Why a ‘Spiritual Haircut’ Probably Won’t Help You Get Over a Breakup

Spiritual haircuts have already taken off in Hollywood, with celebrities willing to pay around $300 dollars for the ritualistic cut in the hope that it will heal past hurts. It seems to be taking off in the UK too.

What exactly is a spiritual haircut? Well, before you go and picture getting your hair chopped off while doing Vinyasa yoga, let’s just say that it is a little simpler than that. Mostly, you’ll just be getting your haircut done at a salon, where the hairdresser will feel what style you need rather than you asking for something specific. You’ll then go home and burn your hair around New Moon in a ‘healing ritual’.

What’s the theory behind these haircuts?

The basic idea behind a spiritual haircut is that hair holds past energy. When you chop it off, you’re letting go of those stresses and emotional traumas too. Apparently, it’s also got to do with the crown chakra, which is on the top of the head. This chakra is linked to intuition and clarity, so working with the hair is an opportunity to clear and balance that particular chakra.

Why they don’t work to heal traumas

There are not many women out there that can claim they’ve never had a breakup haircut. You know the one. It’s normally a little out of character, maybe a bit shorter than you’d usually go, or perhaps a bolder color. The breakup haircut always seems to embolden us with a little self-confidence and makes us feel like we have turned over a new leaf, but ultimately, it doesn’t change our lives and we still need to work through all the baggage that we have collected from our past traumas.

Well, a spiritual haircut acts in pretty much the exact same way, and I’m going to unpack some of the ways it feels like it’s healing someone at the time, but how ultimately it will fall flat in the long run.

It may feel like a therapy session, but it isn’t one

Daily Mail journalist Radhika Sanghani, recently wrote about her spiritual haircut experience, “But instead of the usual questions about layers and length, Jannina asks what’s been happening in my life. It’s disconcerting, but as she smiles reassuringly, I find myself opening up about the changes in my life, career dreams, and dating hopes. It feels like a therapy session, and at one point, I realize I haven’t mentioned my hair.”

I’m no stranger to a good ‘hairdresser therapy’ session myself and we’re bound to talk about our experiences when we are going in for a post-breakup cut. Hairdressers just seem to have that way about them – they can get you to open up without putting in too much effort.

While this can be cathartic, it’s by no means a good alternative for a professional therapy session. In fact, what we should take from it, is how good it feels to talk about our problems and how much we could benefit from doing that regularly with a trained professional.

Counseling, therapy, and trauma programs are not one-hit wonders and you’ll need several intense sessions to work through your past. That’s why one session with a hairdresser might feel good, but ultimately isn’t the answer to your problems.

The ritual feels like closure, but it isn’t a good substitute for the real thing

Sanghani continues later on in the article, “I open my eyes, dazed, and realize I’m crying. Jannina tells me she also felt like crying as she released all the old grief I was holding onto. ‘Hair washing is important, because the hair is like a magnet and it picks up so much energy,’ she explains. ‘Water cleanses that negative charge. That is why hair washing can leave you in a sublime state.’”

She’s then advised to take the hair home and do some sort of ritual with it, such as burning it for closure.

There are a number of different things of a similar ilk that we can do after a breakup that will be just as cathartic. Tearing up old love letters and burning them, writing out apology letters that we think we should have received from our ex, keeping a journal, etc. These are all rituals that will help us heal in the long run, but they are just part of a much longer journey and certainly aren’t a miracle cure to closure from heartbreak.

Change feels good but a haircut isn’t enough on its own

“The heaviness I’d previously felt has gone, perhaps because I’ve just lost ten inches of hair, or maybe, thanks to Jannina’s healing hands.”

Any post breakup haircut is testament to the fact that while some change feels good, it certainly isn’t going to heal all your trauma. A couple of weeks pass and you tend to get used to their haircut and then it’s back to thinking about your ex or getting triggered over things you had forgotten about for a little bit.

What a haircut can do, however, is be the building block to lasting physical and mental changes that can really benefit you in the long run. If a haircut feels this good, can you imagine how amazing you’d feel with endorphins from strength training, outdoor runs, a Pilates class, and more? How great would you feel after making healthier changes to your eating too? When you feel good in your body, that naturally improves your mindset and this will go a long way in helping you to move on to a better and brighter future.

You don’t heal from a breakup if you don’t put the work in

At the end of the day, healing doesn’t just happen. It takes time, effort, and consistency. Healing isn’t a linear journey either – there will be ups and downs and back and forth and everything else in between.

Healing is the sum of many different parts and while this could include a haircut for some, it’s certainly not the answer. It would be fantastic if a haircut could help us after a breakup. Unfortunately, it’s simply like putting a band-aid on a wound that needs stitches.

In many cases, healing from a breakup takes hard work and the help of a trained professional.

Contact us at Naked Recovery for information on how we can help you heal from a breakup, divorce, or other trauma.