In December of 2016 I big chopped my hair. Big chopping my hair means that I cut off all of my relaxed ends of my hair or damaged hair. I was about 11 years old when I first relaxed my hair. Relaxing hair is adding chemicals to the hair to change the chemical formation of the hair. I remember when I was 10 or 11 years old wanting to have straight hair so that I was accepted by my “friends”. During the next 9 years I would relax my hair and straighten it with a flat iron so that my hair could be really straight. I would look in the mirror and see straight hair which was nice but it was not long and was slowly thinning out. The more I tried to have beautiful straight hair, the worse my hair got.
In September 2015, I decided to stop straightening and relaxing my hair. At first it was hard. I did not like my not straight hair. The more my hair grew, the more I stared to like me for me. I wanted straight hair so that I could be accepted, but when I started growing my natural hair ( which is curly) out, I learned that the only person that needed to accept me was me.
I have been a nature head for about 3 months and I love it. There are days that my hair does not agree with me but I love it. My hair is big and full of curls and is beautiful. I love it because with my big hair I feel free. I have learned that I need to love Elyse for Elyse.
Stop letting the world tell you how you should look or act. Be happy being yourself. Something I love doing is staring in the mirror and telling myself that I love me because of my smile, my hair, etc. When you love yourself the world will notice. So stop caring what the world thinks and start caring about what you think. I promise you that loving yourself is the second best thing that you can do for yourself. I love me and it feels great!
Elyse
