About a month ago, I shared that I am in my short hair era. I have been on the fence about sharing this, but wanted to be transparent in the hopes of inspiring someone. Today, I wanted to share the truth behind my short hair.

I have joked for years that whenever I went to get a haircut that I would just chop it all off. I love the long bob on so many women and how they all got this insane glow up. A lot of people were completely chopping their hair off. Call it following a trend, I don’t know, but I wanted to do it. However, every time I talked about it, I chickened out. My hair has always been my security blanket and it’s taken me years to grow it out.

Up until recently, my hair has always been extremely thick and healthy. In the last 4ish months, my hair started to fall out in HUGE clumps. I was terrified of what was going on when I would clog the drain after one shower. Recently, I abruptly stopped a medication that you are supposed to taper and I thought that might be it. Talking with my dermatologist, that could very well be the case. The real culprit was living in a fight or flight response and high levels of stress for so long.

I can’t honestly remember a time of the last few years where I wasn’t battling mental health or high levels of stress with work. This year I got a new boss and the transition has been rough. I went to my hair guy and we determined that the best course of action would be to cut my hair shorter to make it look more full. My hair looked so bad that this was really my only option minus extensions and I didn’t want to go that route. I posted a fun reveal video after and everyone loved it. Yes, it looks great, but the truth is, I hate it. I miss my long hair and my security blanket. I am mad that I am at this point.

The only thing that I can do is focus on how I can get out of constantly being in the fight or flight response, plus managing my stress level. If you are living in this state of mind, I can sympathize with you. All we can do is recognize it and determine how we are going to fix things going forward. Living like this is exhausting and very unhealthy. I have never felt farther away from my true self as I do right now, but I am working on it. We can choose to evolve or remain and I am definitely choosing to evolve.