hairy

My friend Jamie Catto once spoke about how we cut ourselves down to an appropriate nice presentable brochure version of ourselves throughout our lives. How we shamefully hide our insanities. And how uncomfortable that feels. When he clarified that we are actually all crazy and really good at hiding it, I felt fantastic. Such a relief. I started looking into my shadows and showing up in them, which was really the very first beginning of starting to relax into – me – including demons, the whole package. This process is ongoing.

Now, there is one particular subject i wish to touch on here. It’s the hair on a human’s body. As i see it, this is also a part where we -literally- cut ourselves down to an acceptable appropriate hairy version of ourselves. So, i started wondering.. what IS appropriate in hair-land and why? How ashamed are we of our natural hair, our nature? How much effort and painful nasty procedures do we undergo just to stay in this controlled, accepted, ‘hygienic’, decent shape? It’s obviously something to do with fashion and trend as well. Well if this is the trend, I think it’s showing us how far away we are from our nature and how the beliefs on beauty took over our basic feeling of what feels good and what feels bad.

I believed as a kid that shaving was coming from a perspective of caring and loving your body, because it was something I saw my mother do to herself over and over again, and she was feeling comfortable with it. But the more I looked at the subject in the last years, the more I started seeing the painful cramped sad raw aspect of it. It IS painful no matter how you put it, no matter what technique you use. We just got used to treating our bodies like that. Suffering for beauty.

The more I was aware on the subject, the more I saw irritated red skin around me. Where before I was repulsed by hairy women and men, I started feeling attracted to hairy versions of humans. I started to see the beauty of everyone’s personal hair-print. So I started the experiment almost a year ago, after shaving for 15 years: I stopped. It was such an intense experience, letting go of that image of myself with the ‘suitable amount of hair’. I went through feeling unattractive, gross, ugly, dirty. The awkward feeling of seeing your pubic hair stick out of your tiny sexy pants (no way this is sexy!). Wearing tights doesn’t work that well with hair sticking out. And the first few times I went out dancing – putting my arms in the air was bringing up feelings of insecurity, being the only hairy one in the room. Now I almost feel victorious when I do so. I feel sexy being ALL OF ME and I like to be an invitation to other women to just give it a try. It is such a HUGE relief. Because really, what is underneath this all is the acceptance of I am good the way I am.

For the ladies: you know how it feels when you swim in the ocean and the hair on your legs dries in the wind? The first time I felt that I was so amazed, feeling like a kid receiving a loving touch on my skin, letting it all in. You know how it feels when goosebumps make your hair rise all over your legs when someone touches you there? I love discovering how good it feels to be touched whilst being the hairy natural me. Feeling how enjoyable this is, clears the shame leftovers rapidly. I love having my hands in hair as well. I prefer it so so so much more over a shaved prickly skin. All of your body hairs are little feeling antenna’s. All of them.

Read this if you like to read something more about the health endangering consequences of shaving you genitals. HOORAY for the brave hairy ones (patting myself on the back).

A side note: I just shaved because I felt like giving that a try -a bit ironic- on the same day I wrote this post. I like experimenting to see if there are still beliefs somewhere in me & having no attachments or fixations to whatever state. No judgments to where anyone chooses to be. This is only an invitation to more awareness on the subject..