This summer, I adopted a host of go-to feel-good activities, deployed strategically to prevent the specific brand of stress spiral that comes with living through a pandemic. When a passerby in the park who wasn’t wearing a mask sneezed toward me, I made brownies with olive oil and flaky salt. When a close friend was laid off from her job, I broke out the watercolors and painted some pastel-toned birds. And on days when I’d read the news before getting dressed, I tended to end up in bright, cheerful colors, which is like the sartorial version of smiling until you feel happy.

Recently, though, I started craving something different. I don’t want to fake it until I make it anymore—I’d rather embrace discomfort, feel my feelings, and, hopefully, grow stronger and wiser, like a quarantine scallion in the afternoon sun. As a first step in this journey, I decided to treat my wardrobe like a giant mood ring for one workweek. Each day, I selected a color that reflected my emotional state, then dressed entirely in that color. If this sounds like a weird exercise, that’s because it is. But selecting my outfit according to my mood each morning had an unexpected benefit: It forced me to check in with myself and turn my emotions, good or bad, into something beautiful—because, of course, I wore M.M. every day. Here’s what happened when I decided to (literally) wear my heart on my sleeve.