Shaved off my head

Hi friend,

I shaved my head today, not just a “buzz cut“, but completely shaved it.

Im literally bald; Why? you might ask.

There’s a kind of hermit crab that dies if it doesn’t find a bigger shell.

Its soft, vulnerable body grows slowly over time, until the shell that once protected it becomes a claustrophobic prison.

When this happens, the crab must leave the comfort of its current shell, venture out into the dangerous open, and risk being exposed, naked, unarmored, and killable while it searches for something bigger, something better.

The crab has no choice as if it delays too long, it will be crushed by its own growth.

The body will swell; the shell won’t.

The thing that once kept it safe will start to deform it.

The hiding place becomes a tomb.

But humans have one advantage over crabs - we can choose to stop growing.

We can choose to keep ourselves small enough to fit inside our old patterns, stay in the wrong shell, pretend we haven’t changed, and fold ourselves into the old shape just one more time.

We can choose comfort over truth, even if it slowly ruins us.

It’s easy to mock someone who clings to outdated beliefs or toxic habits, but most of us don’t resist growth because we’re lazy or deluded. We resist because we’re afraid.

Because unlike the crab, who simply gets bigger, growth for humans is often voluntary, and worse, it requires the death of our old selves.

Every real transformation involves a period of vulnerability.

When your old shell no longer fits, but you haven’t yet found a new one - that’s The Shedding Chapter.

That’s where the danger lives.

The moment when the old response doesn’t serve you anymore, but the new one hasn’t yet solidified.

You no longer want to shut down during conflict, but your voice still trembles when you speak.

You want to stop people-pleasing, but guilt claws at you when you set a boundary.

You want to act like the confident version of yourself, but you’re still haunted by the fear that it’s all pretend.

This in-between space is terrifying because you have no proof that this new shell will hold.

Which is why so many people never leave their old one.

They don’t stop growing because they’re flawed, they stop growing because growth makes them vulnerable, and vulnerability means pain.

So they become anorexic hermit crabs.

Shrinking themselves, starving their needs, suppressing their instincts.

They become too scared to want more, because wanting demands becoming.

They wear the same identity for a decade. Still the funny one. Still the reliable one. Still the lone wolf. Still the hard worker.

Not because it’s true, but because it fits.

Because no one questions it.

Because stepping out of that shell would mean enduring the awful moment where their new self gets laughed at, or worse, ignored.

And yet, what they’re afraid of isn’t failure, it’s exposure.

They fear being seen trying.

To try is to admit there’s something you want, and to want is to admit you don’t have it yet, and if you don’t have it yet then maybe you’re not enough.

So instead, they stay in the old shell.

Old beliefs. Old identity. Old coping mechanisms.

Better to be secure in a suffocating version of yourself than to be uncertain in a more expansive one.

But there’s a cost.

You can lie to your desires, but they don’t stop whispering, they just go quiet and bitter.

You’ll start to envy people who take risks, not because they always win, but because they had the guts to show up unarmored.

You’ll criticise others for being naive, impulsive, arrogant, but really you’re just allergic to your own dormant potential.

And eventually, like the crab, if you don’t grow, you don’t survive.

Not physically but spiritually, emotionally and creatively.

You become safe and dead.

Alive, but not really living.

(h/t Chris Williamson)

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