December 14, 2023 • 29 mins
In this episode, special guest Dionna Anderson talks about how her struggles and pain behind the transitions with her 4C hair taught her life strategies and principles that caused her to love herself again.
Dionna Anderson is an author and the CEO of Securely Me, LLC, which helps encourage and empower Black women to love their natural selves and believe in their potential!
Dionna Anderson is an author and the CEO of Securely Me, LLC, which helps encourage and empower Black women to love their natural selves and believe in their potential!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:53):
Hello and welcome to all beautiful soulsout there. You're listening to the Restore
My Soul Podcast with Prince us Millon'syour favorite grief coach and emotional wellness specialist.
In this space, we will helpthose who struggle with grief and loss
and have real conversations about how toovercome it in every area of life through
our personal stories, practical information andwisdom from Princess, and for special guests.
(01:19):
We are here to educate, inspire, and empower you with the strategies
you need in your emotional healing journey. We do not offer medical advice,
but he believed that we can alllearn to heal by creating a mindset to
grow, pass our pain and pushtoward our purpose. Our goal is to
remind you that grief is a journeyand you do not have to walk it
(01:41):
alone. No matter what the painor loss is, you can be restored
and live fully in your purpose.But let's push through the pain together as
we share our stories of resilience inone episode at a time. Well,
Hello everybody again, welcome to anotherepisode of to Restore My Soul Podcast.
(02:01):
I am so honored that you arehere joining and listening and watching from wherever
you are. We are here toinspire and teach and empower you in your
emotional wellness journey, and so weare going to do just that today.
I just believe that we are alldifferent and what we've been through and grief
(02:23):
is grief, loss is loss,those things that we have to push past
and push through to be all thatGod has called us to do. So
I want to introduce our special gueststoday. I've had the pleasure of meeting
her person in person recently, andour guest today is Dianna Anderson and she
(02:46):
is an upcoming author who helps encourageand empower Black women to love their natural
sells and believe in their potential.So I want to welcome Dianna to the
podcast today. Thank you so muchfor being here. Hi, thank you
so much for having me. Absolutely, I know that we have a lot
(03:08):
to talk about. This is gonnabe such a great topic for everybody who
is listing the ones of us whoare have embraced or maybe not embraced the
journey of our natural hair. Right. So, what I always teach is
grief is grief, right, Lossis loss, and pain is pain,
(03:30):
and sometimes we see that pain sittingaround our hair and what it will do,
what it won't do, you know, the things that brings us grief
in the area. So I'm soglad that you're here to have a candidate
and a real conversation today to empowerus and let us know what you've been
(03:53):
through and kind of teach us somethingtoday. How about that? Yes?
Okay? So I know that youare an upcoming author and in your upcoming
book it's talking about the insecurities thatpeople have in certain areas of their life,
(04:14):
right, especially with their natural hair. And so I know that when
we're growing up sometimes our insecurity aboutsurrounding our natural selves it begins somewhere,
right, So kind of tell ushow you got to be this on this
(04:39):
natural hair journey that you're on now. Maybe some things that's happened to make
you take a look and take apath to help others to be able to
embrace their natural selves. Yeah.So when I was young, I used
to always see you know, theBlack Girls TV, but not like it
(05:00):
wasn't a lot of black women orblack people in general on the TV channels
that I would watch. And Iused to admire this one girl named Raven
I know, everyone knows like youknow, that's a raven. And her
hair wasn't naturally it was always straight, so I would also look at the
you know, the Bradstall Sasha,but her hair was straight, and I
(05:21):
always thought that my hair in orderfor me to be pretty like them,
I had to have looser hair straighther hair, and I didn't really really
want to go through the pain ofthat until my mom started perming my hair.
After my grandma passed away, soa lot of things hindered her,
(05:42):
like through stress, and she losther hair as well, and she formed
alopecia, I believe, through griefand her being sick after my grandma passed
away. So in order for herto stop spending so much time on my
hair, she resorted to perming myhair. And I always used to fuss
everything like that, and then hedidn't want nothing to do with my hair
(06:06):
anymore. She said, I'm justgoing to give you to someone else to
relieve my stress and to have moretime to myself. I'll just give you
to someone else to do your hair. And as a child, I didn't
really think much of it then,but as I got older, I didn't
like the pain of having a perm. I didn't like the pain of getting
(06:27):
braids in my hair because I wasso tender headed because of the perm.
So as time went on, aroundseventh grade, I started seeing this one
girl become natural, and I said, I want that. I never see
girls in my grade have beautiful FROs, so it was inspiring to me.
(06:47):
So I became natural. I transitioned, and I had to cut my hair
off. So I was grieving theloss of my before I even cut the
hair off. Wow, I wasso scared because I was afraid of other
people's opinions. But I cut itoff anyway, and I went through I
(07:09):
feel like I went through a lotof trauma as a child. I feel
like throughout high school I was wantingvalidation from people, especially from men as
well. Back then, I alwayswanted validation from them. And when I
went to college, my hair stuntedas growth because I was working. I
went to school and I was beingharassed and I had a lot of trauma
(07:33):
and it kind of built into myhair for some odd reason, and it
just stunted growth. It got dull, and I had to cut it off
again. And so I was likenineteen years old, and ever since I
cut off my hair. At nineteenyears old, I started realizing, like,
(07:54):
there are some things that I'm stillovercoming, but there were some things
in the beginning that I had toovercome in regard to how I felt towards
my curls, because I felt likebecause I was abusing myself physically, it
kind of made me like forget thatI had to take care of my hair
(08:15):
because I was trying to take careof everything else outwardly, said it inwardly,
So I stopped taking care of myhair. I stopped taking care of
my health, and I had toI put that in a book, like
I wrote a letter to my hairto make me embrace my hair more instead
of being ungrateful towards it, like, yes, I have thick, foresty
hair, but it was not itwas not giving at all. So my
(08:39):
past four years of my natural hairjourney has really been dedicated to making my
hair just beautiful again. Yeah,that is so good. And you know,
it reminds me that sometimes our journeyit comes from the loss and the
(09:03):
grief of someone else. And Iheard you say that when your grandmother died,
and I can attest to this whenmy mom died as well. You
know you kind of want to stopdoing everything, and for you, that
translated into the doing of your hair, right, And so I believe that
(09:24):
we often look at our hair asa sense of identity, right, and
so when we look at our hairas who we are, we are our
hair it is not going like wewant it to do, or we feel
like we have to do it theway that society wants us to do.
(09:48):
That brings a whole nother level ofgrief. And I know a lot of
us that are listening right now thatare watching this episode, they may have
some stories of back when they werea little little girls, when we had
the hot combs, okay on thestove hot combs, and having to go
through that pain of not being ableto burn my ear and things like that,
(10:13):
and we laugh at it now,but it really did set the stage
for the journey that we see thatwe personally have with our hair right now,
right. And it was such abeautiful thing that you were able to
see somebody your age and do it, and so that kind of gave you
(10:35):
the strength to do it do itas well. Yes, kind of talk
about what kind of things when yousay that you you went through a struggle
there you went through a hardship anda part of you was grieving having to
cut your hair again, right,and so talk about what what did that
(10:58):
look like for you? So Iknow kind of what we think is kind
of internal, but what did thatlook like to other people that saw you
go through that journey? Even whenI cut my hair off the first time
or the second time, either one, let's talk about the first time.
Okay, the first time when Icut it off, the only one who
(11:24):
really supported me cutting off my hairwas my mom. Uh okay, I
would say when I was when Iwas sitting in the chair, I was
like, I want to cut myhair off. I don't want the perm
ends anymore. So I still havemy roots, but I didn't want the
perm ends. And she was justlooking at me like, are you sure,
like you want to cut off allthis hair. I'm like, yes,
(11:45):
my hair is damaged. I wantto cut all off. And immediately,
like a week later, I said, can you schedule in the point
with her? Because I want mybraids in my hair. So about two
months after I took it out,I was like, okay, it's time
to face the world with my teenyWEENI a you know, the term TWA,
and everyone in school was just lovingit. They were like, oh
(12:05):
my god, I can't believe youcut your hair. But some people my
family, like people thought I wasdoing good in school because it's like,
oh, she cut her hair,she's changing. It's like she's a trendsetter.
So people thought I was fine.Really I was starting outside. Wow.
In my family, there were somepeople who thought I was depressed.
(12:30):
So it was weird because I feellike I was. It's such a young
age, like eighth grade. Ialways say to my youth, but your
feelings are valid, and if youare feeling a certain way, please come
to me, or please go toyour parents, because I feel like with
youth, their feelings are neglected alot because they're not old enough to quote
(12:52):
unquote understand what it's like to feela certain way. So when someone in
my family said you cut off allyour hair, and I was like,
yeah, I did, like,don't you like it? Because I thought
that they would like it, likethe kids in my school did. They
didn't like it at all. Oneperson called me nappyheaded. One said you
(13:13):
must be suicidal, you must bedepressed, and I was like, and
at that point I felt very embarrassed, but I kind of felt that she
was right because I knew how Ifelt in that age, but I didn't
really know what it was until shesaid it. But I wasn't suicidal,
I wasn't depressed. I was justtrying to find my happiness with my appearance
(13:37):
as a black girl with four seahair, with a thicker texture of hair
that society deems as not you know, good hair or you know, you
have to have looser texture to bebeautiful. You have to be, you
know, just someone on the TVscreen with relaxed, straight hair, and
(13:58):
that's not what it was in theeighth grade. I just didn't want to
be under that you know, stigma. Yeah, and that is so real
because a lot of times we lookto society, we look to TV movies,
entertainment to try to mimic and touh do what they're doing or what
(14:18):
they classify as being beautiful. Andagain, I think it goes back to
who we think we are, Whodo we who do we know that we
are? And and do we reallyknow our own identity? Because I believe
when you're strong in your own identity, then you don't have to look outside,
(14:39):
right, you don't have to lookoutside, look to society, look
to anybody else to tell you whatto do. And but it's a lot
of times us, we especially women, we struggle with the fact of we
want everybody to co sign onto whatwe're doing, and when they don't,
just like you say, we wefeel some type of grief on that.
(15:01):
We feel some type of rejection onthat because we think that I'm doing what's
best for me, and why aren'tyou happy about that? Right? But
what I also heard you say thosedifferences in in perspectives of why you cut
your hair off. Now that's crazybecause you had like two sides of the
spectrum. You are the ones thatthought that you were suicidal, that you
(15:24):
lost your mind and all that,and then you have the people like,
yeah, I like it, youknow. And so it is amazing sometimes
the extents that we go to tosave what we know that we need to
let go of. Right, So, what was what was the final final
(15:50):
decision that kind of prompted you togo ahead and let this hair go?
You know? Was it affirm decision? Did you have to think about it,
lament on it? What happened duringthat time? I always tell myself
that when it comes to taking arisk, think about it, but don't
(16:11):
dwell on it to the point whereyou're going to change your mind. I
feel like what prompted me to likemy final decision was in college freshman year.
I was going through it with thisguy who was harassing me. I
had so much trauma with that.But that was my decision to finally take
(16:33):
a break from things that were stressingme out negatively, that was impacting my
grades. And I feel like thatwas one, but my hair was also
another. I always had to finda way to do my hair and to
basically hide my hair. I wasgoing through a season of hiding my hair
so much to the point where Istarted to hate my natural hair again.
(16:55):
So I had a talk with myroommate. We were just talking about our
natural hair, and she was like, I always put protective styles in my
hair when I know my hair doesn'tcooperate with the weather. And that's what
I thought, That's what I donow. But then I didn't understand that
because I never I realized I didn'tunderstand my hair because I wasn't focused on
(17:19):
understanding my hair. So I waslooking at my hair as you need to
do this, You need to dothis. But really it was me not
understanding my hair and learning enough aboutmy hair to know what it does through
different seasons of the year, orwhat I would like to do for my
hair. So it was more ofme putting this stigma on my hair when
(17:40):
my hair hasn't done nothing to meat all. I'm the one doing all
these things to impact it. Somy final decision was just scrolling through Google
images to find just low cut styles. I was just looking at images.
I'm like, you know what,I think it's time for me to cut
my hair off. And I wasn'tscared to do so. And after writing
(18:04):
that letter to my hair, Iapologized to it. And so after apologizing
to my hair, I went home. I didn't go back to school.
I was too scared to go backto campus. But after apologizing to my
my hair, I went back homein the summer and I said, I
want to cut I want to cutit off again, but I want it
(18:26):
lower, like I wanted to startnear my roots again so that I can
understand it. And from then onI've just been loving it ever since.
Oh wow, oh wow, thatthat is that is powerful. And I
know that a lot of us nowthat you preak my heart on that because
I know a lot of us whoare listening and watching, we probably need
(18:49):
to write a letter to our hair, right, and you probably need to
and I know that, but it'ssuch a good exercise. I know that
that had to be at exercise todo because a lot of times we do
it to people, We write lettersthat to people that we never give them
right forgiveness and all of that kindof stuff. But to your hair,
(19:11):
that that was a unique perspective todo that, and I learned something on
that. I might that's something thathopefully our listeners will be able to do
as well, if they feel likethey need to do it. I feel
very I'm sorry for this harsh light. I'm in my living room, so
if you see a lot of lightcoming towards me, I'm very sorry.
(19:32):
Don't worry about that because we areaudible and video. Okay, okay,
Now, I know that in thewriting of your upcoming book, you talk
about how to become self confident andbe empowered by your natural beauty, not
(19:56):
only your hair, but you're justnatural beauty as as a whole. Right,
Can you tell us what kind ofthings that you have learned to put
you in that place of self confidenceno matter what you know, you've been
through, the ridicule, you've beenthrough, the doubts, the frustrations,
(20:18):
the difficulties, all of that.What is the thing that really puts you
in that place of being self confidentand being able to even help other people
to do that as well? Iwould say, like like I said before,
when it comes to taking a chanceor taking a risk, don't dwell
(20:41):
on it too hard to where itto where it like makes you change your
mind. So when it comes tome being so confident, and it can
be in any area of my life, like there are some places in my
life that I'm not really that confidenton. But when it comes to those
areas of my life where I am, I always tell myself, if I
(21:03):
doubt it, then I need tofind something that makes me have a thrill
so that I can keep going forwardand just having that excitement with it,
like public speaking, like right hereright now, I was like, if
I continue to reschedule, like forone, like for an example, we
rescheduled a lot, if I know, if I know that, if I'm
(21:26):
going to keep rescheduling a lot,then I'm feeling some type of doubt.
I'm feeling some type of insecurity,So stop rescheduling and just go forward with
it, because once you're done withit, you're going to feel this thrill
like, oh, I can dothat again, I can I can do
that again? Like oh. Inone way, is like I was very
insecure about traveling. I was veryinsecure about all these little things, and
(21:52):
they came from childhood. So whenI tie that into natural beauty, it's
like, why you self doubting allthese little things. It's not making yourself.
Doubt is society and society is andto me, it's just one big
like there's one big mirror of awall. You can easily break it down
(22:15):
by just telling yourself, you knowwhat, I'm always seeing this on TV.
Let me turn the TV off andreally look at myself in the mirror.
Let me look at myself or writea letter to myself and just say
that you are beautiful because God madeyou this way. God made you this
way in your mother's roomb so thatyou could be this beautiful, powerful person.
(22:37):
Like I feel like it's just thispersona that society has built up,
and it changes all the time.So if it changes all the time,
Why do you have to change allthe time you are yourself? Yes,
you change, you progress, butdon't progress along with society. Yes,
adapt, but don't change yourself ormold yourself to be this person and deep
(23:00):
down that you're not that way.So that's how I started to find confidence
not just in my natural beauty,but with everything of my life. That's
why I also talk about conquering limitingbeliefs as well. Yeah, well that's
so good. And I know thatthe level of society can only penetrate us
(23:23):
in our thinking, in our mindsas far as what we believe, right,
and it starts with us first,whatever we believe. Society people whoever
can come in and dictate to us, you know, certain truths you know
or certain supposed truths, And itonly goes as far as what we believe.
(23:51):
And I and I think that alot of times that that when we
struggle with our own insecurities, whenwe struggle with going back to that identity
of who we are, we're goingto struggle. And when we look at
what other people say is beautiful,when we look at what other people say
is okay, then we begin tobelieve it too. But it only means
(24:15):
that we didn't have firm beliefs tobegin with. And this is such a
powerful conversation because you know, somepeople I don't really believe that they really
understand the struggle behind just natural hair. Are just doing things naturally, you
know what I'm saying, right Andyou know, even the Bible says that
(24:37):
we are fearfully and wonderfully made,And that is all that we really need
right now, is that we knowthat we are and wonderfully made. That
God did not make a mistake whenhe made our forcy hair. Because I
have forcy hair as well. Theydid not make a mistake, and so
we embrace who He has created usto be. And I just I'm so
(25:03):
happy that you were here to bringa lot of this to light into the
space of even dealing with or beingresilient in a lot of areas in your
life. So before we leave,I want you to give the audience some
words of encouragement. What can youspeak to It might be some young people
(25:29):
that are watching. It might besome older people that are still struggling,
like myself, because I'll get inthe protective styles and all of that not
knowing as is subconsciously something else rightwhat I'm sharing, But what encouragement can
you give to us about our naturalhair journey and not to be able to
(25:56):
fall into that pit of grief ofeven losing our hair, even the battle
or struggle with our hair, orthe struggle of what even people are saying
about us and how we look whenwe have our natural hair. What encouragement
can you give us? I wouldsay that it's never too early and it's
(26:19):
never too late to start learning tolove your natural hair or your natural curls.
It's like there's a whole movement dedicatedtowards natural hair, towards Type four
hair specifically, because that's the oneI resonate with the most. So it's
never too early and it's never toolate to learn your hair, learn the
(26:41):
laws that are centered around your hair. It's never too it's never too anything,
because you have time to learn thebeauty that literally resides in yourself and
on your scalp. Like it growsfrom the knowledge from your hair, I'm
sorry, from your scalp into literallyyour curls. It grows out of your
(27:02):
scalpe, it grows into something sopowerful and beautiful that for years it's been
trying to be stripped away from us. So it's never too early and it's
never too late. That is sogood. That never too early, never
too late, y'all, y'all,hear it from Dianna herself, the founder
and see oh securely me LLC.Thank you so much for joining today on
(27:26):
this episode of Restoring My Soul.I want to want you to leave everybody
how they can connect with you andhow they can find you on social media
and all of that, all ofthat. Yes, so you can follow
me or I have me as afriend on Facebook. Deanna Anderson Instagram is
Dianna Anderson writes w R I TE S. And you can also follow
(27:52):
me on TikTok and I changed thatto securely me on TikTok. All right,
well, thank you so much Giannaagain for being here, such a
powerful testimony that I know it willbless so many people that are watching and
that are will listen even on thereplay. And I will hopefully see you
(28:15):
again soon. It was such apleasure to meet you in person recently and
I look forward to seeing you againsoon. Thank you so much, Princess.
This was an honor absolutely all right, y'all, Thank you so much
for joining in this episode of RestoreMy Soul Podcast. You all make sure
that you continue to follow me onall social media at Princess Millons and my
(28:38):
website at princessmillions dot com. Youall remember that grief is a journey,
you don't have to walk it alongand we will see you in the next
episode of the Restore My Soul Podcast. Thank you for joining another episode of
Restore My Soul Podcast. Be sureto listen and watch each week as we
(29:02):
continue the conversation on how to bounceback from the setback of grief and loss
and to become resilient so that youtoo can thrive in life. Don't forget
to like and subscribe so that youdon't miss out on any new episodes,
and share this with as many peopleas possible so they can be encouraged in
their emotional wellness journey. We inviteyou to follow Princess Milons on all social
(29:23):
media platforms and on the website atPrincessmilins dot com. Thank you for listening
and we'll see you in the nextepisode of the Restore My Soul Podcast.
Hello and welcome to all beautiful soulsout there. You're listening to the Restore
My Soul Podcast with Prince us Millon'syour favorite grief coach and emotional wellness specialist.
In this space, we will helpthose who struggle with grief and loss
and have real conversations about how toovercome it in every area of life through
our personal stories, practical information andwisdom from Princess, and for special guests.
(01:19):
We are here to educate, inspire, and empower you with the strategies
you need in your emotional healing journey. We do not offer medical advice,
but he believed that we can alllearn to heal by creating a mindset to
grow, pass our pain and pushtoward our purpose. Our goal is to
remind you that grief is a journeyand you do not have to walk it
(01:41):
alone. No matter what the painor loss is, you can be restored
and live fully in your purpose.But let's push through the pain together as
we share our stories of resilience inone episode at a time. Well,
Hello everybody again, welcome to anotherepisode of to Restore My Soul Podcast.
(02:01):
I am so honored that you arehere joining and listening and watching from wherever
you are. We are here toinspire and teach and empower you in your
emotional wellness journey, and so weare going to do just that today.
I just believe that we are alldifferent and what we've been through and grief
(02:23):
is grief, loss is loss,those things that we have to push past
and push through to be all thatGod has called us to do. So
I want to introduce our special gueststoday. I've had the pleasure of meeting
her person in person recently, andour guest today is Dianna Anderson and she
(02:46):
is an upcoming author who helps encourageand empower Black women to love their natural
sells and believe in their potential.So I want to welcome Dianna to the
podcast today. Thank you so muchfor being here. Hi, thank you
so much for having me. Absolutely, I know that we have a lot
(03:08):
to talk about. This is gonnabe such a great topic for everybody who
is listing the ones of us whoare have embraced or maybe not embraced the
journey of our natural hair. Right. So, what I always teach is
grief is grief, right, Lossis loss, and pain is pain,
(03:30):
and sometimes we see that pain sittingaround our hair and what it will do,
what it won't do, you know, the things that brings us grief
in the area. So I'm soglad that you're here to have a candidate
and a real conversation today to empowerus and let us know what you've been
(03:53):
through and kind of teach us somethingtoday. How about that? Yes?
Okay? So I know that youare an upcoming author and in your upcoming
book it's talking about the insecurities thatpeople have in certain areas of their life,
(04:14):
right, especially with their natural hair. And so I know that when
we're growing up sometimes our insecurity aboutsurrounding our natural selves it begins somewhere,
right, So kind of tell ushow you got to be this on this
(04:39):
natural hair journey that you're on now. Maybe some things that's happened to make
you take a look and take apath to help others to be able to
embrace their natural selves. Yeah.So when I was young, I used
to always see you know, theBlack Girls TV, but not like it
(05:00):
wasn't a lot of black women orblack people in general on the TV channels
that I would watch. And Iused to admire this one girl named Raven
I know, everyone knows like youknow, that's a raven. And her
hair wasn't naturally it was always straight, so I would also look at the
you know, the Bradstall Sasha,but her hair was straight, and I
(05:21):
always thought that my hair in orderfor me to be pretty like them,
I had to have looser hair straighther hair, and I didn't really really
want to go through the pain ofthat until my mom started perming my hair.
After my grandma passed away, soa lot of things hindered her,
(05:42):
like through stress, and she losther hair as well, and she formed
alopecia, I believe, through griefand her being sick after my grandma passed
away. So in order for herto stop spending so much time on my
hair, she resorted to perming myhair. And I always used to fuss
everything like that, and then hedidn't want nothing to do with my hair
(06:06):
anymore. She said, I'm justgoing to give you to someone else to
relieve my stress and to have moretime to myself. I'll just give you
to someone else to do your hair. And as a child, I didn't
really think much of it then,but as I got older, I didn't
like the pain of having a perm. I didn't like the pain of getting
(06:27):
braids in my hair because I wasso tender headed because of the perm.
So as time went on, aroundseventh grade, I started seeing this one
girl become natural, and I said, I want that. I never see
girls in my grade have beautiful FROs, so it was inspiring to me.
(06:47):
So I became natural. I transitioned, and I had to cut my hair
off. So I was grieving theloss of my before I even cut the
hair off. Wow, I wasso scared because I was afraid of other
people's opinions. But I cut itoff anyway, and I went through I
(07:09):
feel like I went through a lotof trauma as a child. I feel
like throughout high school I was wantingvalidation from people, especially from men as
well. Back then, I alwayswanted validation from them. And when I
went to college, my hair stuntedas growth because I was working. I
went to school and I was beingharassed and I had a lot of trauma
(07:33):
and it kind of built into myhair for some odd reason, and it
just stunted growth. It got dull, and I had to cut it off
again. And so I was likenineteen years old, and ever since I
cut off my hair. At nineteenyears old, I started realizing, like,
(07:54):
there are some things that I'm stillovercoming, but there were some things
in the beginning that I had toovercome in regard to how I felt towards
my curls, because I felt likebecause I was abusing myself physically, it
kind of made me like forget thatI had to take care of my hair
(08:15):
because I was trying to take careof everything else outwardly, said it inwardly,
So I stopped taking care of myhair. I stopped taking care of
my health, and I had toI put that in a book, like
I wrote a letter to my hairto make me embrace my hair more instead
of being ungrateful towards it, like, yes, I have thick, foresty
hair, but it was not itwas not giving at all. So my
(08:39):
past four years of my natural hairjourney has really been dedicated to making my
hair just beautiful again. Yeah,that is so good. And you know,
it reminds me that sometimes our journeyit comes from the loss and the
(09:03):
grief of someone else. And Iheard you say that when your grandmother died,
and I can attest to this whenmy mom died as well. You
know you kind of want to stopdoing everything, and for you, that
translated into the doing of your hair, right, And so I believe that
(09:24):
we often look at our hair asa sense of identity, right, and
so when we look at our hairas who we are, we are our
hair it is not going like wewant it to do, or we feel
like we have to do it theway that society wants us to do.
(09:48):
That brings a whole nother level ofgrief. And I know a lot of
us that are listening right now thatare watching this episode, they may have
some stories of back when they werea little little girls, when we had
the hot combs, okay on thestove hot combs, and having to go
through that pain of not being ableto burn my ear and things like that,
(10:13):
and we laugh at it now,but it really did set the stage
for the journey that we see thatwe personally have with our hair right now,
right. And it was such abeautiful thing that you were able to
see somebody your age and do it, and so that kind of gave you
(10:35):
the strength to do it do itas well. Yes, kind of talk
about what kind of things when yousay that you you went through a struggle
there you went through a hardship anda part of you was grieving having to
cut your hair again, right,and so talk about what what did that
(10:58):
look like for you? So Iknow kind of what we think is kind
of internal, but what did thatlook like to other people that saw you
go through that journey? Even whenI cut my hair off the first time
or the second time, either one, let's talk about the first time.
Okay, the first time when Icut it off, the only one who
(11:24):
really supported me cutting off my hairwas my mom. Uh okay, I
would say when I was when Iwas sitting in the chair, I was
like, I want to cut myhair off. I don't want the perm
ends anymore. So I still havemy roots, but I didn't want the
perm ends. And she was justlooking at me like, are you sure,
like you want to cut off allthis hair. I'm like, yes,
(11:45):
my hair is damaged. I wantto cut all off. And immediately,
like a week later, I said, can you schedule in the point
with her? Because I want mybraids in my hair. So about two
months after I took it out,I was like, okay, it's time
to face the world with my teenyWEENI a you know, the term TWA,
and everyone in school was just lovingit. They were like, oh
(12:05):
my god, I can't believe youcut your hair. But some people my
family, like people thought I wasdoing good in school because it's like,
oh, she cut her hair,she's changing. It's like she's a trendsetter.
So people thought I was fine.Really I was starting outside. Wow.
In my family, there were somepeople who thought I was depressed.
(12:30):
So it was weird because I feellike I was. It's such a young
age, like eighth grade. Ialways say to my youth, but your
feelings are valid, and if youare feeling a certain way, please come
to me, or please go toyour parents, because I feel like with
youth, their feelings are neglected alot because they're not old enough to quote
(12:52):
unquote understand what it's like to feela certain way. So when someone in
my family said you cut off allyour hair, and I was like,
yeah, I did, like,don't you like it? Because I thought
that they would like it, likethe kids in my school did. They
didn't like it at all. Oneperson called me nappyheaded. One said you
(13:13):
must be suicidal, you must bedepressed, and I was like, and
at that point I felt very embarrassed, but I kind of felt that she
was right because I knew how Ifelt in that age, but I didn't
really know what it was until shesaid it. But I wasn't suicidal,
I wasn't depressed. I was justtrying to find my happiness with my appearance
(13:37):
as a black girl with four seahair, with a thicker texture of hair
that society deems as not you know, good hair or you know, you
have to have looser texture to bebeautiful. You have to be, you
know, just someone on the TVscreen with relaxed, straight hair, and
(13:58):
that's not what it was in theeighth grade. I just didn't want to
be under that you know, stigma. Yeah, and that is so real
because a lot of times we lookto society, we look to TV movies,
entertainment to try to mimic and touh do what they're doing or what
(14:18):
they classify as being beautiful. Andagain, I think it goes back to
who we think we are, Whodo we who do we know that we
are? And and do we reallyknow our own identity? Because I believe
when you're strong in your own identity, then you don't have to look outside,
(14:39):
right, you don't have to lookoutside, look to society, look
to anybody else to tell you whatto do. And but it's a lot
of times us, we especially women, we struggle with the fact of we
want everybody to co sign onto whatwe're doing, and when they don't,
just like you say, we wefeel some type of grief on that.
(15:01):
We feel some type of rejection onthat because we think that I'm doing what's
best for me, and why aren'tyou happy about that? Right? But
what I also heard you say thosedifferences in in perspectives of why you cut
your hair off. Now that's crazybecause you had like two sides of the
spectrum. You are the ones thatthought that you were suicidal, that you
(15:24):
lost your mind and all that,and then you have the people like,
yeah, I like it, youknow. And so it is amazing sometimes
the extents that we go to tosave what we know that we need to
let go of. Right, So, what was what was the final final
(15:50):
decision that kind of prompted you togo ahead and let this hair go?
You know? Was it affirm decision? Did you have to think about it,
lament on it? What happened duringthat time? I always tell myself
that when it comes to taking arisk, think about it, but don't
(16:11):
dwell on it to the point whereyou're going to change your mind. I
feel like what prompted me to likemy final decision was in college freshman year.
I was going through it with thisguy who was harassing me. I
had so much trauma with that.But that was my decision to finally take
(16:33):
a break from things that were stressingme out negatively, that was impacting my
grades. And I feel like thatwas one, but my hair was also
another. I always had to finda way to do my hair and to
basically hide my hair. I wasgoing through a season of hiding my hair
so much to the point where Istarted to hate my natural hair again.
(16:55):
So I had a talk with myroommate. We were just talking about our
natural hair, and she was like, I always put protective styles in my
hair when I know my hair doesn'tcooperate with the weather. And that's what
I thought, That's what I donow. But then I didn't understand that
because I never I realized I didn'tunderstand my hair because I wasn't focused on
(17:19):
understanding my hair. So I waslooking at my hair as you need to
do this, You need to dothis. But really it was me not
understanding my hair and learning enough aboutmy hair to know what it does through
different seasons of the year, orwhat I would like to do for my
hair. So it was more ofme putting this stigma on my hair when
(17:40):
my hair hasn't done nothing to meat all. I'm the one doing all
these things to impact it. Somy final decision was just scrolling through Google
images to find just low cut styles. I was just looking at images.
I'm like, you know what,I think it's time for me to cut
my hair off. And I wasn'tscared to do so. And after writing
(18:04):
that letter to my hair, Iapologized to it. And so after apologizing
to my hair, I went home. I didn't go back to school.
I was too scared to go backto campus. But after apologizing to my
my hair, I went back homein the summer and I said, I
want to cut I want to cutit off again, but I want it
(18:26):
lower, like I wanted to startnear my roots again so that I can
understand it. And from then onI've just been loving it ever since.
Oh wow, oh wow, thatthat is that is powerful. And I
know that a lot of us nowthat you preak my heart on that because
I know a lot of us whoare listening and watching, we probably need
(18:49):
to write a letter to our hair, right, and you probably need to
and I know that, but it'ssuch a good exercise. I know that
that had to be at exercise todo because a lot of times we do
it to people, We write lettersthat to people that we never give them
right forgiveness and all of that kindof stuff. But to your hair,
(19:11):
that that was a unique perspective todo that, and I learned something on
that. I might that's something thathopefully our listeners will be able to do
as well, if they feel likethey need to do it. I feel
very I'm sorry for this harsh light. I'm in my living room, so
if you see a lot of lightcoming towards me, I'm very sorry.
(19:32):
Don't worry about that because we areaudible and video. Okay, okay,
Now, I know that in thewriting of your upcoming book, you talk
about how to become self confident andbe empowered by your natural beauty, not
(19:56):
only your hair, but you're justnatural beauty as as a whole. Right,
Can you tell us what kind ofthings that you have learned to put
you in that place of self confidenceno matter what you know, you've been
through, the ridicule, you've beenthrough, the doubts, the frustrations,
(20:18):
the difficulties, all of that.What is the thing that really puts you
in that place of being self confidentand being able to even help other people
to do that as well? Iwould say, like like I said before,
when it comes to taking a chanceor taking a risk, don't dwell
(20:41):
on it too hard to where itto where it like makes you change your
mind. So when it comes tome being so confident, and it can
be in any area of my life, like there are some places in my
life that I'm not really that confidenton. But when it comes to those
areas of my life where I am, I always tell myself, if I
(21:03):
doubt it, then I need tofind something that makes me have a thrill
so that I can keep going forwardand just having that excitement with it,
like public speaking, like right hereright now, I was like, if
I continue to reschedule, like forone, like for an example, we
rescheduled a lot, if I know, if I know that, if I'm
(21:26):
going to keep rescheduling a lot,then I'm feeling some type of doubt.
I'm feeling some type of insecurity,So stop rescheduling and just go forward with
it, because once you're done withit, you're going to feel this thrill
like, oh, I can dothat again, I can I can do
that again? Like oh. Inone way, is like I was very
insecure about traveling. I was veryinsecure about all these little things, and
(21:52):
they came from childhood. So whenI tie that into natural beauty, it's
like, why you self doubting allthese little things. It's not making yourself.
Doubt is society and society is andto me, it's just one big
like there's one big mirror of awall. You can easily break it down
(22:15):
by just telling yourself, you knowwhat, I'm always seeing this on TV.
Let me turn the TV off andreally look at myself in the mirror.
Let me look at myself or writea letter to myself and just say
that you are beautiful because God madeyou this way. God made you this
way in your mother's roomb so thatyou could be this beautiful, powerful person.
(22:37):
Like I feel like it's just thispersona that society has built up,
and it changes all the time.So if it changes all the time,
Why do you have to change allthe time you are yourself? Yes,
you change, you progress, butdon't progress along with society. Yes,
adapt, but don't change yourself ormold yourself to be this person and deep
(23:00):
down that you're not that way.So that's how I started to find confidence
not just in my natural beauty,but with everything of my life. That's
why I also talk about conquering limitingbeliefs as well. Yeah, well that's
so good. And I know thatthe level of society can only penetrate us
(23:23):
in our thinking, in our mindsas far as what we believe, right,
and it starts with us first,whatever we believe. Society people whoever
can come in and dictate to us, you know, certain truths you know
or certain supposed truths, And itonly goes as far as what we believe.
(23:51):
And I and I think that alot of times that that when we
struggle with our own insecurities, whenwe struggle with going back to that identity
of who we are, we're goingto struggle. And when we look at
what other people say is beautiful,when we look at what other people say
is okay, then we begin tobelieve it too. But it only means
(24:15):
that we didn't have firm beliefs tobegin with. And this is such a
powerful conversation because you know, somepeople I don't really believe that they really
understand the struggle behind just natural hair. Are just doing things naturally, you
know what I'm saying, right Andyou know, even the Bible says that
(24:37):
we are fearfully and wonderfully made,And that is all that we really need
right now, is that we knowthat we are and wonderfully made. That
God did not make a mistake whenhe made our forcy hair. Because I
have forcy hair as well. Theydid not make a mistake, and so
we embrace who He has created usto be. And I just I'm so
(25:03):
happy that you were here to bringa lot of this to light into the
space of even dealing with or beingresilient in a lot of areas in your
life. So before we leave,I want you to give the audience some
words of encouragement. What can youspeak to It might be some young people
(25:29):
that are watching. It might besome older people that are still struggling,
like myself, because I'll get inthe protective styles and all of that not
knowing as is subconsciously something else rightwhat I'm sharing, But what encouragement can
you give to us about our naturalhair journey and not to be able to
(25:56):
fall into that pit of grief ofeven losing our hair, even the battle
or struggle with our hair, orthe struggle of what even people are saying
about us and how we look whenwe have our natural hair. What encouragement
can you give us? I wouldsay that it's never too early and it's
(26:19):
never too late to start learning tolove your natural hair or your natural curls.
It's like there's a whole movement dedicatedtowards natural hair, towards Type four
hair specifically, because that's the oneI resonate with the most. So it's
never too early and it's never toolate to learn your hair, learn the
(26:41):
laws that are centered around your hair. It's never too it's never too anything,
because you have time to learn thebeauty that literally resides in yourself and
on your scalp. Like it growsfrom the knowledge from your hair, I'm
sorry, from your scalp into literallyyour curls. It grows out of your
(27:02):
scalpe, it grows into something sopowerful and beautiful that for years it's been
trying to be stripped away from us. So it's never too early and it's
never too late. That is sogood. That never too early, never
too late, y'all, y'all,hear it from Dianna herself, the founder
and see oh securely me LLC.Thank you so much for joining today on
(27:26):
this episode of Restoring My Soul.I want to want you to leave everybody
how they can connect with you andhow they can find you on social media
and all of that, all ofthat. Yes, so you can follow
me or I have me as afriend on Facebook. Deanna Anderson Instagram is
Dianna Anderson writes w R I TE S. And you can also follow
(27:52):
me on TikTok and I changed thatto securely me on TikTok. All right,
well, thank you so much Giannaagain for being here, such a
powerful testimony that I know it willbless so many people that are watching and
that are will listen even on thereplay. And I will hopefully see you
(28:15):
again soon. It was such apleasure to meet you in person recently and
I look forward to seeing you againsoon. Thank you so much, Princess.
This was an honor absolutely all right, y'all, Thank you so much
for joining in this episode of RestoreMy Soul Podcast. You all make sure
that you continue to follow me onall social media at Princess Millons and my
(28:38):
website at princessmillions dot com. Youall remember that grief is a journey,
you don't have to walk it alongand we will see you in the next
episode of the Restore My Soul Podcast. Thank you for joining another episode of
Restore My Soul Podcast. Be sureto listen and watch each week as we
(29:02):
continue the conversation on how to bounceback from the setback of grief and loss
and to become resilient so that youtoo can thrive in life. Don't forget
to like and subscribe so that youdon't miss out on any new episodes,
and share this with as many peopleas possible so they can be encouraged in
their emotional wellness journey. We inviteyou to follow Princess Milons on all social
(29:23):
media platforms and on the website atPrincessmilins dot com. Thank you for listening
and we'll see you in the nextepisode of the Restore My Soul Podcast.
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