My hair said, “Anoint me.” My hair said again, “anoint me”, as I got out of the shower doing what I normally do. Rub myself down in oil that I created for myself. The oil that fulfills both my love of sensation and my love of smell.

“Anoint me.” I heard again. In my healing, I have learned to listen to all parts of me. This includes listening to my hair. In my healing, I have also learned some communication is just intuitive. So with that understanding, I rub my oil to warm it up and sensually rub my locks.

From Crown to tip, smoothly, lovingly, affirmatively. I have a whole new relationship to Self and I have learned a lot about my healing, lovership, myself…all due to my relationship with my locs.

What’s lovership you may wonder?

Lovership is the embodiment of the care and concern you place in loving yourself and others. For those into astrology, it is your Venus (how you love) & your Moon (your emotional state). In her book All About Love, bell hooks shared the definition of love that resonates with her & it will move you. The definition comes from a notable self-help book, The Road Less Traveled by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. It goes:

Love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

She explains that will implies choice. Therefore, we can conclude that one has choice in giving and receiving love. Love is not just an emotion. It is an actionable experience. According to bell hooks love comprises 7 attributes: (1) care, (2) affection, (3) recognition, (4) respect, (5) commitment, (6) trust, and (7) honest and open communication. In using the word, “spiritual”, what Peck was referencing was the relationship between mind, body, and spirit.

My locs and lovership is rooted in both the spiritual and the sensual.

Most Black girls know their hair is their story, their healing story. This Black girl was no different. My hair story told me about the time I took for myself; how I felt about my body, how I felt about my Blackness (y'all know I joy in it); about the embodiment of Self and knowing myself. It was in the 8th grade when I first decided to love myself, no matter what others said. Now that I am in my late 40’s, I see how in my youth from Jheri curls to perms, my hair told stories that center others. In my adulthood and from pixie cuts to lower back length locs, my hair has told the stories that center me. Ever since I began my healing journey more than 18 years ago, my healing journey has always been symbolized by my hair journey. My adult stories of joy, pleasure, desirability, love, and sensuality, as well as anxiety, depression, and self-doubt. Those stories informed by stories of my youth are another conversation for another time.

Professionally, this Black girl became busier, but less active; navigating medical and social service settings, in addition to academic settings, and my hair was doing the transitions with me. From young adulthood (20s & 30s) to being firmly into my adulthood(40s), I needed hair that was stylish, low maintenance (stawp laughing), and most importantly made me feel hella sexy. Every Black girl know, we are “professional” or not, and our textured hair is professional, and with the historical racial discrimination of African textured hair, choosing my hair style(s) was quite intentional. Shout out to The CROWN ACT.

Over the years, I went from natural to permed pixie cuts then returned to natural. A few years ago, I considered Ph.D. hair and given the maintenance of my pixies, I chose to return to natural hair instead of short cuts. I grew my hair and maintained it with braids (with extensions). Yes, braids, the Black girl’s go-to when she is managing her time for maintenance with her need to keep her look together.

However, even with the low maintenance of braids, I was missing something. With braids, I realized I did not feel connected to the maintenance of the hair style. It’s a protective style and I was missing feeling connected to my hair. I also realized in choosing how I would wear my hair I did not want to sacrifice the relationship to how my hair always made me feel sexy. I had concretely named to myself-there was a relationship between my sexiness and my hair. When I thought of all of the hair styles that made me feel incredibly sexy-it was in my late twenties and early thirties and I was rocking…locs. My locs had made me feel connected to both my sexual and spiritual selves. Now, like then, my locs symbolizes my growth as a sexual spiritual person.

For me, healing is a liberation practice. I teach, coach, support, and live healing as a lifestyle and practice. Last year, I worked more intensely than ever before in painful and beautifully messy shadow work. That shadow work centered this question:

“What does liberated living look like?”

With more specific questions that centered my lived experience:

What is the liberated living for a Black queer curvy sexual spiritual person over the age of 45 who is me?

Here is what I can tell you:

Liberated living does not look like something I have never experienced but have always dreamed of. It is about me, in real time, recognizing my intent in pouring into me with the same grace and self-compassion I have poured into others. It is protecting my energy, my labor, my sacredness. I have learned to shift the narrative that my labor-be it emotional, mental, spiritual, sexual, physical, and/or metaphysical has no value, or valued only when I don’t ask for my desires or needs to be met. It is learning how to stretch my arm WIDE and reclaim my love and labor…for myself.

This all began with me understanding my relationship with my hair. Today, my locs have shown me how I take time for myself, how gentle or rough I am with myself, the energy I pour into, protect myself with, and replenish myself with. My locs represent my love. Honoring myself as a sexual-spiritual and spiritual-sexual human being, my complete and total love for Self. I am loc’d in love with myself.

My hope from you reading this piece is with love defined as“the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth”, allow your spirit to enhance and experience your lovership. You choose the journey of being locked in love…with you.

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Loc'd In Love: What My Locs Showed Me About My Healing