When I learned that my alopecia was a lesson to my ultimate self-confidence!
This is a picture of me when I turned 25 years old. I celebrated life, as I usually do, feeling as though life couldn’t get anymore interesting. I had gone through a major breakup early that year, my mom had decided to stay in Ethiopia a little longer, and I had just moved to my own place. I had so many moving parts but didn’t realize that everything I was experiencing was a preparation for what's to come. I should also add that I wasn’t aware of my body and all the beautiful transformation it could go through. I was really oblivious to what it meant to take better care of myself - mentally and physically.
In March 2014, I was diagnosed with autoimmune condition call alopecia that stemmed from having thyroid issues. Alopecia is basically an autoimmune disorder that affects your hair follicle and causes your hair to fall out. In 2015, I wrote a blog to share what I was experiencing. Here is the snippet from that, “I wake up every morning, praying that a new patch doesn’t appear or that I stop shedding hair.I am so self-conscious and working on empowering myself to flaunt all that I have. It sounds horrible and every traumatic and it is; however, I am learning to take it day by day. I am focusing on self-love and appreciation for the good and bad.”
I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I had gorgeous hair and was one of my strongest assets. But when I was diagnosed a lot about my confidence, understanding of self, mental health, physical health all changed, you can even read that in my blog from 2015. It was as if the universe was telling that I had deprioritized myself so much that it finally caught up. I never knew how to heal from past trauma, I never knew that eating whatever will harm me, and I never knew that my stress manifested through my body. In that moment, I had to learn the biggest lesson of first loving myself with missing patches in my head but also through the transformation of healing that I needed to grasp. It was a journey for sure but it was a great wake up call that Mimo needed to put herself first! So what are the lessons I have learned over the years:
Living your life fully and don’t take anything personal - I use to be such a sensitive ass person but as I went through this journey, I learned how to be so confident and shed my insecurities away.
Stress is inevitable but what I do with it matters big time. I don’t let it overcome or overwhelm my world. I try my best to always take time for myself, do all the silly things that make me happy and dwell in possibility rather than the “what ifs”
Healing. And not the physical manifested healing but the mental and spiritual kind. I had to learn to forgive a lot, love myself for wanting to heal and just let go. The sooner I accomplished that, I became even more elated and happy. Something about letting go. It’s so simple but yet so profound.
Also gave myself permission to challenge all the things “I am supposed to be”. This ideology comes from having an immigrant family. The list of what I should be is so dang long and the sooner I let that go, man, I just felt so dang liberated! I started living so freely and love that!
I also gave myself permission to do whatever I was curious about!! OH MAN, that opened up so many doors for me! And I did it without quitting my job cold (nothing wrong with that). But for me, it didn’t have to be that drastic, and I loved that simple idea of just learning and doing all the things that interested me.
Also lots of water, coconut oil and lavender! Yup, that would rid of all bad energies hehe
To end, just live your best life and try to see the light in all bad situations. My sisters from Her Place asked me "What in life is beautiful to you and where do you find inspiration?" and my answer to this was: "My favorite word comes from Japenese language, and it’s “Wabi-Sabi”. The term refers to a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and peacefully accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay. I find the meaning so profound because it reminds you that nothing in this world is "perfect" and the good enough or ugly still holds it's beauty in it's own way. Once you notice that there's a season and a reason for the things lived, you then will be so good at navigating the world and find inspiration even in the most nastiest, most annoying parts of life! To that I say, Wabi-sabi!"
Live you best life always!
