Laying Down the Old Diadem

Sometimes, the answers our intuition offers bring tremendous relief—a soft reassurance that gently guides us toward our next step.

Other times, they are the last thing we want to hear.

We deny them, push them away, bargain with them. Yet somewhere within us, a quieter part knows: yes, this is the way.

Throughout my life, I have reinvented and rebirthed myself many times. And now, life was asking me to do it again.

This time, though, it felt as if so much more was at stake.

The life I had built after my divorce two years ago was something I cherished. Solitude had been a desperately welcome respite, giving me room to heal and recover from a deeply challenging chapter.

Eventually though, that same quiet began to reveal another desire: to re-enter the world and share what these years of rupture and return had taught me.

But I was terrified.

I had tried to walk this path before. The struggle to find my footing had stretched across decades, eventually leading me into a marriage with a man I wasn’t in love with and work I had little passion for. Now, here I was again, standing at that familiar crossroads.

However, I have become a different woman now, carrying wisdom I hadn’t possessed then. Still, I could feel the fear left by those long, brutal days of barely scraping by. “Living paycheck to paycheck” hardly captured it.

It had all been so hard.

Yet I could no longer deny the call. I knew this was the path I wanted to walk. And somewhere beneath the fear, I also knew it could unfold differently this time.

So two months ago, I worked my final day at my job and recommitted myself to that path.

For the first week, I rested.

Then, I wrote. I wrote for what seemed like weeks on end.

I poured myself onto the page, distilling nearly twenty years of experience, questions, and philosophy. During that time, I also began speaking on camera—something I had spent ten years trying to gather the courage to do.

I had finally shown myself: yes, I can do this.

Then I hit a wall.

I could speak on camera. But could I let people really see me?

Could I lay open my soul?

Through my years of teaching, I had grown comfortable sharing the philosophies and teachings of ancient traditions. But sharing my own understanding—letting my life and heart become part of the offering—felt far more exposing.

For an entire week, I was in a tailspin. The steadiness of my practice began to falter, and I noticed myself reaching for familiar coping mechanisms I thought I had left behind.

As another week began, I came hobbling back to earnest prayer.

I was at a loss. What else could I do?

For several days, I spoke with the Creator. I wrote about my struggle. I visited the frightened little girl within me. Eventually, I loosened my grip on the need to push forward and allowed myself to be present with the pain of where I was.

I began to understand more intimately how much she had carried: the feeling that she had to perform to receive acceptance and love, that belonging had to be earned, that she had to enter frightening situations without the guidance and support she needed.

This time, I stayed with her.

We grieved together. I couldn’t change what she had lived through, but I could offer her my presence now.

Then came an unexpected message.

One I wasn’t ready to hear.

Fourteen years ago, I went to India to study Yoga.

It was a pivotal time in my life. I had left a partner of two and a half years and moved from Chicago, where I had lived for over a decade, to San Francisco. There, I finally stopped habitually using hard drugs. And my time in India became another turning point, helping me leave alcohol behind as well.

Before I left for India, I felt a deep inner knowing that I needed to shave my head.

I couldn’t fully explain it. I only knew that the act felt necessary—a physical expression of the changes already taking place within me.

And it proved deeply supportive. It helped me mark the passage into a new way of living.

This week, that same invitation returned.

Shave your head.

I tried to pretend I hadn’t heard it. Then I dismissed it as a passing whim.

But the feeling remained.

For me, hair carries memory and meaning. Changing it can become a way of marking an ending, making room for something new.

Sometimes, a small change is enough.

But this time, I felt called to let it all go.

And my resistance showed me how much my hair had come to hold: my sense of identity, my familiarity with my appearance, a cherished expression of my femininity.

I loved her.

I still do.

Yet I felt drawn to discover how my femininity might find expression beyond the appearance I had grown so accustomed to.

For me, shaving my head would be a deliberate physical interruption—a ceremony I could touch and see, marking a transition I was struggling to make inwardly.

When I finally allowed myself to consider saying yes, I sobbed.

I wept for the woman I had been. For the life she had built. For everything she had endured, and everything that familiar reflection in the mirror had come to represent.

I felt I was being asked to release something I had carried through these past several years. My hair had become a symbol of that passage, and letting it go felt both tender and profound.

I am now in the process of creating a ceremony of grieving, release, and rebirth.

I want to honor the woman who brought me here as I make room for the life I feel called to enter—a life devoted more fully to the work I have to give.

I am still grieving. Still listening. And writing this helps.

I remind myself that my hair will grow back.

And as she grows, I hope to meet her with a fuller understanding of the woman wearing her—more present, more expressive, more at home in herself.

For now, I am preparing to lay down the old diadem, with gratitude for all she has crowned. And I am ready to discover the sovereignty that lies beneath it.