Shedding my skin and letting go

This may seem as though I am putting way too much thought into the decision I have made to cut off all of my hair. So for those so inclined to dive a little deeper into my world, I offer you here a bit of rationale and history as to why this is such a monumental and symbolic act that I am about to do. I have decided to cut off most of my hair and donate it to Locks of Love. I have been putting a lot of thought and intention into this, and I realize that this is more than just cutting my hair. This is letting go of all the unnecessary elements that have "grown" up to this point in my life, and it is time to release that which no longer serves my highest self, and my greatest good.

I was trying to think of a way to make some sort of ceremony or ritual out of this experience, to add meaning and intention to why I am doing this, and it made me reflect back on the long relationship I have had with this mane. I have not cut my hair in this manner since I was in 4th grade, when I cut it all off so that it was so short that people who didn’t know me thought I was a boy. Since then I have been letting it grow out to reclaim my femininity, because it broke my heart when my 9-year-old self was not recognized as such. And my hair started to grow back, very, very slowly. I think a large part of why it grew so slowly was my intention for wanting to have long hair. I wanted long hair for the "beauty" of it. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to have the long flowing beautiful blonde hair of the fairy-tale princesses that were a large part of my child hood, the most notable of those for me was Sleeping Beauty. For as far back as I can remember, I would play dress up and put on wigs, falls, or even panty hose and play around pretending to have long, flowing hair.

By the time I reached high school my hair finally reached the length that it was to be at for the majority of the rest of my life up until late last year. I tried everything I could think of and read about to try and get it to grow faster, to grow longer. I tried brushing it very frequently (like Marsha Brady would do) to try and stimulate the hair follicles. I tried taking pre-natal vitamins, trimming it every 6 weeks, using hair masks and expensive shampoos and conditioners to make sure I didn’t have split ends to increase the chances for it to grow long and healthy. Nothing I tried seem to make any difference and it was becoming so frustrating.

I then started to slowly lose the desire to want to be “beautiful” just for the sake of being physically attractive. As I started to grow up and head into the second half of my twenties, I started to see how transient such a thing as physical beauty is, yet something people spend so much time and money and energy trying to attain and/or maintain. When my husband and I first started dating I was a girl that always wore make up when I went out and always had my hair done (straightened to iron perfection or curled), something that he was drawn to and the basis for him wanting to date me. After a while he said he would prefer for me to be natural and just be me without all of that, and he said he thought I was more naturally beautiful than with all of that other stuff, which he felt took away from who I was on the inside.

I started to become more confident in the natural part of me and stopped wearing make up all together (except for special occasions where I wanted to dress up for fun), and would just wash my hair and let it just be as it is. However, in doing so, something inside of me clicked on and I started to become what my husband started to call me over the years, which was a “hippy bitch.” He used to always joke how much he hated “hippies” and our friends would joke about the fact that he married one. As this continued, I started to delve deeper into my natural beauty side, as the world we lived in seemed to focus more and more on the physical beauty side. Granted we were living in a very concentrated area of this type of priority, but it started to permeate more than just me. I started to become irritated at how prevalent this emphasis on physical beauty was becoming, as more and more people were having plastic surgery and putting so much energy into their physical appearance, and less so on the beauty that we all have within.

It started to bother me to the point that it was causing a huge rift between my husband and me. And it wasn’t just with people; it was with the environment and relationships with others. I wanted to be immersed in a place that was more focused on the natural beauty of the land and all its indigenous qualities (rather than the transplants that so commonly replace it). I wanted more quality and less quantity. I wanted to stop buying products all together, except the necessities such as food, to reduce my personal footprint on my local environment. I wanted to be somewhere where the people interact with you, with kindness and compassion and a genuine interest in connecting with you. And the more I tried to live in this way, the more I was met with anger and hostility. The more I tried to live in such a way, the more my husband and his friends and family would do just the opposite, to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore and left (among other reasons). He had grown to despise me because I had changed during the 8 years we were together, and I had grown tired of his unwillingness to adapt to this change I had gone through. We had literally grown apart.

When I moved out and got my own place, I told myself I was going to stay true to this woman I am growing into. I set the intention that I still wanted long hair, but now I wanted it because I wanted to donate it. That if my hair could finally start growing to the length I had always dreamed of having since I was a little girl, that I would donate it. And in the last year it has grown over 6 inches and is longer than I ever thought it would be. As I have been thinking about this more and more, I realize that this is more than just hair that has grown, but myself. I want to cut all but what has grown since my decision to take back control of my life and reclaim my freedom, strength, and independence, which is just below the level of my chin. That was the hair that was fighting to get free, to come out and have it’s time in the sun and moon light. It was making room for a new life, pushing out the old so that it can be released and allow something new and better to come through.

All the hair that spans the length from my shoulders to my waist is the hair that represents the years of confusion and misery and pain and suffering. All of the years of not knowing who I truly was and always looking for the answers outside of myself. All of the years of feeling that what was on the outside mattered more than what was on the inside. All of the years of putting my selfish desires before others. All of the years of trying so hard to be something that I am not. Cutting off all that hair is me shedding my skin so that I can make room for a newer, stronger, more adaptable and authentic existence. Making room for the flood of growth and love and creativity and power that is waiting to come pouring out.

So I thought it would be fitting do this in a ritual/ceremony setting. And what better time for such a ritual than a few days from now, during the full moon, which is a powerful time for setting intentions and letting things go. In trying to figure out a prayer or other form of ceremonial act to do this, I came across the following description of the purpose of a full moon ritual for letting things go, and felt this was the perfect opportunity for this.


Full Moon Ritual
Letting Go

By Molly Hall

The monthly lunar cycle gives you many chances to do rituals to mark a personal turning point or let go. At the New Moon, you can go into the dark and be symbolically reborn. New Moon rituals help you summon your whole Self, and in that magic moment, commit to intentions.

At the full Moon, the energy builds and builds....there's an explosive outgoing aspect to it. All of nature grows and is more vital at the full Moon. This surge allows you to take action on behalf of those new Moon intentions you set two weeks prior. A full Moon ritual might involve taking one solid step, with a symbolic action. And it can be a powerful time to release, cast out, unburden yourself, purge, etc. You celebrate your emergence by stepping out of an old skin, identity, behavior, attitude, relationship. The ritual helps you by marking this inner transformation in a formal way.

A full Moon ritual might involve purification by one of the elements. Most often, it's fire, and done by casting something you don't want into the flames. One idea: 1) Write what you're releasing down on a stick. 2) resolve to let go as you throw it into the fire. 3) Throw the stick into the fire. This can be done as a group, with everyone sitting 'round the fire...or in your own private ceremony. Each person can seal their action of letting go by speaking it aloud, if there's trust in the circle.

Water can be used to cleanse in rituals. I remember a very meaningful full Moon ceremony I had at my house with three other women. We had filled a blue bowl with water and some rose petals. Each of us wrote down what we wanted to draw into our lives on a piece of paper. After we read them aloud, we put our hands in the bowl to signify the cleansing of the old, to open to the new. It's still one of my favorite memories. Mainly it worked because we all trusted each other to be open hearted and share our dreams. When that's there, you can evoke the magic of shifting consciousness at will because the support is palpable.