As I look back over the last year and a half, there were several things I’m proud of having accomplished while I stayed at home – doing anti-racism work, focusing on health and self-care, releasing old trauma, and learning to use Zoom to teach classes for example.
The achievement at the top of the list is growing out my hair. This might sound humorous because letting hair grow doesn’t require much effort, but it represents so much more than it might appear to.
Several months before the pandemic, I felt a nudge to let my hair grow. I’ve had short hair almost all of my life. In recent years, my hair got progressively shorter with each haircut.
This dissatisfaction was a new feeling for me because I had always liked my hair. When I began riding the school bus in kindergarten, two older girls teased me about my red hair. I was dejected and shared this with my mother. In a moment of wisdom, she told me they were picking on me because secretly they wished they had red hair. This bit of advice worked magic, and throughout my life whenever anyone teased my about my hair, I just smiled quietly to myself, secure in the belief that they actually liked my hair.
My desire to change my hair wasn’t about the color. It was about the length and style. The shorter my hair, the less feminine I felt.
Without the pandemic, I almost certainly would not have let my hair grow. It was painstakingly frustrating as it went through several awkward stages. If I hadn’t been staying at home and social distancing, there were many days I would not have ventured out in public.
Numerous times I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, ready to lop it off and return to a shorter hairstyle. But a wiser part of me prevailed, and I trusted that even though I couldn’t yet see it, this would be an important step on my spiritual journey. So I held my seat and let my hair grow. It wasn’t easy.
As my hair got longer, the sensation of it hanging on my face and getting tangled in my mouth annoyed me. A couple of times, I startled awake because I felt a spider run across my shoulders only to realize there was no bug, just hair brushing my skin.
I learned to deal with these things, aided by a friend who has had long hair for much of her life. She came to visit one weekend, and we experimented. Because I had always had short hair as a child and a teen, I missed out on playing “beauty shop” with friends and having someone style my hair. Now at 54 years old, I have had that experience.
My friend pulled my hair back with many different kinds of clips, and then she tried a bun (without much success – my hair wasn’t quite long enough yet). She also curled my hair, which resulted in gentle waves of cascading hair. I liked that look. The next morning I washed my hair, and we applied product that helps maintain natural body. I never knew my hair was so curly. I liked that look too. I also appreciated that the gray in my hair looked like expensive highlights.
When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself.
The old pictures on my web site and social media no longer looked like me. I reached out to a photographer friend and asked her to do a photo shoot. I’m glad I did because it was an amazing experience. Deep gratitude and a tip of the hat to Steph Shanks Photography. Stephanie has the gift of seeing her subject’s soul and bringing it out in the images she captures.
Two days before the shoot, we met to do some planning. When I told her I was probably going to pull my hair back with a hairband, she encouraged me to style it. So the afternoon we were to meet at her studio, I spent two hours curling my hair and doing makeup. I walked through the door, and she greeted me by saying, “Wow! You brought your A game!” This put me at ease and my anxiety left.
During the shoot, I asked her to take a picture of me with my cell phone so I would have something to share with friends right away. When I saw the picture, my jaw dropped. Seeing what I looked like through her camera lens astonished me. If I didn’t know it was me, I wouldn’t have recognized myself. I kept uttering the phrase, “I had no idea” over and over again.
I had no idea I looked like that.
I had no idea I *could* look like that.
I had no idea I was beautiful.
I had no idea that this radiant aspect of myself had been there all along just waiting to emerge.
In that photo, I saw reflected back to me a woman who looked younger, softer, more open and relaxed, more warm and inviting than ever before in her life. During the pandemic, I had done a lot of personal work centered around being more open and vulnerable and bringing down the walls around my heart. Here was photographic evidence of the shift in my energy.
For the first time in my life, I could see my beauty. I felt beautiful both inside *and* out. That sense of beauty has stayed with me – I now feel beautiful whether or not my hair is done, whether or not I’m dressed up, whether or not I’m wearing makeup. I am able to connect with my beauty, and that feels deeply affirming.
As I sat with the changes and gave myself time to integrate, I came to the realization that by growing my hair, I had broken several long-standing family agreements.
Many times over the years, my mother told me that my dad preferred short hair on women. I experienced my father as a man who was deeply frightened by feminine power, including beauty, emotions, vulnerability, and sexuality. If we just cut our hair short enough, we might erase all signs of being a woman.
Up until recently, I had also participated in this pattern, which I identified as a radical denial and suppression of the feminine. This energy was also carried in my maternal lineage, but for a different reason.
My mom and her two sisters all had very short hair as well. In every picture of them together, there are no smiles, no laughter or happiness. They look sad, like life is a struggle. I look at their family photographs and see grief written on their faces.
The second child in their family, a boy born with a congenital condition, died at age two. Although my mom and her next older sister never knew Arlo, his short life and subsequent death impacted the family profoundly. Over the years, I’ve noticed a heavy thread of unacknowledged grief. I believe that a subconscious and unintended consequence of this buried pain was keeping their hair short – if their hair were too long they might forget themselves and enjoy life.
In growing my hair, I have broken out of the conditioned programming that did not serve me. It’s much more than just a change to my physical appearance – my energy field and my whole being has shifted as well. The walls around my heart have continued to come down. I’m softer, warmer, more welcoming, and more joyful.
In a recent weekend the medicine wheel group, we each honored a piece of healing that had happened during the pandemic. For my personal ceremony, they witnessed as I told this story. Old photographs of me with short hair went into the fire. I celebrated my new look and my new energy and stated my intentions for moving forward.
I’m ready to be seen on both a personal and professional level. As a woman, I’m ready to embrace my beauty. I’m open to dating and look forward to romantic partnership. As a shamanic practitioner, I’m ready to take my healing and teaching work to a larger audience.
I’ve liberated my inner goddess and set her free to shine and play and explore her power.
This work is real, and it matters.
August 12, 2021