When I was in school in the late 90s, my peers were obsessed with the show FRIENDS. And all the girls at my school dressed like the main characters in the show, hairstyles included. When you’re a young girl in school, there’s a lot of pressure to be like your peers.

Only I didn’t have Rachel hair, or Monica hair, or even Phoebe hair. I could maybe pull off a Season 1 Phoebe (who even remembers that?) but then she went straight and Season 8 she had those Carly Rae Jepson bangs and well… fuggetaboutit.

And no amount of product or time with the straightening iron was going to change that.

love yourself

I longed for what the other girls had, and I cursed my curly-haired genes. My own locks were much more Keri Russell (a-la-Felicity) and unfortunately, I had not yet learned how to appreciate this. Sometimes I would cry in front of the mirror fighting with brushes and styling tools and products… never able to achieve the look some girls got so effortlessly from just crawling out of bed.

And I hated it.

I hated my hair.

I hated part of me.

Why couldn’t I be more like everyone else?

And the more I hated it, the more unhappy I became, and the more I desperately wanted to change it. Until it all boiled over one fateful day when in a fit of rage and feeling sorry for myself, I grabbed the scissors and I chopped it off.

I didn’t go full 2007 Britney Spears, but I did have my own personal melt-down and by the time I was done, my hair was the shortest it had ever been since I was a toddler. I looked at the pieces of hair on the floor and felt both horrified and relieved at the same time.

There it was… the physical manifestation of my pain of not being good enough… in jagged clumps and curls on the bedroom floor.

Determined to make it right, I styled and shaped and worked my tools until I had the perfect little bob, with the ends curled under just above my shoulders. It was cute. It was trendy. I looked pretty good!

As long as I didn’t move…

And like a gremlin, you mustn’t ever, ever, ever get it wet!

Because as soon as even the slightest bit of humidity hit that sleek 90s bob, I turned into Shirley Temple.

Then I had to wear that shame of trying to be something I wasn’t until my hair grew back out. I cried myself to sleep over that hair many nights, but then I cried for what I had lost. I mourned the hair I had never appreciated before.

But I also learned a very valuable lesson that I would take with me for the rest of my life. Actually, TWO lessons:

  1. That you should always go to a professional when seeking a major hair change.
  2. That we cannot just cut away the parts of us we do not like.

To love yourself, to TRULY love yourself is to love ALL of yourself. It is quite possibly the greatest challenge we ever face as humans.

A task that sounds so very simple in theory, but in practice can be one of the hardest things you ever learn to do.

But once you do… once you love ALL of yourself and you stop comparing yourself to others, you fall into a place of acceptance. Total acceptance of all the parts of yourself – that’s where the real MAGIC happens.

That’s when you truly become who you were born to be. That’s when you really start living. That is when you can be 100% totally, completely, unabashedly you.

And THAT person? Well, she’s a Goddess.

She’s a Rockstar.

She’s a Badass.

She is ready to step into her full power and her hair is perfect just as it is. <3