As I continued to travel, something began to bother me.  It just didn’t feel right.  I felt weighed down and burdened.  I slowly realized that it was happening at a variety of levels – in my head, in my heart, and in my gut.  I didn’t fully appreciate them all, until I took action.  The issue may seem trivial to some, and it did even to me for a while.  And it may seem a common story of transformational moments, in which case I’m simply supporting that theory.

I got a haircut.  A really short haircut.  In an act later described as ‘brave’ and ‘audacious’, as well as ‘immensely practical’ and ‘envied.’

With genuine compliments, many people have tagged on, “How long were you thinking about this? And why did you do it?”  So I’ve been considering the true motivations.  Here is what I have come up with.

Gut

I think it’s a fairly universal feeling – you simply know that it is time for a haircut.  Perhaps you’re tired of calming split ends, using temporary colourings, applying products to add shape or control frizz and volume, or just having it regularly catch on bus seat backs or under your shoulders on the couch. Basically, it’s just not working and then you realize how many weeks/months have passed since it was last cut.  Your gut simply says, “It’s time to put some attention to this.”

But the gut didn’t tell me much more than that.  I could have simply gone for a trim.

Head

It was raining at some point every day in Lisbon so I needed to do something. For those with curly hair, this logic will be familiar and won’t sound weird at all.  Options included: A – default) wear my ballcap and jacket hood, but that meant using the straightening iron so the hat would stay on and so hat hair could be fixed.  B) buy an umbrella and hair product to stave off the ‘poof’, because my hair wasn’t long enough to be controlled by its own weight, but the purchases would add to the weight of my luggage.  C) as a continuation of a) or b), keep growing it longer so that it can eventually be held in a real ponytail and/or braid, potentially every day given the track record of the humidity. [Note, the humidity is just going to get worse on our swing through Asia.] D) get a short hair cut, and eliminate the straightening iron and brush from the weight of my luggage.

But the logic wasn’t enough motivation for action.

Heart

When my stylist made a few adjustments a couple years ago, I started to get a lot of compliments.  This felt really good.  It boosted my confidence.  Various professional photographs were taken with the sleek hair, that seemed to align well with an image of a Vice President you can trust with multi-million dollar projects.  But now my gut was saying that the image wasn’t aligned, and my head was saying that it was becoming a burden to keep that image of myself.  It was my heart that had to wrestle with the relationship of my identity to my haircut.  Sounds silly when I actually write it down.  Questions were popping up:  Was I colouring my hair because I found it fun? Would I miss the calming effect of brushing my straightened hair? Would I feel beautiful with short hair?

When I saw a woman in a professional workshop with a short haircut that l thought looked really good, with hair similar to mine, I was inspired.  I went down an internet rabbit hole, looking for search terms that would yield images of what I had in mind.  I ran the winning image by a couple friends as a reality check – we have to be open to be saved from ourselves sometimes right?!  

Then it happened pretty quickly.  Researching the Top Ten Hair Salons in Lisbon.  Reading stylist bios for qualifications as well as hints with English proficiency.  Checking availability. Making an appointment.  Talking through with her if this was going to work.  Sitting for 90 minutes as she meticulously applied her craft.  Continually running my hands through it afterwards and smiling at how awesome it felt.  The sense of physical and mental lightness, dropping the efforts of the previous haircut, having no cares about rain showers, being able to focus energy on something else – that is what generates beauty.

Perhaps it’s as simple as ‘new lifestyle, new haircut’.  Perhaps the changes in my life over the last year were inevitably leading to further manifesting this way.  Perhaps I just saw a cool haircut and decided that I wanted it. No matter – I now have practical ‘travel the world’ hair, a lighter suitcase, no problems leaning back on airplane head rests or yoga mats, and a lot of fun surprising people at the start of video calls.