Earlier this year, I was hitting a wall on a weekly basis mentally as a state of overwhelm and prolonged stress combined to create burnout. I'd work during office hours, work outside of office hours, and through my weekends. I was a classic workaholic; everyone's emergencies were innately mine, my inbox was my ruler, and I didn't have an idea of what balance looked like for me, let alone self-care. I knew them once, but they took a backseat to work demands even though life wanted other plans.
Several months of neglecting myself later, I was more than drained — I was depleted.
So much so, my days dragged and I wasn't operating nearly at the level of efficacy I was used to. Bigger than that, my zen was nonexistent and I wasn't making myself a priority. It showed in my sleeping patterns, my hair, my skin, and my overall temperament some days. It took us throwing ElevateHER for me to truly understand the importance of pouring into myself, particularly the difficult weeks after where I tried to desperately bounce back but burnout wouldn't let me.
One of our writers Shellie R. Warren says it best, to pamper is to indulge. It made me start to rethink some of the ways I looked at self-care and to also introduce the concept of pampering myself on a routine basis into my lifestyle. Hell, why not indulge in some you? After all, we deserve it. Since then, I've had to unlearn the toxic belief that rest was the enemy of productivity and learn that it was the only true key to it. A trip that played a surprisingly significant role in that lesson was the one I took with Getaway.
Getaway House is a modern escape into the wilderness, where hustlers and bustlers are invited to inhabit one of many tiny cabins located at the Outpost. These cabin rentals are located a short drive away and currently offer "escapes" from Atlanta, Boston, New York, Portland, DC, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh/Cleveland, and Dallas. With the motto #GetawayOften, they believe in order to connect, you must disconnect.
As someone who can sometimes feel held captive by the digital world of notifications and technology, let's just say I was more than excited to breathe for a little while and truly unplug. Here's what happened when I did:
The Cabins
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
I live in Atlanta and the Getaway House Outpost closest to me were located in Suches, Georgia, an hour and 45-minute drive away from the city. The Outpost is called Getaway Chattahoochee due to its very close proximity to the Chattahoochee National Forest. The second we got off the highway and ventured further up north and the winding roads of Suches to get to our final destination, I was reminded of my small town roots. The air was quiet and nature was prevalent as the warm colors of autumn leaves painted our view at every twist and turn.
On the day of, we received a text message, alerting us to the name of our cabin as well as our keycode to unlock the door. The collections of cabins were nestled across 57 acres in the woods, ours was named Casper and came with an adjoining parking space nearby. Each cabin is equipped with a hot shower, private toilet, a stove, a campfire grate, AC/heat, a sink, a mini fridge, provisions for sale and a cellphone lockbox.
When bae and I entered the cabin, we were greeted with complimentary smores and were amazed by how expansive it seemed even though everything was so condensed. Our queen-sized bed was positioned near the window with a picturesque view that rivaled any image we saw on the website in real life. The window's size made you feel like you were outside in nature without sacrificing the comforts of the indoors.
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
What To Do
With no TV, WiFi, or cellphones allowed (you are supposed to put your cellphones in a lockbox upon arrival), unplugging is of the utmost priority. So in lieu of cracking open your laptop to do last-minute work or answer emails, your surroundings encourage you to truly connect with the wildlife, connect with yourself, connect with who you came with — or a combination of the three. The cabin includes a deck of cards and a booklet that have puzzles, a guide to meditation, scavenger hunts you can do in nature, and questions you can ask yourself or partner.
I've been on a journey to be more intentional about resting and doing so in a way that allows me to indulge in the art of relaxation. My desire was to connect with nature, so bae and I lit a fire and made smores (and went to the gas station to stock up on more marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers). We walked around the campgrounds and marveled at a nearby lake. We wanted to hike on the nearby trails (the Appalachian Trail is 15-20 minutes away) but were worried we didn't have the right clothes or shoes so we just got closer by conversing and playing cards.
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
Photo by Bae
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
Photo by Sheriden Chanel
What I Learned
Photo by Bae
During our 24 hours there, we spent our time digitally removing ourselves from the world and indulging in the connection we felt and created with each other. Although it was supposed to be a time to recharge, it also became a time to reset one of my life's most important connections. Taking that time away together allowed us to spend time together in a way that we honestly never had before: without distraction.
We were completely ourselves and completely immersed in each other. It led to a lot of vulnerable realizations and bridged some communication gaps we had in our interactions before that trip. For that reason, I was shown how necessary it is to unplug to reset for yourself but for your loved ones as well. It's important to take time to make time in intentional ways.
As for self-care, my new approach are habits I do daily to reinforce the central belief to take care of Sheriden. That looks like taking one day out of the week to rest and do nothing, but that also looks like having meaningful boundaries established to control people's access to me.
My energy is precious, I now act like it.
To book your own Getaway to disconnect and reconnect, find out more information here.
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Featured image by Shutterstock
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Today, that movement has turned into a wig uprising where Black women are able to experiment with colors, styles, and more without causing irreparable damage to our hair. It could even be said that we’ve arrived at a new level of acceptance: one that does not equate love of oneself to one’s willingness or lack thereof to wear her hair the way others deem acceptable. Not even other people who look like us.
However, as with Blackness itself, the issue of Black women’s hair is layered.
On the surface, it’s nothing more than a matter of personal preference. However, in a deeper dive, issues of texture, curl pattern, and of course, proximity to social acceptance, as well as other runoff streams from the waters of racism and patriarchy, rear their heads. The natural hair movement, though a wide-reaching and liberating community builder, also gave way to colorism and often upheld mainstream beauty standards.
Sometimes, favoring lighter-skinned influencers/creators with very specific hair textures, the white gaze leaked into our safe space and forced us to reckon with it. Accurate representations of natural hair in various states of being—undefined curls, kinks, and unlaid edges—are still absent from brand marketing. Protective styles, though intended to provide breaks from styling for our sensitive hair, have become a mask to help our hair be more palatable. A figurative straddle of the fence in order to appease the comfort of others in the face of our hair’s power.
And then there’s the issue of length.
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As a woman who has spent much of the last decade voluntarily wearing her hair in many variations of short hairstyles, from a pixie cut to a curly fro and a sleek bob, what I’ve gleaned throughout the years is that there is a glaring difference between how I am treated when wearing my hair short than when I opt for weaves, extensions or even grow it out slightly longer than my chin.
The differential treatment comes from women and men alike and spans professional and personal settings, including friends, coworkers, and industry peers.
What has become abundantly clear is that long hair is often conflated with beauty, softness, and any number of other words we relate to femininity in a way that short hair is not. That perceived marker of the essence of womanhood shows up in how I am received, communicated with, and complimented.
Even more so than texture, length has a way of deciding who among us is deserving of our attention, affection, and adoration. Whether naturally grown or proudly bought, the commentary around someone’s look or image greatly shifts when “inches” are present.
When it comes to long hair, we really, really do care.
In an effort to understand whether I had simply been misinterpreting the energy around my hair, I decided to take my findings to social media. I began with two side-by-side photos of myself. In both pictures, my hair is straightened; however, in one, I am wearing my signature pixie cut, and in the other, I am wearing extensions.
I posited that treatment based on hair length is a real thing, and what followed was confirmation that I was not alone in my feelings. “Long hair, like light skin, button noses, and being thin are all forms of social capital,” one user commented. “Some Black women enforce the status quo too, why wouldn’t we?”
Courtesy
This also brought to mind the many times celebrity women (like most recently Beyoncé's Cécred hair tutorial) have done big reveals of their own natural tresses in an attempt to silence any doubt that Black women are able to grow their hair beyond a certain length. Of course, we all know that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to prove it so?
The responses continued to pour in from women of all skin tones, who felt that hair length played a role in people’s treatment of them. “When I have short hair I always feel like people don’t treat me like a woman, they treat me like a kid,” another user commented. “When my hair is long I get a lot more respect for some reason.”
From revelations about feeling invisible to admitted shifts in their own perceived beauty, Black woman after Black woman poured out her experience as it relates to hair length. Though affirmed by their shared realities, knowing that reactions to something so trivial have become yet another hair battle for Black women to fight was disheartening. Though we continue to defy gravity and push the bounds of imagination and creativity by way of our strands, will it always be in response to the idea that we are, somehow, falling short?
Unlike more obvious instances of hair discrimination, the glorification of longer length is sneakier in its connection to Eurocentric beauty standards. Hair commercials, beauty ads, and even hip-hop music have long celebrated the idea of gloriously long tresses while holding onto the ignorant notion that it is inaccessible for Black women.
Even as we continue to fight to prove our hair professional, elegant, and worthy in its natural state to the world at large, we’ve also adopted harmful value markers of our own as a community. It’s evident in how we talk about who has the right to start a haircare line and which influencers we easily platform. It’s evident in the language we use to identify those with long hair versus short hair. And it’s painfully obvious in how we treat one another.
It makes me wonder if India.Arie’s brave rallying cry, almost two decades old in its existence, will ever actually hold true for us. Or will we just continue to invent new ways to uphold the harmful status quo?
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Feature image by Willie B. Thomas/ Getty Images
