It’s that time of year when there is a mass consideration of ways that we can improve our lives and ourselves and possibly also the way that we take care of each other and the planet.

Personally, I think this is great. I just think we need to do this much more that once a year. I was born on New Year’s eve, so will make it my intention and resolution to a make reminders of that. What I like about the whole New Year’s mass resolutionsmaking, is that it reminds me of a few beautiful truths of being human.

1. Our resilient hope. We want to believe that things can be better.
2. Our belief in our own power. We believe that we can make a difference, even if only to our own lives.
3. Our collectiveness. We are stronger together, but often don’t know how to harness this collective power.
4. Our self-delusions. We seem to make the same resolutions year after year with much failure and little success! Maybe we need shorter cycles of intention, reflection and adjustment.

I believe that real change and transformation is possible, but it does not happen on the back of annual resolution, review and adjustment. For me, the cycle can be as short as breathe to breathe for the practices that effect the change that I set myself on an annual basis.

Review can be annual, but the adjustments have to be small and accessible and can evolve much faster if there is frequent review of progress, success and failure.

So, why a post about hair and happiness? It’s down to a story. My story is part of it, but it a manifestation of the stories of so many women. I just happen to encounter one beautiful woman’s hair story the day before New Year’s eve and decided that this is what I want to share. I wrote it in November 2016.

It’s about our feminine desire to be beautiful, to be seen and heard and appreciated for just exactly who we are. Yet so many of us try to live up to some unrealistic expectation of what it means to be a woman, to be beautiful, sexy, desirable, capable. We place expectations on our bodies, our personalities, our behaviour that puts us in the place of ‘not enough’. So we live dissatisfied lives, because we believe that we are not enough, according to some poorly defined external set of standards and ideals and yes, it can be as seemingly superficial as our hair!

But it is not superficial at all. All of it is important. All of us are worthy of full acceptance of ourselves and living from that place of peace and joy. We are the woman, we are the ones that birth new live and nurture our vulnerable children. We need to nurture and accept ourselves and realise how beautiful and unique we all are.

And amongst us, community cannot be built upon competition and comparison, but upon supportive connections within which we can celebrate each other’s gifts and uniqueness. In such a place there is room enough for everyone to shine and so the world becomes a brighter place.

So now that I’ve been on my journey of self-acceptance and self-care for long enough that I’ve found my voice and my courage to speak, this is what I want to say at the beginning of 2018:

My sisters, you are beautiful! Each and everyone unique and special. Don’t listen to the lies in your head or from outside. You are enough. You have great power. Go look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are gorgeous. Nobody else looks exactly like you, thinks exactly like you, feels exactly like you, dreams exactly like you. Do what you must to take care of yourself, the world deserves the best you to emerge. You deserve to be the best you, the only you.

At the moment
hair simply fascinates me

maybe it is
my envy and desire
maybe just
a growing awareness
of how different
we all are

Hair is part of
our signature
of beauty

so I notice
colours
textures
length
abundance
or scarcity

and I am intrigued
by the decisions and care
that results in each person’s
head of hair

Be it straight or curly
thick or flimsy
strong or brittle
much or little

It takes a decision
to be content
with what you’ve
been given

and happiness or not
has an effect
on everything
even the health
of the hair
that you wear.

My dear courageous friend, has not been happy with her hair for a long time. I can identify with that! So she made a decision to shave it off and start afresh. Wow! I admire her courage and action. Sometimes it takes radical action like that to deal with the things that hold us back, sometimes it just takes a little adjustment and discipline that can be built in our everyday lives. Often, it is a combination of the two. The important thing is to never become defeated and stuck, but to keep on searching for the way forward and upward.

Let me know what you have done that has effected positive change in your life, on whatever level.

I’d love to hear from you.