(December 18, 2006)

Something interesting came to me in meditation on Wednesday. I won't use the 'W' word [weird], although it would be an accurate word to describe it.

I had been reflecting on the video of Pema Chodron we were watching in class. While watching this video, it was almost like this complete deja v experience--everything she spoke of seemed so real to me, and almost like I'd heard it before. It was as if the world around me disappeared when the video began and her words resounded in my heart and mind. She spoke about maitri, which is the root of compassion: befriending oneself. It is the Buddhist belief that happiness lie within ourselves, though often we try to search for it externally. Maitri is an unconditional friendship with oneself and an unconditional acceptance of the person you are. There will be pain (dukkha) in life, but rather than struggling against it, we can accept and embrace it without repressing our emotions.

The first journal I ever wrote for Philosophy concerned Hindu studies. We had been reading the Bhagavad Gita and I wrote about Krishna's constant smile in face of hard times and about my longtime struggle with alopecia. At the time, I was just beginning to step back and see the bigger picture and since then I've come to really accept my hair loss. As I was listening to Pema Chodron speak, everything she was saying spoke so true to what I was going through. I see that I need to embrace the struggles in my life and to stop criticizing myself. I know that I am still working on seeing myself clearly and being honest with myself, but I feel that I am going in a good direction down that path. I know I'm not to the place I need to be at, but it's a work in progress. However, if I had written this journal a week ago, my ego would've come out and I would have said that I was well on the path towards being honest with myself, but that would've ben a lie.

Since the end of last school year I had been actively promoting to my friends to donate their hair to Locks of Love because I felt a shared connected feeling to all of those who have lost their hair. I know what it is like to lose something you love, and I know how amazing it feels to know there is someone out there in the world who is willing to give you back that thing, even if it means a loss for themselves. I've shared my passion for Locks of Love with several people, but nothing has affected me the way my talk with Morgan Jones did. She had been actively promoting Locks of Love too, and I instant messaged her online the other night to thank her and tell her that I thought what she was doing was amazing. I wasn't prepared for her response. She told me that she had to confess, although it was hard for her to admit, that she was terrified to cut off her hair. She said that her hair was always the one thing that made her feel beautiful, no matter what, and that even though she knew it would grow back, something made her sad and scared about losing it.

Something about her words struck me and I began to cry; honestly, I couldn't figure out why. Morgan and I are friends, and every time we have a conversation, it is something profound to me, but why did her statement make me tear so much as opposed to those of my "best" friends?

I thought about it and I realized that her open display of emotion spoke to me. I knew it was hard for her to acknowledge that she depended on her hair for beauty and I saw that her exterior confidence was a mask: She was scared. And it really meant something to me that she was willing to let her mask fall and open herself up to a hard truth and to being vulnerable.

As I sat in meditation, I thought more about this. There was something else, I knew. As I continued to reflect on Pema Chodron, maitri, Locks of Love, and my conversation with Morgan, I realized why the flood of tears was so quick to escape me: I saw myself in Morgan's words.

When I was younger, my hair was one of my favorite things about me. I always got compliments on it, and I loved playing with it. When I began to lose my hair, I was terrified. My comfort and beauty was being taken away and it hurt me. I went through many emotions about it, and after ten years, I finally see the truth--that it isn't so much about being accepted by others, it is about accepting myself. Morgan's words reflected the seven-year old me who cried in fear as her hair fell out; it reflected the twelve-year old me who smiled when a wig covered her shame; it reflected the fourteen-year old me who, for the first time, opened herself up to her friends about having alopecia; it reflects the me who still searches for that something real hidden by my fears and uncertainties. And most importantly (and the root of it all), it reflects the me right here, right now.

The words that Morgan and I exchanged were not those of "condescending compassion" (as Pema Chodron put it)--I have never felt a disheartening pity from her that I have felt from others before; instead, she opened herself up to genuine honesty, even if it meant acknowledging a part of her that scared her and that made me see that I had fallen back into a denial about my own condition.

I think back to the video we watched in class and now I understand what Pema Chodron meant when said to "lean into" the pain of life and the embarrassment of being oneself. I see that for the past year while I have began the path towards my pain, I always hold myself back from going too far in fear of looking too closely at my faults.

I am still terrified. Not as much as before, but I'm still scared. I had talked myself into believing that I was okay and had completely embraced my imperfections, but truthfully I have not. My tears over Morgan's words came from a place deep within that I hadn't realized still existed. Her fear was and is mine too, and with that realization I can begin to really journey towards a place that scares me.