Chopped: Why I Cut My Hair

A lot of you who follow me on other social media (Twitter and Instagram) already know this, but for some of you who may not know....I recently cut my hair a little bit over a month ago. It was such a drastic cut, the biggest chop I had ever done. I got so many shocked reactions (in a good way), people loved it. I wanted to take this time to be a little transparent with you (my reader) about why I decided to cut my hair.

I have always had medium length to long hair and I took pride in it because I knew that there were people who tried their hardest to let their hair grow my length or longer and couldn't. I grew up in a culture where it was perceived that longer hair was immediately attached to beauty. The longer your hair was, the more beautiful you were. I learned this as a young child. That was even one of the reasons why I decided to perm my hair. Yes it was extremely thick and difficult to manage, but permed hair also meant that my hair would be straightened and it wouldn't be curly. The curly state made my hair look shorter than it actually was so permed hair meant that it would show just how long my hair was.

I remember growing up as a child being jealous of the girls whose hair was longer than mine (as stated before, it meant that they were prettier than me). I would spend hours in the mirror pulling my hair down trying to stretch it to make it longer. I took this attitude and belief with me into adoloscence and even adulthood. I continued to be jealous of girls who's hair was longer. Whenever I'd like a guy, if there was another girl around us who had longer or even "nicer" hair, I would immediately be discouraged and lose hope in the fact that he would even like me because this girl had longer hair hence...she was prettier.

About  a year and a half ago I went to the Caribbean for vacation and I had one of the locals put long braid extensions in my hair so I wouldn't have to worry about it while I was there. Unbeknowest to me, she glued the braid to my actual hair I guess to make sure the braid wouln't unravel.

OK [PAUSE]

1. Why, why, WHY would you use regular glue (not hair glue) to glue to someone's hair?!
2. Why, why WHY would you glue someone's here without a) telling them and/or b) asking their permission?!

[RESUME]

I wasn't aware that she actually did this until 2 months later when I tried to take the hair out. I, of course, couldn't. I went to an African hair braiding salon for help and even they (the experts) didn't know what to do. They basically had to tear the weave out of my hair, causing me to lose a lot of my natural hair. To say I was devastated was an understatement. I proceeded to put my hair in braids for a period of 2 years so that my hair can grow and recover from this awful experience. I certainly wasn't going to cut it to even my hair out because I couldn't ever have short hair!

[PAUSE]

It just occured to me to clarify something really quickly. I always loved short hair cuts on other women. I thought it was such a brave thing to do and loved the way people styled it. I never thought other women with short hair were less than beautiful, that standard only applied to me. I was the only one who was not beautiful with short hair

[RESUME]

As months and years passed by with my braids I really began to reflect on my thinking and how incredibly skewed and screwed up it was. I mean, I'm a daughter of the King. He made me in His own image and He is BEAUTIFUL. He made me unique, there is no one else in the world like me. Why was allowing the world or even my culture to determine whether or not I was beautiful? Why was I allowing a feature determine whether or not I was beautiful. My value is in God and God alone. Beauty comes from the inside and radiates to your outer appearance, which for the record, will fade.

Proverbs 31:30 Charm can fool you. Beauty fades. But a woman who has respect for the LORD should be praised

 

 Right at that moment, I decided that I was going to get rid of the very thing that made me question where beauty came from... my hair. I was going to get a short hair cut. On March 29th I walked in and my stylist went to work and cut so much of my hair (which had by now grown past it's original length over the course of 2 years).

I refused to look into the mirror until she was completly finished for fear that I would freak out. When she was finished I looked in the mirror at myself and I heard the Spirit tell me: You are so beautiful. And I believe Him! I am SO beautiful! I love my hair cut. I love this new season. I love this new found confidence. See, I had to let go of my hair to reallt see myself the way God sees me. I feel so free!


Now why am I telling you this? Because I know there are people out there who struggle with feeling beautiful naturally. They think that their beauty is because they are light skinned or dark skinned, because they have tatoos (or don't have any), because their white or black, straight hair or curly hair, "good" hair, pretty eyes, nice hips/butt/boops/lips, blonde hair etc. You get where I'm going. Let go of these superficial things that you use to define your beauty. You are beautiful because God says you are and because you are made in HIs image. You are beautiful because your character is beautiful and it radiates to your physical appearance so hold your head up!

Now I walk around confidently rocking my short hair and people see it (note confidence not cockiness). I'm going to keep my hair short for a while and may even go shorter in the future. Who cares? It's just hair. I'm so happy I did this and I hope this blesses someone.

Rocking my new cut

xo

Tasha