MY BiG Chop Experience

I don't know what I found the most daunting, walking into the barbershop full of 15 guys or the fact that the same 15 pairs of eyes closely watched me parallel park right in front of the barber shop, which I totally messed up because of the pressure. lol . The thing is, put me in the same situation after I had my big chop and I wouldn't have cared whether there was 15 or 1500 pairs of eyes watching. So what makes my new Big Chop self a shadow of my former self?

In my last post I told you why my little Afro baby Mayah was my inspiration and how her unadulterated self acceptance made me want to go natural. Going natural means so many different things for all of us and after having the Big Chop, for me it became much more than just about my hair. See, many of us have the misconception and commonly associate short hair with being less feminine but the truth is I've never felt so beautiful in my whole entire life. This isn't a post telling you that having the Big Chop gives you some sort of supernatural confidence boost but what it did do for me is make me feel totally liberated.

Most black girls will tell you that from a young age we let our hair affect many areas of our life and following Simone Manuel's amazing performance in swimming in the recent Rio Olympics, I read so many articles about the 'hair factor' possibly being the unspoken barrier for getting more black girls in the pool, just one of areas we let our hair affect our choices. The issue isn't about good hair or bad hair, I deeply feel its about learning to resolve our own individual hair insecurities embedded in the black community and most importantly not passing this onto our little queens.

The natural hair movement is stronger than ever but I feel that 'hair' is only a small part of this movement. Like my Big Chop, I've learnt that it's about setting new standards of self-expression and unconditional self love.

Being 'bold enough to use your voice, brave enough to listen to your heart and strong enough to live the life you've always imagined'.

So as I now spend my commute into London watching youtube videos or on instagram searching #twastyles ,which I just found out means Teeny Weeny Afro, lol, I'm loving every moment of growing myself as a person as well as my hair.

Are you on the natural hair journey? What have your found the most positive and challenging part, because let's be real, it's not always easy.

Mamamayah

x

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