Curl up and Love

We can hate too much and we can love something way too much, it is in our capacity to notice what we are choosing to do.

We all have this ideal image about everything in our lives. We cannot deny the influence of social media, advertisements, movies, people around us and unsolicited advice shaping our thoughts of how things should be. Anything out of the ‘should be’ standards is rejected.

An example of an old advertisement speaking for itself

Dark skin is such a worn out discussion but I know of people who still hate their shade and are wondering if they should invest some time in the ‘fair and lovely” gimmick. Wondering why some actors with unmatchable skills in their profession and success are not confident in their own skin (literally).

There are a million topics like, growing taller as kids, balding as adults, having Happy dent teeth, obsessed about body size over fitness levels, leaner looking arms, 6 packs and even skin tone, big IQ, making choices acceptable to your environment, not failing ever, associating with the “good” people and what not. We are always under some kind of pressure to meet the standards our environment puts us in.

Focusing on things our bodies are not good at, we start hating that thing instead of accepting it.

I grew up watching the Vatika and Clinic plus girls swishing straight hair with light perfectly reflecting off their hair like a white shiny line. I thought something is wrong with my hair, made up my mind that it’s too dry and I need to fix it. I even got a friend scorn at me, on a day I was lazy to struggle with my hair, “look at your hair” and I was left out of the plan only for not fitting the “should be” standards.

I didn’t want to be left out and I didn’t accept my hair for being curly. My dad had the curly hair genes and Mom was the Vatika girl, and that didn’t help either. I was at war with my hair when removing knots and combing it down trying to straighten it and on giving up, get it chopped off to a short length.

The journey of getting to know my curls, accepting, being friends, to taking care has taught me self love.

I stumbled upon some good angels like Dolma from Body craft Bangalore, Nikita Suresh @nikynutrition Nutritionist, Bangalore and @honestlizhere Instagram. Life just was on good roads. On another hair venting session Liz said “pyaar se” translated as “with love”. It lighted a bulb in my mind. Honestly, I’ve never stopped loving my hair after that.

It’s different when you’re not waiting for love to come from outside. You’re waiting for yourself to show up for you, to accept yourself and be kind to yourself. It’s not selfish it’s self love to learn to be kind, loving and patient with yourself, whoever you have become over the years, who ever you anticipated to be and have turned out differently or not, accept yourself wholly first and be kind to yourself my friend and things will just turn around for you. May be this February create a small challenge of self love.

Also I read this in a mbg article, watch the tone of your self talk. It’s going to change your life if you can talk to yourself “pyaar se”.