Dermaplaning Your Midlife
"WHAT DOES DERMAPLANING HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR MIDLIFE CALLING?" ASKED ABSOLUTELY NO ONE.
Allow me...
Midlife places many demands on us. Perhaps chief among them is vulnerability. At a level that might be even further amplified by these pandemic times, amirite?
But when we acknowledge that “things aren't what they seem to be" and instead choose to adopt a more open orientation toward the world, we're better able to examine the layers underneath the surface.
Enter: dermaplaning.
Last week, I took Mom on a daylong adventure of surprises to celebrate her reaching Level 70 (pssst: that's a more fun way of saying 70th birthday). Alongside the garden visits, fried chicken, and cat petting, I booked us facials (shout out to the Face Foundrie for the lovely experience!). Mine included dermaplaning (a.k.a., I let someone take a scalpel to my face to remove dead skin).
After our facials, we dined on fried chicken in the muggy Minnesota heat as Mom's college bestie regaled us with stories. Between the chicken wing sauce smeared on my hands, the sweltering sun, a strong need to pee (but without bathroom access), and a sweat-induced burning sensation on my deeply exfoliated chin, I was a LITERAL (o.g. version of the word) HOT MESS.
In that moment, I realized I had a choice: lean into the agitation or take a beat to appreciate this sensory experience. If I'm being honest, it was a stru-ggle. But after some 4-7-8 breathwork and a move to the shade, the all-consuming discomfort passed.
And I realized a few things...that have as much to do with midlife malaise as they do my mealtime misery:
As we uncover new layers, we discover things we haven’t seen before. E.g., newly exposed skin + sweat = seemingly intolerable stinging/burning
Often, these are small, incremental realizations, rather than large leaps of revelation. E.g., the act of eating chicken wings is completely void of grace, which I didn't know mattered so much to me (a self-professed rascal)
Through it all, what emerges are the value of curiosity and the skill of discernment. E.g., Can I be with my distress to allow Mom more time with her friend she seldom gets to see? Turns out, I can.
When we get curious about peeling (or dermaplaning) away the layers, we allow ourselves the opportunity to see things we might not have seen on our own during our younger years. This isn't just a platitude--it's science! As we age, we learn to view the positive and negative, and to synthesize them to create a more integrated sense of self, in all its frailty and vulnerability. This allows us to transcend self-concerns (sweating! burning! peeing pants!) to integrate our capacity for introspection with a concern for others.
As you consider a metaphorical dermaplaning of your life, what's calling you?
Professionally...spiritually...mentally...physically...emotionally...a calling can mean so many things. What are you awakening to? And what will you need to shed (or scalpel away, so to speak)?
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