For the last month, I’ve had flat hair and a bare face. Committed to my Free-to-Feel-Joy Experiment, I invested the month of January in the exploration of whether I am happier applying 💄 makeup and using hair products or going without.
At first, I felt self-conscious and plain. I felt defective. Before presenting themselves to the world, most women my age in my culture thicken their lashes with mascara and fix their hair. This has been the norm for me for quite a while. 🤷♀️ But it recently occurred to me that I might be happier if I emphasized my appearance less. So I tried it. The results?
When I am free from makeup and hair products, I don’t look at myself in the mirror nearly as often. When I fix my face in the morning and make my best guess as to which hair products to use for the weather conditions, I look in the mirror every time I’m in the bathroom throughout the day. 🪞 I look at my reflection when I pass my hallway mirror. When I get in my car, I look at my reflection in the window. Sometimes when I’m at a stop light, I pull down the visor to see what I look like. I want to make sure my mascara is in place, not smeared on my skin. I want to see if I need to reapply my lipstick. Most of all, I want to see a model looking back at me, with reassurance that I look good enough to be okay.
The trouble with this: I approve of my appearance only 5% of the time, just enough to keep me hooked. The other 95%? You guessed it: disappointment and disapproval.
Without makeup and hair products, I have no illusions that I look like the women on magazine covers. 👸 Free from the pressure of that unachievable expectation, I am free to focus on… you name it. Helping others. Connecting with my Higher Power. Dancing.
During my experiment, I’ve also been indulging in hot baths and showers more often. Free from hair products, my time under the hair dryer has been cut in half. 💦 This morning, I took a hot shower, which felt wonderful. At the day’s end, I will savor more time under the gloriously hot stream. This self-care feels like a higher quality of life. If I had invested time in my hair this morning, I would have been unwilling to wash away those efforts this evening.
At some point, I’ll likely use beauty products again, on special occasions or as a daily regime. But for today, I’m skipping them, thankful that I get to discover my own path of joy.
In the end, I hope to learn that I am okay. If my hair is fluffy or flat, I am loved. If my eyelashes look more or less like other women’s, I am loved. As I’m learning from Michael Singer’s books and talks, we are on a tiny planet spinning around in a huge universe in the middle of nowhere. Will looking a certain way make me okay inside? No. Why am I not okay inside? Because I’m looking to outside circumstances to fix me. 🌎 The world outside cannot fix what’s inside. If I make my appearance pleasing then take a photo and post it, and I receive lots of “likes,” that will feel good for a short while, then I’ll chase that feeling. I’ll feel like crap until I again apply the perfect mixture of hair products, and the humidity cooperates, and the wind cooperates, and the sunlight cooperates. If I choose the right colors for my cheeks and eyes and lips, and my clothes are just right. On the hamster wheel I’ll go, going nowhere.
I hope to remember, a little more every day, that I am a daughter of the Divine. 😇 That my Heavenly Mother loves me absolutely. That I don’t have to listen to our society’s messages. That I get to decide what works for me.
When I stay in the seat of consciousness, I get to watch the amazing human we know as Lucky. Sometimes she looks like this. Sometimes she looks like that. If she gets to live for forty more years, she’ll look forty years older than today. Will she be less loved? Will she be less valuable? Will it take her forty more years to understand that she doesn’t have to earn approval, her own or others’? 🤩 Lucky can be joyful right now, just as she is. And so can you.