Hair Image: Did any of you experience this when you went natural?

Hi Curly Nation!

It's ya girl MusiQ and today, I wanna talk to you guys about hair image. As I stated in my first blog entry, I used relaxers for over 20 years before I actualy went natural. Most of my life was spent with straight hair, so I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise to me what happened when I finally did my big chop. Before I explain my experience, I wanted to ask you all a few simple questions. Have any of you ever realized that you had a "relaxed" image of yourself once you went natural? And if you did, did your appearance as a natural ever come in conflict with that "relaxed" image? Let me explain what I mean....

Rewind to when I got my big chop. My first reaction was relief because I no longer had to deal with the two textures that were on top of my head. That relief was short-lived, however, and I felt the need to get my hair braided because I wasn't ready to rock my hair in it's natural state. Once I did get the courage to deal with my natural hair, I realized something that was very interesting before and after I would look at myself in the mirror each day, and that was that the image that I had of myself post-relaxer was still that of a woman with a relaxer. It might sound crazy to you, but this REALLY happened to me. That image of myself was so strong in my mind, that for a while, my actual appearance in the mirror would come as quite a shock to me. It was quite a strange phenomenon that really made it difficult to embrace the natural me for a while, but eventually, an image that took nearly twenty years to build was broken down in less than 3 months. Now, I'm embracing who I am naturally and it's a beautiful thing. 

To all the Naturalistas out there, let me know if you've had a similar hair image experience. I would really love your feedback on this subject. Until next time, Curly Nation!

Live Free! Live Natural!

~MusiQ