How my armpits inspired me to make conscious choices

I haven’t shaved or waxed my armpits in five years. And, until recently, I hadn’t given it all that much conscious thought, beyond the dull general awareness that I feel about my pit hair when I’m in certain settings.

Today I’m going to talk about armpit hair, and plunge into the realm of conscious choices.

Make conscious choices

I initially stopped shaving because I was going through a break-up. I was bouncing back from a momentary “losing my faith” moment, that quickly resulted in a strong reaffirmation of my faith in life, and love, and all of that.

During this reaffirmation time, I came to understand that I would be fine on my own. Better than fine. I would be great. But, in the process of establishing a new identity as a 25-year-old single woman and mother, some old habits that no longer served had to be replaced with better ones.

I started reading again and listening to music that I liked. I learned how to cook for real. And bake. And garden. I saved up my money and got breast reduction surgery. I bought a Volkswagon van with my tax return, painted pin-stripes on it, and dreamed of taking to the open road with my daughter.

I started noticing my choices, large and small. Turns out, a young woman’s life is filled with choices. All day long we’re excercising our choice muscles. Am I going to get out of bed right now? I can probably stay here another minute or so. Am I going to wear shoes or my usual sandals? What about breakfast? Should I wash this sink full of dishes now, or maybe just wait til they wash themselves later? Should I check Instagram? Again? Really? Should I let my daughter dress herself in paper bags with holes in them because she REALLY REALLY wants to?

I started to take the time to make more conscious choices. I tried not to make choices based on habit or common opinion or What I Think My Mother Would Do or what would Madonna Would Have Done In Her Like a Prayer Days. And it took mental monkey wrangling.

I had to think quick to stay on top of it. I had to meditate and get exercise to help tame the mental monkey. I felt sharper and I felt better. I learned how to take deep breaths. I started listening to my intuition and trusting my gut. And I was amazed to notice how many choices I had been making ignoring my gut and avoiding the choices that were mine to make.

Trust Your Gut

When faced with a constant stream of choices, trusting my gut was the key that opened the door to a much more conscious life. Around this time, my daughter started asking questions and I had to choose my responses carefully and go with my gut. “Mama, what are the scars for on your beeboos? Why do you shave your legs with a sharp knife? Your ankle is bleeding. I will make you a band aid out of this flower.”

Around this time, I stopped shaving. I got rid of all razors in the house. It was a combination of protecting my child (she got into every drawer at the age of two), embracing my own hairy-pitted mother, and ridding my life of a routine that I had woefully inflicted on myself since the tender and silky-haired age of 11.

In the past year I have pondered the topic of body hair and my feelings about it. Why would I want to alter my natural body in a way that feels wrong to make someone else feel more comfortable? Whose idea was this anyway? At what point was body hair on a woman not socially acceptable? Why is this even a topic of conversation?

I have basically kept my pit secret tucked carefully into tidy shirts with sleeves at work, and in certain social settings. I have insecurities about offending people with my hairy pits. I work in a salon, a feminist salon at that. But, I still wouldn’t expose my hairy pits there.

Programmed prejudice

Who says that hairy pits on women are gross, and why? Because prior to that being said, hairy pits were just exactly what they were. Hairy pits. I have seen the damage that is done to a woman’s feelings of self-worth when held to a standard of beauty. And it is not pretty.

Programmed prejudice, babes. Judgments we unconsciously make by following the pack mentality without the awareness of our own personal choice in the matter. Like that time in middle school where everyone picked on that one girl and no one knew why but they kept doing it because they thought they had to because everyone else did it. Our culture is littered with these sorts of prejudices and we get to choose to support them or not.

Our beauty dogma as women in American culture is dictated by programmed prejudice. We leave choices regarding our bodies up to someone else’s ideas of what is right and wrong. We shirk our own social responsibility as women by not making choices in line with our own values, following the belief that our beauty is unattainable without paying the price of judging ourselves, our worth, and our beauty through someone else’s lens. And then on top of that, we literally pay the price by buying our own beauty and supporting these standards. Because business is business, and business must grow, regardless of hair in my armpits, you know?

Programmed prejudice is all around us. Try and notice it when you can. And when you do, just remember that you get to choose to agree or not. We live in a consumer culture that is hugely driven by the big industry. We all know this by now. Millions of dollars are made every day by striking fear of our inadequacies and insecurities about how we measure up to others’ standards.

We were all born beautiful

At a young age, our views of beauty began to be shaped by what we see and hear around us. As children, our views of ourselves can become distorted so easily by witnessing others judge each other and themselves and us. The lady on the shampoo bottle told me I needed curly hair so I became obsessed with getting a perm because my hair was flat and ugly. I can recall my grandmother lovingly telling me at a young age that if I kept doing ballet, I would end up with fat legs, resulting in a long obsession with my gross fat legs. My other grandmother, bless her, was bulimic for nearly 70 of her 80 years on earth. She fought a war with her own body and lost.

We all have struggled with not feeling beautiful enough. But we are beautiful enough, as-is. And we can choose to believe that or not. And we can teach others that they are beautiful by finding the beauty inside.

Thinking twice

I’m convinced that body hair is re-emerging within modern-day feminism. It is happening all around you. We are in the throes of a small but powerful shift in the big beauty industry, a 60-billion dollar machine that chugs along, spilling money and empty promises and poor self-esteem and double standards.

The point is, women are questioning their choices as consumers and changing their habits to make way for something better for the next generation. And we need to. This is our responsibility as women. We are talking back to that big powerful machine.

Having hairy pits is direct-action feminism. According to my mother, it’s good old-fashioned ’60s feminism, and to me it feels like 2014 feminism, too. I urge you to practice good old fashioned/ultra-modern feminism with me by making conscious positive choices about your own body, that feel right to you. Whether that means shaving your pits because you like to, or letting them grow because you don’t like shaving. Figure out whose voice is dictating your choice. Is your own self-loving, self-accepting, earth-loving, woman-loving voice involved in the decision?

By having hairy pits, I am exercising my right to make my own choices about my own body. I am modeling that for my daughter. And I just simply feel like three times a woman with silky hair in my pits.

#pitcrew

I invite you all to join me in a quest for a life of conscious living, true, beautiful, and inspired by sharing your pit shots, hairy, stubbly, or shaved, on your social media and hashtagging them #pitcrew. Let’s get this shit growing.