Hair, Liberation, Trust & Being Seen
Originally written October 28, 2021
I wanted to give you a heads-up in the hopes of preventing shock and confusion upon arriving to an appointment whose goals are soothing and clarity: I have made a radical hair change.
Hair is ritually and culturally significant, as well as deeply personal, and a change in hairstyle is often an external reflection of an inner transformation. That's exactly the case with this new 'do.
There is a reckoning happening, a resolution unfolding in my life that asks me to live more fully self-expressed and in alignment with my values of truth-telling, inclusivity, and courage. So, what I would like to share with you is that:
I am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
It's easy and tempting to hide in plain sight behind my straight-passing privilege. The circumstances of my life do not ask this visibility of me; my soul requires it, my wholeness demands it.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Well, because firstly, allowing you to see me frees me and makes me trustworthy to myself and what we do in our bodywork sessions has everything to do with trust, liberation, and being seen. During our time in the treatment room, you offer me a tremendous amount of trust: you shuck down to your skivvies (or less) with a near-stranger and trust me to do you no harm, to skillfully facilitate your innate healing processes, to listen deeply to the body which contains all of your life's experiences, and to see you as a being inherently worthy of care, healing, and liberation from whatever doesn't serve you well. These gestures of trust invite me to be trustworthy, so this is me extending you that same grace.
Secondly, I want to explicitly establish my practice as a queer-inclusive and affirming space which starts by including and affirming my own queerness. While my identity is not new, this degree of transparency is.
Finally, because during this season of ancestor veneration in celebrations like Halloween, Samhain, and Día de los Muertos, I am holding myself accountable in my queer visibility as a gesture of gratitude and respect for the LGBTQIA+ ancestors who risked it all and put their pride on display as a radical act of self-embrace and resistance against those who would prefer we minimize and hide ourselves in shame.
I believe that freedom is contagious and I hope that liberation will be part of my legacy as an ancestor and steward of the future.
I am grateful for the gift of your trust in our time together and in this one precious life (metaphysical and philosophical debates aside), I strive to honor that gift by approaching my relationships and work with integrity. And kick-ass hair.
Our ancestors include those with whom we share blood, and they are also those with whom we share cultural resonance, those who have inspired us, taught us, and illuminated our path home to ourselves. In that spirit, I would like to introduce you to my cultural and intellectual lineage - the teachers, writers, artists, stewards, and visionaries who have helped me become the me I am proud to be.