Real Talk: Self-Love vs Vanity

Let’s be crystal clear about one thing… this is about how I have fallen in love with a hair salon in Panama City and more precisely with a first-rate, masterfully skilled stylist named Audray.   Before I declare just how much I love love love Audray…I need to put a disclaimer upfront about why this really matters.

The truth of the matter is a lot of what we put out into the world, our looks included, can change how we feel on the inside…how we feel inside dictates how we treat other people and guides every action we take in every moment of our days.

It’s not vanity. Aspiring to feel good about your appearance and to want to look nice is not vanity.  We eat healthy and exercise because it feels good, not because it’s vain. Those examples impact our internal state but self-love extends to the external state too. It’s represented in the clothes we chose, the shoes we wear to how we style our hair.

There is the faction of people that will argue with conviction that it doesn’t matter what you look like. I agree but I also disagree.

I agree that it doesn’t and shouldn’t matter what other people think about how you look. Wholeheartedly I agree with that. But I also disagree because it should matter to you. Taking care with the way you look doesn’t mean you live in a bubble where you don’t understand that there is war, human rights violations, etc. Taking care of yourself is actually self awareness, which quite frankly more people need an extra dose of self awareness.

Feeling bad about the way you look can be like having a hangnail, ignoring the hangnail doesn’t make it go away and being made to feel guilty for taking care of it is just asinine.

I think that one of the most important things a woman can have is a stylist that they trust.

The time has come that I needed to go get my roots coloured again. I know that grey hair is just part of life…but I don’t like it and I can change it so damn straight I am gonna change it.

Honestly this is the most stress I have experienced in months, not being able to just go to my stylist, walk in the door and say I need you bad and in an hour she has managed to change everything.

I handle stressful situations really well. I think I am generally a very calm and collected soul. I very rarely have knee jerk reactions or lose my cool and I analyze damn near every word that comes out of my mouth before I say it. I mean it takes a lot to make me lose my temper or push me over the edge.  Crumble under pressure? NEVER!

So when I say that trying to find a reputable stylist in another country has been the most stress I have had in a long time, I mean that this is the kind of stress that I don’t manage well.