I'm not amazing, just different

I'm not amazing, just different

I didn't just wake up this way, accepting myself as I am and allowing my beard just grow. It's taken me a very long time to get to where I am at, currently. My daily ritual for the last 10+ years has been to shave it but when that became something I no longer looked forward to, and found that the process didn't leave me relieved and I actually obsessed more over the hair, I realized (not on my own) that something had to change.
Take it one day at a time if you want to start to allow it to grow. Just one day. I always thought "it's okay, tomorrow I'll just shave." And when It became overwhelming, I trimmed it or shaved it. It took about two years of off and on shaving, I found I preferred to use a beard trimmer to keep it trimmed down rather than shaving it, and I exfoliated regularly so my skin healed and I got no ingrown hairs! (try the Neutrogena wave!)
When I became anxious, I would try to assess how and why I felt the way I felt. If i felt like a coworker was judging me, I'd push myself to speak openly about PCOS. A lot of my co workers were very supportive and none of them ever said anything negative to me during this process (or ever)

Fast forward, I've been allowing my beard to grow for almost a full year now, I don't foresee shaving it anytime soon. I feel more confident now, I wear more makeup, I wear more dresses because I no longer obsess about what others think about me. YES I HAVE BAD DAYS/WEEKS! No one is perfect and no one is happy 100% of the time. But I've learned a lot about myself and how to listen to my body when I need to run and hide.

I'm not amazing, just different.

You are just as amazing, and we are all different. (In a wonderful way!)

<3
Annalisa Hackleman