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Showing posts with label cutting hair after a tram trmatic event. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cutting hair after a tram trmatic event. Show all posts

What does cutting hair after a traumatic event mean non verbally? What does it mean when a woman cuts her hair?

What does cutting hair after a traumatic event mean non verbally?
No matter what the length our hair it tells the world who we are, without us having to say one word. Hair cutting can then symbolize any transition. It makes sense that when our outside lives change, we have been hurt, we end a relationship, we get ready for our wedding or perhaps a long trip to the outback or a new job that we change our hair, one of the first things people see and notice about us. What’s on top of our head reflects are thoughts and our emotions.
Some women who have been traumatized, victimized cut their hair as a symbolic self-beating or mutilation to show the world their pain, their victimization. It says, “I have been scarred and cut on the inside, so let my head show my inner hurt.” Sometimes its bulk and ability to cover us, makes it a security blanket, or shield that protects us from close observation and harm and cutting it away can says, “I am vulnerable to harm, I cannot protect myself.”
Historically, hair was seen as a holding power, some even going so far to believe it acted as a sense organ or antenna and or held memories. Across ancient history you find often that when people where conquered or enslaved their hair was cut to show others they were enslaved. It was understood that hair show power and that cutting it would serve as punishment. Think of the biblical story or Sampson and Delilah cut Sampson hair and the undefeatable Sampson was defeated. So cutting your hair brutally would symbolically say, “I have no longer have power.”
For many women, long hair is a fantasy women, “I am a fairy tale princess feature. We were raised on the perfect fantasy princess and Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, Snow White, and Ariel, they all have long hair. Sometimes our long hair feels like a beauty fantasy builder, Evolutionary psychology research shows that women’s hair is a signal for mate selection, there is significant correlation between hair length and age, (younger women tend to have longer hair than older women) and hair length and quality can act as a cue to a women’s you and health. So if a women has been sexually abuse would want to cut off what she may mistakenly believe her is the part of her that attracted harm so it says, “I cut my hair to show I am not longer want to be sexually attractive, in fact I am ugly so be repelled”  
Finally, some women cut their hair to symbolically cut off the old and start anew.  The hair cutting for them can is a symbolic freeing from chains, a liberation or merely shedding of an “old skin” or simplifying, making life easier and gaining time. So symbolic a women that cuts her hair can be symbolically shedding of the societal standards of beauty, cutting off expectations that she will act like a traditional women, changing how she looked in the past, and embracing a new self.








Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.