Part Three: On the Experience of Shaving My Head and Being Free (Before, During and After Photos!)

December 28, 2011 By TheOrganicSister 82 Comments

I’ve sat here looking at a blank screen grasping at inadequate words to describe the shaving of my head for way too long.

Incredible? Weak.

Empowering? Still weak.

Enlightening? Closer.

Let me start by backing up a little to the beginning of my weekend. We’ll see where it goes from there.

Tiffani, my badass freeplaylife photographer, arrived in Orlando on Friday evening.

Now let me just say something about Tiffani.

She’s flipping amazing. Colorful. Playful. Daring. Vibrant. Envelope-pushing.

But she also has this deeply sensitive side that you only get to see in her photos or videos or in long conversations about Life.

So I knew she was the perfect person to help me commemorate this powerful step. Because she totally “got it”. ♥

We had an amazing weekend that I know I’ll be talking more about later.

But the photos!

Oh wow, the photos.

We started with the before photos (for obvious reasons) and let me just say, one amazing photographer can make you fall in love with yourself.

She captured so much more than either of us felt was possible to convey without being there.

Because, oh being there was amazing!

We laughed, drank wine, ate and talked, shared epiphanies and dreams and laughed some more. I love that woman so much. Yes, I’ll definitely be writing more about that soon.

But back to the experience…

Capturing the “Before”

I wanted to capture it. My dreads. What they meant. I wasn’t sure if it would be possible but if anyone could do it, I knew it would be Tiffani.

And she did.

And I love them, each and every one of the “Before” shots. They so perfectly capture the depth and love I’ve had for my dreads. They leave me breathless. Speechless. In awe and honor of my own spiritual path, of where I’ve been and Who I Am because of them.

I’ll let my favorites do the talking…

I looked at them on her camera between Day One of photos and Day Two. And I had an ache. I saw the beauty and the story Tiffani had caught for me. And for the span of one deep breath, I loved them so much I couldn’t fathom letting them go.

But then that breath passed and I felt my whole body, my whole spirit say “Trust”. Mmm, yes I can do trust.

The During and After Experience

As much as the before photos LOOK amazing, it was (and is) the during and after process of shaving off my dreads that FEEL amazing.

And that feeling of “amazing” was something that the camera couldn’t capture.

The way it FELT to have my husband there, the man who spent 14 loving hours putting my dreadlocks in, handing me the empowerment, the strength to take this next step – on my own this time.

The way it FELT to acknowledge my fear as it turned my hands cold and made my heart pound and asked me to pause, to breath, to give it a just a moment to be heard so that it could willingly let go.

The way it FELT to call forward the faces of the beautiful women, my many sisters, who had emailed or texted or messaged me their love, to feel them circling around me.

And then the way it FELT to remove my dreads, one-by-one, to feel the world shift beneath me, while also shifting me forward, the rushing in of exhilaration, and of an emotion I still do not have a name for.

I’ve said it so many times but it bears repeating again: It was as if my dreads had, over the last 43 months (to the day, I just realized), systematically entangled all the energy of my past, the fears and challenges and limitations and all those things that were not serving me.

And towards the end of my three and a half year journey with dreadlocks, it was “heavy” with the past and the stories that were ready to be let go.

And so, with all the yuck carefully secured in my dreads, I began to snip it all away.

The past that didn’t belong in my present, the heaviness…

The weight of the world fell off my shoulders.

One at a time. Landing on the ground. With only a few feet between us but feeling as though it was the length of the world now separating me from it.

Distant. Done.

Old and gone and unattached.

And then the way it FELT to see “the past” lying on the ground, to hold it in my hands, to feel as though it was ancient history, detached from me – something to honor and smile upon, but not something to ache for or regret or miss.

(To miss them would’ve felt awkward, like going backward, like losing wisdom, slipping into clothes that had once been comfortable but that I had outgrown. It would’ve felt silly trying to wear the things of my past, like a grown women trying on her favorite childhood shirt. It was and is and always will be beloved, but it’s not comfortable anymore.)

I felt LIGHT…not weight-light, but energy-light.

I text my mom an After photo and she said it perfectly in just a few words:

You look beautiful. And FREE!!!

Free.

Yes, that’s what this feeling is.

It’s the feeling of being free. Open. Unencumbered. Spiritually showered.

A lot of people (my dad included) don’t get it. How was I not free before?

But I AM FREE now. I recognize the difference, in the way only a previously and ignorantly unfree person could recognize. I’m suddenly free of the past. I’m free of the expectations I’ve accepted in my life (from myself and others). I’m free of the facade, the props I would use to convey Who I Am.

I’m free of the NEED to convey Who I Am.

I am free.

I never expected to feel as free and as feminine and as sexy in my own skin as I do right now with no hair. I’m walking on clouds, in love with my raw self. Feeling as though I’ve settled into Who I am, dropping into my own essence, JUST my essence. Nothing trailing along behind me.

Calm and simple and joyful authenticity.

I can’t stop rubbing my head or reveling in that menthol-cool feeling of the air across my scalp or the warmth of the sun or swimming in the pool, holding my breath beneath the water, feeling the sensations moving around me, no more worry about “getting my hair wet”, nothing taking me out of the moment, out of the experience it.

Present-moment awareness. How does having no hair offer me that?

I don’t know but there it is.

The whole experience. Commemorating my dreadlocks. Preparing to send them off with love. Those two minutes of fear, where my hands went cold and shaky and I wasn’t sure I had the courage to take my next step forward.

Then the instantaneous and immense feeling of YesYesYes! as I snipped the first dread and it fell to the ground, the feeling that propelled me forward like a mad-woman, feeling the heaviness lift from my spirit, feeling the open space begin to fill with excitement and LIGHTness as each knot of hair was shed.

The JOY and smiles and that sense that my whole body was laughing that suddenly came rushing in, not from my mouth or my face or my words (I was pretty much beyond words), but from my belly, from my core. Bubbling up and spilling out of my eyes, my pores, my fingertips, the top of my head.

The way I suddenly felt lit up, nothing getting in the way of SHINING. Radiating. Reveling.

To feel so deeply connected to Who I Am, to the people in my life, to Spirit and Life itself…

It has been one of the most deeply spiritual (yet insanely, hysterically, joyful and downright silly) experiences of my thirty years.

It’s sounds silly to many.

I even have to laugh at how silly it sounds to me.

It’s just hair after at all.

But it’s not about the hair.

It’s about the experience of my hair. MY experience.

It’s about what this small, seemingly meaningless experience (in the grand scheme of life) had to offer me.

And it’s about me accepting that offer.

It’s about being open to a grandiose, breathtaking and awe-inspiring overture in what looks inconsequential, impermanent, and trivial.

This is life.

Mundane. Simple. Momentary. The details small and ultimately insignificant. A blip on the screen of the Universe. A monotonously repetitive story throughout the span of the centuries.

But still never duplicated in the narrative. Consistently renewed in our emotions. And regularly, excruciatingly and inconceivably mind-blowing to participate in.

It’s all “just hair”. Until we embrace the experience of it. And then it’s the whole Universe bursting alive within the space of one fleeting moment.

Click here for all the photos from our shoot!

All of these amazing photos are from Tiffani Bearup.

Check out her full set on Flickr.

Tell her how much you love her work here on Facebook or in the comments below!

Want to read more about my process from dreadlocks to a shaved head?

All dreadlock posts from start to finish are here.

Part One: My announcement video of my decision to shave my dreads

Part Two: A more in-depth, emotional and raw video on my decision

Part Three: Putting The Process of Shaving Them into Words (and lots of photos)

Part Four: A GORGEOUS Video and words from other women who’ve done the same

And lastly: Burning My Dreadlocks: The Final Goodbye

Filed Under: Organic Wisdom, Things To Remember Tagged With: Dreadlocks, fear, hair, life, organic beauty, organic wisdom, photography, shaving my head, spirituality, trust

Why I Love Getting Older :: How Aging Became an Honor Instead of a Fear (Video)

December 5, 2011 By TheOrganicSister

Women, especially older women, always smirk a little when I tell them how much I look forward to aging.

I can’t wait to get my first grey hair (or find them under all these dreads), I love the lines I’m wearing on my face, and how I see aging as one of the most beautiful things in the world.

They assume it hasn’t “hit me yet”.

Oh but it has. The fear of aging hit me a few years ago. Hard.

And that’s when everything changed.

I explain it, passionately and emotionally I might add, in this video below…

Could you use a little thriving growth in your life?

I have two very gorgeous new products to offer YOU this holiday season.

Not a gift for you to offer someone else, but something you can give yourself.

Mindfulness. Grounding. Love. Joy. Awareness. Wisdom. An experience that allows us to thrive – this holiday season and all year long.

Click here for details.

Filed Under: Celebrations, Organic Health, Organic Tools, Organic Wisdom, Things To Remember Tagged With: aging, birthday, choosing happiness, fear, meditation, organic beauty, personal growth, visualization

Being a Parent vs. Being a “Friend”

September 30, 2011 By TheOrganicSister 17 Comments

I was recently asked this question by a girlfriend on Facebook, about my take on whether parents should be friends of their kids.

The Comment/Question

Tara – Here’s a thought I’ve had. I’ve been in a lot of discussions about parenting that include those who view “being your child’s friend” as a very negative thing – “be a parent, not a friend”. I really feel like there’s this false dichotomy between having a good relationship or teaching/guiding them – like they are mutually exclusive. The “be a parent” crowd assumes that if we are focusing on maintaining a close, connected relationship, it means that the kids just do whatever they want and have no respect. What if being a friend and parent weren’t mutally exclusive? I would love your take on this. – Cindy from www.birth-smart.com

My Answer

I would ask them who the heck their friends are and why they have such a low idea of what real friendship is.

In my world, a friend is someone who loves me compassionately, who sees my worth when I may not see it, who listens deeply and never encourages me to do less than I’m capable of doing, nor do they support my actions if those actions are hurting me or others.

A real friend brings out the best in me with love and laughter and support.

So who the heck have they been hanging out with that isn’t all those things? And why wouldn’t we want to be those things to our child?

And I want to add:

Maybe if more kids were used to seeing this kind of love and support from their parents they wouldn’t be accepting anything less in their friends.

What is your take on the parent/friend conversation?

And just because I can, I want to share a video I created that reminds me just how quickly it passes, just how much we should cherish the tender moments and just how much we miss out on when we’re more concerned with how we’ll look as parents, instead of the moments of connection we’re capturing with our kids.

Filed Under: Organic Parenting, Things To Remember Tagged With: friends, it goes by fast, Q&A, questions, video

Actually Reading Together Changed My Opinion of It

September 26, 2011 By TheOrganicSister 10 Comments

Zeb (now 12) and I have been reading together since he can remember.

As soon as he was aware we began sitting together and reading through stories together.

His favorite for the first few years of his life was Time For Bed, by Mem Fox:

“It’s time for bed little mouse, little mouse. Darkness is falling all through the house.”

We all knew it by heart after reading it three or four or seventeen times each night.

Then came Putt-Putt and The Bean Boy as he grew a little older. And then the Little House books, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Animorphs series, Harry Potter and then Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

There were many things in Zeb’s early life that I would rush through and forget to relish, but reading was never one of them.

Perhaps it was because of the memories I have with my mom, cuddling in bed together, her melodic voice telling the story as my eyes followed along the page or dreamily imagined the scenes she described or finally became too heavy to stay open.

She’d probably say my memory is pretty forgiving, but it didn’t seem to matter how busy she was or tired she was; there seemed to always be time for reading together, even if it was only a chapter.

And so whenever Zeb asked for a story or seven, I knew just how important it was to curl up next to him, to create those memories, to say yes as many times as I could.

And then one more time, for good measure.

Now, at 12, he’s spent many months not being interested in cuddling up together and being read to. And as much as I enjoy seeing him grow and change, a part of me was still a little sad at what I thought was the closing of a tradition.

I mean, I knew it would happen. I knew there would be a day when he moved onto other things in his life. But it still felt bittersweet, ya know?

So a few weeks ago, after a hilarious night of Uno playing, when he asked if I wanted to start reading Percy Jackson again my heart smiled as it melted.

One, two, five chapters…we still read until the eyelids get heavy (mine now, instead of his). We read until I begin to see words that aren’t even on the page. We read as we travel down the road, and we take breaks from our individual tasks to read together during the day.

And it’s only now that I see the real value of it.

You see, when he was a baby I read to him in hopes of creating a love of reading. I read to him because it was educational. I read to him because it seemed like the thing a mom should do.

But looking back over the last 12 years I’ve found that reading together had less to do with learning to read, or learning to love reading. It had little to do with teaching him how to read on his own.

In fact, it had very little to do with books at all.

Looking back over the last 12 years I can see that the books were just a tool to the real benefit of reading together: the time we spent with our heads on the same pillow, the discussions we had as the plot twisted or turned, surprised us or irritated us, the sense of connection that comes from simply being next to one another, sharing a common thought.

We create those bigger and more important lessons and experiences with more than just books. We do it with games, or movies or video games, too.

We, as parents, do it every time we prioritize our kids and what they ask us to do with them over our long day or our big tasks.

Maybe he’ll “outgrow” our tradition again some time. Maybe he never really will.

But since I’m never sure when “just one more chapter” will be our last together, I’ll keep my head rested upon his as he rests his upon my shoulder. I’ll keep brushing down his curly hair so that I can see the page.

And I’ll keep relishing in these simple moments, that are always so much bigger than I sometimes remember they are.

Filed Under: Organic Parenting, Things To Remember Tagged With: books, connection, reading together, traditions

Why You SHOULD Focus On Being Perfect (And It’s Not What You Think)

July 18, 2011 By TheOrganicSister

Ah, perfect. That word is a hot one. Especially for us women.

Most of us strive so hard to be perfect: the perfect mother, perfect partner, the perfect person with a perfect purpose. We try to create the perfect home and the perfect world with perfect hair and perfect kids.

And then we hear the messages that perfection is a myth, that it can’t be obtained and that striving for it is a maddening and pointless attempt to be something we’ll never be.

After all no one is perfect, right?

This is where I get all Big and Philosophical on you…

Both are wrong.

Zoom out with me – way out – and take in the Big Picture of your life, your journey of self-discovery and growth, your contribution to and purpose in the world.

The entire purpose of your life is to learn, to grow, to experience this human experience and make sense of it the best way you can.

You don’t need to strive for perfection and you don’t need to give up the idea of perfection…Because you are already perfect.

Where you are is already perfect. What you are experiencing, doing and thus learning is absolutely perfect.

You are the perfect mother for your children. You are the perfect person for your purpose. Everything you’re doing and experiencing is perfect.

Stay with me here.

It’s perfect that you make mistakes. It’s perfect that you beat yourself up for them. It’s perfect when you don’t do either.

It’s absolutely perfect when you wake up one day to realize something totally new and life-changing and it’s perfect when nothing ever seems to change.

It’s all perfect because it’s all purposeful, because when we zoom way out the little details that we stress over and complain about and push against blur together, and we see the process, the journey, the contrast that teaches us, the resistance that strengthens us, the meaning at the end of the story, the light at the end of the tunnel and the Magic that brought it all together, that connected the cosmic dots and created something amazing.

If our purpose in life is to learn, and if we learn best through our experiences, then yes, it’s all actually perfect.

And only by acknowledging that it’s perfect can we embrace it, learn from it and expand because of it.

Your mistakes have value. Your journey is oh-so-valuable.

But you won’t get that, you won’t experience that value, until you accept it as perfect, as exactly as it gets to be.

Yes, this applies to everyone – you and your kids, your partner and THAT one frustrating person you would rather not talk about. No matter what you all are doing or experiencing in your lives, you are all in the same perfect place.

Acknowledging that you are exactly where you need to be, and that everything you are experiencing or doing is perfect is not license to be an asshole, hit your children or just quit trying, anymore than the lack of a posted warning is license to shoplift.

On the contrary, and perhaps paradoxically, embracing the seemingly imperfect as perfect will take off that heavy weight of Not-Good-Enough, Less-Than, Doomed-To-Mess-Up, and leave you only with desire to move forward into seeking more….more Love, more connection, more experiences, more compassion, more beauty, more peace, more learning.

You cannot create your Life from a place of imperfection, unworthiness, brokenness, less-than. You can’t. Whatever you see this moment as being, you will notice and create more of the same.

But when you can connect to the fact that this moment is perfect – that it is here for you to experience and learn from, that’s it’s all opportunity, all of value – you can connect to the fact that you can create something more, better, and beautiful from it.

Only by stopping the fight against what is can we give ourselves the clarity and power to create what can be.

Look for it: What about that one frustrating thing is actually perfect?

“There is only one world, the world pressing against you at this minute. There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.” – Storm Jameson