Make Something Beautiful

I have been coloring my own hair in my bathroom, with a box of dye from the drugstore, since March. It wasn’t pretty, but it did the job; it covered all the grays. And I decided that the dull, one-note, dark brown helmet that resulted was not the worst tragedy to come out of the pandemic.

But the home color jobs, coupled with the fact that I hadn’t had a haircut for 8 months was starting to make me feel like Wednesday Adams.

Finally, last Saturday, I went to the salon for the first time since the pandemic began. My darling stylist looked at me with compassion and shrugged, “You do what you gotta do.” And then she got to work.

She colored it, she put in gorgeous caramel highlights, she worked her balayage magic, she made neat stacks of foil around my head, and applied a gloss. She meticulously sectioned and painted and wrapped my hair one tiny section at a time. Then she shampooed and deep conditioned, cut and layered and styled my hair. I felt completely transformed.

I looked in the mirror and thought, “Oh yeah, I forgot I could look this good.” And I couldn’t help falling a little bit in love with myself.

My stylist is so good at what she does. And it totally delights me that she uses her gifts and talents to make my life better. I love how that works.

I think we all have gifts.

And when we use them right, I think it makes life better for all the people we share the planet with. As Glennon Doyle wrote, “Each of us was born to bring forth something that has never existed…leaving [the world] changed forever by who we are and what we bring forth from our depths.”

And the only thing that gets in the way of doing our work and changing the world for someone else is fear—fear that we won’t do it right, fear that we don’t really know how, fear that it won’t work or we’re sure to fail, fear of what other people will think.

But notice that the things we’re scared of only exist somewhere in the future. They are never a problem right now. Right now we are always fine. But our brain uses that scary, imaginary future to keep us from doing anything right now to bring forth our unique work and change the world.

Don’t let it. Remind your brain that right now you are fine. There is no danger here.  And then go make your home, your neighborhood, the world more beautiful for everyone in it.

You were born to do it in a way that no one else can.

You got this.

xo,

April

P.S. I help my clients happily ignore the wild fearmongering of their own brains so they can create all kinds of beauty in the world. And I can help you too.