I am thrilled to share in this article how my desire to feel authentic and true to myself around my hair, helped me to uncover the subconscious beliefs that were dominating my reality around my beauty. I’m proud to say that I was able to transform them completely, to the point that I am now a transformational life coach, helping women feel confident in their own skin to create the lifestyle they desire!
I will be completely raw and vulnerable about my beliefs while growing up and what I’ve done to change them… truly expecting that someone benefits from it!
It’s amazing to witness how time changes you. I remember years ago, how I learned about CurlyNikki. I was a teenager and heavily disliked my relaxed hair. I would spend nights crying about it, the process was torturous and I wanted to discover what my natural hair texture was like. I had it relaxed at nine years old, because my teacher at my new school at the time said I had to do it in order to be accepted. Imagine that. Turns out that years later I spoke with the principal and he had no idea that she had mentioned that! It wasn’t true. But it had a great impact on me growing up, though. I remember thinking there was something wrong with me because even when my parents got my hair relaxed, classmates would touch my hair and say mean things about it. It created a really strong message in my mind that I wasn’t good enough, period. As I grew up, I would go up to four months without relaxing it, despite my parent’s best efforts to convince me, but at the same time, I wasn’t taking care of it either. I was in a depressed state.
In the essence of full disclosure, when I realized my hair was 4C, I internally panicked. I was secretly hoping it would be a looser textured curl, which would imply I would be more accepted if I decided to do a big chop. In that moment, I said to myself that I would never big chop, but here I am today, writing an article for CurlyNikki.
I big chopped a year ago and I’ve never felt happier and more beautiful in my life. I adore my 4C hair! This journey of self discovery, acceptance, releasing old limiting beliefs and building confidence around my beauty, got me to where I am today and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
When I first started to learn about true transformational work, I found out that we get what we focus on. The thoughts and emotions we have stored in our mind, show up in our reality to confirm what we actually think is true.
I remember hearing comments around me from my family and online about how:
• I had bad hair. No man would want me with hard hair.
• I was pretty for a black girl.
• These were my golden years and that I was crazy for wanting to stop relaxing.
• I would never be accepted in a big company with an afro.
• Men would only find me beautiful if I had long hair.
• If I wanted to be natural, it would mean that I wanted to be cheap with my hair.
This stuff was toxic to my emotional and physical health . They turned me in to a cynical person, I always expected the worst about everything . I decided that I didn’t want to be that way anymore, nothing good would come out of it and I deserved to be happy on my own terms.
I started to pay close attention to my thoughts and my expectations of public scrutiny around my hair and the more I embraced a positive expectation, the more I received it.
I worked on my beliefs of feeling not good enough and in the span of months, I was able to see a change of what was showing up in front of me, because I changed my beliefs.
The more critical I was of myself and my hair, the more I’d have people being critical about my hair even when I didn’t ask for an opinion.
The more accepting I was of myself and my hair, the more support and love I’d get on a daily basis.
I decided to focus on the latter and to cultivate positive expectation, and this is what I recommend if you feel identified with what I stated above:
1. Surround yourself with a support group, like this one. Don’t surround yourself with people who bring you down or make you feel in any shape or form inadequate. This goes beyond your hair. Don’t be available to that judging energy.
2. Cultivate positive expectation around rocking out your fro at work. When I was critical around my myself and hair, I saw it reflected in a work environment where I felt judged.
When I was accepting of myself, I was accepted in a global company as a Project Manager. I was not only encouraged to cut my hair there, by the time I left to build my business, they were hiring more women with afros and others were cutting their hair, as well.
Positive expectation is key, we truly get what we focus on. We must focus on the solution, not on the problem to start feeling good about ourselves and create the lifestyle we desire.
3. Cultivate positive expectation around romantic relationships. I remember reading so many posts online about how when you switch to natural hair, men start disappearing. In my case it was the contrary, men wouldn’t approach me when I was relaxed and now that I am natural, I am approached by quality men. It’s because I feel beautiful on the inside and the outside now, and I expect men to see me this way too.
I recommend writing a list of 50 things your ideal man is like, focus on how he makes you feel. Get clear on this and your subconscious mind will aid you in having men who fit this criteria show up immediately. Expect quality men to show up. I’ve had clients manifest their exact desired man, based on the list, show up in the span of a weekend after taking the time to fill out the list.
4. Focus on thoughts of union and not separation. The more I saw myself as different than other women, the more I would separate, focus on thoughts of disadvantage, resentment and bitterness. Making it really difficult for me to change and those around me as well.
I started to celebrate women in every area. I am not playing a blind eye here, I know some people need to be educated and that is why I write articles like this. Most of the people that I’ve had the pleasure to share my experience with, had no idea of the emotional turmoil I went through.
I avoid making defensiveness my primary state of being anymore. I recognize the effect it has on my body, mind and spirit.
This world is changing. It will continue to change with everyone of us claiming what is our birthright, to receive and give love. Ideas of separation are transformed when we model what is possible. That is why it is so important to cultivate thoughts of positive expectation on a daily basis, let that become our new normal. We owe this to ourselves.
CurlyNikki Says:
THIS!– “We must focus on the solution, not on the problem to start feeling good about ourselves and create the lifestyle we desire.” Be the change you wanna see… Ghandi’s words are even deeper than they appear at face value. LITERALLY change yourself (your vibe, your thoughts, your actions”> and watch the world change around you!
This article was written by Nicole for CurlyNikki.
