I Like My Hair

It’s so not about my hair…

Isn’t it funny, or sort of sad, that I still feel mildly uncomfortable admitting that I do, in fact, like my hair? I worry that you will think I’m vain for saying so. I worry that it sounds shallow or superficial. Well, that is, I use to worry a lot about those things – now not so much.

Mostly I’ve given up worrying about what other people think about me. Saying it, “I like my hair,” frees me in a way I really can’t quite describe. The thing is, I spent most of my life disconnected from myself and judging myself through other’s eyes. Not completely though. I only used my imagined version of their negative judgments.

If someone were to pay me a compliment I wouldn’t believe it.

One of the hardest things for me to do was to hear a compliment, for example, to have someone say they liked my hair. I felt that acknowledging the compliment would prove me to be greedy, vain, or superficial. Knowing how uncomfortable compliments made me caused me to withhold compliment towards others too. I didn’t want them to experience that discomfort.

I learned to say thank you when I received a compliment. I read somewhere that it was important to do so as it makes the giver of the compliment feel better than having you verbally dismiss the compliment. But the thank you I responded with did not reach my heart. Secretly I discounted the comment as untrue or based on faulty info.

For so many years, I couldn’t even feel appreciation for me in my heart even when I would voice the words thank you.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago when I finally discovered my self-contempt. I had a startling realization that I did not love myself. Deep in my heart was a cold wall. I had a deep well of love for others but my access to love for me was blocked by an obstacle that I couldn’t even perceive.

And, my mind was filled with negative self talk. You’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, they will find out all of your flaws and they will abandon you. You are unlovable and broken. You must do something different to be loved. You don’t deserve happiness. And yet, I had created a beautiful life! How can both things be possible?

My discovery about my self-contempt came when I had made a huge mess in my personal life. I was shocked to find myself in this messed up situation at this stage of my life and personal growth. It was at this time that I finally tuned in to the negative self talk and loveless way I treated myself and I remembered something shocking about me – I had completely disregarded that I had been raped in college by one of my college boyfriends. I had said no, he forced me. I left, showered, and cried. He said he was sorry. I did not break up with him until months later for a different reason.

I did not think about or process this incident again until over 25 years later when I found myself at the bottom against this cold wall. How could I have abandoned myself then? It was illuminating because I could see how I was still abandoning myself!

This was the key for me – I simply stopped the abandonment right then and there. I embraced myself and all my successes and failures and found unconditional love. My heart opened in a way I could never even imagine except to compare it to how I feel about my three boys – I could finally feel that kind of love for myself. I forgave myself for the mistakes I had made, and developed deep respect for myself for all that I have and will accomplish in my life. I can even look at myself in the mirror with love now and say “I like my hair” but even better, I can say “I love myself.”

And now my passion is to help women reconnect with their own beautiful vibrant selves and to teach them to take care of themselves and access that place of self-love. Over the years I have studied and gathered and developed several effective of healing tools that support this process. I have created an emotional healing practice to share these transformational tools and feel blessed to work with amazing women worldwide who are on this journey to self-connection. My hope is that each day I will touch another soul and help them truly love themselves and maybe they will like their hair too ☺