From day one to day won

When I started my journey back in 2018 I had no idea that it would take me this long to grow up. 2 years it took me to grow up. That 1st year was a let “me feel feelings” year. When I was on pharmaceutical medication I felt like a robot. I couldn’t read or feel emotions. I didn’t know how to sympathize or empathize. I was not in tune with who I really was. The medication helped me suppress my emotions so that I could function and focus through the pain I was feeling from the years of anxiety and fear that I had been living with. I spent the first of the quarter year relearning what feelings felt like. I spent the second half of the year trying to place them where they were supposed to go.

During that time I tried to get back to the things I used to do that made me happy. I used to love watching youtube videos, learning how to make things from Pinterest, reading for fun, taking pictures, etc.

That year I started writing again. While preparing for this blog post I went back through volume 1 of my personal growth journal. I flipped to 5/7/2019 on this day last year. I had consistently done yoga and meditation for 4 months. The day before I’d talked about how I’d become obsessed with curling my locs. How I had gotten sick of them and how they looked “raggedy” in my personal opinion, how I’d looked for a reason to just give up on them. Looking back, I'm laughing. I wanted to cut my hair off so bad and I was looking for every excuse not to when the reality was it was already halfway cut off and I loved the way it looked on the faded side. I would fantasize about how hard my waves would hit if I just brushed my whole head and not just the side. I had a little birdy in my ear saying noooooo don’t do it, just comb them out, no just let me do your hair for you, don’t cut off your loc don’t throw away all of that hard work.

See those were other people's opinions, not mine. I wanted to cut my hair and I just wasn’t sure if I would. I started to ask myself what I was holding on to. Why couldn’t I just cut it off? That’s when the reasons poured in.

1. You are going to look like a boy

2. I’m scared of how I will look

3. People are going to think I’ve gone crazy or that something is wrong with me because I’ve cut my hair off.

4. My head is too big.

5. My face is too chubby.

6. I put so much work into this lock process.

7. Do I want to keep taking care of them alone? (I say alone because when I moved back to Toledo I had to leave my loctician in Columbus… if you are looking for a loctician look up @coldestdreader on instagram)

I started working with my friends over at @justsrtsmall, I was having this conversation with myself on day 12 of my very first 100 days challenge. From that day I started to meditate on cutting the rest of my hair off. I listened and I waited and I waited for the answers. 53 days later on June 29, there I was hot sitting in the house with 2 fans and no air conditioning… I was thinking my hair needs to be retwisted but I’d rather cut it off than sit under the dryer. At 11:22 pm I heard myself say to myself in the voice of Mufasa from the Lion King “It is time”. Instead of arguing with myself about it like I’d done so many times before I just got the shears and cut the rest of my locs off. Once I did it I felt a release. I felt lighter. I felt that feeling that the people I know that have had locs described… It was a feeling of lightness. For the first time in a long time…. I felt like me. I ran my fingers through my hair and smiled as I was able to see the full beauty that was me. Something I hadn’t allowed to be seen often because I was paralyzed by what other people would think. I’m not sure when I started caring more about what other people than what I thought or knew to be true I just know I was happy to return it to its sender; all I know is… at that moment I saw the woman I had worked hard to become from January up until that day in June. It took me 6 months of #mindingmybaldheadedbusiness to get into alignment with who I knew I would become.

As I reflect on this day in HERstory I rejoice in the reward of going from day one to day WON.

It took me 53 days to give myself permission to do something I’d wanted to do for 3 years. Moral to the story… Get out your own way, do the things that make your soul happy. Take the steps that amount to leaps…. Just do your thing.

#mindingmybaldheadedbusiness #thebaldheadedchronicles #yougrowjinproducts #nerdyworks #trusttheprocess #grow #growthmindset