 Hey y'all, what's up? My name is Sonali, happy vlogmas day eight. I am still at my mom's. Unfortunately they pushed the day back that I could get my dad's car. If you guys haven't watched my vlogs before, I recently got two flat tires in my dad's car while borrowing it. And so it's in the Decatur Tesla shop and my mom lives closer to Decatur than my dad does. So I thought I would stay here for more nights and I just thought it was gonna be one extra night but it turns into be like, I hope not a week. At the rate it's going, the Tesla people aren't even answering any of our phone calls. I just like won an update kind of like why is taking so long because it was supposed to be done today but then I just called and the automated thing said it was gonna be done tomorrow. I just wanna go back to my dad's literally just because my stuff is there. Like I explained in yesterday's vlog, I don't have my work computer because I wasn't planning on staying past Saturday here at my mom's. So I just like don't really have a lot of my stuff here. So I'm borrowing my mom's clothes and I'm just like still in my sweatshirt from yesterday's video but I don't think you guys really care. I am outside, it's still light out so I kind of wanted to like take advantage of like being outside while there's sunny skies because apparently next week, this coming week and weekend is gonna be so rainy and I'm just like really not looking forward to it cause I hate rainy gray days. Like they just put me in the worst moons. So my apologies if it's loud or if you can hear like the leaves kind of like crumble or whatever. Last night I did an Instagram story Q&A. If you guys aren't already following me over there I'd go ahead and do it now because I'm trying to be a lot more active on my stories and obviously, you know, the feed posts are popping too. So you can follow me at so underscore and early without the G. During the Q&A one person asked me what was one thing I struggled with while growing up and I felt like this should be like a whole video in itself because so many of you have been DMing me like saying just like same here I had the same like issues and everything. So I thought I would just like go through and make a whole video about it and just kind of speak on how I became more confident like, you know what led me to who I am today. So let's get right into it. Growing up I was really shy already and I remember my mom, my kindergarten teachers told my mom that I didn't smile and my mom was like so shook. She was like, what are you talking about? Like she's always smiling at home. There's no way this kid does not smile at school, blah, blah, whatever. I guess it was just because I was really shy and I didn't know how to come out of my shell around like random people even though they were like in my class the whole year. You know, like when you're so small, you just, I don't know. I was just a shy kid. That's all I guess I can say. It didn't really help that I had some like physical appearance issues and these are the two things I struggled with growing up. So one is being extra freaking hairy. Obviously now I can look back and laugh because if you see someone with like arm hair, you don't really like think twice about it but kids are so freaking mean. Like they don't have filters and they literally can just say whatever comes through their brain and I never understood that cause I feel like even when I was so young I knew what I was not supposed to say to other people, you know? So I just got so many like mean comments said to my face about my hairy arms and just like me being so hairy and luckily I don't think I ever really had like a unibrow problem, maybe a mustache problem but like it was just mainly like my hairy arms and I feel like a lot of brown girls can relate to this because you know, we're just like, I guess we're just hairy. It's so funny cause me and Ryan joke about this all the time. If we ever do have kids, it's gonna be such a hairy baby. Like it's gonna have a full head of hair coming out the womb and it's just gonna be a really hairy baby because he's hairy too and so am I. So that will be very interesting. I would literally wear long sleeve shirts in the summertime and like full on jeans because I was so embarrassed and I don't remember like the first time I started using like Nair and getting my arms and everything wax. Like my mom would take me to the Indian salons and just get my whole body wax. I feel like maybe like first grade, second grade but I feel like it was just younger than most people, you know? And I remember going to the threading salon for the first time and it was just an experience and a half. One of my number one mottos is like beauty is pain. And if you want to look nice, you just kind of have to deal with threading and you have to deal with waxing and all the painful stuff that you have to go through. I think the reason why I like the quote so much is because I started at such a young age and I just kind of like was numb to the pain because I was just like, I'd rather, you know, take this pain right now and like be, you know, done up in like an hour or so or 15 minutes if your brows are getting done. You know what I mean? Like it just like makes you feel so much better. So my second insecurity growing up was that I had severe eczema and not only did I have eczema, but it felt like every year I would get a new skin condition. I know a lot of kids got like the little warts on their hands. I got that and just like other random shit that like, like what the heck? And obviously it was like treated over time with prescribed ointments or like I would get it burned off or whatever. Eczema was my main issue that like just would not go away. I remember all the appointments to the dermatologist like after school and like waiting for them and not really just getting answers, you know? Like after all of those times, even in the summer months, I would wear like long sleeves and full on jeans just to hide my eczema and my hairy arms because like I said, people can be so mean that if you don't give them a reason to be mean like they won't be mean, if that makes sense. I'm sorry about the sun. Like this is just not, sorry for moving the camera on so much. It's like literally glaring into my eyes, but in fifth grade, we went to get a allergy test done and that's where they prick you on your back to see what your skin reacts to. And it turns out I was lactose intolerant and it sucked because my family used to joke that my sister was like an orange juice baby and OJ baby and I was the milk baby. And of course the milk baby had to be freaking allergic to milk. I literally felt like a knife was being stabbed into my heart because I used to drink Obaltine and milk every single day. I don't know if that's like an Indian thing, but like, I don't know. Comment down below if you guys know what Obaltine is. I used to drink it from a freaking sippy cup. Like when I was not old, but like when I probably shouldn't have been drinking from a sippy cup, you know? Anyways, so that's when we started eliminating milk from my diet, but I didn't want to do it like full force just because I love dairy so much. Like I don't understand how people can do it, but like honestly, like good for you because I think my gut would be a lot better. Obviously now there's so many other milk options, which is great. Now I like soy milk. My skin started to clear up around like sixth grade, but it wasn't like the best then. I still really suffered from like a really, really dry upper lip, and I would still kind of get made fun of for that. Definitely wasn't fun. And then my skin really got good in like high school, and I started getting laser treatments, laser hair removal treatments for my hairiness. I want to say middle school, but maybe early high school. So that's what helped me with that situation. I was so, so grateful that my parents helped me do that because they knew that was like a big insecurity. I mean, my whole family, they're hairy people. So like my mom got it done. My sister got it done. And it was just a good investment for us, you know? In high school is when I started my Instagram and posted selfies all the fricking time. And I would get so made fun of for like posting selfies one after the other. So I like tried to like break them up, but now I really don't give two fricks because it's my Instagram page and I can do whatever the frick I want. But honestly, that comment just really made me sad because I didn't want to like be seen as a narcissist. I honestly just felt so good for once and I was like excited to take pictures for once and not have my eczema being hidden in photos, you know? So I think that's where my confidence started to kind of shine. I was kind of like just like more grateful for the fact that it was gone. I totally understand people still struggle to this day with eczema. And it is not a fun thing to deal with, trust me. Also another big tip I have is to really be consistent with the medicine that your dermatologist gives you or if you have like topical creams, really be consistent because sometimes I would put on cream like one night and just be like, okay, like I'm gonna be like healed the next day and then I don't have to do it, you know what I mean? But then it would just obviously come back. So really be consistent with that regimen. Obviously the sun is not my friend today because I keep switching these angles to get out of the sun. But I wanted to say, I know not everyone can get laser hair removal because it is a pricier treatment. But there are so many really great hair removal lotions on the market and I know when I was a kid there wasn't that many to choose from, especially that were like good for my skin. I feel like a lot of these products now are obviously a lot better and just have less chemicals. So that's an option you can look into and then obviously waxing, but I know especially if you're not good with pain that might not be an option for you. I would love to start a conversation in the comments of something maybe you struggled with while growing up. If it's the same issues as me, if it's different, this video is not to get any pity from you guys. I just really found it interesting of how many people were like DMing me saying like, oh my God, me too, that happened to me growing up. It was just really interesting to hear it from their perspective. And if I would have known as a kid that other people were going through the same thing, I wouldn't have felt so bad about it, if that makes sense. So I just kind of want to give someone that ounce of hope that things will get better. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video and just like kind of hearing more about me and what made me who I am today. And I will see y'all in my next video. Bye.