A haircut, anonymity and chakras

23/2 - The wolf has awoken.

I noticed something earlier today when I was sitting in the coiffure (barber) chair and looking at myself in the mirror, while the French woman with the firetruck-red hair and black leather jacket carefully cleaned up my head.

The ghost of a grin was on my face. Yes, I love getting a haircut, but this was more than that. Even to myself, I felt a bit of mystery. Why did I have that twinkle in my eye? Why was I smirking like that? It probably looked odd to the woman cutting my hair.

I examined my own features and found that I liked them! Even my lazy eyelid looks cool now because it provides my face with asymmetry. My bushier-by-the-day beard elongates my round face, and the faint lines on my still-young forehead gives it character. I looked directly into my hazel, gray-green eyes and pictured my inner wolf; It was smiling as well, sitting proudly upright and excited to have gained a bit of knowledge about itself.

I met a friend for a drink tonight at a local brewery here in Cherbourg, and the first thing she said was that my new haircut looks great and I have a different look in my eye from the last time we saw each other. Was it a coincidence from earlier today?

Soul searching for the past couple of weeks has been illuminating for me. It's helped me to understand that I must carry the lessons from the past with me, but not the guilt of previous mistakes. It's taught me that memory is unreliable when it comes to remembering exactly who we were in the past, because our own memories are in a constant state of flux.

But most of all, this soul searching has uncovered my inner wolf and helped it break free of its self-imposed muzzle, collar and leash.

24/2 - The wolf is not an alcoholic. Never has been. But Step No. 12 (Twelfth Tradition) of Alcoholics Anonymous captured its imagination today.

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. 

One must put aside their personal desires, emotions and self-beliefs for the good of all. Anonymity can also be represented by selflessness; these two abstract ideas can mirror each other. Anonymity can be achieved through selflessness, but selflessness can also be achieved through anonymity. There is, however, a minor roadblock to both: we can never achieve total selflessness or anonymity because neither totally agrees with the human mind.

The very concept of anonymity, especially in our capitalistic society where social media exists, is a foreign idea (and somewhat feared). We're encouraged from birth to put ourselves ahead of others in order to gain an advantage. We are taught to create our own brand; anonymity means we're irrelevant. This is difficult because, as human beings, we all want something for ourselves; the brain just works that way.

The ideas of selflessness and selfishness seem to be closely related. They also resemble the mystery of whether the chicken or the egg came first. We can do a selfless deed and not expect anything in return, but we get a great feeling from helping another person. Thus, we ultimately benefit in the end, and we know we will always receive this feeling. Is this selfish in itself? Is recovery in AA a selfish endeavor?

Another fascinating concept of Step No. 12 is "principles before personalities." We must treat people the same, no matter our level of dislike for them. Honor, respect, loyalty, patience, understanding. We must listen to the message, and not the messenger.

25/2 - This blog has mentioned chakras once, how my discovery of a fear and subsequent release of that fear was like opening one of the body's seven major chakras. It seems that, throughout 2017, I've been clearing out a couple of these chakras with my release of self-guilt and shame. With the commitment to accepting myself and all of my various flaws, telling others about my feelings for them and being totally honest and open, more of these energy centers are receiving attention.

Unintentionally, I've been helping myself spiritually these past few months. I've never been a spiritual person in any sense of the word, and the fact that I'm studying ideas from AA, spirituality, existentialism...would have been surprising to me back in October. I think the aforementioned story of my haircut highlights that, because my own view of myself is changing.

Something has clicked.