good shape) and remembered that deep down its a service for people… then I could connect to something totally different, and something that I now enjoy enormously.

    1. What an amazing point, any situation we feel flat about (not exclusive to work) and wants to withdraw, it is a reminder to love and care for ourselves deeper.

       1. Feelings are our road signs, mapping the way forward. We know what is abuse and needs changing, and what is supportive that just needs consistent application.

    2. Simonwilliams this is something we are not taught as part of life to look after ourselves and to care deeply for ourselves first. No one taught this until Serge Benhayon started to present this philosophy back in the late 1990’s. When we take care of ourselves life changes completely, it’s fascinating just how much life can and does change it is in fact a science we have all forgotten.

21. “My Relationship with the Fashion Industry – Changed by the Way I Live” – love the way your post describes Adele that how we live moves on to eventually inspire and one day change the industry we are in through the reflection of our livingness quality.

    1. This is truly an inspiring journey Zofia, always an opportunity for evolution, even if it feels nothing has changed, everything can be deepened and deepened on our part.

22. “On the odd occasion when big styling jobs drop me because of the way I choose to live and respect myself, I come back to the focus that no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” I love this how you have recognised your own worth and are not prepared to compromise your own standards.

    1. When we keep living our worth, more jobs may drop us, but love never shuts out or stops connecting. And the daily confirmations and appreciations build our solidity.

23. Adele I could really feel the exhaustion in your body when you had clients to see late into the night, it is amazing how the fashion world is all about the look and nothing at all about the inner beauty we hold within, and how important it is to support ourselves first.

    1. The best honesty is to acknowledge this exhaustion and surrender. There is no need to change anything but changes will happen.

24. The fashion industry is all based on outer appearance but how you feel on the inside is always reflected through your eyes.

    1. You may be surprised at how many tactics we have learned to disguise what we do not want to see from our eyes.

    2. The fashion industry may be based on outer appearance, but there was no hiding how Adele looked the first time I saw her, many years ago, to how she looks now. The difference is incredible.

25. There is a definite glamourised view to the idea of staying in fancy hotels, and perhaps this is fed by media images, or perhaps it talks to a part of ourselves that deeply wants to escape in to a another lifestyle which hotels give the promise of. But, like in this article, I too have spent many long hours in the hotel life, and after a while it does loose its appeal, it looses in fact all of its glamour which in the end is just on the surface as underneath is the real life of the people who run it, people like you and me who are no different in their struggles and challenges. So the glamourised image of the hotel life is just that – an image.

    1. There is a lot which is not true in the external facade. But most of us want to seek for that and be in the comfort that all is okay. But what truly settles is to face and work on what does not feel okay to begin with. But do we know what is not okay?

26. It is good to have this written down and nominate. We need to understand that no outcome as beautiful and brilliant it might look is worth the abuse and harshness we have allowed to rule in this world.

27. It’s very true that even if we might be doing exactly the same job, how we experience it totally depends on how we are with ourselves. When we appreciate ourselves for who we are and what we bring through what we do, our joy deepens as we then begin to realise that there’s nothing personal about what the ‘I’ do.

    1. I feel very deeply of every situation of work and when there is something I don’t recall, I know that time I wasn’t fully there.

28. “… what we see on the outside is far from the truth.” Is there anything in society for which this is not true?

    1. A great question to ask. We have made everything about the outer appearance that we have neglected the true qualities we do things in, to the point that we do not understanding anymore that it is never the outcome that determines what we have produced but the quality we have been in all the way during the process.

       1. This is a recorrection to be lived to return to truth and it only starts with ourselves.

29. “… no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” Once one experiences the connection to one’s essence there is nothing one would choose instead.

    1. The choice is clear. Although lots of things would come in to disturb this amazing relationship we have touched upon with ourselves and it requires a solidity and consistency to keep coming back from that choice and marker of connection.

30. Aligning to something bigger brings delight to us. It is us who get to choose what is that big thing we align to.

    1. This is a universal pull up. If there are no pull ups, we just exist but don’t live.

31. In my experience the customer is not always right, and although they are to be respected, so is everyone, and if there is any sort of abuse from a customer, it is to be called out, regardless of potential loss of business.

    1. Similarly the client is not always right and that abuse has to be called out too, even though it may mean losing business.

32. This is spot on Adele . . .”no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” …. and no amount of ‘cool’ is going to make you feel fiery.

    1. The definition of true cool is fiery. Sizzling and the world can feel it.

33. “To put it simply, when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself” – huge what you share here Adele, and to realise the quality of something [here disregard] though in the awareness of this managing to keep hold of our true selves and not get rattled or lost by a rhythm that is not of our true making, is living successfully; if not then it would be living in an existence.

    1. The gold is in awareness and with that we can let the whole world in.

34. ‘No amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.’ I love this statement Adele, so many people spend so much time chasing recognition when everything we have ever truly wanted is within us, we just need to connect to it.

    1. They may continue to do so, they have their full right to, but if there is an appreciation and awareness of another possibility as lived by those who are willing to demonstrate, then there is another way.

    2. Anna I agree we have been taught from young to look outside of ourselves and compare… that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence is a lie. If we connected to our inner essence we would not look anywhere else as the feeling of utter contentment is like a constant wash over our bodies.

35. Wow Adele, I loved reading your blog and the honesty with which you shared your transformation. It is a true before and after. And the beauty is it if feels like an after that just keeps evolving.

    1. That is so true Suse, a few years after this Blog has been written, this relationship again has deepened, and the pockets of comfort are exposed and there is more commitment across the board, which is so very cool. Our industry is absolutely about glamour and comfort, and to expose and to be exposed by the natural progression of my relationship with evolution is so deeply precious and precious for us all. Getting more real in this industry inspires me everyday.

    2. Seeing Adele back when she was still disregarding herself in the fashion industry, compared to how she looks and feels now is an amazing transformation.

36. ‘ no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body’ In needing recognition there is a desperation and a longing that can never be quenched.

    1. And this connection with ourselves is the only thing that will assuage the unshakeable thirst.

37. How beautiful that you can actually take yourself into an industry that lives by image and façade.

    1. Yes an absolute inspiration and demonstrates that if we hold our Light we can go anywhere.

    2. No facade can ever blind the truth within our hearts.

    3. The coolest thing is exposing the what is not then becomes natural.

38. “what we see on the outside is far from the truth.” This is such a true statement of much of the entertainment world. When we live in honour and truth of who we are, we are aware of the false facade that is portrayed by the world of so-called glamour.

    1. So true Mary and for so many people this is the world, and the false reflection, of which they live. And when your world is founded upon this, the house really is built on quicksand

    2. This is true celebration and people who live that are true celebrities.

39. “My Relationship with the Fashion Industry – Changed by the Way I Live” – yes to change the way we live can indeed change an industry from the way we are being/working in it by the attitude and approach we carry within ourselves. When this is love, anything is possible.

    1. Yes I agree Zofia, all our movements are clocked and registered, if we are living a life with love and integrity imagine the powerful impact this has on our workplace, our relationships etc.

40. How refreshing to read a real and honest blog about the fashion world where the abuse and lack of connections are exposed. Thank you for writing this. The energy that comes with those clothes has to be abusive and ’empty’, but why does almost everyone allow that, at their own expanse? What is the demand here besides recognition?

    1. Recognition and numbing are huge in the fashion industry. We do not want to deal with anything ugly but we cannot see we are contributors to it by closing the door to the world. So no matter what we create behind closed doors and how perfect we think it is, it has not supported the progress of the world in one bit.

       1. I get what you mean. We don’t want to see and feel what our part in this ‘game’ is and how we almost make a sort of deal to not talk about it so we can stay comfortable. While the world desperately needs more love, we buy into so much lovelessness.

41. You only start to see through the glamour of the fashion industry as you age and free yourself from needing to fit in with what’s cool. I have never heard anything positive from friends who have been models or designers. It was all about sacrificing yourself and your wellbeing to produce a final look. It’s so great to read about the transformation you have made in the fashion industry. It just shows that a plant can flower in the harshest of conditions.

    1. I am appreciating every single day the delicateness of my body. It does not allow my body to be hard. It prompts me to be honest, not perfect, but very honest. And to find ways to keep holding myself and others along the harshness we are in.

42. We all know stress has a huge effect on our health and wellbeing but yet all too often we still we push ourselves in order to keep up with the unrelenting pace of modern day society.

    1. Whenever we are not ourselves we get stressed. Whenever others are not themselves when they are with us we get stressed. We cannot change another or the world so the choice to be ourselves is key.

       1. That is such a simple way of understanding what stress is, well said.

43. We should not assume that life is just the way it is and we need to fit in to it, bend over and compromise who we are. Many structures in society are not working and it is well worth looking at why.

    1. Life is never just ‘what it is’ – there is a deep river of lots of other things for us to connect to and bring out in our work through being ourselves.

       1. I agree, so much to bring awareness to and ponder, assumption about our normal, that life is about only the surface and only what we see is a barrier to living our potential. Being honest about how much we actually feel deepens our awareness of what is there to ponder and from there life opens up.

       2. We may try to fit in and follow the world to only discover our body would not allow this compromise.

    2. That is the first thing to ever discern in life, actually it is the first thing that makes life feel overwhelming because so much is not true, but the step by step living what we know would begin to ease the tension.

44. Wow Adele! This is such an important blog in showing the blueprint of the sold-out exhausting, abusive way this industry (and most industries) are run. We let the fashion, the system, our giving away our power flog us to death. Seen with clear vision the world mainly runs in a sado-masochistic sort of way and its total normal and acceptable – even while possibly pointing the finger at more extreme cases of sadomasochism. brilliant expose!

    1. It is important to feel this abuse in our body. So we cannot further numb the abuse everywhere around us.

    2. Our bodies are naturally markers of truth, so exposing what does not feel true is a natural ability but why have we lost it? Or have we not lost it but stifled its expression and then attack those who retained this responsibility?

45. When we put the wellbeing and care of people at the centre of our work, the quality of the final product is assured. This is the simplest and most effective business model.

    1. I can only agree with this! So simple and yet rare to find in the world.

    2. It should never be the other way around where we look at the goal and unrelentlessly pursue it without mercy to our body.

46. It is so important to not only nourish ourselves but the relationships in life so work is not work but a opportunity to deepen relationships and intimacy.

    1. Indeed, no chore and duty, but a joy and we can support ourselves to equally commit to all areas of our lives.

    2. There cannot be a separation between the two. Relationships and life are one thing.

47. This is a delight to read Adele, because it shows no matter how intense and demanding life is when we take deep care of ourselves we can do a lot and most importantly we know what truly works for us and what not. Life is about the quality in which we live and never just about the pure outcome or outer appearance.

    1. No one will wait for you or make exceptions for you generally, so the fact is what we know is true cannot be a separation from the world. Rather it is an acceptance and an understanding of how the world is and from there, a connection is made.

48. Adele, this article is amazing to read, I feel deeply inspired by how you now work on your own terms and that taking care of yourself comes first, how wonderful for this industry to have you as a role model for how it is possible to live and work in a way in a different, much more loving way.

49. Glamour is really not shiny when the real reality of it is exposed…

    1. Brought to the point and exposed. So simple.

    2. And connecting with others is not a boring ‘if I have time’ affair, but a fundamental aspect of our success and wellbeing in work and life.

       1. Absolutely. The truth is not connecting naturally with everyone actually brings devastating consequences every day. If we do not feel this, there is something very numbing and distracting going on.

50. “To put it simply, when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself” – what a highlight or expose Adele [of the fashion/model world], and it makes me think of everything else we do say “yes” to, work aside – and how learning to hold our own true rhythm based on self-love in a mix of the many other disregarding rhythms being essential to be able to work in any place, industry, sector etc.

51. How amazing it is that we have the opportunity to explore and understand more about the world, the levels of abuse and the connections in which we hold by the loving support we hold for ourselves. This is where our true beauty lies and not only allows us to learn and explore more of who we are everyday but also experience the world on a whole other level too. Awesome.

52. “Fast forward to now; I am still working deep amongst the intensity of this industry but I no longer choose to work as I did before. Neither do I want to escape from this industry, which I did for many years” – so true Adele and the trouble is, is that we think changing the industry is the answer [to escape the intensity] without looking at the quality of how we are in that industry, career, profession. When the focus is on us, and how we are, in our body, the care we choose to apply, we can take all that ‘changed-ness’ to wherever we go, and do any job to be able to deal steadier with an industry’s onslaught that’s there in every profession.

    1. I feel this was the beginning of a deeper commitment to all and other areas of life where I may have wanted to escape from in the past. But not anymore, just commiting more and going no where.

    2. The more I know, the more I wish to learn and realize there is much more to know.

53. The fashion industry celebrates the potential of beauty and is for those that know deep inside them that beauty is something too beautiful not to share with others, yet who are prisoners from a system that does not allow true beauty to come through.

    1. Exqusitely expressed. We are the prisoners because we have chosen to withheld our own beauty in the choices we make. And yet we also have the power to turn it around with love.

54. Creating a facade to make ourselves to look good cannot be sustained. We lose connection to our inner essence and natural vitality, and try to cover up the depletion and anxiety that goes occurs – and that is not a good look.

55. How fantastic that you recognised the need to take care of yourself, ‘I simply began taking deep care of my body.’ and that later on you deepened this, ‘I further deepened this care by nourishing myself with fresh and healthy foods and drinking more water, ‘ what a difference this makes to our lives.

56. This was the most surreal and revealing part of this article for me, where it was noted that most of your income was voluntarily put back into sustaining the image that was taking such a toll.

57. ” …. no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body. ” This is beautiful Adele. Connecting deeply with ourselves enables us to connect more deeply with others. We have a relationship with everyone we meet – however brief.

58. I Love that Love can be in business, I used to think business was all about taking advantage of other people and I didn’t want anything to do with it. Business can be based on love, the fashion industry, health care, banking etc, we can change how we work and experience our jobs if we make the choice to look at how we are living and how we are supporting ourselves and others. Love should and can be the initiator in all that we do.

    1. Absolutely. The current business models are archaic as they are devoid of love. So truly have we evolved?

59. I love this turnaround story. I think in most industries there is control and abuse expected and when we are caught in it, this can seem impossible to be another way. Yet you have shown we can work in our own way on our own terms and still produce all that is needed.

60. In saying no to the abuse we are in affect saying yes to more growth, learning and understanding of the world as a whole and in this movement we are saying yes to LOVE.

61. It is interesting to see the level of abuse and disregard in this industry, and yes, no level of abuse is ever acceptable.

62. It is interesting to observe how every high end job often comes with a lot of disregard, which we of course choose, but for instance a professor scientist, a medical specialist, a high end fashion job, manager etc etc. all have a high level of disregard and abuse of the body. It seems success comes with disregarding our bodies. But the question of course is if this is true success? Shouldn’t success be feeling amazing in your body and loving doing what you do?

    1. This definition of success exhibited in a temporal form of success is truly successful.

63. We can choose whose rhythm we move to that of the world, or that of the pulse of life and the universe.

64. Every culture, every industry has its accompanying consciousness that binds us to it, every consciousness can feel strong and difficult to break through, but the truth is fighting it keeps us held tighter. But love is always more powerful than any bind, any ideal, any picture, and it is with loving ourselves truly that this control will eventually break off.

    1. I appreciate this awareness now brought to another area in life and am reminded lovingly that fighting anything will only keep us bound tighter to what we know is false.

65. This is a huge change in your life Adele, and a huge true service too that you are offering for this industry.

66. I lived in exhaustion for years, late nights, late mornings, where I never wanted to get up, food and drink to get me through, caffeine, sugar and then a grogginess and a lack of vitality or enthusiasm, a cynicism to life. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Most of us have had days like this! And yet we think it is normal…we can change our normal, I wake up ready for life, with a joy and a lightness to my step because self-care became two words that I take seriously, and the benefits are beyond what I expected. Life has an ease, flow and joy that I wouldn’t give up.

67. Fabulous sharing Adele. It just goes to show if we change our rhythms and movements everything changes for us as our focus shifts from what the outside world wants of us to what our body needs to live in and express in full.

68. Changing the way I live has changed my relationship with many things. I used to avoid fashion, in particular designer clothes because I thought it was elitist and over-priced. I would deliberately only buy cheap clothes. These days, I like the feel and quality of clothes and will pick them because they are well-made, fit well and are comfortable. This change has come about because I am taking greater care of myself, and also have a greater feeling of self worth.

    1. All about letting more of the world in, expressing more love in and out.

69. Fashion…beauty when I read this blog above I ask a big question about the authenticity of the fashion industry…what is it we see when it is based on such abusive and mercenary behaviour, where in fact is the beauty, what stimulates the eyes does not always mean beautiful. It requires that we be more discerning about what we say we like and support by our silence or otherwise.

70. It is priceless to observe what it is that we buy into in life and the ask ourselves why? What do we get from it? Rather than not questioning where we find ourselves in life. Your example of the fashion industry and your experience is Gold.

71. To view my work as a relationship is a super cool way for me to embrace the responsibility I have in everything I do, and that if I am humble enough to learn along the way the relationship will deepen and be enriched.

72. Thank you Adele. The lessons you share apply to all industries as many people accept abuse in the name of ‘work’. Many also choose to be irresponsible in their ‘personal’ lives which has a huge impact on their work because it’s really only one life, not a life that can be split and compartmentalised.

73. The fashion industry is an interesting phenomenon. As women, our relationship with fashion is a wonderful on-going ever-developing thing. I get so inspired by seeing the way that other women dress and enjoy putting together bits and pieces of a look I see to make something that corresponds with how I look and feel. The actual fashion industry can sometimes dictate how we are supposed to look but it is great fun to take what one needs, and use what inspires us.

74. Thank you Adele for showing us the very un-glamorous reality that can be somewhat hidden behind a ‘glamorous’ front and how you actually made changes in your life that truly support you at work – it’s beautiful how you’ve developed that and how it can keep growing.

75. Thank you

76. Thank you for this. I needed this to help be get back into the biz. I love it but will not be abused by it

    1. I appreciate our connection through this piece of writing. Knowing there is someone from the industry who feels the truth in this, that is beautiful. Keep in touch.

77. Unfortunately a lot of industries and companies encourage this kind of self-sacrifice in order to protect the brand’s image. It’s hard, but sometimes you just have to remember that life’s too short to accept abuse for a pat on the back.

78. Wow this is crazy. Super eye opener article. Look forward to your next.

79. ‘For 3 years I stood for 10 hours a day in 3 inch heels, part of a uniform I chose to say yes to, and part of my job.’ I can relate to this and still remember the way in which super high heels over long periods of time affect your feet and change the way you breathe, the way you think, and the way you are with people.

80. There is nothing glamorous about abuse, and yet we dress it up in a million different ways so that eventually one form of abuse looks more desirable or preferable over another – without consciously realising that we are still seeking abuse.

81. beautiful seeing the power in claiming yourself and how that can change our view of the industry we work in. It is truly beautiful to feel this and come to an understanding of true love and life.

82. It is amazing what we will say yes to, so we can receive acceptance and recognition and yet how empty that leaves us.

83. What I am further discovering from the fashion industry is, because abuse is accepted we work and treat each other (and of course first ourselves) with such hardness, and therefore many times the communication with this industry is simply to be vulnerable, deeply honest and the impact from this choice has been life-changing. Things which I thought would never shift or change due to “business being business” has started to shift, clients began to take greater care and understanding, even in the tightest schedule. What feels like a miracle, is actually simply a start to return to a very basic respect between people, and an understanding that quality of jobs come from a focus and care towards people.

    1. There is something very sad about returning to respect in relationships being a miracle. But this is how far away we have come from away from who we are. However the fact that this is very possible is wonderful and means that we can return to what we are and a way of relating that is very natural.

84. ‘But just like everything in the fashion industry, what we see on the outside is far from the truth.’ Unfortunately we like to go along with the show and the ‘dressed up’ version of what is really going on as our version of reality – all the while knowing it isn’t it – from both within and outside of the industry.

85. I have never envied the fashion industry and having had friends who were models I knew of some of the abuse that is expected, all for the sake of a look. However this is even more shocking, that people are expected to work in such conditions and that they feel so empty, give their power away so much that they accept it. Caring for one’s self sounds so simple, which it is, but it is life-changing and reveals all the areas of disregard in one’s life.

86. This is an eye opening account to the behind the scenes of the fashion industry but I fear it could relate to so many other field when abuse and disregard becomes the norm.

87. This blog shows the absolute power of saying NO to abuse. It is highly abusive towards ourselves to work in a way that exhausts us and it is our responsibility to change this. Thank you Adele for showing us how it can be done in any industry.

88. Reading this blog is like reading a very honest love letter to the fashion industry. Your relationship with your work is truly inspiring Adele.

89. These words are so powerful “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body”, and for every woman, and man, to feel this for themselves would be the catalyst for so much personal change. To know yourself so intimately will build such a strong foundation in life that nothing will be able to rock it.

90. I am exhausted just reading about your former work routine Adele. It is wonderful to hear you have changed all of that running around and now have learnt to truly look after yourself. We seem to know how to really push ourselves into believing we are invincible!

91. Phew!! It really is intense reading of what goes on behind the scenes Adele… and amazing to choose to extricate yourself

    1. I know Chris, exposing the rot, the abuse and fakeness of any industry wakes us up to the fact that all is not always as it seems when we take things at face value and get sucked in the glamour and illusion of what we think is normal.

92. To say yes to a rhythm that is not our own in the industry that we work in is to override the natural harmony and order of our bodies and the natural world have.

93. It is so great that you have exposed the rot in this industry Adele. Imagine how many beautiful women are out there experiencing the same thing and not knowing who they can express it to: ‘ I was in constant anxiety and reaction towards the abuse that I accepted in this industry. In attempts to numb myself from feeling the abuse I chose for myself, my body was in such a raw and exhausted state every day that every night was a letting loose. When the whole company would meet I would drink and eat heavily, so much so that there were many occasions that within the hour I would already be completely gone, sometimes waking up the next day with yellow bruises from falling down and hitting things and losing consciousness.’

94. Thank you Adele for really shining a light on the reality of what goes on in, I’m sure, most of the fashion industry behind the facade of glamour. And really great to read of the deep care that you have taken and are developing in how you look after yourself, no doubt having a powerful impact on the quality that you bring to your work now.

95. The fashion world provides such a stark contrast between the way things feel and the way they look on the surface. This difference actually exists in every part of our life, but nowhere is it shown so clear that our attempt to create a utopian ‘look’ to life is empty, futile and pointless when it’s devoid of Love. Beautiful to know there are those like you Adele who are out there bringing this awareness to fashion and the wider world.

96. I have often thought how if I was marooned suddenly on an island or stuck on a mountain in the desert, just how irrelevant and useless a lot of high end fashion would be. Whether my shoes are Gucci or Prada is of little material importance when neither shield my feet from the sea, sand or rain. It’s not to say that fashion is ‘bad’ but just that so much of life today has become removed and abstracted from its true purpose. These sorts of things have taken on gigantic importance when all they are, are simple side notes to the main play of life, the relationships we have with each other, the stars and God. Thank you Adele for tailoring this piece for us to read.

97. When we stop and look at how life is lived and the abuse that we allow override our natural way to be, we begin to see life unravel before our eyes. Making simple choices to rest when needed, nourish ourselves for true vitality and to move from our deep connection to our bodies shows such a level of respect and love for who we are that no amount of abuse could withstand such responsibility held. It’s a forever deepening process, but one that not only aids our working life but life in all facets of living.

98. Sometimes, a lot of times, I have had this belief that to be me in my job is to result in being alone and cut off from everyone so why bother trying. But I am learning that yes the industry and practices do not support self-care (at the moment) but that doesn’t mean I cannot and when I do I find myself more open and connected to people and less lonely.

99. “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body” this is so true, when we find a way to really surrender to how we truly are, there is no comparison.

100. “This is a way in which I am experimenting living every day with more understanding and deeper refinement.” I am finding the daily exploration and refinement for how we move, sleep, eat and drink greatly benefits our connection to our bodies and that inevitably holds a great commitment to the all. I also find it fun to explore and discover what works and what doesn’t in the forever deepening process of connection to me.

101. Why do we want to concentrate beauty in one industry when in truth there is beauty everywhere? This fact reveals that we are trained to see beauty through the images we buy into which leads to seeing something and ignoring something else that does not match the image.

     1. Yes Eduardo, in this sense we are told what is beautiful and then buy into it. This has contributed to issues where people feel they have the wrong body shape and will go to extremes like having plastic surgery.

102. The fashion industry is the perfect epitomy of this way of living completely from the way life looks. But it is by no means reserved for this part of life alone. Your words today remind me Adele that it truly does not matter at all, where we work, what relationship we are in, if we miss true Love in ourselves, nothing will ever be enough in this world.

     1. No matter which industry we are in if we do not hold back it is Love that we will reflect. This is important because Love is the missing link in every industry and in the world and we are all missing ourselves and each other when living in the world.

103. So much to comment on this blog but today this line stood out – “Clients and crew do not just remember how stunning the final product is, they remember how deeply met they have been and this feeling will always remain – longer than the fashion images will.” – this is true business. Where the focus is not only on the end product, but also on the quality of energy it was created in.

104. Wow this is gorgeous and hugely important at the same time. Thank you for giving us an insight in the fashion industry and what appears to look good but is not actually from the inside. This is so hugely important as otherwise we keep that which is not healthy, not truly content and integre as something that is good/great and desireable. Thank you.

105. Trying to substitute true love for glamour and recognition is futile and will eventually take its toll on our bodies, it is only until we develop a relationship with ourselves and accept how beautiful we are within our own bodies that we know that true beauty our natural right for us all.

106. .’…for me that image was “help!” ‘ A glamorous world but how desperate are the ones in it. And how absolutely amazing it is that you have made such a turn around and are proving to everyone in and outside this industry that it is possible to say no to the abuse and stand tall by caring for yourself and emanating this out. How being yourself can be a celebration where ever we work. A complete opposite of the image before.

107. I love what you now offer the industry in way of both reflection of another way of being but also in connection through relationship. This is something that people are missing and desperately craving. I can imagine that it is indeed this feeling of being met that will stay with them far longer than any fashion images will… constantly reminding them of what is truly important.

108. This blog made me go back to the time before I went into University to study and it looked all so cool and well organised yet now I am in it is not as cool as it seems and not very organised at all. I found this with working in several jobs as well, organisation and care are often deeply lacking. This is not a judgement but how we all have accepted these institutions to be and this can be changed simply by living it ourselves as you did.

109. Gorgeous clothes and beautiful fashion can be so much fun. But there is nothing to come near the beauty that shines from a woman who has connected to her innermost. I’ve just been in a course today where I saw many beautiful women all day! The fashion industry by and large has lost the plot here, except for one or two shining lights in there such as yourself Adele. Keep shining!

110. It is interesting how we can make things more glamorous than they actually are, but our bodies always reflects the truth of every choice we have made and how we have lived.

111. How many of us have been sucked into changing our natural selves to align with something that simply isn’t us… one of the best things about knowing ourselves is the freedom of being able to BE ourselves.

112. All of us are customers at one point or another, and as the customer we don’t need to be right all the time, but we do need to be respected and considered. The customer is always right is a misnomer.

113. This is so interesting – the connection you have made between ‘fashion history’ and the truth of what is really going on behind the scenes. Which makes me wonder, what exactly is the history that is being recorded, is it a history of fashion – or of how far we are all willing to go in to self-disregard, self-loathing, etc.?

114. We can say no to abuse in our working environment and change the goal posts to ones of love .. it is possible … you have shown us this, thank you 💕

115. On the surface the fashion industry looks glamorous but underneath all that fake sparkle it sounds like many an abusive power game forms its foundation and the image we see. Yuck.

116. We know that often there is brutality that comes in certain jobs, like peps the armed forces or certain big corporations buttony are surprised that there is such brutality on the fashion industry. This is because we have used our eyes to see but ignored our clairsentience which can clock energy. One only has to register the emotionally bruised, abused and sad models who walk the catwalk to realise what goes on in there. Beautiful girls are exploited, badly treated, dictated to about what shape and weight they should be, and how fashionable it is to be miserable and beaten-around looking. Are we going mad as a society? Where is the joy and sacredness of a woman. So it is no surprise to hear of your experiences in the fashion industry Adele – great blog.

117. In having a bit of experience in the fashion industry, I can say that it can be so hard for people to separate their work with their personal lives – ie have space outside of the industry. It is as if because clothes are worn outside of work, there is a need to keep up a certain image all of the time. So how gorgeously refreshing it is to read your blog and how you have been able to not let your work consume all of you – that you can still be yourself in this industry – wow what a bright light you are shining Adele.

118. A very beautiful and powerful blog Adele thank you for sharing, amazing the changes you have made in your life, saying no to abuse and transforming your life by love and deep self care you have been able to stay in an industry you once wanted to leave what beautiful reflection you bring in all your relationships at work and play.

119. It is from knowing how this industry operates is so far from truth and devoid of love that most of my working days were spent in reaction. Knowing that money cannot buy us true success, confidence or beauty, I have resisted committing to making a decent living for myself. And yet being in reaction to what is not true, will never bring anyone back to truth. Therefore, the commitment to being in this industry and the transformation of how I feel about myself eventually changed how I feel about being here. Today I feel a commitment of being in this industry that I have never felt before, but also a joy as well as a forever deepening responsibility of simply being love, there is no reward really in any of this, but a continuous awareness of more to learn every day.

120. On the surface it seems there are so many jobs that glitter in our world yet if you could but walk in the shoes of each worker we would get to see we all suffer from stress, nervousness and anxiety underneath. When this sinks in you can see that there is no ‘dream job’ or place that will save you, but as you say Adele there is a way we can be with ourselves that brings joy and tenderness to us and everyone else. In this way it’s clear as day that every job is equally beautiful.

121. Thank you for showing the reality of working in the fashion industry.It is obviously a world of glamour and recognition is a huge part of it . For you to say ‘no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body’ is pure gold. I feel inspired by your commitment.

122. There is no perfection in self-care, no rules either, but a constant feeling of what my body needs and the willingness to honor it. When life happens and I have to make exceptions, I will be in the deepest understanding, acceptance and tenderness to myself and my choices.

123. Good for you. You have figured it out. Bravo!

124. If I’m honest I have never had a grasp on this industry, it always seemed so false and superficial and for a privileged few. It has a lot to answer for with people with eating disorders and image problems. An industry that could promote somehow that we are all beautiful no matter how we looked on the outside would be far more beneficial to humanity. Oh there is one Universal Medicine.

     1. What you feel is the elistism fashion is run in, an energy of separation and non-inclusiveness, like many other industries, this industry is not rooted in love. But there is another way to choose to work and live.

125. And the discovery of this awareness is gold. Thank you for what is Livingness.

126. I work in the world of beauty retail. The world of beauty goes side by side with the fashion industry. There is a similar pressure on women to look perfect. However the difference with beauty is that we focus on skin care, which is the basis for a good face of makeup. The skin is a reflection of how we live, and our faces are a reflection of how we feel. When working with skincare it is almost impossible to not look at lifestyle. There is an opportunity to look deeper at how we are living. This is what I love about the world of beauty. It can be superficial, but there is the potential to see and work with so much more.

127. ‘I simply began taking deep care of my body’ – and the more I do this, the more my body supports me back in both its strength and ability to do what I do in a day, but also in the way it communicates more and more clearly with me about what is going on around me and the impact of my choices.

     1. When one person begins to take care of themselves—truly so, and not just by abiding with rules etc. ,this would naturally pull another person to reflect upon this within themselves and so on and so forth. Nothing needs to be done special, no words need to be spoken in what should be done or not done even, when another is ready for this reflection, everything flows and there are now wo points of reflection in the world. And as such, light is reflected in the world, the natural state of who we are.

128. ‘My body felt desperately exhausted and therefore my whole demeanour was shouting exhaustion – my face looked tired, my posture was limp and had no vitality – and that is what the fashion industry has made as a trademark for ‘cool’.’ When we sell an image, we are selling so much more than ‘a look’, but instead, everything that comes with it – the way we live, and every ounce of the abuse or the love in our choices.

129. how extraordinarily un-cool is the lifestyle that you describe and yet for so many people in so many ways similar they are aspiring to be something that they are not, when all that is needed to be done is to connect with what we truly are

130. There are times when people are uncomfortable with my choice to change how I live….I understand, I used to drink, smoke, etc….and there was a time when I couldn’t understand stopping these habits….however I have changed and every now and then someone will try in a relationship to say I might still invite you away for the weekend, or to this night out, etc if you still drank etc…”…no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” I do not get invited out as much, I do not seek friends who only want me on these terms, as you say the recognition can never ‘compare to the lovely feeling’ reconnected with our bodies is priceless, delicious and like coming home.

     1. And isn’t it cool we get to invite others out more? The reflection being: we may have very different lifestyle choices, but hey connection is much more than what we choose to do. 🙂

131. It’s amazing after spending a length of time in an industry and having so many experiences we can then experience what it is like when evolution is added to the mix, and that’s where it takes off a million times.

     1. I agree harryjwhite – Adele’s approach to her work now is truly beautiful and not only that is is enjoyable and sustainable. Many of us think we need to accept abuse in order to do our jobs but Adele’s experience shows that we can only truly be of service when we take great care of ourselves first.

132. You show here Adele, how making changes in the way we live brings about changes to the relationships we have with everything… Introduce self love and our relationships with work, with other people, with life in general, all become abundant. So its not about changing the things around us, because it is our state of being affects the environment and interaction we have with it.

133. I relate to this blog on some many levels Adele and how awesome it is that you share the truth of the industry and your choice to be in it with love. It is a game changer for the industry to have the reflection of someone who loves who they are just as
     Much as what they do.

134. What you are showing us here Adele, and what is so inspiring, is that by choosing to live our lives a different way, i.e. by choosing love first in all that we do, anyone of us has the potential to change our relationship with any industry that we work in just by being all that we are all of the time.

135. The fashion industry has sold us a big fat lie for too long, we have swallowed that lie and as a result society is suffering, false images of beauty add to the world wide epidemic of lack of self worth.

136. However ugly, scary, dominating, seemingly set in stone something is (industry, relationship, world events) we are always in a position to choose to be a key to change… every single one of us… that is cool, empowering and inspiring, yes?

137. It’s interesting the things we perceive to be ‘glamorous’ in this world, yet are void of any true beauty because they are based on an abusive way of operating – the modelling industry is no different – with models being asked to do swimwear shoots (in the freezing temperatures of winter for hours on end).

138. Yes, Adele , we are in the constant anxiousness and tension of the abuse we accept in our lives. I used to overlook and accept that abuse, but now I know how to accept and bring Love and that in itself says no to any abuse.

139. For as long as we pander to the outer layer at great expense to the being that resides within it, we will accept abuse if it means we look good on the surface. We are love to the core, but if we look around us there is very little of the expression of this love in the world in which we live. This is because we allow all that is not love to bombard us, impose on us and shape us to move in a way that is not congruent with the love that we are. As such, where we have taken a wrong turn as a humanity is by living from the outside-in, as opposed to living from the inside-out. If we want more love ‘out there’ in the world, we simply need to express it out from the magnitude of it that lives in deep in our inner heart. Only when the ‘outside’ matches the ‘inside’ will true harmony be restored here on Earth. We are not designed to live within walls but to breathe the same breath as each other and as the great being of love – Thy Father – that breathed us forth.

     1. The magnitude, yes the magntitude, the magnitudinous depth of love that wants to be expressed and be harmonized within and without—as a human being in this earth.

140. To come to the realisation that the way we live and the clothes we choose to wear are the expression of this is a big step considering the amount of conditioning that comes with the bombardment of media of how we should be. It is great to read of a woman (Adele) living this truth in an industry that does little to support a deeper awareness of true beauty within.

141. What better way to start the new year than to consider, accept, appreciate and be inspired by the fact that our activity in life has an impact and ripple effect beyond our intellectual understanding.

142. What i love about this blog is the fact that you are still working in the fashion industry and not needing to conform to the ideals and expectations of how you ‘should’ be in working in this, or changed occupations because of the exhaustion working in the industry. What happened could have occurred in any type of industry and really any demanding work environment… simply bringing ‘you’ to your work and work environment is what has made all the difference! Have to love that!! Change starts within each and everyone first…before the environment or industry.

143. Adele I love the deep, deep understanding you bring to your relationship with yourself, the fashion industry and your friends within it. It’s beautiful to behold how none are separate. Your love within you shine out for all to be touched. This can be so for all of us, whatever industry we’re in. That because most aren’t connected and living from the love within them the industries reflect this abuse we live from (what is not love is not harmless). Choose love and each industry has the choice to move with love and to end what is not loving (which may mean the end of some industries). Love allows a deeper understanding of the true purpose of an industry and I’m discovering this is bringing me greater clarity and joy in purpose.

144. This article continues to inspire me as a testimony to the fact that as one person we can ‘move mountains’, changing the tide of ill in the fashion industry in this example. One person’s choices consistently rippling out to the world that there is another way… and that combat, competition, comparison and conflict are detriments to life and business.

     1. Maybe if we move some mountains in Wales we can get some better weather here Matilda 😉

145. Cracking the consciousness of the fashion industry by claiming care of yourself as more important than following a dictated trend is revolutionary and evolutionary.

146. Building a connection and awareness of our body and taking true and deep care of ourselves gives us a foundation from which we can truly serve and help others in a sustainable and joyful way. I love how you show there is a different way here Adele – that we don’t have to accept exhaustion as a normal way of life.

147. In so many industries there is a glamour or a picture of what we think the industry is like, but behind the scenes, behind the veil lies a world of truth that is often very different to the outside superficial picture. The fashion industry is only one of those industries and a very good one to begin cracking…But then there are also the multitudes of other industries such as the movie industry and acting, singers and performers, sports and sports icons, and then deviating away from the most obvious, there is also the glamour of doctors, and specialists and other health care professionals, the glamour that surrounds a so called wealthy family… etc etc. There are many facades to see through and many ideals to crack. Adele, thank you for sharing what really happens behind the scenes for this is the beginning of the exposure of the things that we choose to play games with rather than bringing the truth and our light to the industry to make it what it really could be.

     1. Glamor is a need to see things a certain way, how we want it to be. But what if beneath glamor there is a whole new way and natural of seeing things and living life that we would not discover until we are willing to let go of this need?

148. This blog gives us an inside look to a world that is so glamourised it is actually very difficult to see what is really going on behind the scenes, and I mean what is really going on, not just what the reality tv shows tell us is happening. Adele has taken us behind even those scenes, to where the ever persistent damage is happening. And what a give to have so much insight.

149. It’s incredible how the behaviour that you describe at the beginning of your career is actually accepted as the norm for a whole industry. As you say, you didn’t just sign up for a job, you signed up for a lifestyle, until you managed to see through it and choose differently.

     1. The truth is we are all equal—it is only different choices that we make. Living a relationship with ourselves can never be only kept for oneself, it is natural to share and go deeper with ourselves and others, this is the beauty of relationship.

150. The illusionary surface veneer of the fashion industry, that is clearly described in this blog, reminds me how life is generally experienced, many of us have a veneer, of the good, nice, civilised, dutiful and yet underneath, disregard, exhaustion, abuse and disharmony lie….and below that gold, our true expression, ready to be lived…I am committed to unifying how I am within, with how I express outside. This is harmony and it is absolutely healing, not only for myself but for all.

151. The fashion industry as with many others industries, is so tantalising. To be able to see through it and yet remain in it is a discipline and a responsibility. Every day in this industry it is the deepening of relationships that make this possible, with first the deepening of relationship with myself.

152. Amazing how it is the way we live that impacts on everything else around us. Whereas we tend to get it around the other way. That we berate ourselves for not ‘bringing it’ whatever the ‘it’ may be, to a situation, work, relationship, then be down on ourselves as a result, instead of saying….what was happening in my movements, what did I eat that stopped me from saying what I needed to say in that moment. These are all ways to deepen our responsibility to ourselves and for others.

153. I remember being not one ounce concerned about what i was wearing but knew it was the right clothes for me, now shopping can be complex when thoughts come in like “is this me?” “Does it suit?” And do I really like the clothes or am I buying them as a form of distraction 🙃

     1. When we are not attached to form, form does not control us. 🙂

154. ‘Until one day, when I said no to the abuse, and so for many years I had very few commercial styling jobs, but I began to work under my own terms.’ This is awesome as when we begin to work free of ideals and beliefs which surround any area of life we offer an alternative by reflection to all others and there becomes a true footing for change.

155. I too can relate to changing my perspective on the travel industry I worked in for many years when I began to build more awareness of how I was in that job and also observed how many clients were using travel to escape from the demands of their life for a short while.

156. It is all about appearance but it is also all about contraction, that is where the recognition lies and has to be exposed.

157. ‘To me, this industry is a relationship’. And it is no longer a relationship of need or of exploitation or of abuse. It is a relationship that starts with the nurturing and love of yourself and others – a true relationship that is in line with our future. If we make this the number one thing then we all flourish – all the people working in the industry and all the people who receive or buy the product.

158. This teaches us so much about the state of the fashion industry and also other industries that do not nurture, care for or support us. Industry will change from the more care and love we bring to them such as you are.

159. There are many ways that we can do self-abuse. Most ladies would never consider that wearing uncomfortable high heels is abuse, yet when we truly learn to self-nurture and self-care we see that many things we consider as ‘normal’ are actually self-harming.

160. The media industry is also an industry that is full of fakeness, How horrible it is to promote to someone that they are not good enough and that they need such and such to feel better about themselves. Advertising = one of the biggest lies of the century.

     1. There are so many things in the world which are not normal but have been made normal. May truth be told, simply of what is natural within the heart. It is really very simple, but the power can turn many industries upside down.

161. “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” This is such a powerful statement, and one that if fully understood and experienced can change the way we are with ourselves and with others. If we are feeling yummy and joyful there is no way we need recognition, and therefore we will not give ourselves over to any form of abuse.

162. Ariana, this abuse is made to be so normal, we have chosen it to be normal, because we do not want to take the responsibility to truly feel. To realize the ridiculousness we have said yes to, the only way is to come back to the honesty of the body. To allow ourselves to feel love and care for ourselves, we will then naturally gravitate away from what does not feel supportive to the body. And yet, this industry is immensely tantalizing, and so it takes a lot of awareness and discipline to truly call out every loophole, and at the same time be very understanding towards ourselves.

163. this is a gem to read for every profession, vocation and even for school. There is a paradigm out there that seeks to induce stress, intensity, stimulation, competitiveness, recognition and desire to achieve, but we can build ourselves a foundation of love, truth and knowing of ourselves, that holds us steady in that craziness, and can help us to return back if we do get taken out. This is more precious than anything the material world can ever offer and in fact this is what the world needs more than anything despite trying so hard to ignore it.

164. ‘I was in constant anxiety and reaction towards the abuse that I accepted in this industry’. You so well describe the detail of what happens in this situation. We step into a job because we need a job and need to take our place in the world and then we find how brutal that world actually is (as I did in my first job ever at 20 years old as a music teacher at a boys high school). Instead of choosing awareness, holding ourselves in our essence and saying ‘no’ to abuse, we react to it emotionally, or specifically with anxiety and use that as a ‘go to’ place, a familiar ‘comfortable’ (or not so comfortable) place to hide in – so double abuse is happening as we add our own version onto our bodies. It is crazy but this is what we do. It is great the way you have laid down the map of what has happened Adele so that many many more can find their way out of the labyrinth of work abuse.

165. Fashion has always been an illusion. After all, what is out today is in tomorrow. And so if you are not one who is with the current trend, one could equally argue that rather than saying you are behind the times, or perhaps just ahead of it, given the cyclical nature of such trends. I say this to expose the ludicrousness of getting caught in thinking that you have to keep up with the trends in order to see yourself as fashionable.

166. It is very beautiful how you reclaimed yourself within the fashion industry Adele, and so awesome that you are now there as an amazing leading light.

167. The inspiration I take from this article that totally puts to bed any notion that one person cannot make a difference. Thank you, Adele.

     1. Yes it is part of the trick, to make one feel that one person doesn’t make a difference – so to keep everyone in the disempowerment and lack of commitment. Inspiration has a way of lighting up the Universe!

168. This is so true Adele: ‘To the outsider, fashion styling is thought to be a very glamorous job. It looks like we get to hang out with models and celebrities, dress them up and be surrounded by beautiful clothes. We work in hotel rooms and have room service delivered to us, we are surrounded by the most expensive brand names and know all the inside news, and we get to shop at privileged prices’. It is amazing the ‘ideas’ we can hold about something we know nothing about (experientially) and which are totally untrue. The fashion industry itself deliberately hypes this very unreal ‘idea’ of glamour and the glamorous life. We can however, if we use our clairsentience feel exactly what that industry is like and it is just as abusive as human trafficking is. Images and compositions and shots are all used to dazzle our physical vision and make us deny the truth of the energy of such productions believing them to be glamorous. But taste and see, spend a day in it, as I once did, and you will feel like running a mile – unless it is Adele’s studio!

169. “I took a lot of abuse from customers because I worked with a high fashion brand and we were told the customers are always right” – funny how we have this ingrained idea that a customer is always right, rather than coming from a space where we are all equal on all levels, and treat each other with respect, no matter our background and no matter our roles.

     1. The customer is always right because this from the beginning is an attachment, businesses are attached to the amount of profit they make in disregard to what they put themselves through, there is only one and one goal only, and that is of making money for self gain.

170. This blog reveals further the level of total disregard throughout the fashion industry. We should then consider carefully the quality of that which it produces, championed by so many and valued so highly.

171. I am in contact with physical bodies deeply ingrained with this thought pattern every single day, I was one of these bodies not that long ago. These bodies do not yet feel the love that we truly are, and therefore they are riddled with these ridiculous patterns, and thus, love is the only way, when these bodies can feel their own love, we will know there is another way.

172. ‘To me, this industry is a relationship.’ The fashion industry should be about people – in particular the people wearing the clothes, rather than the clothes wearing the people. Your relationships in this industry are re-defining what it is truly about, from the inside of the industry – out.

173. it is not uncommon nowadays for an employee to be asked to ‘sell their soul’ in exchange for the monthly or weekly payment they receive. However, this does not have to be the case if we choose to learn to turn our lives around and begin to see that we can work in a way that is responsible both to our employee and to our own well being. We are then able to contribute so much more to the world as we open our hearts and embrace our lives and approach each day with a new outlook and realise that by giving ourselves fully to the day, work becomes fun and enjoyable.

174. This article is a point of such inspiration that we can, one step at a time, turn the tide on so many ill practices and frameworks we have come to accept as normal in society. Thank you, Adele.

175. For any budding fashion designer I would love them to read your blog, in fact Adele your blog should be read by every fashion student, your honest exposure of the industry could save them a lot of illusion and empty heart ache.

176. We learn from a young age that we can put up a facade to hide behind – the fashion industry is a strong example on facade and maintains the ideal of a perfect outer, eventhough this will vary in appearance from person to person. So we may hide behind ‘look at me, I don’t dress like everybody else’ but there’s still an ideal of how we want/need to look.

177. What I deeply appreciate is when the horror of one industry is exposed, we get to hear and share the horrors of other industries, this opens up our awareness and confirms the knowingness of what is truth.

178. The fashion industry in general will warp and distort life and clothes beyond proportion in the name of the latest fashion. Otherwise-beautiful girls are to be seen slinking along the catwalk like bruised and battered waifs and strays emanating abuse and exhaustion instead of the live-ness and natural beauty that they are. As a society we have to seriously ask why beauty is being portrayed and championed in this way. What is the motive underneath all this? Is it the same old depravity that we have indulged in for aeons just finding another outlet for its denigrations? Is it a way of keeping women down? Thank heavens Adele that you are in there bringing forth the love, the beauty, the style, the stillness and the power of women, along with your wonderful gift for being able to artistically arrange a photo shot.

179. Its amazing the picture that is painted of what we are led to believe is a glamorous industry. Are we only prepared to look at what shows on the surface? A little scratching of the surface reveals something entirely different. Thanks for your exposé Adele.

180. What an amazing blog sharing the truth and abuse that goes on under the glamour of the fashion industry and many other glamour based industries also. Very revealing and shows who we are and by connecting to our innermost love allows true honouring and love as a basis to our lives and what we allow and go along with, for without this we are all lost.

181. Adele you are an inspiring example of how we can be ourselves in whatever industry we choose to work as long as we bring ourselves in full to it – in other words, we build a relationship with our work industry.

     1. Which you have reminded me that the commitment to life is the equal commitment to all industries I am involved in. Getting to work now.

182. True, Ariana, and it is amazing to read when Adeles life got back to simplicity, when the complications dropped away and when she truly appreciated herself her power started to unfold..

183. “Clients and crew do not just remember how stunning the final product is, they remember how deeply met they have been and this feeling will always remain – longer than the fashion images will” – beautiful Adele, and as they say it’s not the destination, but the journey that counts and with it fondly remembered and treasured.

184. The contrast between the two ways of being in the fashion industry is huge. One feels completely joyless and threatens that if you don’t play ball with the abuse you wont be able to belong. The other feels so warm and joyful, full of real relationships and freedom to have a life worth living.

185. Thank you for sharing this insight into the fashion industry. It is worse than I imagined! The constant feeling of stress, pressure and tension and feeling you have to say yes to abuse would have to take its toll. It’s amazing how when we are in something we don’t realise how awful it is until we step back from it. Wouldn’t it be great if we all took a moment to look our own industries, what they ask of us and what we are saying yes to.

186. How is it that we have clothing that restricts, constrains and alters our movement so we are less free to express, move and reflect our joy? Not only do we have such clothing, but an entire industry that celebrates it. You can see this in the shoes models are required to wear on the catwalk, to the outfits that limit true expression in the name of ‘artistic expression’ or ‘fashion’.

187. It is the way that we live that leads to the life that we have.

188. I notice that I’ve always looked up towards men and women who dress up extremely well. As if I was (still) under the glamorous belief that the way people are (expensively) dressed is telling something about their (or my own) self-worth. It doesn’t make sense, yet it is very common to be liked, not liked or even bullied just because the way we are dressed. How empty have our lives become that this is common, normal?

     1. And yet there is unlimited fun when we dress up with the focus on what is formlessness and not form :).

        1. Thank you Adele, I can feel what you’re saying even though I’m not completely grasping it yet. It feels lovely to put clothes on me. What you’re offering here goes beyond this I can feel. I’d love to explore this further and let myself be guided to the choice to allow the fun you’re refering to.

189. By choice we are harming ourselves, very true, this is our present day world Mary. No one can change another’s choice, but seeing the reality, it is therefore my responsibility by choice to take care for and respect myself.

190. I guess most people have an impression or an image about what the fashion industry is about and often glorify it, therefore it’s very important to have a true reflection of what is really going on.

     1. Yes, an authoritative insider’s account that bursts any illusion we might have about the glamour of the fashion industry.

191. I love your blogs Adele which so clearly expose the true nature of the fashion industry.

192. You have brought the magic ingredient to the fashion industry Adele (and thus to everything) which is ‘change’, and not only change, but ‘change through relationship’. Your relationship to yourself, to life, to others has changed and therein lies the transformation By bringing the principles of love, care, true relationship to your work your connection to truth has deepened, and it is this beauty that is truth, that you bring to the world of fashion which has so denigrated our true beauty.

193. Your description of how you were within the industry before you started to change is horrific. I’m sure many people must be stuck in the same cycle of behaviour, and I’m sure this is not unique to only one industry. It is so inspiring that you have found a way to turn this around and truly take care of yourself within it. What a difference.

194. If anyone thinks the fashion industry is all glitz and glamour, think again. Thank you, Adele, for exposing the truth of the fashion industry and how you are changing the face and inner workings of it with your own self-nurturing.

195. We have any industries that are made to look much more glamourous and enticing than reality, like the lives of celebrities that seem so perfect and polished. However whenever i have watch clips or adverts for these online reality tv shows that follow the lives of celebrities, it just seems so empty and fake, because there seems to be no depth and true connection in their lives for all the glitz and fame

196. Adele how exposing is “My body felt desperately exhausted and therefore my whole demeanour was shouting exhaustion – my face looked tired, my posture was limp and had no vitality – and that is what the fashion industry has made as a trademark for ‘cool’.” it shows me that what is cool, trendy, the picture we all live up to is actually not something that support the body and ourselves with a quality of life.

197. To give our power away to a job or an industry will always keep us away from our inner-heart.

198. Thanks for your behind the scenes look of an industry that is only skin deep and when peaking behind the curtain, is not delivering a supportive environment for any of its participants

199. It would be great to have people like you in all industry’s Adele, there is something amazing about what you do as a fashion stylist, you produce amazing results but from a completely different background of living, which is one of self love. This is totally inspiring for people of all industries as they all have their corruption and glamour but are lacking the every day quality that is brought from loving self lovingly.

200. You not only survived the fashion industry Adele, you are bringing a livingness to the fashion world that counters every false image.

201. When we work in a way that completely disrespects our bodies it is actually hard to save money because to keep ourselves function in an unnatural way we need to constantly stimulate the body. With sugar, drugs, alcohol, and other excessive behaviours. It is much more wise a fullfilling to work in a way where we can enjoy who we are each day, this appreciation for onself inspires a simple way of living.

202. So often we take for granted our work circumstances and industries without questioning them and literally ‘get on with the job’. I used to do this but have found that as I have started to self-care and self-nurture that some things that I used to put up with, I now see as a level of abuse and will no longer allow these behaviours. I would of never been able to see these patterns unless I worked on a more loving relationship with myself.

203. What kind of spell are we collectively under, when we see undernourished girls with panda eyes as beautiful or cool? A great expose, Adele, of a brutal industry and at the same time a huge inspiration to read how you turned your work around to be about bringing a loving quality to your day and all your relationships.

204. Great insight into the recesses of the fashion industry and the extent to which people let themselves be used up and spat out.

205. Re-reading this am I struck by the way we create what we think is a charismatic aggrandisement within these types of industries, the music, TV and theatrical industries feel very similar, all feeding the abuse, drama and disrespect that makes it seems glamorous and important. Cutting this insidious energy and bringing life back to basics, self respect, self care, connection and relationship brings a new sexiness and purpose to this wayward profession and thank God. Glamourizing such impoverished behaviour is clearly very last century, how you are choosing to engage, take responsibility and re-build your life within this industry Adele is the culture of the future.

206. “My Relationship with the Fashion Industry – Changed by the Way I Live”. How we live is so powerful – through our Livingness ‘we can move mountains’.

207. It is very beautiful Adele, to hear of how you now look after yourself, even in the midst of such an intense and abusive industry as the fashion world. I especially love how you have stated that commitment to your relationships at work is very important – these are people that you live with day in and day out, and it makes a great deal of sense that these relationships be loving – all these people are family as are all people!): ‘I commit to having amazing relationships with everyone I work with by expressing to the best of my ability what my feelings are.’ Doing this makes one’s work a magical place to be.

208. If what you show about the fashion industry is true Adele, what about education and medicine too? What would all these areas look like if we as people lived from how we felt inside? Imagine the texture and cut of the cloth picked to nurture and care for the skin. Consider the class where everyone was a crucial much needed part. What wonderful care would be there when you sat and consulted with a doctor who loved and nourished their body too? Wow Adele this style of world sounds amazing, if we start to live this way today I know we can show it off, and make it the latest fashion.

209. Adele – I love how you see the industry as a relationship. This is certainly foreign to me as I have only known it to be a fight for people who work in it. What I appreciate is that to make it about people first. This shows it is possible even in an industry where we think it is all about clothes . But bringing it back to the people brings a humbleness and real ness to it and takes away from any competition. Just beautiful. You are providing a healing to the whole industry.

210. What is so interesting to consider here is how often we say yes to imposing energies within an industry and how we are actually saying no to living in harmony with ourselves.

211. I guess that any of our professions or workplaces can own us as you have described, Adele. How powerful it is to say yes to “me” rather than to the profession or industry and then this flows all over the place which is pretty amazing. An inspirational sharing- thank you.

212. The fashion industry is what it is today in response to our choice to live with abuse, competition, comparison, individualism, a need for recognition and the denial of expressing who we truly are.

     1. Yes. In a nutshell, Kylie. A brilliant expose of our collective choices and our abdication of responsibility.

213. I really do love this blog for the fact that if you can change the way you are and how you work in an industry like the fashion industry we can do it in all industries.

214. “To me, this industry is a relationship” What a profound conclusion to arrive at after all the appalling abuse you have suffered within it. The Fashion Industry is entirely about relationship and your blog confirms just how disconnected has it become from its true purpose. What is so evident Adele is that you are going straight for the heart of the matter, quite literally, restoring that all-important ingredient that cannot be seen but is felt by us all, LOVE. Not our emotional exclusive version, I mean the ‘real McCoy’, the immensely inclusive, all loving wise intelligence that embraces people and soaks into the clothes, shoes, hats, sunglasses, jewellery that we adorn ourselves with right through to our bones. How awesome to have your presence within this fickle trade Adele, correcting its trajectory and restoring the core values that every industry should be relying on: respect, honesty, integrity, plus an immense and equal care of both the workers and the customers.

215. We view so many things as ‘bigger than us’, systems, governments, situations, circumstances other people etc, but everything ‘out there’ is created by the way that we choose to live and so it’s a total illusion that there is, in actual fact, anything, that we can’t influence. We have the power to transform the world as it was us that created how it is, in the first place.

216. The fashion industry as it stands today objectifies women. But the fashion industry is the end result, of an objectification that occurs much closer to home, with women objectifying themselves.

     1. A great observation – the media and fashion industry has its job done for it, in womens objectification of themselves which these industries simply reflect to us.

217. “I took a lot of abuse from customers because I worked with a high fashion brand and we were told the customers are always right, although many of them outright abused us by staying in the shop hours after closing just because they felt they could, and many stole from us as well, but we were not allowed to say no to them.”.

     This deserves to be read, read again and to be read once more. Because this is wide-spread in our modern society. We’re accepting way to much and in doing so society’s standard how to relate to each other has become really poor. It is absolutely disrespectful and dishonouring to put any product (profit) before people. We live in a world full of people and yet – generally speaking – we treat each other far from respectful, let alone careful or equal. This is not okay and thank God for people like Adele to bring a very needed change to this industry. And, she’s talking on behalf of many industries, sad but true.

     1. In self love we are never less than anyone or anything, this is a choice.

218. It is so easy to achieve the latest fashion look, to buy the right clothes and wear our hair in the right way, even to have the right kind of relationships that are all the fashion these days – but so very rarely are the people who work in the shops selling us these items and these images of cool perfection, standing there all day in high heels that hurt, unable to take a break, unable to rest or eat properly – ever considered as part of what we are buying in to. Because if they were, then maybe what is deemed as fashionable may not be so cool or desirable after all.

219. What I find inspiring is how through deepening the relationship you have with yourself, and therefore changing the relationship you have with the fashion industry, is that you have continued to stay working in this environment. For some, the polarity between the two worlds may have been enough to make the sea change to a different career, but in reality we live in a world that has many polar opposites and the greatest contribution to life one can make is to bring ‘you’ to this polarity, By bringing ‘you’ to everything you do, as you are doing, has enormous ripple effect on the industry and to people surrounding you. Awesome Adele.

     1. Yes, johannebrown17, it is by staying in those careers where there are polarities, maintaining and bringing our essence to that occupation, we can all play a part in changing the world.

     2. This can be said for everything in life Joanne, the polarity is of fire and prana—staying in observation with no judgement and free from reaction, accepting no abuse is love in action.

220. The fashion industry feels like a trap for those that are choosing to work in it – trying to obtain the unobtainable at a high personal cost of health and wellbeing.

     1. And yet, as Adele has shared, we can deconstruct the trap from within the trap… this feels very powerful.

221. I find it astonishing that as part of your job role you can be expected to take abuse from customers and do nothing about it – there is never an excuse for rudeness between anyone.

222. There are so many commonly accepted ways in society that women adopt that are uncomfortable, unloving and conform to an ideal of what a woman is, if not objectify ourselves. This is in every pocket of our lives and not confined to the fashion industry. Thank you Adele for bringing more awareness to a woman’s body and what it means to honour and revere being a woman.

223. This is a prime example of how we can change the world.

     1. We change the world by changing ourselves—simply by stopping the momentum of lovelessness.

224. When we put ourselves first and take good care of ourselves, the abuse that we once allowed just drops away, and our live begins to transform.

225. If many celebrities and ‘glamourous people’ who seemingly have it all in terms of looks or wealth or fame, still have chaotic and messy private lives then for me this shows just how much people need to compromise themselves in order to function within these industries.

     1. Completely agree Andrew.

        The abuse that we tolerate to wear our masks are unbelievable.

226. It was awesome to read your account of how the decision to take better care of oneself can really change one’s world, Adele – even in the vast and seemingly glamorous world of fashion, when you choose to support yourself in it first.

     1. Judith, I am learning that there is no perfection and indeed no rules in self-care but a deepening relationship with myself. It is not what I do or not do, it is not about being “good”, it is simply the honoring of my heart and body.

227. The fashion industry and celebrity culture go hand in hand; they both are glamorously portrayed, but the reality of what is really happening is far from it. The abuse that occurs behind the scenes goes undealt with as it occurs under this mask of bright lights.

     1. Abuse is rampant across so many industries. It is not until we call it for what it is, which is abuse can we start to make a change. Whilst we accept it as normal then nothing will ever change.

     2. That is true Susie, but being in close encounters with celebrities and developing lovely and solid friendships, I am seeing more questions of what needs to be dealt with surfacing, the honesty is touching and breaking the hard wall of glamour.

228. To be mastered by our profession so we are puppets of it, or to be masters of our profession so that we can be ourselves in all that we do. As you have so clearly shared, Adele, we are free in the latter to bring a refreshing outlook and quality to all our relationships (everyone we interact with) that can break some very damaging consciousnesses in many areas of work.

     1. Jack of all trades but master of none is a saying I remember well from my childhood, which I always took to mean being unidentified with a single proffession. How often does what we do become who we are, rather than an expression of who we are.

229. When we start to observe ourselves and the way we live, any ‘relationship’ can offer us the reflection that supports true and lasting change. It seems to me that as we start to observe ourselves more we become more aware of how the way we live impacts on the quality of our lives and through this we are enabled to make more self-loving choices. The relationship we have with work is one of those opportunities, just as our relationships with other people are too. They all reflect back our relationship with ourselves and this is what underpins our experiences in life. Through this self-awareness life takes on a very different perspective. It is one of responsibility as we recognise that whatever happens in our lives is in the first instance a reflection of the way we are with ourselves.

230. What really comes across in this blog is the level of abuse we are willing to put up with in order to get or be in a job we see ourselves in for what ever the reason. From what you have described Adele the abuse within the fashion industry is self-perpetuating because there is always another young girl or boy with aspirations to work in the fashion industry and is allured by the glamour. To go against all of that is huge.

231. Love your blogs Adele… and this one just gives such a clear picture of the difference between the constant striving to be something, for the acceptance into a shape that has been so warped over time… vs when you take back your choice to live it in a loving way and the turnaround in particular for the people that you work with.

232. The heading already is very revealing as it exposes how much our life is governed by the quality of our relationships.

233. What a blessing you are to those who then get to work with you Adele. That they meet someone who is not running on empty, fuelled by coffee, sugar and the rest, and who is so truly vital and embracing of all she gets to work with. Your story reflects the relationship we can have with any industry, when we make it about people first, and do not neglect ourselves in the process.

234. This is a brilliant share Adele. And amazing to hear that you have not backed off from the industry, but changed your relationship with it, as you have changed and deepened your relationship with yourself.
     I cannot but feel that there was something deeper that occurred in prompting the changes you began bringing to your life – in your sleep rhythms, your diet, etc… The sense I get from your words is that you reconnected with ‘you’ – the essence of you, that is worth valuing and caring for beyond measure, and that, once reconnected to, actually inspires such change and our continual refining, growth and evolution through it. Would you describe the inner change that occurred for you along these lines?

235. What I find so humbling in your blog, Adele, is the way in which you manage to stay with what you know and love, the fashion industry, using the wisdom you have gained on your own personal journey to stand up to the abuse with your own truth and you manage to exist within it, on your own terms. Very inspiring.

236. Adele, your blog offers real insight for anyone dealing with any form of abuse as you so clearly share your journey with the fashion industry. Moving from being seduced, to realising how abusive the industry really is, yet choosing to stay and take the abuse. Then reaching a point where something had to change and whilst taking full responsibility for the part you have played, making a stand by choosing to support yourself first and saying no to the abuse and then returning to the industry again, but on your own terms. You show how it is possible to stand up to the abuse and still do what you love. The gift you are then offering to everyone else within the industry is, enormous, an absolute blessing.

     1. It is awesome when we can make changes in ourselves that then transform age old patterns at work (or in our relationships, attitudes etc). Too often I have thrown everything out with the bathwater in reaction to abuse or unhappiness, only to realise later that a chosen career or partner was perfect for me but my approach and responsibility for how things played out needed re-configuring.

237. I’m working in the industry of social benefits and finding work for people that live of the social benefit. The whole industry is based on the fact that we can control people. Just by giving them advice they will change their behaviour and find a job. Instead of feeling and so reading what is actually going on for people in their lifes? Do they need some time of the jobmarket to be able to come back to themselves? Are they withdrawn from life? Are they angry with the world and in being so, don’t want to take responsibility. Do they feel victim? etc.

     What I’ve found is that it is the true and fiery understanding and allowance that makes the difference. We are to talk about energy in any industry. Because it’s the energy that makes the difference, not the behaviours or ‘tools’.

238. What a wonderful (if daunting) turning-of-the-tide point in your life Adele. ‘Until one day, when I said no to the abuse, and so for many years I had very few commercial styling jobs, but I began to work under my own terms.’ I can feel the enormous expansion here that has continued to grow as you bring your gorgeous light to that ailing industry.Bringing beauty back home!

239. It is extraordinary the lengths we will go to to avoid taking care of our bodies in the name of fashion, but at what cost? Your blog is inspiring Adele, showing us that there can be another way.

240. I know that I have put myself in disregard many a times choosing fashion and outwardly looking good over what is comfortable and supportive to wear. As I have worked on my level of self-care and self-love the way I dress has become an expression that comes from my connection with me and from what I feel rather than moulding myself into a certain outward way of looking.

241. No matter what work we do, it is how we are with ourselves that determines the quality of what will be experienced and reflected back to us in our workplace. Since I have become deeply committed to my own care and value of myself and begun to share that freely with my colleagues at their request, not only my experience has changed but also that of my colleagues, as they have begun to adopt and live in a way that supports their own care and value of themselves. I love and can endorse your words “… I began to work under my own terms.” This is a very beautiful thing to experience when chosen.

242. Saying no to abuse or any form of lovelessness can be a big step as often it means to step away from what is known, familiar and secure, but it is the way towards love, into love and with love.

243. ‘I can still remember the first day walking into a high fashion boutique as a salesperson… and for the next few years I was completely owned by a force from which I could not extricate myself, but felt immense tension succumbing to.’ – I can relate to what you are saying about being owned by an outside force, we may think we are the ones making our own desicions, when really that is not the case.

244. Thank you for bringing more insight to the fashion industry. What goes on behind the scenes is certanly different to the picture to likes to present.

245. Thank you, Adele, for breaking through the glamourous image of the fashion industry and what sounds like a dream job. It is so inspiring to read how you could not continue to abuse your body and naturally chose to make your work about love.

246. “no fine wine or fluffy soufflé could ever soothe the raw and bleeding wounds I felt inside of me”. Interesting what we put our selves through and the bribes we accept, even though we know that they can never heal the deep pain of disregard and abuse that we settle for. It’s an enormous shift to make in the face of such an ingrained culture, choosing to put your welfare first, which then inspires your work. If it can be done in this industry, then it can be done anywhere.

247. What an insidious hook the fashion world has created! It is an octopus with everything that has grown out of it; makeup, skin products and magazines to make you swallow the hook deeper of what we are not. The list of things to keep us from loving who we are makes it hard to find our way back… and continues to be fed by us!

248. Thanks Adele for allowing us to see the fashion industry from truth, not glamour, and the amazing lessons it allowed you to learn and share with us all, to reflect on in our own workplace.

249. ‘… I began to work under my own terms.’ I love this line as it expresses for me that commitment to saying no to abuse from oneself and from the world and bringing forth what is true for oneself (and therefore for others too) and claiming this. Very inspired as you did this against all the communications and demands on you to do otherwise.

250. “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body”. What incredible awareness you have Adele to say these words (and the wisdom to live them). Incredible.

251. It is a real testimony to you that you have been in the fashion industry for over 20 years and have been able to change how you work with in and around so much disregard and dysfunction and no longer allow it to dictate your life.

252. Feeling the grace of being met and recognised for who a person is rather than being seen for what clothes they are wearing is the greatest gift. In effect, we all wear one label – ‘Soul’ – its just that this label may get embellished and draped by so many layers of either behaviour patterns, personalities or ‘fashion’ that changes each season. So when we receive the grace of being met and recognised for who is underneath all those layers, one could either feel completely naked, undressed, exposed or completely loved for being who they truly are. Either way, it would be an unforgettable meeting…

253. What I find interesting is that whatever recognition we receive when we have that lovely feeling in our body will be a much truer recognition than the recognition we get for working in a self-negating way.

254. When we are able to work in an industry where work is done in what could be described us a self-negating or self-destructive way, then, if we work in a harmonious way, we become a very strong role model for those around us and perhaps even further out.

255. This is so beautifully expressed and when we live in connection to our bodies nothing compares.

256. It is interesting how we put fashion above other jobs when from what you decscribe is something that needs to be exposed for the cruelty it is – on so many levels.

257. Accepting (more) of who we are makes us less dependent on the outside world giving us recognition. How incredible and ‘logic’ at the same time, is it that the more we do so, the more we actually build connections with the people in the business we work in. And isn’t that what we actually all crave or are looking for: lovely connections in which we can share our lifes and deepen the relationship with each and every one. And in doing so the quality of us working together grows naturally. What if this is actually natural! Much more natural then the bullying, abuse and power games so many of us experience on a daily basis. The answer is within. And I’m the first to say that we need support to return to our innermost. Heaps of support. We’re all to find somebody that we deeply trust.

258. I love your crystal clear perception Adele as you cut through the ‘crap’ of the fashion industry with all its myths and abuses which are clearly a form of S & M. The people who run this charade will take any wayward path to further sensationalise and attract attention for the catwalk of commerce. And I love your sense of humour too as you realise and expose your bruised relationship to the way this industry is currently run: ” All the money I made I voluntarily donated it back to the industry by shopping to keep up an image – for me that image was “help!” I wore long loose flowy clothes in black or white which I could disappear in, I did not want to be here. It was not funny and nothing fashionable at all, I had dark panda eyes just like the fashion models in the magazines, which are not trendy, but the way I and we as a society have sold out to this industry’.

259. Nothing in the industry you work in has changed yet how you are in it has completely changed. Changing the world or wanting a better life for ourselves is not about anything external. It is all about how we are.

260. “But just like everything in the fashion industry, what we see on the outside is far from the truth.” – Adele, to get an inside look and a true account of what actually happens behind the scenes in the fashion industry is very valuable as there is such a strong image of glamour and excitement and this facade of a fairy tale. Thank you for your brutal honesty in sharing how it is and how it was for you, and also thank you for showing us that this can indeed be turned around, that it is about the choices we make, and the things we accept or don’t accept that actually allows things to change for us. Well done for where you have come from and where you now stand with this!

261. “What we see on the outside is far from the truth” – yes Adele, how many parts of life does this apply to? The fashion industry is often criticised for the way it is superficial, yet what if it just represents the way we are in all of life? How many jobs actually drain and demoralise people in reality? If we were wrong about the glamour of these jobs, just what else have we been fooled by?

262. “When I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself, so every day at work I compromised my body by feeling a tension, which I did not know how to unravel.” When we align to a particular consciousness, we are stepping away from our divinity. Any movement away from ourselves is a step away from God and the light that we already naturally are, therefore a tension will be evident within the body.

263. A great in-sight into the industry Adele; on first mention the fashion industry and the buyer’s job sound very exciting, and one would imagine great fun, but the reality and the toll the stress levels and lifestyle take on the body tell a completely different story.

264. I love how you describe that when we sign up to an industry or company we become part of a consciousness that runs this industry as this is exactly my experience, so much so that when I sign the contract I can feel how the energy of that company or industry is trying to take hold of me. It takes a lot of awareness and self-care to stay free from it and live my rhythm within that energy cloud I am now part of, but when I do it is me energetically starting to re-imprint that energy and bring a rhythm of care and love into it, that is then available to all that work in that industry. How cool is that!?

265. It is interesting how we can all feel that something is wrong with the way we have chosen to live, yet we all pretend everything is fine and override the discomfort in our bodies.

266. It is interesting how the majority of the fashion industry seems to operate in complete disregard to the body. You would think the industry responsible for supporting us all to present and care for our bodies would make caring for the body more of a focus, such as you have Adele.

267. Life is full of tension, and it can indicate that something is going on for us, or it can also induce we are feeling what is around us is disharmonious.

268. Reading this blog again I am still shocked at the level of discomfort that was allowed. I can’t imagine standing all day in 3 inch heels and eating my lunch standing up in them too.. There must be some health and safety laws at work to fall back on? What is going on here must contravene a number of them!

269. What is clear from your sharing, Adele, is that when the big jobs fall through due to the way you are living, it is because they are not yet ready to be met with such a deep level of care and love. It is great to hear that this is rare and that most are open to what is on offer.

270. The thin facade that hides such rot… an important area of reflection for us all?

271. Reading the beginning of this article I felt the collusion in an industry that perpetuates abuse and was very unsettled by this. This in itself is a great call to responsibility for what we pretend we are not part of. Thank you, Adele.

272. It’s inspiring to hear that by changing the way you live, Adele you have changed how you are at work…there is a message for us all in this.

273. Adele, I love this, ‘I feel vital and joyful, even in the most intense jobs, from start to finish’, this shows that we can remain ourselves no matter what our environment, that if we look after and care for ourselves that we need not get caught up in the stress and disregard around us but can work in our own loving way – this is very beautiful and an amazing reflection for others in this industry who work with you.

274. There are many industries whose original purpose to serve humanity has been bastardised and the fashion industry is one example. We all need clothes and our clothes can be an expression of how we feel, but a whole industry has been built on competition, recognition and greed that leaves its workers, manufacturers and models, exhausted. Adele Leung has experienced first hand the complete lack of self regard and is now turning that around by shining a light from deep within, showing how it can be different.

     1. So true Carmel, I recently read a blog from a woman appreciating her love of sewing (https://womeninlivingness.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/sewing-the-rhythm-of-life-one-stitch-at-a-time/). This blog reminded me of how much love and care was put into a garment before the industrialisation came along. I am not against using machines but we have started to treat people as machines and lost the joy of making a product that serves people and instead are putting the whole focus on making money. However money has never filled the emptiness inside, given us more love or made us content.

     2. Carmel, you make a very valid point here: the fact that many industries have in fact originally had a true purpose to being set up. So much of what we start off with in life has a true purpose, in other words a purpose to serve people and humanity. It is unfortunate that this purpose gets bastardised in the process and then the other factors come in and interfere as you have mentioned (competition, recognition and Greed etc). What I love about Adele’s sharing is that once she had her realisation and decided to make more respectful, caring and loving choices, she did not turn her back on the fashion industry but instead decided to bring that respect, care and love to the industry to show it can indeed be transformed and brought back to its true meaning and intent to begin with. Now imagine if everyone did this in all careers and all industries!

275. It’s a very arrogant consciousness that says you have to make this industry a thousand times more important than you and your health. Adele what you are turning around here is immense, putting your welfare first and the well being of those you work with is really going against the tide, but ironically what you are doing is bringing in the flow. We are so much more beautiful, gorgeous, vital and productive when we truly nurture our body, heart and soul and who wouldn’t want to wear the clothes made in this energy, its the key recipe of success.

276. Has fashion throughout history been a form of separation? Can the people that make clothes, afford to wear them? It is great that you Adele, are the wedge that is bringing and allowing in light to this industry!

277. Interesting to read the part of Adele’s blog where she described being told that “the customer is always right”, as I just had a similar conversation with a checkout clerk at a grocery store the other day about this very topic. I had expressed how much I appreciated that every time I come to that store and go through her checkout line she is always super open, friendly and very pleasant to speak to. She then told me how sometimes it is quite difficult to maintain that with rude and demanding customers, and that she was told to NEVER question or disagree with them in any way (customer’s always right thing). I mentioned to her how I don’t feel it is ever right to accept abuse and disregard from anyone, and that as long as it is called out without an emotional outburst, she could be helping the rude customer by reflecting that their behaviour is abusive. But that could lead to her getting fired. So in the end, perhaps we need to let go of all our attachments to jobs and fear of getting fired for standing up for the TRUTH, which would enable us all to advance together as a society and learn from our mistakes.

278. Hi Adele, I appreciate your willingness to expose the illusion of the fashion industry.

279. Adele what is so great and fantastic about this post is how you were able to continue working in the industry having drawn yourself from its former clutches… which is inspiring not just for those in the fashion industry who might be going through the same thing as you did, but also, others who maybe looking to quit their own job/careers/professions like banking, law, sales, and so on, for similar reasons/reactions. You show us how that it’s not the industry itself, but how we are within the industry that is the deciding factor as to whether we truly enjoy it or not. When we’re not in a great space within ourselves, we’re automatically going to see no point, and eject from it, never to return to a place/job etc. where we have so much to offer by being in it.

280. Everything ultimately comes down to how much we are willing to accept that we are worth taking care of ourselves, and then how far we are prepared to go to do that looking after. The further we are willing to go with that, the more magic happens.

281. I have often wondered how it must be for the models who, apart from having to walk in incredibly high heels, also have to look sultry, are not allowed to smile or engage with their audience, have to make sure their bodies are the right shape/size and who are constantly being told how to move, none of which is natural. This false image is what gets sent out in the magazines, so that young girls also feel they have to look sulky, move in that angular way and diet to be a size they think is the same. How much better to have fun in the work, to be natural, and to reflect the self-care that you write about.

282. Adele you bring light to a soul-deprived industry – Bless you!

283. What I realise from reading this blog is that anything and everything materialistic will eventually not be there anymore. What is fashion today isn’t fashion within months, sometimes even weeks. This continuous cycle of motion and drivenness isn’t contributing to one’s health, is it. I feel the best in clothes that actually support to bring the beauty that I am out. As if my clothes confirm how I feel on the inside. It is a completely metamorphose compared to my past. Even though the clothes I wore at that time, exactly reflected how I felt in those days. Incredible and inspiring to me that the outer actually reflects the inner. Even though we try to make it work the other way around. Dressing up to feel good.

284. It’s so true that we can become the industry that we are in. It takes over and we just fit in, adapting to our environment and doing what is required of us without asking any questions. I love how you have claimed yourself within your industry. You are totally yourself, and you bring something unique.

285. A very clear expose on how ‘privilege’ can afford to buy abuse. What is interesting is the fact that people willingly say yes to being abused when it is dressed up in glamour. It really isn’t any different to poverty driven abuse, it is all the same out play of people looking for relief outside of themselves. What ever our economic position in life is we will abuse or allow abuse based on our own true connection with ourselves. Money or poverty is two sides of the same coin.

286. Hi Adele I love the fact that you went from being changed by the fashion industry to the relationship changing by the way you live, in that when you honored what was true it showed what was not true about the industry.

287. It is amazing how we have pictures of how we think certain jobs/careers/industries are run and how it would be to be involved with them. Your blog is a great expose of these pictures in the fashion industry and I loved reading how changing how caring for yourself brought enormous change to how you work and how you feel about work. Inspiring for everyone.

288. Everything changes when we bring self care to ourselves first… then we bring that same level of loving care to all others we meet. How can our life and relationships not change when tender loving care is the focus of how we are in the world.

289. This proves that how we live, the way in which we choose to live, affects all our relationships – with friends, family, work colleagues, in fact everyone we meet.

     1. Yes, a great call to responsibility and the inspiration of the impact we have in every moment, no moment being too small or insignificant.

290. When we look for image(s) to give us what we think we need to feel the way we wanna feel we finally have to realize that actually the whole endeavour has taken from us what we are missing in truth as beautifully exposed by you, Adele.

291. The fashion industry – the most glamorous place to be and work, all the films and media that makes it out to be this amazing world of events and high fashion, money and champaign. And yet, the truth of the fashion industry as you have described from your experiences contains these things, but with a far more rotten core – and it is this that creates and is starting point of all the fashion that we as consumers buy and wear. In that jumper or that latest trend, is all the exhaustion, the self abusive hours and work load, the drugs/alcohol and partying etc, etc.

292. “To put it simply, when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself, so every day at work I compromised my body by feeling a tension, which I did not know how to unravel.” This is a key point in understanding why people choose to live in a very disregarding way which by all means would not be what we would choose naturally for ourselves. Yet if the industry we work in does applaud the abuse and disregard we just keep going and because everybody does it we think it is normal, even though we know deep inside it is not true. The whole energy of the industry basically says that to be successful you have to live in disregard. You have shown however that we always have that choice to take care of ourselves and work in the industry of our choice how we would like to in our hearts. This is a very powerful sharing. Thank you Adele.

     1. Is all this disregard, that most all high paid jobs and industry’s feed off of us, just a reflections of our abuse we allow? The higher the reward, the higher the cost we are willing to sacrifice our self for?

        1. Great questions Steve. I think that is absolutely what we have accepted as normal: that to have a well paid job you have to be willing to sacrifice yourself, go over your limits etc. otherwise you are not truly wanting to do the job so to speak. Yet what we do with this way of living is accepting that that is the only way and that perpetuates the reality of having to endure abuse for having that job that ‘everyone wants’ so to speak. So yes we are allowing abuse, because if we would say no altogether these industries would have to change soon.

293. Thank you, Adele…yet another industry exposed as being a far cry from the image it presents to the world. It is always incredibly sad to read about the things humans will do to their bodies to get fame and recognition, and then resort to as coping mechanisms which only perpetuates the self abuse.

294. ‘when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself, so every day at work I compromised my body by feeling a tension, which I did not know how to unravel.’ – This is a great point, I too have worked in industries that fed on the disregard of myself, and back then, I did not even question it. That’s the thing… we do not question it because the society is reflecting back to us that disregard of ourselves is the norm and something we are encouraged to do. There is hardly anything out there that reflects the importance of self-care.

295. Adele you truly are incredible; you never cease to amaze me with your unwavering commitment to truth. You alone create ripples that are felt by many. Very inspiring, thank you.

296. You demonstrate here that how we are in our industry has an enormous impact on our wellbeing.

297. The fashion industry and the way you were encouraged to work within it sounds intense and full on. The fact that the refinement and care you have invested into your life has brought you round to stating “I feel vital and joyful, even in the most intense jobs, from start to finish” and that you now have deeper connection to everyone you work with who all also have a more amazing time, shows you are onto something priceless here worth studying and learning from.

     1. I have been reflecting,:what sees us through intensity is first our will, closely supported by our body and the expression through this body.

298. It’s fascinating how models looking withdrawn, thin, sad, checked out are seen as what is desired in fashion. How is this? What about seeing real woman who love themselves to the core modelling clothes…not so radical really, just natural. And how would this be for our young girls and women growing up to see healthy looking older women in fashion? We have all allowed the fashion industry to get to where it is by buying brands that portray women in a negative way, and buying magazines that promote them.

299. What a hooking industry the fashion world is, we can buy into it and place our own worth and identity in it to the point we find it impossible to extricate ourselves from the falsity and illusion. This is what you show here Adele, “I have been in this industry for over 20 years. I can still remember the first day walking into a high fashion boutique as a salesperson… and for the next few years I was completely owned by a force from which I could not extricate myself,”

300. ‘just like everything in the fashion industry, what we see on the outside is far from the truth’ And this is currently the purpose of fashion itself; to perfect an image or ‘style’ that looks good, without addressing how someone lives or feels who’s wearing those items of clothing. What I’ve always noticed is that the most fashionable and attractive anyone ever looks, is when they walk confidently in themselves and you can see that they’re enjoying walking and wearing the clothes they are – it’s nothing to do with the clothes themselves.

301. Adele, I would love to see a documentary filmed of behind the scenes in the fashion industry, the truth behind the false veil.

302. This is the real wake up call, the “Emperor and his clothes scenario” whereby someone inside the industry exposes the abuse, lies and exploitation that is it founded on and by example is restoring trues values to this hugely influential realm. The beauty of this blog is that what is shared here can empower us to establish this immense level of self love, nurturing and regard into all our industries and begin to restore the truly humane factor in business again, putting quality first not in the material sense, but in people first and foremost.

303. Great blog Adele, it really demonstrates how being you in the world is a science, and it takes a daily and consistent dedication to not get swept up in the world around us, and that dedication to making different choices absolutely changes your whole life forever.

304. The detail with which you have expressed your relationship with your life in fashion is inspiring Adele. It matters not where we work, our life is one and our relationship with ourselves is what is reflected in every aspect of it.

305. What you show Adele’s how easily we can be owned by the industry we work in and succumb to the unrealistic demands and pressures that the job puts on us. Because everyone else is owned in a similar way it is seen as normal to push the body to exhaustion. The job may sound glamorous but unless we equip ourselves with the right tools to look after ourselves and be able to nurture and care for ourselves, work takes precedence over the body. I worked in the horse industry for many years (which stemmed from my love of horses as a child) and then kept my own horses and was very much owned by the industry. My body was always the last thing I considered, the horse and the job came first and my exhausted body was only considered when back pain or an injury got in the way of me doing my work.

306. The love for yourself and everybody else equally is felt in your sharing, Adele. your journey is a journey back to your inner heart and your wisdom bringing all this to your workplace. This is amazing.

307. How you are living is a deep inspiration to all of us all – your true lived quality within the fashion industry is needed offering all others the opportunity to equally see clear of the false and comfortable and reconnect to their truth.

308. ‘When I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself’, this is such a great insight Adele and I know that there are an absolutely unlimited number of other industries that are similarly unloving. What then happens is that anyone entering that industry has to mold themselves into the unloving constraints that have already been set in place. The effects of all this, in that it makes it very hard to make loving choices. You have done a remarkable job to choose love in such a loveless environment.

309. This is a brilliant expose-a on high glamour and what really goes on behind the scenes…far from being glamorous its easy to see from your writing, Adele the level of abuse that really goes on. For those that are seeking recognition…(lets face it most of us are) we are prepared to suffer the consequences and put our bodies under severe strain, tension and ill health to “make it”. You show that it doesn’t have to be that way!

310. Every picture or video I saw of people preparing for fashion shows behind the scenes showed an extremely high level of tension as if that tension would have no influence on how the clothing would be shown on the catwalk.

     1. Truly so, Christoph. As if. We can only hold onto this belief, when we harden ourselves and do not allow ourselves to feel, which is almost a prerequisite to enter and remain in recognition within this industry.

311. I love what you share, Adele. So often we choose to escape rather than re-imprint our ways. What a light you shine for others to find their way.

     1. Hi Carmin thats a great point, instead of walking away from something we like or we setup that was not loving there is always the opportunity to change our relationship with it.

312. Ariana agreed from my experience you could relate what Adele shares here to every industry. So the real question is why do we ignore what our bodies tell us?

313. The way you have made your life and work about the quality of relationships that you have – with yourself and all others is beautiful to hear. And there is a real sense of strength in how you are at work, not being crushed by ideals or beliefs but instead bringing a steadiness of love that supports you and all whom you’re in touch with.

     1. Ideals and beliefs are mechanical impositions that sit over the top of the natural ebb and flow of life. They herd us into false ways of being. If we were to remove all ideals and beliefs then there would be a tremendous letting go, as we all readjusted and aligned to the natural flow of life.

314. Its interesting, how our relationship with everything changes after changing the way we live, that is, introducing self care and self love changes the relationship we have with ourself first then the way we see and interact with everything has that quality of love and care with it too.

315. “….when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself” – ‘that fed on the disregard of myself’, wow, Adele, an eyeopening fact and true of many if not all industries, jobs or professions i.e. in that disregard itself not being created by the industry itself etc., but it being a deliberate and focused compounder of it to demonstrate, in fashions case, the complete ugliness of such a ‘beauty industry’, and also in this what is self-inflicted (disregard) and hence self-chosen, blame on anything else is seemingly wiped clear. The fashion industry have a lot to answer for, though equally so do we too individually in our neediness that leaves us open to such penetrable and consuming forces…

     1. You make a very valid point here Zofia, we may blame the industry or the company for being a certain way but at some point we would have had to agree to the abuse from the start, for whatever reason.

316. What an incredibly inspiring life-changing story Adele which beautifully confirms the timeless wisdom held within this famous quote by Shakespeare ‘To thine own self be true’.

317. I love the way you have turned this around Adele. You haven’t left the industry – you have stayed, and you are completely different within it. It is an awesome demonstration of the fact that we can’t blame our surroundings for how we are. We are totally responsible for how we respond and how we live, and as you have shown we can shine instead of cower, and excel instead of struggle. Great blog.

     1. This is how I felt too when I read that Adele had stayed in the industry; that we “can’t blame our surroundings for how we are” and we can’t blame others either. It is a great example of, it’s not what we do, it’s how we do it; that it is our responsibility for the way we do anything in life as are the consequences that follow.

318. “I took a lot of abuse from customers because I worked with a high fashion brand and we were told the customers are always right, although many of them outright abused us by staying in the shop hours after closing just because they felt they could, and many stole from us as well, but we were not allowed to say no to them.” What an extraordinary situation whereby you are basically instructed by your employers to let people get away with abuse, theft and complete arrogance. It is very telling of the very base level of integrity that is considered quite ‘right’ or ‘normal’ for the sake of a fashion brand name.

     1. If we voluntarily allow others to abuse us, on another level there must be abuse that we are hurling back at ourselves and others in this industry.

        1. True Adele, it is where abuse is accepted and delivered and by this, is just a ‘normal’ element in life. As you describe, it is a harsh and destructive environment we build when this is what we choose. The care and nourishment of yourself turned this around and shows us there is another way the fashion industry can work by.

319. That is all the difference – making it about people, meeting oneself (taking care of oneself) and others. Life is about people and the quality of our relationships in whatever we do.

320. We will always suffer the consequence when we put the attainment of an image above living from our own body.

321. Stress, exhaustion and insomnia are all signs for us to see that we are not caring for ourselves enough and how we are living is not supportive. You can feel how things have changed Adele when YOU changed your life style. You are reflecting to the fashion industry how to live differently now.

322. I really like this part about how the fashion industry can make it seem cool to look exhausted and limp. How this justifies the self-abuse and dis-regard. And how this masks an industry that does not respect its workers.

323. No amount of glamour can ever fill the emptiness we feel inside as glamour is all about the outer appearances… it is when we lovingly connect within ourselves that we begin to fill ourselves in a way no outer influences can ever effect.

324. This is fabulous how you are showing another way of working and living within the fashion industry Adele – you must be so very inspiring for all those you meet.

325. This very much exposes glamour for what it is… full of pictures, ideals and beliefs, comparison and competition, disregard and abuse… the exact opposite of how life can be as you have so eloquently shared Adele.

326. Glamour exposed! There’s no worth in glamour, it’s all about the outer picture, fed from driveness to reach a goal, an ideal, a certain picture. And when it’s reached, there’s a new one and one more and so on and on and on. A rat race that we won’t win and which will never fullfill the emptiness inside. Slowly starting to love ourselves more changes us and from there the relationship with other people and life (including animals, nature and God). Which shows the enormous power love is. So wouldn’t it be wise to make sure that we got a one unified truth on:
     1. what love is
     2. that life is all about adding love to it and in choosing so naturally evolve
     Quite the opposite of what glamour is and definitely what it pretends to be!

327. Adele, to hear you also share about the abuse that goes on behind the scenes of the fashion industry is so important, as there are so many glamorous images that abound that do not represent the truth nor the full picture indeed! So thank you again for being the one to open this up, to lift the curtain or the veil to see a glimpse of what actually happens behind the scenes.

328. Adele, this is amazing to hear how you have changed things around in your life! Truly amazing – especially as you have not run away from it all but instead have dedicated yourself to building your relationship with yourself and then from here bringing YOU and your reflection to the industry itself. “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body” – this is testament to the fact!

329. How much the young are taken advantage of when they enter an industry, especially when it is an Industry that has a glamorous exterior image like fashion or the theatre or film and all the arts, where the young are attracted by the glamour and become literally willing slaves. For you to turn around this image of young people being fair game, and used and abused, Adele, benefits everyone, for those that continue to encourage the self abuse of their employees through their demands on them, are also abusing themselves, not only through the life style they themselves are living, but also by ignoring the truth they must know deep within themselves, that this behaviour is not acceptable or respectful, and that they do nothing to stop it. By claiming the Love you are and living it you reverse that insidious continuing behaviour that destroys and degrades everyone.

330. It was exhausting reading all the abusive ways you put yourself through Adele! It really highlights to me how many of us live with such a lack of self worth that we accept this kind of abuse without word because we are so invested in what we are doing, or in the ‘glamour’ of it. I love how you have exposed the manipulation for what it is and that it only exists because we allow it.

331. Everyone and everything we come into contact with, offers the potential to develop a caring relationship with. Adele, I love how you feel your work environment is also a relationship, to constantly be deepened and enjoyed from your fullness of every particle in your being. If we all lived this way, there would be little need of absenteeism from work.
     “I choose to live and share this way because this industry is not just a name for me, this industry is all the friendships I have made over the last 20 years, it is everyone I have ever met and deeply care about. To me, this industry is a relationship”.

332. What an inspiration your story is Adele, showing us that our lives are what we choose them to be.

333. This is the purpose of why we work.. to feed back and nourish industries that sorely need it.

334. Thank you Adele – what a gorgeous reflection this provides to me. I have been around his industry for a few years and have a friend who is a stylist – but the level of honesty you go to about the abuse we can choose for ourselves is very grounding to hear. The truth is we can put work before ourselves and then we end up in a cycle of self abuse even though we might not realize it.

335. The way that we live, if we make it about love, be it with ourselves, others or the world at large can change the face of any industry from the inside out. I love the way you claim your relationship with the fashion industry and the fact that there is no need to run away from abuse, all you had to do was say a resounding NO to it.

336. I am sure people form many different industries can relate to the lifestyle you describe – one of constant stress, time pressure, exhustion, coffee and parties to fill in the gaps. This lifestyle is so tough on the body, and yet it is most peoples reality, often the feeling of being unable to change, perhaps even unwilling. And yet, as you have shown it is possible, in the face of backlash from a world that doesnt support making choices in line with what is true for you.

337. A statement that is no doubt a first in the fashion industry… “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body”.

     1. Yes, it is is strange circularity – we don’t feel great, so we look outside for confirmation. That confirmation carries a high price of feeling bad or even worse, making us look for more confirmation and recognition. It takes a lot to be able to break that cycle.

        1. Yes it does Christoph… from one who has for the most part broken it. No easy matter absolutely and the pull is constantly there from all around to succumb to fashions call to place our worth in the outer.

338. You are the fashion Alchemist Adele – without a doubt. What you present, reflect and share with all who work with you, models, photographers, make-up people, set-builders, will never go out of fashion and will bring our glorious future to so many. Amazing work!

339. Wow what a turn around Adele, thank you for exposing the illusional glamour that holds the fashion industry. You being you in the world of fashion brings fresh inspiration to many who are trapped in their own illusion.

340. “I further deepened this care by nourishing myself with fresh and healthy foods and drinking more water, and taking the care to make lunch for myself and to bring it to work. I don’t overtire myself, and I commit to having amazing relationships with everyone I work with by expressing to the best of my ability what my feelings are.” It is this willingness to take a deeper level of care, where we can begin to make the real changes to our lives and to our true health. This is very inspiring Adele and a beautiful example of what is possible not only for ourselves but for all those around us when we are prepared to truly honour what we know and feel.

341. For someone who hasn’t worked within the fashion industry it does come across to be a glamorous and exciting career/area to work in, but what you’ve shared really exposes the extent of this falsity and the fact that it’s painted in this way by the media and the industry itself in order to hide the abuse that really goes on. But I love how you are inspiring within the industry that there is a different way to be with fashion and look after yourself, that is so needed.

342. ‘I took a lot of abuse from customers because I worked with a high fashion brand and we were told the customers are always right, although many of them outright abused us by staying in the shop hours after closing just because they felt they could, and many stole from us as well, but we were not allowed to say no to them.’ I have just gone to comments to write about this extraordinary statement ‘the customer is always right’ and about the abuse dealt out to retail assistants, only to see that Stephen (above) has written exactly what I was going to say – i.e. that respect and loving care between customer and retail worker needs to be the quality of relationship here! My jaw literally dropped to hear that you were treated this way Adele. ‘High fashion brand’ and all the glamour seems to be accompanied by atrocious relationship. It can sometimes be the opposite way here in Australia, where the retail assistants who serve the customers are not helpful , keep the customer waiting, and act in a superior fashion – though mostly i have very good service wherever I go ad have fun with whoever is serving me.

     1. Could it be there are three types of customer service? The first is mechanical not unpleasant but, Next type that eye contact is not required as part of the job. Then, we have like you, Adele and countless numbers have experienced: the forced smile, You will bend over backwards to please the customer. Then the one that always stands out, someone that connects with you. We can always connect to the first two rather accepting what they offer as the norm and put ripples in the pond.

        1. So true Steve – the one that always stands out is where another connects with us and in my experience, however mechanical customer service may be – if I am willing to be open to make a connection with them, the whole experience changes to a mutual inter-connectedness and the person lights up at being met in full for who they are and not what they do.

343. When we stop and think about it the disregard we put ourselves in, in the name of work, is quite shocking…with seeking to prove ourselves for recognition, and to fit in, it’s like common sense goes out the window. Adele you have shown how simple it is to work in a high demanding industry and still take deep care of yourself and turn you life around…This is inspirational.

344. Self-love is at the heart of true change. When we choose self-love we reconnect to a source within that ends the ‘endless’ pursuit of love – sought ‘out there’ in a world where most at present are also seeking love. Many wise teachers have reflected this back to us over the ages and Serge Benhayon is doing just that here today – reflecting back to us the love we innately are so we can choose it too.

345. ‘But just like everything in the fashion industry, what we see on the outside is far from the truth.’ – An important expose, and something that could be said about most areas in the world, even in our own lives – what we see/show on the outside is often far from the truth. We live in a society where it has become the norm to hide behind a facade.

346. I love when you say “no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body”. That is so key so you are not saying no to anything rather yes to the love that you are.

347. Adele, I can so relate to what you are sharing here, as a young woman I worked as a fashion photography assistant, we had trips abroad; stayed in plush hotels; ate out at the best restaurants, but it was late nights, lots of alcohol and I felt exhausted and did not enjoy these trips, actually I just wanted to go to bed early and have some time for me. I left the fashion side of the industry because I did not like what it was portraying to women and because the lifestyle did not suit how I naturally was. It is beautiful that you stand strong and firm in how you live and that you reflect that we can live lovingly no matter what industry we are working in.

348. If you had carried on as you described in your blog Adele, accepting the daily abuse and over ridding your very exhausted body there is a very high risk of being very sick or having a serious illness later in life. I have heard about the abuse at the other end of the fashion industry where the clothes are made but not in the section you are working in. I can see how you can become owned by the industry and it takes over your life and ultimately your health and vitality. Thank you for sharing it was an eye-opener to read.

349. “… when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself, …” How often and so common for so many give themselves over to a business, a way of living or ideal for recognition and belief it will bring fulfilment. I did when I became a kinesiology practitioner even with the greatest and best of intentions. However, it was selling my Soul and like you, Adele, fortunately managed to retrieve it before all was lost and in doing so found true Love.

350. “… when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself,” And this is the foundation of many industries Adele, a shocking indictment of our attitude towards humanity, that we are just a commodity to be used and abused in the name of success and profit. Awesome how you have re-instated love as the most important commodity in this bleak industry, starting with how you love your self and naturally expanding it into loving everyone you work with, showing the world that the real recipe for success lies in making business about people first and foremost.

351. You have exposed the meat grinder of what transpires in the fashion industry. One only needs to look at the front of house that we all see, the models on the catwalks! It is amazing that you are bringing light into a place that is all about what the outside looks like at the cost of what is within us!

352. In the race for recognition and reward, and in our bid for identification, it seems we can subject ourselves to all manner of abuses. What happened to body-and-soul-centric living? En masse we’ve lost the plot but people like Adele who make it about self-care and self-love first are reflecting another way.

     1. It is crazy what lengths and extremes we go to for reward and recognition. I know for me I have often managed to get to a goal but then found and realised how much I had to let go to get to it – in some cases almost or pretty much destroying my life. Nothing is worth more then the love we feel within us – no one or nothing can bring us more than the depths we have within.

353. It is fascinating to read that the fashion industry, that is role modelling for lots of people, is so disregarding on many levels but that you did not turned your back to it but continued to work in it because of the relationships you have in it which deserve to receive the love that you bring in everything that you do.

354. If we see another as equal friends first we meet our next not because of his importance or unimportance jobwise but because we have a relationship to our next concsiously or unconcsiously for which we are responsible.

355. Adele thank you so much for sharing your experience with the fashion industry. I am often wondering how it comes that each kind of industry have their own rules and ideal and believes. Reading you honest blog helped me to understand a bit more of it. I love it very much how you chose to come back to yourself – I am sure your living way is an inspiration for others as well.

356. We use so many vices that we tell our self are “good’ for us, to distract us from the obvious fact that we feel empty and disillusioned from the choices we are making. Great you are exposing this in your blog Adele.

357. The fashion industry riddled with abuse is being reimprinted with your comminitment and love Adele. Something that has undermined and grossly disempowered women has the capacity eventually to turn around significantly. What you are bringing by simply being there is immense.

358. This blog proves we don’t need to change an entire industry to effect true change. We just need to change ourselves in it. And when enough of us do that, the industries that need to change, will.

359. Your story is very powerful in reflecting the path of disregard to one of care and connection. The beauty in this is the blessing for all touched by not only your presence but any job you are involved in. You are indeed needed in an industry where they promote the complete opposite of the truth – that beauty is found on the outside.

360. If we live in separation of who we are, we will always be looking for others to confirm us and accept us to fill up the void and in that self abuse and drive is just another way to get through life. Committing to live honouring and appreciating us in every moment is apart of the healing process we all can support ourselves with.

361. Awesome blog Adele, exposing the fashion industry for what it really is, to what it truly can be like when life is lived in accordance to one’s own internal harmony, as opposed to it being obliterated and controlled by an outside force [like fashion, an industry or any profession]. Your words: “On the odd occasion when big styling jobs drop me because of the way I choose to live and respect myself, I come back to the focus that no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body” – true fabulousness Adele, and totally inspiring.

362. It is a big step for us to go from competition to relationship with each other within an industry, but for these relationships to be true, we have to first have a loving relationship with ourselves. The fashion industry is not special, even though I may not be in direct contact to every industry available in this world, and yet whenever I meet people from industries close to or seemingly unrelated to fashion, a recurrent picture is presented, we are exhausted and burnt out. So all industries in the world requires a focus back towards self-love and self-care, which start with how we live our lives.

363. What we bring to an industry when we choose true connection is unimaginable. It is all that it in truth ought to be, and more.

364. We create industries to disconnect from ourselves. What you bring is disconnection, so far away from what often is lived by the people in this industry, but bringing ourselves and the love that we are to our work is the most important.

365. Your blog shows that there are two faces of the fashion industry… the attractive and glossy one that faces the audience and the not so attractive, tortuous backstage one… The human body, being sandwiched between these two polar opposite forces has to eventually buckle-up and show this tension in some way. The self care you brought to your body has certainly made the difference to being able to withstand the realities of working in this industry.

     1. Yes! Recognizing the disharmony and disunity in this industry was the awareness of the same disharmony first felt within myself. So to address the issue in this industry, it makes sense to begin addressing this from my body.

366. Work is definitely a relationship and one we spend a lot of time in and when I feel you describe it this way, I feel the joy you live and how it’s about people and connection and not just the job, and that for sure outlasts any products. And this I love ‘no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body’ that is how we can live and work with true joy and vitality.

367. There is absolutely no-thing that can not be changed by the way that we live. The way that we live is the change agent that everyone is looking for.

368. Hugely revealing insight into the glamour world of fashion – thankyou Adele.

369. The customer is always right is an interesting phrase, for me it provokes in some people a right to abuse others and play a power game. Perhaps what we need is a new customer service phrase, like, the customer and the company staff should forget about right and treat each other with respect and loving care and use compassion and care to resolve issues as they arise. I guess we are still a fair way off that being a normal form of interacting but there is no reason we should allow abuse to be our normal way of getting what we want.

370. ‘I took a lot of abuse from customers because I worked with a high fashion brand and we were told the customers are always right’ …. what a horrible situation to be in, where irrespective of how someone is behaving, you have been instructed to smile and take it, you are being asked to completely give your power away to the bullying and imposing energy. You are not being valued or respected at all.

371. Wow, tellin’ it like it is. If you can turn your life and career around after that, everyone has a chance. Taking time for yourself and care of your body may be the scary choice given the perceptions around changing things at work, but you show here that it is indeed possible to be self loving and successful.

372. The glamour of the fashion industry is exposed here and how we are all part of it in our own way Adele , this allows a true understanding of what goes on and the abuse in work ,business and with ourselves. With true self love and self care and valuing who we are from the inside out naturally would change everything as we build true appreciation and values as you share here Adele by your example so beautifully.

373. The raw honesty with which you describe the way you used to live is painful to read. The horrendous self-disregard is felt all the more keenly because the wrapping may be different (I was not working in the fashion industry) but the abuse was the same. It’s so inspiring to read how you have stayed working in the same intense environment but are saying no to the abuse.

374. What I particularly love about what you share here, Adele, is how you allowed yourself to see, the absolute abuse within the fashion industry and at the same time, your choice to be a part of it. Rather than running away to something more supportive, you chose to address the way that you were choosing to live, to love and nurture yourself first, to stay with yourself and bring all of you to the industry that you love, but only on your terms. This is so beautiful and very inspiring, showing that it doesn’t matter where we work, we can make a difference, showing that there is another way to be, we don’t have to accept and succumb to the abusive energy. There is always the potential for change.

375. I had a chuckle reading your by-line Adele “and then some”. We are all so much more than our jobs and roles in life and you clearly have learnt to treat and cherish yourself as way more. I can understand why your clients receive so much more than the clothes that you style for them as they get a beautiful reflection of who they truly are in essence and that is the then some!

376. Adele, I love the relationship you have re-developed with the fashion industry and the fact that it is all about people being met in full for who they are, not what they do. It feels now, as if it is a totally different work environment when you are there.
     “Clients and crew do not just remember how stunning the final product is, they remember how deeply met they have been and this feeling will always remain – longer than the fashion images will”.

377. Why do we we have these different ‘measures’ of abuse and choose to tolerate what we consider ‘less’ damaging rather than saying no to abuse altogether?

     1. Either we choose struggle, or we choose love. There is no middle ground.

378. What an incredible transformation Adele and what is super inspiring is that this all came about whilst you stayed in the fashion industry, from your commitment to choose to honor yourself and return self-love back into your life. For me what is highlighted through this is how the quality of our lives are lived through the choices we make on a daily basis to honor ourselves and our bodies. Through our choices we can either live an empowered life with honesty, vitality and presence, or exist in dis-empowerment which leaves us scrambling to simply get through the day regardless of how we treat our bodies and each other.

379. Adele you are representing that there is another way to work and with that comes a lot of JOY and contentment. It is not about running away and finding our dream job. As long as we are not taking care of our bodies we could be paid ten zillion pounds and be in the most ideal environment and it won’t make a jot of difference. Only deeply loving and responsible care of ourselves, in my experience, is the way to make true change.

380. So amazing! You describe the industry as somewhere that is so cut throat and disregarding of everyone involved, and I can see how easy it is to have people get caught up in the illusion of the glamour.
     For you to make a choice to live for you first and on your terms is basically revolutionary Adele. What an absolute inspiriation you are to all those people you work with.

381. I agree Elizabeth, the beautiful thing is, we can all, by reflection take our loving way out into any industry we are working in and watch the changes from within, rather than waving banners (metaphorically speaking) in a campaigning rah rah way from the outside.

382. Adele its amazing to see how in many industries, like in Fashion as you have shared, you are expected to fit in and conform to a certain way. When that way is shown not to be true, not to be loving then everyone has the opportunity to embrace that or fight it. That choice is down to each person however what if those people are held by the collective belief of lifestyle of an industry that means they are not actually making the choice for themselves?

383. Your blog Adele regarding the Fashion Industry is inspiring for all those involved in the industry especially younger ones just starting out. Your comment – ‘To put it simply, when I said yes to this industry, I was saying yes to a rhythm that fed on the disregard of myself’, could be said of the world around us and the demands placed on humanity to live a certain way – a way that is completely separated from who we truly are. The industry I currently work in is increasing in pressure everyday and continually putting in place measures in which a person must ‘measure up’ too. These measures are continually increasing which means they can never be met. Thank you for exposing and defining ‘disregard’ as it is lived by many of us in industry and for reflecting a way of changing this to a life of deep self love and Self care.

384. What you share about the level of over-riding is very relatable to my early years working. In fact yesterday for the first time in a very long time I did something similar. I was feeling great and decided no to take a break. But within a couple of hours my body required a stop and rest moment yet I didn’t honour that till a bit latter. The knock on effect to how I felt was considerable with feeling over hungry and tired being the outcome. Not worth it I discovered, because in truth noting was achieved or gained by simply not taking a break. The real truth is if I honoured myself and had a break when I was feeling great then how amazing and revitalized was the potential for me to feel?

     1. Yes great point Sandra, whether seemingly small or huge disregard for the majesty we are within, it all impacts, we ‘get away’ with nothing. If nothing else that to me proves we are divine… if not, why would the body even register being made to go hungry, work long hours or wear painful shoes in the name of looking good.

385. Standing for 10 hours a day in 3 inch heels sounds like torture. It is amazing the things people do for certain jobs and the expense of their bodies

     1. Sure Rosie, I would not be able to do that if I was asked to do. For me that means that we have to use a lot of effort to force ourselves to do that and the only way I would be able to do that is to completely disconnect from my body and live from my mind instead.

        1. and that just shows how many people are prepared to live from their mind, in disregard of their body to get recognition from their boss, and the industry that they work in.

386. How ugly is a business that breeds exhaustion as a “trademark for ‘cool’. The ‘panda-eyed’, anorexic models of the fashion business reflect to the world that self-abuse is okay and young women get that message from these role models of glamour. How great that you can be yourself within that industry Adele, and provide a reflection of self-love which offers another choice.

387. Adele you show how we can be in an industry that is not supportive in any way, but your own presence and choice of health living can be a huge reflection for those within the industry to see another way to be within it all. This is a huge support for so many.

     1. I agree, it is not about blaming the industry but knowing that it is the way we each choose to truly care for ourselves in our day to day living, that makes all the difference.

388. From what you describe Adele I get to feel the disregard that we know goes on in the modeling industry, going right through the entire fashion industry, from the intensity of getting the collections designed, made up, the shows produced, the pieces modeled, sold into the stores and then the end point: the assistants selling these high end products. It’s very clear the lack of love at its foundation makes for a route to the consumer as you describe..

389. Adele, what an incredible change you made to be able to do the same job but without reacting in the same way. It’s great how you didn’t give up in spite of your exhaustion but instead you found a new way to deal with it. It shows just how much we can support ourselves with a consistent self-loving rhythm.

390. Glamour outwardly has all the alluring bells and whistles making us think that what is on offer will better our lives. Yet beneath the surface, glamour only offers us a picture with little or no substance, no truth and leaves us feeling empty. You have done an amazing job Adele working through the glamour of the fashion industry and arriving at a point where you can offer a true reflection by being yourself in an industry where the underlying message is that we are not enough.

391. Well Adele you are living proof that it is possible to live and work in such an industry full of abuse, in a totally different way. It would be amazing to see your livingness blow the lid right off the industry that is so warped by glamour and illusion and the future of it is filled with true beauty beaming out of magazines and from billboards.

392. This industry feels very heavy in the sense it drives unrealistic images of what women should be like and creates the fashions to fit this picture and not anywhere is there any sense of femininity and sacredness. Amazing expose of what is going on behind the scenes.

     1. Agreed Vanessa, the fashion industry pays no dues or attention to where true beauty actually comes from, but then again why would it… there is nothing to sell a woman who knows who she is, exudes sassy, sexy, drop-dead out-of-this-world beauty that can’t be made up, dressed up or chiselled to be anything more than it already is.

393. The same abuse that occurs in the fashion industry occurs in every other industry as well. Nurses for example may not wear high heels but they tend to put everyone else before themselves and disregard their own needs. Regardless of the industry that we are in we have to put a stop to looking outside of ourselves for approval and learn to love ourselves to the bone.

394. The wide range of abuse in the fashion industry is astounding, and even more astounding is the fact that that it has become accepted as how it is if you want to be a ‘success’. Such abuse covered up by make-up, glossy magazine photo shoots and glamorous couture is allowed to continue, creating a role model for our kids and teens that says abuse and self-abuse is ok.

395. It’s easy to run away from an industry when the going gets tough. To stay in a demanding job and be yourself requires a deep commitment to oneself and others but when we say ‘yes’ to evolution then really there is no other way.

     1. Appreciating the commitment, and the further commitment to all other aspects in life come from our first commitment. Just keep committing. 🙂

396. ‘Clients and crew do not just remember how stunning the final product is, they remember how deeply met they have been and this feeling will always remain – longer than the fashion images will.’ Beautiful Adele. The power of actually being met by love rather than being imposed upon is huge and can never be underestimated.

397. Adele I am touched by reading your story, getting a glimpse into the immense abusive trend in the fashion industry and sharing the journey you made in turning it round for yourself, and doing so whilst still working within the industry. I take my hat off to you for your choice to stay, to stop compromising, and to start deeply honouring yourself and all your relationships. What a great example of the loving light we can each choose to be in the world regardless of where we are and what circumstances we find ourselves in.

398. I see people standing at exhibitions in those three inch heels and have often wondered how they survive their day. For me a smile that says I’m comfortable in my skin and in my shoes is a lot more easy to be around.

399. I can relate to wearing crushingly high heels that in fact changed the way I breathed, and as the pain grew throughout the day, so did my understanding of, and openness to people diminish. I may have ‘looked good’ – but at what cost to both myself and others when my killer heels were killing me?

     1. I can relate to what you are saying about high heels Kylie, they are incredibly painful and the pain becomes almost exhausting by the end of the day. My toes my knees and my back all suffered in the name of vanity, fashion and being a bit taller, it was never worth it – like you say the killer heels were killing me.

400. It’s no surprise that the industry that is all about reflection is one based on a reflection of abuse. I have never been more self abusive than when I was involved in the modelling industry – and this abuse only promoted a certain look that would then encourage other girls and women to do the same. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but now know that my every choice forms my reflection, and it is definitely not based on the way I look on the outside, nor what I choose to wear – it is based on every aspect of the way I live.

401. i love what you have shared here. its so true, we do remember being met, way after the event. it is the dearest feeling deep inside, so welcome back, like a long lost dearly loved friend.

402. Thank you Adele for your sharing about the real and true side of what is happening in the fashion industry. It’s very needed that we can see the complete disregard of this glamourous world, so we get the whole picture. And your deep love for yourself and all others is shining through ending in ‘I choose to live and share this way because this industry is not just a name for me, this industry is all the friendships I have made over the last 20 years, it is everyone I have ever met and deeply care about. To me, this industry is a relationship.’

403. There are many industries that look glitz and glam on the outside, but scratch the veneer and you will find the truth, of the exhaustion and coffee, drug, party fuelled life styles and breaking point workloads.

404. I have seen some of the photos you post online of your work and your joy and connection with your colleagues is palpable. its seems silly to think that we can create high levels of stress by simply ignoring all the little choices and feeling we have throughout the day to feel more care and connection.

405. What an amazing change you’ve made Adele – a great example of how you don’t have to leave an industry that is rife with stress but can change how you are within it.

406. The fashion industry is just one industry where people don’t look after themselves in the name of the job. It is rife in the corporate world where deadlines are attempting to be met, and people work long hours with no breaks or work in a way that is fuelled by caffeine and sugar to keep them going. But I also work in this environment and over the years have found that I can work very consistently without going into this way of working.

407. Deeply inspiring story, you have come so far.

     Showing how respecting ourselves has no downfalls.

408. Wow Adele it leaves me speechless and a little exhausted just reading what your daily life was all about. It is wonderful that you have been inspired to change all that frantic effort and abuse you chose for yourself.

409. “To me, this industry is a relationship.” – and how beautiful it is to bring into our relationships the healing what is needed. Not to leave unloving relationships – but to bring love into it, when possible and accepted. This is taking responsibility.

410. It’s amazing how we can be blinded by glamour and the illusion of what something is purporting to be. Thank you, Adele, for exposing how things truly are within an industry that has an image that is very out of synch with the reality of what it is truly offering.

411. It just shows that how we see things from the outside can be totally false. The glamour is something that is an image or a projection but does not actually represent the truth of what is going on behind the front that we see. It’s crazy that this is what we then aspire to. We aspire to an image that is empty.

412. Thanks Adele for an honest insider look into this industry which is definitely held up as glamorous and would be one of those jobs young women in particular would aspire to get these days. It is great to expose the reality of what is really going on behind the scenes. In my brief foray into being professional musician in my twenties I found the same thing – the image that is portrayed and the reality on the ground were very different.

413. It is quite incredible what we will put ourselves through for the sake of ‘fashion’. What you are exposing here Adele is how willing we are to put so much time and effort into how we look, at the expense of our own bodies and their simple needs, but with what consequences? To be able to turn this around and even fully embrace this ‘other world’ as you have after how you were in it initially is remarkable, and all because you chose to take some simple steps towards deeply nurturing yourself.

414. “On the odd occasion when big styling jobs drop me because of the way I choose to live and respect myself, I come back to the focus that no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” I love this because it is making a deep stance for truth. Our body and our being come first, no matter what.

     1. So true Elizabeth when we accept this greater truth our lives can unfold in a way that was not possible before.

     2. and I would add Elizabeth that when our body and our being don’t come first then that is when we scrabble around frantically trying to stuff the gap with all manner of fillers.

415. When I am behind buses and see large pictures of flakey models with limp or contorted posture, dark circles under their eyes and a gaunt look in their faces – I question how can we even consider that to be attractive as it is so far from joyful or vital. Give me a body that is a true weight, is self cared for, oozes vitality and joy any day – for as far as I’m concerned the walk and care in that body is what makes a person sexy and attractive not the flakey empty image. And it’s so sad that many young people and even older ones try to meet and aim for the image the industry is selling in their lives.

     1. It just shows how currently the world is so distorted for us to be sold and to see pictures of gaunt women and men who look really miserable as attractive. There is absolutely nothing attractive or sexy about this, our marker must be really low for this to happen. Lets raise the bar on what true sexiness, vitality and health really is.

416. ‘I worked with a high fashion brand and we were told the customers are always right, although many of them outright abused us by staying in the shop hours after closing just because they felt they could, and many stole from us as well, but we were not allowed to say no to them’ ….. It makes no sense to be ok with people stealing from you, unless there is a very good reason why it’s acceptable. Maybe because you already know that you are totally ripping people off with your exorbitant prices and you need your loyal clientele as they are the only ones crazy enough to pay them. The fear of sullying your reputation by taking action is worse than losing a few thousand dollars here and there in theft.

417. Adele, this is a gorgeous sharing and I simply loved reading about how you now care for yourself and operate in the fashion industry today. What an absolute blessing for every person in that industry including those in society who look up to it as being glamorous. When I read the detail of the self abuse you engaged in to be part of it, I can describe the industry as not glamorous but viscous.
     Thank you for setting the true ‘cool’.

418. Wow – so many changes you have brought about for yourself Adele in your industry – and what a great reflection for those around you who can see there is another way.

419. Superb expose on the industry Adele, thank you. I can really connect with that emaciated consciousness that permeates the industry and it is quite alarming to realise that this intense level of abuse is championed by the industry as the ‘only way to be’. Quite shocking in fact. What a ray of vital sunshine you must be in this forlorn industry and thank God you chose to stay and lay claim to a true way of life and a true way to be, live, look and feel, providing a consistent, reliable role model and a true friend to all you encounter. Awesome!

420. The industry I chose to work in when I was younger was catering but in many ways I lived in just the same way as I chose to fit in with living in absolute disregard of myself and my body because it was considered normal. The coffee and cigarettes were a much needed prop to keep me going through the day after late nights (from work and even later nights from partying), early starts and living with exhaustion.

421. Wow Adele, that is an incredible shift and one rarely seen in the fashion industry I’m sure. Thank you for demonstrating so clearly that it is all a choice, it is not something that is forced upon us, it is not something we have to do, it is a choice, to conform to the picture or claim our own way.

422. The way we care for ourselves dramatically effects how we work, our ability to work and every single relationship we have. We have a big responsibility everyday to ourselves, that ripples out to everyone in our lives.

423. We have a tendancy to place clients as more important than ourselves, we prioritise what they need over and above our own. When we approach everything we do (including caring for ourselves) with equal importance our relationship with working completely changes.

424. This is a great example of being able to work in a high pressured environment and enjoy what you bring and not what you do. A must read for any young girl or boy who has aspirations towards the modelling and the fashion industry.

425. Thank you Adele, for disclosing what is truly going on in the glamorous fashion industry, something if we are honest, we can all feel when we look at the fashion magazine pictures and feel how the clothes feel in the stores.

426. It’s an extreme story – but easily translatable to so many industries and jobs. What I am finding more and more is that hard work doesn’t have to be hard on my body and me. In fact, the more I take care of myself the more productive I become, because the better shape and energy I am in so that I can work with more focus and more productivity – and longer hours, if needed. It’s fascinating to look at absenteeism statistics over the last ten years – they are going through the roof, costing industry millions – proof that it pays to look after yourself and it pays to look after your employees.

427. “… no amount of recognition will ever compare to the lovely feeling I now have with my own body.” This so true though to maintain this can be challenging as all the pressures to conform are so great, particularly in an environment such as you describe Adele. You are awesome, inspiring and so real. Thank you so much for your inspiration.

428. Great blog Adele, and I love how you shared how you’ve made the industry and your work all about friendships and relationships now. Inspiring to hear how you turned your life around through simple choices, including to express, to the best of your ability, how you feel. Thank you and please share more of the detail.

429. The words ‘fair trade’ come to me as I read this blog because choosing to be more loving with the self rather than ‘selling ourselves’ for the recognition of our peers feel like just that – a fair trade off that brings much more balance and honouring to the relationship with ourselves. So, as it is with everything, our relationship with what we do is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves which is the foundation of our lives. Bringing self-love into our world is a crucial step for humanity. Thank you for sharing your reflections here Adele.

430. I’ve found out in the past years how caring deeply for yourself at work, especially when it comes to drinks and food, raises a lot of eyebrows. I’ve always been a kind of person that did it anyway, despite what others thought. But I’ve not been honest that I felt quite rejected by the comments people made. As if I had to be strong and untouchable. And because of the contraction I went into, I wasn’t able to feel and read why the people commented and made it (way to) personal. Now I feel that it has to do with a distrust to the world and from an agreement “If you leave me alone, I will leave you alone” as well as it has to do with a lack of appreciation for myself and how dear I am to myself and how I’m actually caring for myself. Knowing also that without this level of care I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. Allowing the fiery energy running through me and in doing so supporting others to heal themselves and come back to their natural expression. We all want to be dearly loved and adored and by me taking care of myself I’m able to love all people dearly. How simple, grand and precious is this?

431. Great move Adele. You are changing the fashion within the fashion industry to making it about people and their connection to each other rather than to compulsive changing, for change sake, of the clothes and accessories they MUST be seen in.

432. In your industry, it’s great that you have exposed what really goes on behind high glamour Adele…the same disregard could be said of many professions where we put work beyond and above the health and wellbeing of our own bodies. The fact that you turned it all around and can now work in the same profession and be vital, healthy and ready for all that is needed, is quite something…something to be celebrated and deeply appreciated!

433. The fact that a totally not glamorous industry could appear as glamorous to the eye of the people is not just an indictment on the industry itself but also to the people who choose to override what they feel when they see people modelling. What matters to them is the clothing and what it may do for them. Clothing is a great way to divert attention away from the body even if brings attention to it. It helps us to avoid really looking into a person as a whole.

434. It is so great to dispel these images we have of industries like fashion. So many young women get hooked and lost in the allure of it all, not seeing the truth of what is really going on. This article is a great read for all.

     1. I agree – it should be handed out at careers forums! I have seen similar stories behind so many of the ‘glamour’ industries – like film, tv, music, ballet, dance, arts – all worlds that seem so alluring from the outside – but have some very extreme abuse happening on the inside.

     2. True Mary Louise. And there are so many layers to these images that the industry is putting out and society are buying into.

435. Compromising ourselves to achieve something can never match the feeling of making choices that care for our body. When we set our own benchmark or what is healthy and successful it is much easier to resist any allure to fit in to an ideal of how we should be. Therefore we can accept when others reject our way of doing things, knowing what is right for us is more important than recognition or a measure of success implanted in society.

     1. Spot on Stephen. And I love how Adele nailed this point in her blog by understanding that no amount of recognition can match the feeling in her body today.

436. How very inspiring Adele to read how you have turned around a life of such immense and deep disregard to one where you come first, and where the care and devotion to your body is at the top of your ‘to-do’ list. And to do this about face while staying in the same industry that had you in its devastating grip for so long just adds to the inspiration.

437. Stunning blog Adele, outing the fashion industry (and others in the process: the worlds of celebrity chef-dom and advertising being just two equivalents I’ve had a very similar involvement with). You’re setting a new benchmark working without self-abuse entering the equation.

438. Wow Adele, thank you for this very powerful, inspiring and incredible blog. The way you live now, your choices and the way you choose to connect with people is setting a new standard for your industry. You are showing the world that work does not have to be abusive, nor do we have to tolerate and accept it. What you’ve shared is amazing and it will inspire other industries too who have similar stress rates, pressures and demands. By saying ‘No’ to any form of abuse be it at work, at home or social occasions, we are standing up to this abusive energy that is currently dominating our world. We also inspire others to feel OK about standing up too. I now understand that glamour, fame, recognition doesn’t really ever come close to the amazing feeling we experience from choosing to truly connect with people and with ourselves.

439. What a difference it makes when you work in the quality of who you are. It not only supports you but everyone around you and sets the environment in harmony.

440. A great sharing Adele, showing that it is possible to go from exhaustion and fatigue by the smallest and simplest acts of self care, which then initiate other acts of self care to be introduced… What a difference this has made to your health, relationships and overall outlook to life!

441. Stunning honesty and truth exposing the horrors behind the glossy pages.

442. So true Adele, it is the connection with everyone that makes it an amazing time and so the photos are made in this. It’s not surprising that clients and crew remember how deeply met they have been on the project as it is such a rarity – particularly, but not only, in the fashion industry.

     1. And what an amazing reflection she must be to new comers in the industry. Setting the trend that looking after yourself is the new black so to speak.

443. There are things we accept as normal part of our job that are actually abusive. And it can be very challenging for us to be made aware of the fact that we have been accepting abuse as normal and we often counter with justification, it’s not the industry or the job we are trying to protect, but our pride, our choices – which doesn’t help. It is very needed to show to the world that there is another, more loving way to do it, by actually living it.

444. And this is how you change the world. By changing how you are in it and sticking to what is true for you. Stunning blog Adele.

     1. Sarah, I love that. ‘This is how you change the world’, as I read those words I felt lifted and an absolute joy in my body as I know this to be true and the ripple effect of one person reflecting back to the fashion industry that it is all about the people and has nothing to do with the labels is absolutely huge. If this is the case then that would mean we all have this opportunity to reflect change in whatever we choose to do.

        1. Yep agree Fiona, it is massive what Adele is doing and it is what it takes to make change.

     2. Hear hear!

445. The fashion industry epitomises something that is all so pervasive in our world today, seeing life on the surface only. When you see the way fashion changes and grows, all it actually seems to do is eat and regurgitate itself. The key is for us to understand it’s not the industry itself that is ill, but us and our way of seeing just two dimensions of life. Your story reminds me Adele that seeing us as just the clothes that we dress is such a limited view compared to the glory of our essence within.

446. I love it Adele so honest and shows the lengths of abuse we can take our bodies and how far away from our natural selves we can actually go. I can relate to a lot of what you share here, having worked in the fashion retail industry for many years I too became consumed by an image of glamour, beautiful clothing and status that took a major toll on my body with extremely long hours, pressure to reach huge scale budgets and sometimes short or sporadic breaks. Seeing the simple and yet deeply loving changes you made in your daily rhythm shows that we can all choose to live in a way that is harmonious and loving towards ourselves and when we bring that to all that we do, it truly is a beautiful way to live. Thank you so much Adele.

447. Awesome revealing and honest blog Adele. Needing recognition to fill a lack of self worth I have recently found is like a poison and abuse to the body. In all workplaces if everyone is going along with the so called norm then nothing changes, yet if just one stands up and asked the question ‘why are we doing this?’, not only does it bring attention to it but also an opportunity for everyone to consider another way.

448. Jaw droppingly brilliant Adele. I am in awe of you and the way you live and work.

449. Adele absolutely love this blog, saying no to abuse and claiming your truth back. Taking time to honour and nature yourself and building true relations. Very inspiring as fashion industry is a very demanding industry.

450. Once again, Adele you have spoiled us with another tantalising piece of writing, honestly shared and inspirational to read. The truth of what goes on in the fashion industry is an eye opener to me, you have shown that it is not all glitz and glamour, and happy endings all round, but thanks to your choice to turn your own life around, and make it about love and relationships first, you have shown that whatever lifestyle we have chosen for ourselves, we can still live within it with integrity, if our purpose is to serve the all.

451. It’s so great to get a real honest insight into these glamourised industries, Thank you Adele.

452. This is such a super blog Adele. It would have been easy to leave the industry given the harsh unrealistic expectations that are dictated. You have demonstrated that you can call the shots in terms of how you choose to look after yourself and still work in it. Marvellous, and an inspiration to onlookers showing there is another way.

453. Wow Adele what an honest expose of the fashion industry and what people go through and the abuse we go along with and live. Your amazing sharing of how you have changed your life and your self whilst staying within the fashion industry is such an inspiration of true self care love and the way things can really be whilst meeting everyone and espcially ourselves first.

454. Wow, a real eye-opener that cuts through the glamorous facade often portrayed by the fashion industry. And super inspiring how you have brought such a deep care to what you do, not just for you but for all those you work with and those who receive the end product. Thank you Adele.

455. To me what is so beautifully shared here is the fact that work is about relationships! First of all the relationship with ourselves and from that the relationships with others. How can we have deeply loving and caring relationships if we actually do not love ourselves? What an inspirational article to read about the changes that are possible! Thank you Adele.

456. Adele it is so easy to feel the massive effect that you are having on everyone that you come into contact with. This is how we remind people of their original nature, by being in our original nature. We remind others through our bodies, the way that we move, eat, talk, sit, walk etc Adele you are a living reminder of a long forgotten way.

457. Adele I absolutely love the way that you write, it is so relatable, so practical and so potentially transformational. Keep the articles coming!

458. No one really chooses to live in an abusive work place, it’s just been set up to have people succumb to being bullied, agreeing to doing outrages things, all in the name of being part of an industry that swallows people up and spits them out, and there is always another person ready to step in for a moment of fame, so you live in a state of tension. Adele your choices are paving the way for a different culture within the industry…. how refreshing will that be to feel and see.

459. I’m seconding this request Jane – it would be great to hear of the details in the many choices and what Adele has learnt from them……at least a part two to this blog Adele!

460. A powerful and honest blog Adele offering a huge insight into the fashion industry and exposing the various forms of abuse that we can accept as ‘normal’.

461. Adele this is amazing, its like an insight into what is seen as such a glamorous job and lifestyle yet what you share he is never spoken about. The truth, the abuse, the demands. It certainly makes me appreciate when I go shopping do I consider everyone equally? More so though is the fact that we put ourselves through such intense regimes of life, how you describe the fashion industry is far from the picture I’ve read about before.

462. Adele, I am sure you are an inspiration to many within your industry. There is no job that is worth doing at the expense of our being. It just does not make sense to abuse ourselves for the so called enjoyment or recognition of another. What quality of energy are we offering, and what message are we ‘advertising’ to others? It is up to us to change the rules, and make it normal to live in respect of our bodies.

463. Brilliant Adele – indeed there is nothing glamourous about us abusing ourselves.
     Your ability to arise from this very enticing cesspit is deeply inspiring and turns glamour on its head – revealing the true abuse and harm of this industry (and others) that run in such loveless ways.

464. Great exposure Adele, there is nothing glamourous about abusing our bodies. I am sure you have witness this from both sides of the camera too. It reminded me of the time in my life when I was ‘running’ (literally) a business and although there were parts of it I loved, like the people, the travelling and visiting trade fairs to buy products, for the most part I was exhausted a lot of the time. It is easy to then adopt behaviours such as coffee, starch and sugar addition to prop oneself up. This way of life does not truly serve anyone.

465. Hear hear Jane!!

466. One of the many brilliant things about this blog Adele, is that you are describing the everyday world, the world we all inhabit and champion and accept as normal, in what could be thought to be by one who had numbed themselves to life, as quite horrific. Yes it is horrific and you have nailed exactly what is happening and how abusive it is. I have often seen retail assistance standing in their stiletto heels all day with not a chair or stool in sight and felt the repercussions of what we are all saying ‘yes’ to and wondered how they do it.

467. It is a profound self-awareness you are sharing with us here Adele. Your ability to look at the choices you made and not seeing yourself as a victim of the situation, but without any blame or judgment taking responsibility for what you have allowed and the way you have dis-honoured yourself and your body, is key.

468. The standing for 10 hours in three inch heels is what got me. I wear highs for a couple of hours and my feet ache! Fascinating to hear about all the ins and outs of someone’s Industry, great to see that you are sticking to it and finding your own way within it. The glamour that surrounds this industry is huge. Awesome to feel you in there representing love!

469. What a great turnaround Adele! Thank you for showing us so clearly how a few changes in the care for oneself can have such a huge impact on life.

470. The fashion industry, like many industries has a particular consciousness in which we can prescribe to and end up being a slave to. What you have done Adele is amazing through the choices you have made to how you look after yourself. By changing how you are within the industry, you are also making a change to the industry from the inside.

471. Thank you for this insight into the fashion industry and how it is possible to deeply care and take care of oneself in this high paced job.

472. Yes this is a brilliant sharing, very detailed in how you were and how you have changed bringing another way to the fashion industry, this is profound and you show how solid and connected you are rather than been snagged in the tornado of self destruct for what? Fundamentally most industries run on this level of disregard of self, it is just different clothing. Has work become our human condition where the outcome and products, become more important than the quality and wellbeing of the person?

473. Adele thank you for this insight into the fashion industry, I would never have guessed it was like that. If were honest we can see the same things in all industries; Pressure to make sales at the expense of people with bullying, control, and manipulation from a work culture that accepts abuse as normal. It is monumentally significant that you can live and work and thrive within the industry and remain true to yourself without playing buying into the destructive aspects of the culture. Everybody wants to be treated with love and respect, knowing this we can change the culture of our work places. “Clients and crew do not just remember how stunning the final product is, they remember how deeply met they have been and this feeling will always remain”

474. Hello Adele and if this is the behind the scenes of the fashion industry as a whole well then it doesn’t seem that glamorous. Good for you Adele if you are now choosing to take more care of yourself still within the same industry, I am sure there will be a knock on effect from this. To be honest this could be any industry and I find reading your article that the fashion industry is still saying it’s better then you through your words. Somehow it feels like in the uncovering of the not so glamorous there still is something say it’s glamorous? Maybe as more people possibly wake to what they are really doing this may become clearer and support you as well, thank you.

475. Just yesterday I was in a makeup store with a flat screen TV in front of me. I needed to wait for the product I was looking for so I was there for a few moments looking at the screen. It was really quite something – intense and disconcerting – to see how the women were being treated and were treating themselves. Their bodies simply apparatus as a means to an end and they themselves not really there. The fashion industry is polished and glamorous on the outside and barbarically cruel and heartless on the inside. Having people like you Adele working in that industry is amazing – the loving light and reflection that all need to feel and see.

476. Thank you Adele, this is a recipe for many of us on the potential to turn our lives around and needs to be shared further afield! No matter what, our relationship with ourselves is the most important one!

477. Adele, this is remarkable. That you can take an industry that fashions itself on seeking recognition and pitching people as either greater or lesser than each other, and make it about relationships and care as well as being able to honour your body’s natural rhythms amongst this frenzy is no easy feat. There is so much abuse and disregard we have let run riot in this world because we accept that this is just the way it is and thus we play along. To not play along is not only a game changer/game ender, it is a gorgeous process by which we get the chance to reimprint all that is not of the love that we are, with all the love that we actually are. By making life about people and not the systems we have put in place that inhibit our natural ease of relating to each other, we are able to inspire others that there is a truer way to live if only we bring our all to all that we do. It would have been easy for you to walk away, angry and resentful of how you were treated but instead you offer great healing to everyone by your choice to stay and make it about love and your expression of it. Absolutely awesome, thankyou x

478. Adele it’s quite shocking to consider that this is how people who work in high end fashion are treated but also that this is to be expected and it’s part of the industry. It’s quite incredible that you have turned this around in your own work, and no doubt those you work with will be inspired to make new choices for themselves too. The making of a new ripple effect.

479. Thank you Adele, its vitally important to expose the deep abuse and self neglect the fashion industry is based on. The fact that models torture themselves with eating disorders says it all. What you have shared is what happens when we focus exclusively on images and how things look on the outside, and ignore the quality of energy. It also highlights how human beings become disposable commodities all for the sake of the empty and ever changing concept of what is “fashion”.

480. You offer an awesome reflection for all others in the fashion industry Adele… that they don’t have to take on all the ideals and beliefs of it, and that it is possible to be yourself, to honour and nurture yourself in a world that does the exact opposite.

481. Excellent blog and I like what you say at the end, that to you, this industry is a relationship. It is a very longstanding one and the choices you have been making to not be a slave to it but a master of your own circumstances is so empowering of not only yourself but others in the industry too.

482. How often do we take the abuse in exchange for recognition or money, thinking we won’t have work if we don’t… and yet as you have shared Adele, it is possible to maintain our work and income by remaining true to ourselves – and so many more people around us benefit as well.

483. Thanks for sharing such an honest insight into the life of a fashion stylist. I never realised or considered how abusive it is or can be. You must be an inspiration for others in your industry.

484. If only this blog could be printed in every fashion magazine and read and understood by everyone in this industry. You have proved Adele that it doesn’t have to be they way it is and it doesn’t have to cause the damage it causes by the way you emerged gracefully out the other side of the chaos without being spat out and burnt out in the usual way that is the norm. It also shows that the way we care for ourselves totally supports us in any stressful job or situation and we don’t have to burn out or have break downs and be depressed if we can start caring for ourselves in a deeper way that supports us.

485. What a beautiful turnaround from a stressful job to something you truly enjoy especially in such a business as the fashion industry. Every photograph brings a smile because the love in it can be felt.

486. Wow what you describe is an intense way to live, I worked for a department store for a few years in the head office and eating lunch was a no no, I actually never subscribed to this sort of thing and would not buy into the deadlines and behaviour of middle management. I did however do that when I wanted recognition in another career and let myself walk the path of self destruction as you describe so well.

487. You could be said to be very brave, in a world that constantly pushes you to prove yourself by what you can do, sticking by your guns and choosing to care for yourself and not stray from how you work and live is a unusal and controversial thing to do – how sad is it that it is controversal to take care of oneself?

488. Wow. I really feel the power you have chosen Adele by saying yes to taking care of yourself and loving your body despite the accepted norm being the opposite.

     I feel we are all thirsty to see and feel something real, wholesome, present and loving instead of what we have been seeing and feeling in the fashion industry we have, to date, been accepting.

     A huge thank you Adele for bringing your true self to every relationship, to fashion and to the world through your work.

     May your inspiration ripple out to everyone who is ready for a change so they too can remember that they can choose love instead of abuse.

489. Adele, I love his article, it is so gorgeous that you now look after yourself and that you say no abuse and you work in a way that is loving and honouring – what an amazing reflection for other people to have this in industry.

     1. It certainly is an amazing reflection and what a blessing for people to experience what true connection feels like, to be met, to be heard, to be respected, honoured and treated as an equal. Whatever industry we may be working in, to experience a beautiful flow, connection and true team work, it is heavenly. Working together in harmony is our natural way and when we experience this, it feels absolutely exquisite and divine.

490. Thank you so much Adele for sharing this. This explains why I have felt a somewhat hesitancy towards buying clothes and getting into my own true sense of style and fashion. The energy of this industry is HUGE and as a consumer we only tend to see the clothes and perhaps the people selling them but the clothes are not exempt in any way from the ill disregard and immense glamour of such an industry.

491. Adele this is an eye opener, from the outside looking in you would have no idea of the abuse that takes place, and what is expected from the employees. It is huge what you have said no to.

492. The call back to who we truly are and the knowing of what love truly is, is deeply held within every one of us and the choice is ours as to how far we are willing to separate before we choose ‘Love’ first.

493. It is amazing what we think is glamorous and desirable! As you say Adele: ‘To the outsider, fashion styling is thought to be a very glamorous job. It looks like we get to hang out with models and celebrities, dress them up and be surrounded by beautiful clothes. We work in hotel rooms and have room service delivered to us, we are surrounded by the most expensive brand names and know all the inside news, and we get to shop at privileged places. We work in exciting environments with celebrity photographers who have captured the most famous faces and the work we produce can make fashion history.’ It is a whole created world with its aspirations, ambitions, value-judgments, and ersatz cache. And yet without love and care all this is empty draining and abusive. Love is all there is, and no amount of glamour can ever be a substitute for the absolute beauty of Love.

494. I felt exhausted just reading this!!!!! It is great what you have shared, more honesty is needed especially within the fashion industry, this abuse needs to be exposed and healed. How amazing is it that you are still working within this industry but in a completely different and more loving way on your terms. By doing this you are reflecting a new way to others not only in this industry but many many others just as Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine do through how they live.

495. Thanks Adele, you have well and truly blown the lid off the glamour associated with the fashion industry. And choosing to stay in it but not play the game… THAT is amazing, I can only imagine what those people who come across you get to see and feel. The contrast would be potentially life-changing for them too.

496. I really enjoyed reading about the inside workings of the fashion industry. To a degree we all have become aware of the intensity that models work under, but bringing awareness that the same intensity is experienced in the industry as a whole is very revealing. Just what, as consumers are we asking for? The disregard, abuse, control and exhaustion of those in this industry? Do we ask for that because we live the same in our lives? So amazing you have chosen to live your rhythm in this industry.

497. What could be more cool and fashionable than love? One day the fashion industry and world will wake up and shake off their addiction to abuse.

     1. With love, that day will be.

498. How inspirational and refreshing to read how you care and honour yourself in an industry renowned for disregard: 20 years on and your vital and still working in the same industry. It’s clear then that saying no to abuse is acceptable, the abuse is just part of the sold out illusion – paying the price of justification possibly?

499. Very inspiring, the way you have stayed in the same industry but totally turned the abuse and disregard around and now work from a solid foundation within yourself that is no slave to recognition.

500. This is incredibly inspiring Adele. To have discovered and developed a way to live/work in the fashion industry where you don’t get caught up in the recognition of brand labels, the ideals of the industry, countless expectations and ‘glamour’ of disregarding the body is really amazing. Thank you for sharing!

501. A very powerful blog Adele, thank you.

502. This is a stunning blog Adele. I love how you expose exactly what has gone on in the industry right down to every different kindness abuse one can imagine. That we have come to this in the world is truly appalling. I love the way you have brought your love and awareness to the way you work now: ‘Fast forward to now; I am still working deep amongst the intensity of this industry but I no longer choose to work as I did before. Neither do I want to escape from this industry, which I did for many years. Why? I simply began taking deep care of my body. ‘ What a shining light you are in that world of madness!

503. I’ll admit that the picture you’ve painted about the fashion industry I did believe was ‘it’. Thank you Adele for lifting the lid on what is a huge lie staring at us in the face in our everyday lives. I could say the same about the hospitality industry that I work in. The cover doesn’t expose what is underneath but that underworld isn’t unstoppable or suppressive to the point that we cannot work within it as who we truly are. We can care for ourselves even when the systems in place are constantly saying No no no. Thank you.

     1. Awesome, Leigh. It allows us to show others that we don’t have to play ball with that – we can work these jobs in these industries and bring a new level of self care and love to the roles.

504. The understanding you bring, having experienced, and accepted, the abuse first hand for so long, combined with the choice you are now making to live in a way that supports and honours you first, is a true gift indeed. You offer a gorgeous point of reflection inspiring others to feel how it is possible to love yourself first and not only survive, but live with such vitality, joy and love for all.

505. What a beautiful shining star you are, Adele, in an industry rife with abuse and bullying energy, a true blessing for all.

506. Thank you Adele I love what you present about having a relationship with the industry you work in. It is so true that the way we choose to deal with abusive situations in any relationship is key and making a choice to honour our bodies and say No to anything that does not feel true enables us to work in roles that are traditionally overwhelming whilst treating ourselves in a deeply loving manner. I have spent many years in roles where building a relationship so that clients feel they can trust me is key and I used to frequently lose myself in their neediness and feel drained. Since changing the way I personally live not only am I able to observe their behaviour and not absorb it but I am also reflecting the possibility of making different choices.

     1. I agree with you Helen, the relationship with others can never be more important than the relationship we have with ourselves. In fact, no one and nothing can come before the care we first hold ourselves in.

507. At the end of the day, regardless of what it is that we do, we are always going to be with ourselves. If we allow abuse through the lifestyle choices we make, then of course we are not going to feel great. If we self-care and self-nurture, then we are going to feel the loving benefits that this has on how we feel. When we truly clock this, the choices that we make and the impact that they have on us become very clear. Do we choose to look after ourselves and feel great, or do we abuse and be a slave to looking to that outside to take away the pain and feel better?

508. ‘Work has never been better.’ Adele this is beautiful and what a dramatic turnaround. It is not that work has changed it is that by choosing to deeply honour and nurture yourself, how you are with work has completely changed. And everybody wins as a result. This has been a great reminder for me that on the ‘bad’ days at work I can, rather than just blame the bad day, ask myself how loving was I with myself before and during that day?

509. This is super inspiring. It’s a claiming of you whatever the circumstance and in this work and life are so possible, actually beyond possible, joyful, connected and vital. Whenever I feel I’m at the beck and mercy of work or other’s needs I can return to love and start living a presence that brings a much needed quality to the world and my life. Inspiring me that I never am a victim; I have all that I need in abundance – I do not have to succumb to thinking I have to do things for others when it is not a true call.

510. Why do we do this to ourselves? We choose to live in drama, chaos, misery and all the struggle. It gives us some form of identification, stimulation or reward. We don’t have to. It’s exhausting and doesn’t bring any awareness or consideration to, or of, anyone else anywhere. It’s all just totally about self.

     1. One may ask, where does the turning point come in our lives when we stop making it about self? It appears that either we have some kind of revelation or ‘awakening’ to our true self/purpose, or we are brought to our knees by our disregarding lifestyle, or may will come to the point when we say enough is enough and ask the question ‘Does life REALLY have to be this way’… and begin to stop looking on the outside, and focus on what is within and what is truly going on in our bodies and getting self out of the way.

     2. If abusive momentums as such can be called out and stoppped, anyone can choose to return to a deeper love and absoluteness.

        1. We all live in an amazing body with everything it is capable of doing. So, why do we push it to the limits till we drop with no respect for what we are doing to our body’s? None of these efforts is in support of us, but we will still chase that image outside of us that is something forever elusive! You are proof that calling out the abuses of your industry is possible… love does conquer all!

511. A great example that many will know to varying degrees of feeling overwhelmed and caught up in their work and the buying in to a way of being. I worked in the charity sector, it comes loaded with its own ideals and beliefs, largely that you come last, its all about the giving, sympathy can exhaust and feeling victim to a society that doesn’t support others ironically, because often a charity worker puts themselves in the role of saving others….from what, from a world that doesn’t ‘care’….there is so much to be aware of though the work we choose. I worked through these issues and left my job, I still work with people, to support others, but now I come first, how I care for myself can be the only way I offer something of truth and real care for others.

     1. Thank you for sharing Samantha. What you reveal here needs to be widely appreciated as so many people are in illusion of the benefits that charities supposedly bring.

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