Week Forty-six: Kathy Benson

Write about an insecurity you have or once had

Where do I begin?

Maybe with the fact that I accidently deleted the first version I wrote of this post, which I was proud of and pleased with how it turned out.

Don’t you hate it when things like that happen?

One of my many insecurities is struggling to let go of incidents like that, ones I don’t have any control over, though they may be extremely frustrating to accept at the time. I have a tendency to go over and over the events in my mind, doubting myself and taking away from other important things and people I should be focusing on.

Last week I shared here about one of my personal insecurities. I wrote about how it is hard for me to understand and accept when people in my life don’t seem to like me. I have many more personal and physical insecurities that I work at not allowing to control my thoughts and actions, though it is challenging for me.

One of my physical insecurities relates to my hair. Many people I know wish they had the opposite type of hair texture and/or color. Growing up I had naturally curly/wavy hair and often day dreamed about having straight hair instead. I thought it would be so much easier to style and care for. Conversely my mother, who has naturally straight hair used to tell me how she wished she had curly hair like me.

In part because my mom didn’t have the same hair texture that I did, she didn’t know how to teach me to style and wear mine. I went to school where most people didn’t use styling products anyway, because au natural was the “in” thing to be. We would poke fun at the suburban girls we saw at the shopping mall who used lots of hair spray to make their bangs into the shape of flowers. Most days I was at the mercy of the weather/humidity to determine if it was going to be a “good hair day.”

It wasn’t until I got to college and met some women with similar hair texture to mine, that I had the opportunity to learn various ways I could style my own hair, which was especially helpful for those “bad hair days.” After I graduated with my master’s degree and moved back home, I started my first job in the real world. I was looking for a new hairdresser and my mom suggested I take a look at which of my co-workers’ hairstyles I liked and ask them whom they went to. I took her great advice and am still going to the same hairdresser almost 14 years later!

I have learned a lot from my hairdresser, who has become a friend, over the years, which has allowed me to feel much more confident about my hair and how to style it. I still have “bad hair days” now and then, but a lot less than I used to.

I definitely think there is a connection between knowing how to do something well and feeling less insecure about it. For years I didn’t feel confident about my hair because I didn’t know what to do with it.  Now that I do, it is not something I spend much time worrying about.

Tell me about an insecurity you have or once had.

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Kathy Benson is a bereaved and blessed mom, writer and group fitness instructor trying to live mindfully and find joy in the journey after dealing with secondary infertility and loss for five years. She lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and two living children.

Kathy blogs at Bereaved and Blessed. You can also follow Kathy on Twitter @BereavedBlessed and her Facebook page.