IT WAS ALL IN MY HEAD...

Who would have thought that something as trivial as growing out my hair would be one of the most powerful accomplishments in my life?

So I grew my hair out from a pixie cut to my shoulders in two years... big deal, you might say. But it is a big deal to me, considering my background. I came from a place where I had to be given permission to do - or be - what I wanted to do or who I needed to be. Friends were no help and I didn't have access to the information that I have now - I didn't know such information even existed on the internet! But I'll say, negativity is a very dark and scary place! It holds you down and cripples you to the point of paralysis. It promotes what I call an internal handicap. You're crippled inside. That was me.

But once I stopped believing that my contentment (and access for information) depended on other people, the chains of fear that were holding me down simply dissolved. Concerning my hair, I've heard for too long that I needed someone to take care of it "for" me in order to reach the length that I wanted to achieve - the chemical process to keep the hair straight (relaxing) can be tricky and my hair wouldn't grow if I didn't do it correctly, which is true. But the fear instilled by others was greater than my need to try. This was also a representation of other areas of my life which people thought that they needed to take them over to fulfill MY contentment as if they knew better than me what I needed to make myself happy.

But there will come a point where you must do what you need to do for yourself. You'll have no other resources but you and your own creativity, thinking outside the box and doing what works best for you, and living an uncompromising life.

I got my hair to shoulder length in two years. The original goal was to get to shoulder length in three years, taking into account that I didn't know what I was doing, and I had little to no experience in hair care! But I still did it in two years, with consistency and patience!

Now I'm not gonna say that I didn't make mistakes - there's no journey without mistakes - but now I know better. I won't claim to be a professional in hair care, but since I took the risk and succeeded, I don't see why I was afraid of taking care of my own hair in the first place. 

It was all in my head.