At some point when people are in their 30s, they start complaining about hair loss and hair fall.
When I was a child, I had really thick long, silky hair. Much to my mother’s upset, I never took care of it. I didn’t need to, it was just always effortlessly amazing!
Many years ago, during a deeply depressive state, massive chunks of my randomly fell out all at once, which lead to shattering of my mental, emotional and psychological health.
It’s quite a thing to look back at the instant that broke you so completely, such that no ‘fixing’ or ‘patching up’ was possible; and to know the Self know so different and much stronger from the experience. I didn’t know I was on a healing journey in those times, fresh after it happened; at the time, I was just trying to figure out the best way get out of bed in the morning and stomach looking at myself in the mirror.
Bit by bit over the 7 years that followed, I did heal though. Quite well and fully, I might add! Parts of my self that I didn’t even know were cracked or warped also started to restore.
Braiding
I remember one day, a couple of years later when I had started to get better, thinking this was all very silly. It’s just hair, after-all. Why did that cause such a break within me. Surely people go through much worse with their health, and don’t fall over completely.
As if the Universe was waiting for me to ask this weird and wonderful question, the answers came in the form of content.
One of them was discovering the ancient cultures from around the world held an expression that was communicated through hair. For example, monks who shave their hair, or women who braid their hair a certain way to show they are married; or shaving a parts of your head in preparation for war or trading season between peoples.
I like to think we carry some part of this today; the way of expression and communicating parts of ourselves that words simply cannot.
As such, to some of us the reality of sweeping strand after strand, hairball after hairball of off our floors, is heartbreaking. For me, it feels like a limited canvas of expression and freedom becoming smaller and weaker everyday.
It’s quite a range of feelings too - helplessness, loss of feeling beautiful or desirable, anger and frustration at our bodies and certainly pain of loss.
Biology and medicine treat hair conditions as a linear outcome to things like hormonal imbalances, stress and aging. While this probably correct, it also isn’t entirely helpful.
That’s when the second context came through. A somatic therapist, I had met, told me that hair serves an important function in the body. He described our hair (on the head and the body) as the outer expressions of our nerves.
You know that feeling when you walk into a tense situation or a creepy room and the hairs on your limbs and the back your neck stand up? It’s that.
Hair on the head, since it is often fuller and longer, serves as an antenna, connected our nerves directly to our Spirit. Those of us who receive intuitive tingles for no obvious external reason have felt this.
Per this somatic tradition, hair loss and hair fall are a symptom of a depleted relationship with our Spirit.
Though this was interesting and helpful context, I didn’t know what to do with this information when I heard it. Just like we don’t know what to do when someone tells us ‘You are unwell because of stress’.
Generally our answer is “Well buddy, the stress isn’t going anywhere, so sod off!’
But I was encouraged in those years not to attach to answers. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but the guidance was always the same - just keep moving, keep weaving and keep trusting.
In my movement, I came across the Ojibwa Medicine Wheel, and a Medicine Carrier shared with me the story-gifts of Sweetgrass.
Also called ‘Hair of the Mother’, sweetgrass is long fragrant grass that is often dried, braided, like in the image above. It keeps its fragrance for a long time and is revered as a potent medicine for many ailments of the mind, body, heart and soul. Not just that, the actual process of harvesting, drying and braiding Sweetgrass is medicine in itself.
The Medicine Carrier shared with me that traditionally, braiding Sweetgrass is a loving and communal task - no-one braids alone; because why would you?
The medicine is in the weave and if you aren’t weaving to bring things together, then why are you doing the act of braiding?
It reminded me of my mother braiding my long dark hair before school when I was young. Eventually I started doing it myself, but it was never neat and always came apart a few hours later. Maybe I missed the important lesson that braiding hair was also how we braid connections with ourselves and each other and with Spirit.
This was the third piece of my context-answer. There’s a power in three, because you can’t make a braid with just two parts. You have to keep moving, keep trusting, keep weaving, and then the pattern emerges.
Finding Piles of Hair After Cleaning the Apartment
After I emerged from my healing journey, healed, I had expected no more surprise hairballs on my apartment floor.
This was not the case.
Annoyed and upset, I threw one of my famous tantrums. I had done the work after-all. It had been years and I was better now! Why is my hair still falling? Why am I not physically better?
I discovered that the Universe has a covert relationship with Youtube’s algorithms. Because, shortly after calming down from my tantrum, I found a weird video on Youtube.
Did you know that hair and nails are two things that continue to grow once a human body has officially died? They grow for up to 3 weeks after life force has left the body.
I found this to be one of those sick jokes the Universe plays on us - all the living people who have problems with hair-fall, and here I’m sitting on my couch watching a slow-mo video of a corpse is sporting new hair growth.
Certainly, this isn’t the hair you want to have, but still… you get my point.
I wondered if this is why monks shave their heads. It basically rids them of this chaos and sweeping. How lucky that they don’t have to deal with any of it!
Saying weird things to yourself is very interesting, past the initial shallow awkwardness. Because underneath our frustration may lie a helpful nugget.
In many Eastern traditions, hair is often seen as a symbol of attachment to the material world. This attachment includes who we think we are/ are supposed to be, our preferences, belief systems and ideas, as well as identity we create to live in the every day world.
That, is what the monk cuts off.
Imagine that everything you consciously know yourself to be is imbued in your hair. Pour all your knowing and focus of who you have always known yourself to be and your dreams, and you family into your hair.
Look in the mirror and smile at yourself.
Then take a scissor and cut off a few inches.
Breath.
This is deep work for those who seek to build faith and trust and have courageous hearts.
Anyone who has spent quality time with their hair, knows fully well that hair has a consciousness of its own and often we are unable to bend it to our will.
So, what if our experience of hair loss and hair fall, regardless of the reason, our age, our gender, our stress levels is actually communicating something to us, from our Spirit?
I have no desire to be a monk, but maybe the days and weeks where my hair-balls are heavier, I could look at what I need to release.
Have I become rigid or stuck to something, an idea, a habit, an activity or belief?
Do I actually need to think a certain way or do a certain thing simply because this is how I have always done so?
Can I bring in some flow, some ease and some new perspective to my day?
Am I focused on what was, rather than what is in the now moment?
One of the curiosities of hair, is that we only react when it’s off our heads and on our pillows and carpets. We do not celebrate or even know when new hair sprouts up on our scalp. And so the journey with hair shows us those moments where we keep reacting to things that have already happened, have already been created, and we weep at the losses.
Beyond hair, we all do this, don’t we?
This keeps us stuck in reaction mode to what has already manifested; and we give no focus, no energy to all the new growth simply because we cannot see it with our natural eyes.
So, this is also about trust.
We take the supplements we need to and maybe we change our diet and cut out toxic shampoos and hair products, and those are great steps. The bigger step is to trust in ourselves, in the process and in the goodness of what we are lovingly putting into our bodies. What we do not see in times of sickness or ailment is that we are relating to our bodies. Our bodies talk to us non-verbally. The question is, how well are we tuned in to listening? And if we listen, do we act as if it were a loved one?
Hair may fall instantly, but it grows sustainably.
If you have mid length hair, and it falls, that hair has been with you for between 5-7 years, maybe longer.
Perhaps, our hair-fall is a shedding. We are releasing the version of ourselves from 5-7 years ago, and letting the new growth coming in; with it’s perfect colour, texture and health, as it is going to be with us through next decade.
Maybe, along with our hair, our ideas, dreams and attachments of who we were have a chance to release out. We get to build new dreams, new versions of ourselves with new inspiration from our Spirit, braided together, stronger than ever before.
It’s a different way of relating to be sure. This isn’t about positive thinking.
It is about practicing to bring out focus, attention, mind, energy, life force and Spirit in sublime alignment to the vibrance and overflow of Life.
Living this way is a practice.
Luckily, our hair-consciousness, ever supportive of our spiritual endeavours, will grow and fall.
Every time we bend to pick some up or pull it out of drains and vacuum cleaners, we get to practice trusting in new growth, and realigning our thoughts and energy to our Spirit-force.
That is a gift!