I was born a blonde. Wait, no, actually, I was born bald and remained so until about 3 years old. But that just attests to how much of a blonde I was, as my hair was white until about the age of 11.
The age everything changed.
The age I started having identity issues.
The age I cut all of my hair off and eventually dyed it purple. Not even a rebellious act, perhaps searching for a true expression of my deep, colourful soul.
I loved my blonde hair but as I grew older it started to get darker. This was hard for me to grasp. I was always blonde haired and blue eyed and that, for so many reasons, made me feel beautiful and that I was “enough”
So as I grew up and this started to change, my entire identity & worth became questionable.
It was not even a year ago still that I exclaimed to my hair dresser that I could never NOT be a blonde.
I had been dying my hair since I knew it was an option. I went through way too many box colours as a teen to count.
I often got called “blonde” in as a playful insult and was never spared a good old fashioned ‘dumb blonde’ joke. Sometimes I’d even join in, blaming “blonde moments” for my lack of better judgement.
Late last year, something started shifting in me.
I found myself becoming really affected by people always talking about their hair.
This was not a hair complex I had, my hair was growing, longer, stronger and better than ever. I finally had a hairstylist who is a genuis at her craft, and I was happy with my hair, in love with it actually. But I still felt something amiss within me.
Why the fuck do people care so damn much about their hair?
There are people without any, there are people who only wish they had enough to worry about, there are people who are losing theirs in the fight of their lives and it seemed that everyone was suddenly clinging to their hair identity.
The world is our mirror. What It reflects back to us is a result of our internal thoughts & beliefs. I was the one always obsessing about hair and suddenly I was the one questioning this very obsession.
Without realizing it at first, I was becoming aware of the fact that I was too obsessed with my hair and way too connected to an identity that could easily be taken away from me. I was so acutely aware of the fleeting possibility of my hair.
Could I.. possibly.. just… let it be natural?
My whole lifestyle revolves around natural living & avoiding chemicals as best as I can and here I was spending $200+ every 6-8 weeks to bleach the fuck out of my mousy brunette locks. It almost began to feel like an insult to who I was.
For almost 20 years I have been altering my hair colour and suddenly now I was insulted?
But that is the way this journey goes. When the student is ready, the teacher appears and my teacher this time around, was my blonde identity.
I started to notice people I truly admired rocking their natural colour. I looked less at the blonde bombshells for inspiration and started to gravitate towards earthy brown manes.
I was starting to realize that my identity was not all wrapped up in sleek golden highlights, and that the highlights I really needed to focus on were internally.
Pamela Anderson, my once upon a time blonde idol once said “If I act dumb then people expect less of me”. I clung so tightly to this wisdom because I realized it was true for me for so many years.
I was never really dumb, in fact I have always been ridiculously intuitively intelligent. I just never fully believed in my own intelligence. I always spoke in a tone that sounded more like a question than a fact. I was always leading with my heart and not my head and that made me feel, well, dumb. I was always finding myself in situations with people that left me feeling stupid for believing in them.
I liked the idea of being less. Playing small. Shrinking myself. I liked that the less people expected of me the less I had to do and be and therefore I would never have to question or doubt myself. So I adopted the belief that if I just act dumb, people will expect less and I won’t have to amount to my full potential.
As I began to shift my hair back to it’ s natural state I started to feel more and more like my true self. Not hiding behind a perfect manicured package of a platinum blonde face frame.
I look at older pictures of myself and while I absolutely love how beautiful my hair looks I hardly recognize the person underneath it. I can definitely attribute that to my own personal inner growth.
What I know is that I was constantly running away from who I was, masking myself with hair dye, makeup, alcohol, sex, damaging relationships and sabotaging beliefs.
Discovering who I was at my core started to reviberate outwards. Doing the inner work first is what shifted everything to transform in my outer world.
The people I spend time with, the places I go, the things I do, the experiences I have, the clients I work with. It all shifted when I got real with myself, my identity and the world around me.
So I ask, what are you hiding behind? What are you masking?
Hair is like an accessory. It can be played up or down, it can be coloured any which way and cane be a true external expression of our inner truth. But it can also be used as a reason hold ourselves back to hide behind a veil and keep the world from seeing our true inner shine because they are too busy complimenting our epic superficial highlights.
Do what you will with your hair, makeup, clothing but be brave enough to ask yourself if this is a true expression of you or if it is a façade. What you sow, you reap and if you crave true authenticity in all areas of your life then your outward expression of this longing needs to assimilate or your efforts and drive will always feel a little lost.
Self love isn’t about what you can do more of and change more of outside of yourself it is going within, doing the inner inventory and making over your inner world to reflect what you want to see in your outer world. ????
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