Haircut. One day at the beginning of one of my live webinar classes, someone said, “Nice new hair” to me. My response was something like, “Thank you! I’m loving my new hair too!” but there’s actually so much more behind the whole hair thing – this is a big deal in my life.
Twenty five years ago, back in 1993, I was living in Santa Cruz, California with a boyfriend. We’d just arrived in town and we didn’t know anyone but we were both going to take classes as UC Santa Cruz and we were feeling pretty excited about what we were embarking on.
As I was walking down the street in town on my first day there, I saw a woman with this great, funky short hair. For some reason, in that moment, I fell in love with her hair and turned and stepped right into the hairdresser that I happened to be standing in front of in that moment.
And that’s when I cut my hair. I went from long, long hair to a pixie cut in a period of 30-minutes.
That’s really how much thought I put into it. I saw the hair, I marched in and cut it. I remember I had to send the guy outside to see the woman’s hair so he’d know what I want. Luckily she was just hanging out on a street-corner!
But why did I do that? I’d never thought about cutting my hair before. In fact, I had really beautiful long, thick. slightly wavy hair. It was kind of what everyone wanted back then.
Now, 25 years later, as I’m beginning to grow my hair out from the pixie, I’m realizing what was really going on. At that time in my life, I had no awareness of my sexual abuse. I wasn’t in touch with those memories and I wasn’t in tune to the various ways that I behaved because of the abuse.
I didn’t realize that I wore baggy clothes to hide myself so that I couldn’t be sexualized. After all, in the 90s all the pants were baggy, so I just kind of fit in.
It’s the same thing with my hair. While I loved my short, short hair and I know that it looked great (and I’m not, in any way saying this is the case for all women with short hair), there was a part of me, deep down, that wanted to reject my femininity. I happen to have a very androgynous face and build, so by cutting my hair, I was able to hide myself very well.
Since I wrote my Soul Contracts book back in 2012 and subsequently remembered the abuse, I’ve been working to heal the part of me so deeply wounded by my father’s abuse. I’ve noticed that, as I’ve been healing from that, slight changes are happening – changes that I’m not trying to make happen, but that are just happening as a result of me shifting my belief that I’m not safe as a woman in the world.
One of those changes is I’ve allowed myself to dress prettier. Recently, I did a cruise – and I had a wonderful time with an incredible group of people. But, for me, one of the personal successes of that cruise was that I purchased an expensive dress (VERY expensive) that would definitely make me stand out – and I wore it. And when I wore it, I didn’t feel weird or awkward or unsafe – I just felt great. This was a completely new experience for me.
The other change is my hair. I’ve been letting it grow and I feel like my hair is the most ME it’s ever been in my whole life right now. Sure, I don’t really know how to style it (I missed out on 25 years of experience there because with short hair it only takes 3 seconds!), but day by day, I’m allowing my hair to do it’s own thing. There’s now a part of me that is girly! And I’m loving that. I feel good about it!
Now, please know that I’m NOT saying that all women who cut their hair are rejecting their femininity. I don’t feel that way at all! Everyone has their own story (and short hair really is awesome!)
What I AM saying though is that, part of the reason I cut my hair was because of my wounds from when I was a child. And that this seemingly superficial growing of my hair is actually a sign of my healing.
Thank you for letting me share this story with you. It is also part of my healing to be able to talk about this.
Love & Light,
Danielle
