What I learned...One year natural

Pony rides for the kids, because I'm not showing you a picture of me on a horse.

 

Hello everyone!  I'm back from my vacation and feel like I need a vacation from my vacation.  From the horseback riding to hiking and then canoeing, I'm exhausted.  It was great to go on this retreat with my family through church.  I proved to everyone that yes, you can take a 3 year old canoeing.  We didn't catch any fish, but having our family (sister in law and cousins) with us made this vacation a lot of fun.

The cousins climbing the rocks while hiking Rib Mountain.

Last week was the anniversary of my first year natural and this got me thinking about what I have learned over this past year.  Besides learning to care for my hair I have learned a lot about myself and beauty.  I could go on and on about detangling with conditioner to the different styles and products I explored over this year, but I feel like talking about something different.  I want to talk about what I learned, now that does include hair care, but I want to go deeper. 


1.  Failure is good!  Yup, you heard me right.  Failure is good.  Now many of you know that I'm a teacher, so I'm not talking about taking a test and getting a F.  For all you folks out there that failed a test or class you really know that was from your lack of studying and or effort mostly.  The failure I'm talking about is the good failure.  The type of failure you learn from.  So many people look at the failure in their life and think only negative.  I'm here to tell you that failure is good!  You just need to adjust your way of looking at failure.  I see failure as a learning opportunity.  If you try and fall completely on your face, but learn from that experience you didn't fail!  Now yes, you didn't achieve what you wanted to and your pride might be bruised, but you learned something new.  So, I learned to embrace my mishaps and learn from them.  When you fail, get up and try again.  Don't make the same mistakes!

Picture of us in front of the Church at camp in Wisconsin.

2.  Beauty is only skin deep.  I have talked about this before, beauty is what we decide it to be.  We are raised to chase beauty and maintain it for as long as possible.  We spend thousands of dollars to achieve a certain standard of beauty acceptable to the society we live in.  Guess what, if you are lucky to live to a ripe old age that beauty standard we chase and try to hang on to wrinkles, spots, grays and basically completely erodes away.  So, since we all lose our outward beauty embrace who you are and what you have.  When I started to see myself as beautiful just the way I was made my mental transformation started to click into place and my curly hair was just part of who I am.  For me having a short transition and wearing my TWA really pushed this concept hard.  Wearing my TWA couldn't go unnoticed and I had to look deep within myself to find my beauty.

Hubby goofing around with Aunt Laura as we pose by the river.

3.  Be inspired.  Don't be afraid to try new things.  I watched lots of You Tube videos and in the beginning I thought "my hair isn't long enough to do that".  Then one day I watched a video on a very simple elegant style and thought "I think I can do that, but modify it a little" and that's when I was inspired to try something new.  So, my version of "Midsummer Romance" by Naturally Curious had me pin my sides back giving me an illusion of longer hair.  Don't be afraid to copy others styles.  They will look different on you and embrace that others might copy you (love you Minsek!).

Have I learned more than three things over this past year?  Heck yeah!  But, I'm tired and I can save something for another day.  I hope I have inspired you too look at your journey differently.  I pray that you look for the blessings in your life and push yourself to grow.  Until next time...
Blessings!