What she doesn’t realize is that the haircut in that picture may not work with her hair texture. It may not accentuate her features, and it may not be the best style for her. When I used to teach haircutting, everything came back to one word: suitability. A haircut can look gorgeous on someone else, but if it doesn’t suit you, it just doesn’t work.

So I start by asking, “What is it about this picture that you love?” She’ll point it out. She loves the length. She loves the fullness. Then I ask, “Okay, what don’t you like?” Honestly, that’s usually where I get the most clarity. Then I explain why I don’t think that exact cut is the best option for her, which parts of it might work and which parts won’t, and from there I give her my ideas. Then I hand her a mirror so she can see what I’m talking about while I point it out.

And usually she says, “Oh, I see what you’re saying.”

I love that moment. I explained it to her, she saw it for herself, and then she understood the why behind it.

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I’ve been thinking about that moment a lot lately, because I’ve been thinking about my goals, especially with the new year right around the corner. That’s what we do, right? LOL. And when I set goals, I like to create affirmations around them so they really sink in.

A lot of what we’re taught about affirmations comes down, in the simplest way, to taking what you’re afraid of or what you don’t want and flipping it to the positive. “I don’t have enough money” becomes “I am abundant.” The flip is a lot like the photo. It shows what you want, and that’s a great start. But it’s generic, and just like haircuts, one size doesn’t fit all.

We’re also taught to just think positive and things will change. That couldn’t be further from the truth. How many New Year’s resolutions have you made with the best intentions and the most positive attitude, only to forget about them in a week or two? We can’t positive our way out of subconscious beliefs. So much of what we do runs on autopilot, and if you’re saying “I am abundant” while an old belief is still running the show, part of you hears it and goes, “Mm-hmm, sure.” Positive thinking is a real benefit once you’ve done the inner work. It’s just not the way to lead. I learned that the long way, starting back in 2012, when I finally did the deeper inner work on my own patterns.

And here’s what I hear from a lot of women. She’s read the books. She’s done the work, probably more than most. She’s not missing information, but something is still holding her back from a goal or an outcome she really wants, and she can’t quite put her finger on why. She knows it’s there. She doesn’t have the words for it

.

That’s where things started to make sense for me. I’m in the process of considering retirement and starting a new business, and as I was working on my own affirmations around it, I started using a tool that maps the patterns you were born with. One of mine is self-doubt (more on that another time). What helps me work through it is self-inquiry, asking myself better questions. So instead of spinning on “Do I have anything worth sharing that can help other women?” I can ask, “What’s one thing I know that I can share to help someone?” That question gets me focused on just one thing, and that’s what moves me away from confusion towards clarity.

Having the language for a pattern I’ve consistently felt gave me something to work with. It helped me stop spiraling and get to the core of why I was stuck, so I could move through these challenges more efficiently and rewrite what wasn’t working.

So instead of the flip being something like “I trust myself completely,” my affirmation is, “I am asking myself better questions so that I can get clarity around my goal.” It’s personalized to me, and it resonates. It was my own “Oh, I see what you’re saying” moment.

I’m working on something around this, and I’ll share more soon. In the meantime, I’m curious: what’s an affirmation you’ve said a hundred times that never felt like yours? Tell me in the comments.

Peace, love and good hair days,

Chris

All through high school, my parents instilled in me the importance of going to college, so I went and got my business degree. Back in high school, my grades were so good that I had enough credits to take an occupational program, so I went into cosmetology because I thought it was cool. I figured it would be something fun to get me through college. But here we are, 38 years later... When my parents wanted to buy property here in Los Angeles, I figured I’d take a class so I could understand more and help them. That deep dive turned into a California real estate license.

Then there was a time in my life when I hit rock bottom and realized the only common denominator was ME. I started Googling, searching for something that could help me do the inner work, and found spiritual psychology. Two years later, I had my master’s degree. When midlife symptoms showed up and my doctors didn’t have answers, I started researching my own body, did DNA testing, got completely fascinated, and got certified so I could help other women too. And right now, I’m working on another certification. Soooo… this is me. 🙃

Life hands me something. I get curious and go all in.

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A while back, I found tools that finally gave me the language to go even deeper. One of the first things they showed me was this exact pattern. I’m someone who figures life out by trying things. I experiment, I learn (sometimes the hard way), I keep what works, and then I share what I’ve learned. When I read that, it made so much sense of why I’m interested in ALL. OF. THE. THINGS. I’ve never felt embarrassed about always wanting to learn something new, but there was this tiny part of me saying “another thing?!” Seeing it in black and white felt almost validating, because it was like, yes, another thing, because that’s just how I roll. It’s just in my nature…it’s who I AM.

Then I tried it on my husband, who knows absolutely nothing about any of this. At the time, he’d been in his position for just a few months, doing arbitration and talking with a lot of people, sometimes in really tense and frustrating situations. One thing that jumped out was that one of his gifts is knowing when to speak, and that the way he says something often carries more than the words themselves. So many people had been acknowledging him for exactly this: how calm he stays, how well he handles himself, and how much easier that makes tough situations for everyone. I think he had recognized it in himself before, but learning it was one of his gifts was pretty cool to him. He went to work and told his coworkers about “this thing” his wife pulled up for him. 😂 He still doesn’t know what it’s called.

But here’s the other side of it. For at least 10 years, that little voice kept telling me there was something more, and I just kept pushing it aside. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I had anything relevant to share, or that I knew enough. What would I even put out there? Would anyone even be interested? Am I really that different? So I did what I do best. I took course after course, thinking the next one would finally make me ready. Then I saw it in my own design, and it named exactly what I’d been feeling: a fear of not knowing enough. Sure, everyone doubts themselves sometimes and can probably relate to this, but what surprised me was seeing that for me, this fear is a built-in pattern. It explained why I kept reaching for one more course, and it showed me how to work through it in a way that actually made sense to me. I mean, how easy is that?! I’ve done a lot of subconscious work over the years, and I spent so much time trying to uncover what was really keeping me stuck. This gave me the actual language for it, and that fast-tracked my growth. I could finally focus on the patterns running the show.

What I learned was that the way through this fear is to focus on being resourceful. I already know I am super resourceful, and seeing it there was the reminder I needed. So I flipped it. I don’t need every answer. I just need enough to begin, and trust that I’ll figure out the rest along the way. Starting is actually how I learn the most. Here's what that looks like for me right now. The old me would have said, "I'll share this once I finish my certification and know everything." Now I say, "I know enough to help with one thing. I'll start, learn from every woman I work with, and keep studying along the way." Sitting with that is what finally got me moving.

I’ve been self-studying these tools since 2020, and this past year, I went all in with a mentor to go even deeper. Up until now, I’ve only used them on myself. Well, on myself, my husband, my sister, my best friend, and a cousin here and there. You get the point. But now I’m ready to really practice with other women who are where I’ve been, and honestly, where I still am now.

Let’s play! If this resonated with you and you're interested in seeing a potential pattern running behind the scenes for you, send me your birth date, EXACT time, city, state and country. Then tell me ONE thing you want, even if it's still a little fuzzy. Maybe it's starting a new career, writing a book, learning an instrument or another language, or having a better relationship with your partner. And maybe there's a gap between knowing it and actually doing it, and you just don't know what's holding you back. I'll look at everything you share and point out one powerful thing that catches my attention. It could open your eyes to something you've never noticed before.

I’m doing this with the first 10 women who reply. You can reply to this email or send me a DM on Substack. (Reading this on the web? Hit subscribe below first, it's free.) You'll hear back from me within a week. 😊

Peace, love and good hair days,
Chris

This April, I’ll have been doing hair for 39 years. Thirty-nine, and I still love it! I love my clients, I love the conversations that happen in the chair, and I love the moment a woman looks in the mirror and feels amazing. That’s honestly what makes listening to this little voice harder, because I actually love what I do. It would be easier if the opposite were true, but it’s not, so here we are.

For about 10 years now (okay, maybe longer), it’s been telling me there’s something more. Like a lot of us do, I’ve pushed it aside. I’m happy with my life, so why change a good thing? But it’s been getting louder and harder to ignore.

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Back in my 40s, I hit what I would call a rock bottom. I was making the same choices over and over again, only to get results I didn’t want. Finally, I came to the realization that the only common denominator was ME, and I was the one who needed to make the changes. You know that feeling when you know deep down you deserve more, but you keep making the same choices anyway, thinking this time will be different, and then it isn’t? Yup, that was me.

So I went all in on the inner work. And of course, it wasn’t just a weekend course. I spent two years getting my Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology, because apparently that’s how I do things. 🙃 Honestly, it was the best gift I’ve ever given myself. It helped me see the patterns that kept repeating in my life, let go of the beliefs that were quietly running the show, and start choosing differently. My life changed. My relationships changed. And I started creating better experiences.

The life I love today was built on all of that work, and here's the thing: it's ongoing. I never stop. I'm always on this journey of growing and understanding myself better. Spiritual Psychology has helped me so much, and yet sometimes, even when I recognize a pattern is there, I can't quite put my finger on it. Then I found tools that finally gave me the language to go even deeper, and they've opened me up even more. And what keeps coming up is that I want to help women experience this too!

Especially the woman who’s in this phase of life with me. She’s in midlife, and her body is changing in ways she can’t ignore. Maybe the kids are out of the house, or they just don’t need her the way they used to. She may love her work and still not want to do it the same way for another 10 years. She’s checked a lot of the boxes she was supposed to check, and the things she used to put up with just don’t sit right anymore. Now there’s finally a little room to ask what she actually wants. And that little voice she’s been quieting for years is getting through: it’s my turn. I want more.

If you’ve been here a while, this part is especially for you. When I started Beauty Inside Out, I wrote a lot about hair loss and midlife symptoms. That’s still part of the story, and I’ll keep writing about it, because I like to look at every woman as a whole, inside and out. But I realized I wanted to go deeper. What really lights me up is helping a woman listen to that thing inside of her that’s asking for more, so she can live her dream life, watch the possibilities open up, and make this next chapter feel exactly the way she wants it to.

So that’s where we’re headed. I’ve always been the one who tries all the things (honestly, I’ve collected more licenses and certificates than I care to admit). I used to think that meant I was all over the place, but now I know that’s just how I figure things out. I try things, I learn from them, and I keep what works. So I’ll be experimenting my way through this next chapter, and I want to take you along for the ride. More stories, more of my own process (messy parts included), and plenty of beauty, wellness, and other fun stuff along the way, because I really want you to get to know the real me. If you’re in, I’m so glad you’re here.

That’s my little voice. What’s yours? Is it to write a book, start that creative project that’s been on your heart, a new business, or just to feel like yourself again? I’d love to know!

Peace, love and good hair days,
Chris

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But the more I sat with it, the more I started wondering if getting back was even the right goal. What if I’m not supposed to go back to who I was?

Because this season has opened up so much more than questions about hormones or how I feel physically. It has made me look at my life differently. I started noticing where I put myself second, where I second-guessed what I wanted, where I knew something and then immediately talked myself out of it. I started noticing the ideas that kept coming back, the things I kept saying I wanted to do but somehow never quite did, and the parts of me that wanted to be expressed but that I still held back because I was waiting to feel more ready, more certain, or more qualified.

My work has been one of the biggest places I’ve felt this. The interesting thing is that I love what I do. I’m not sitting here thinking I chose the wrong path or that I need to burn everything down and start over. I genuinely love it. And at the same time, I know there is more in me. There is more I want to say, more I want to create, and more I want to put out into the world.

That has actually been confusing at times because I think a lot of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that if we want something more, it must mean we’re ungrateful for what we already have. Or, why would we change something that is safe and secure. Honestly, I don’t believe that anymore. I think we can love what we’ve created and still know that it no longer holds all of who we are becoming.

Once I started noticing this in myself, I started seeing versions of it everywhere. I see it in women who are beginning to question their relationships, not necessarily because they don’t love their partner, but because the dynamics they’ve lived with for years don’t feel okay anymore. I see it in women who are caring for aging parents and realizing that loving someone doesn’t mean having no boundaries. I see it in women who have spent years being the reliable one, the accommodating one, the mother who figures it out, the friend everyone calls, the daughter who handles everything, or the woman who can always be counted on.

And then somewhere around midlife, something starts to change. She may not want to leave, quit, walk away, or blow up her life. She may actually love a lot of what she has built. But she can no longer ignore the places where the way she has been living doesn’t work for her anymore.

That is the part I keep coming back to.

Where am I saying yes when I really mean no?

Where am I keeping the peace and then feeling resentful afterward?

Where am I making everyone else’s needs more important than my own?

Where am I waiting for permission I may never get?

Where am I settling for good enough when something in me knows I want more?

And where do I already know what I want, but immediately start negotiating myself out of it?

The more I’ve paid attention, the more I’ve realized how easy it is to abandon yourself without even knowing you’re doing it. It doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like being easygoing, being the capable one, being the flexible one, being the woman who says, “It’s fine, I can handle it.” And maybe you can handle it but that doesn’t necessarily mean you still want to.

I think that has been one of the biggest realizations for me. Just because I’m capable of tolerating something doesn’t mean it’s right for me anymore.

Menopause, for me, has felt like an interruption. It got my attention. It made it harder to keep moving through life on autopilot, and once I started paying attention, I couldn’t unsee certain things. I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t have desires. I couldn’t keep acting like wanting more meant I wasn’t grateful. I couldn’t keep assuming that being a good woman meant being endlessly accommodating, endlessly available, or endlessly willing to put myself second.

Instead of asking how I could get back to who I used to be, I started becoming much more interested in different questions:

Who am I now?

What do I want now?

What matters to me now?

What am I no longer willing to tolerate just because I tolerated it before?

What wants to come through me now?

Where am I still overriding that woman because an older version of me learned that being loved, accepted, successful, needed, or “good” required something different?

These are the questions I’m able to sit with and contemplate using tools that help me see myself more clearly, my patterns, the beliefs I’ve picked up along the way, and the places where I may still be living from who I thought I needed to be instead of who I actually am. They don’t give me the answers, but they help me ask better questions, notice what’s happening underneath the surface, and hear myself more clearly.

Maybe that’s what this season is really asking of us. Not to become some shiny, improved version of ourselves, and not to desperately get back to the woman we used to be, but to stop leaving ourselves behind. To get curious about the woman who is here now and let her want what she wants, let her change her mind, let her have boundaries, let her raise her standards, let her create the thing that keeps calling her, and let her own who she is becoming without needing everyone around her to understand it first.

If you’ve been feeling more restless, more honest, less tolerant of what no longer fits, or more aware that there’s something in you asking for more, I get it. I’m feeling it too. I’m beginning to wondering if maybe this season isn’t asking us to get back to who we were, but to pay attention to who we’re becoming.

If you saw yourself in this article, please share your experience!

Peace, love and good hair days,

Chris

So when it became my turn, I had no idea what to expect and honestly didn’t even know it was really happening because at the time, which was just maybe 10 years ago, nobody was really talking about it.

I remember going to the doctor because I was feeling extremely exhausted, which I chalked up to my long commute and if you live in Los Angeles, it’s actually a pretty valid excuse! I also was experiencing weight gain in my midsection, which was not the norm for me.

Like many women, I did the deep dive on Google trying to figure out what this could possibly be and I found some information on hormones and perimenopause, so I took that information to my doctor feeling like I was going in somewhat informed.

My general doctor ran the labs and did all the things only to tell me that everything was normal.

Looking back, it’s crazy to think that I was actually disappointed that I wasn’t given a diagnosis. I was hoping for some label to explain what was going on in my body so that at least I had steps and instructions as to what I could do to feel better, but when she hit me with “you’re fine,” I felt defeated and almost hopeless because if everything was OK, why did I feel like this?

Disappointingly, my doctor did leave me with some suggestions.

One, to get more rest. As if life would allow that. I was already getting my 6 to 8 hours of sleep and working a full time job!

Two, she also told me that I should probably do more sit-ups to help with my belly. I had just told her that I exercised five days a week and her solution for me was to do sit-ups?! Needless to say I was pissed.

And three, she handed me a prescription for antidepressants, which she said had helped so many women who were feeling tired and overwhelmed like me.

Intuitively, I knew that I didn’t need the antidepressants, but I took the prescription anyway just in case. That’s how desperate I was.

The last thing I told her was, “I know that you say everything is normal, but the one thing I do know for sure is that I don’t feel like myself.”

She assured me that her recommendations would really help. Obviously, they didn’t.

For the next 10 years, yes, I said 10! I went back to doing the deep dive on Google and social media because I didn’t know where else to go.

At the time, adrenal fatigue was the hot thing and the description fit the bill, so naturally me and my girlfriends self diagnosed ourselves with it.

Eventually, I found out that label wasn’t accurate for me. Wow, the time I spent trying to help my adrenals even when it wasn’t making me feel better is wild!

My next experiment was going to see a functional doctor and she was the one who confirmed that my adrenals actually weren’t the issue.

She did a DUTCH test, ran some labs, diagnosed me with leaky gut, gave me supplements to take, and a protein shake that she said would be helpful.

Honestly, I think I left there super overwhelmed because it was a lot of information all at one time, so I ended up doing the bare minimum, which lasted until the supplements ran out.

I didn’t feel better enough to continue and maybe that was my fault, but it’s definitely something that I notice for a lot of women. When women are given protocols that are overwhelming, it’s almost as if they freeze and end up doing nothing.

And honestly, what I’ve realized now is that this story is actually really common for women.

We know something feels off, but we either get told everything is normal, get overwhelmed with information, or end up spending years trying random things hoping something finally works.

I have been going to the same gynecologist for years and she had been consistently talking to me about hormones. But again, I was so misinformed that my belief was that since breast cancer ran in my family, I was not a candidate.

She assured me many times and gave me information to read about the women’s studies that were not accurate and how considering HRT could actually benefit me.

I finally listened and quite honestly, probably out of desperation because I did not know the woman who was living in my body anymore.

And that feeling is hard to explain unless you’ve been through it.

The brain fog.
The mood swings.
The weight gain.
The hair loss.

It all felt out of control and I couldn’t take it anymore.

Maybe because I had such high expectations of feeling like a new woman, I was kind of disappointed because I didn’t have the AHA moment that a lot of women seem to have once they start HRT.

Some things weren’t enough for me.
Some things were too much.
And some things just did not work for my body.

I was frustrated to say the least.

And that’s when I started realizing that maybe this wasn’t as simple as “just hormones.” Maybe my body needed a more personalized approach.

So again, I did the scroll and came across DNA testing.

I’m very much the girl who appreciates science and wants to understand how things work, what they do, and why. So this intrigued me so much.

I took the test, got the results, and it finally helped me understand how my body is genetically wired.

With this information, there was no more guessing as to which foods worked best for me, what I should avoid, or how my body responded to stress, sleep, and hormones.

I’ve always been pretty in tune with my body. I’ve exercised consistently throughout my life and have tried every diet out there to stay healthy and feel good. What I found was that some things that were suggested by friends, social media, or even wellness trends just didn’t necessarily work well for my body.

That was a huge lightbulb moment for me.

Instead of blindly guessing, I finally felt like I could start connecting the dots.

I’m fortunate that my doctor is so open to working with me and the information that I bring her about my genes. I’ve been able to go to my appointments with informed questions and ask for certain blood tests to be taken to rule out what could be causing hair loss.

At one point, I thought my hair loss was because of my fluctuating hormones but it was actually my blood sugar and insulin resistance that were the bigger culprits at that time. It enabled me to start focusing on the things that were actually moving the needle for me.

As someone who experiments all the time and does a lot of research around food, exercise, and health, it was pretty incredible to have an actual blueprint of my body that essentially gave me a map as to how to support myself.

I no longer had to waste time or money guessing and just hoping something would finally make me feel better.

Now, this is how I support women who are experiencing hair loss and other midlife symptoms get more personalized answers so they no longer have to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and disconnected from themselves.

Because I think a lot of women know when something feels off in their body even when they’re being told everything is “normal.”

If any of this resonated with you and you’d like to see what this could look like for you, request a Hair + Wellness consult here.

Peace, Love, and Good Hair Days,

Chris

How you relate to the issue IS the issue.

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I initially didn’t come to understand that through hair loss and midlife symptoms. I learned it through relationships.

I often felt like I was attracting the same man in a different body. Different face, same pattern. And for a long time, I thought the problem was “out there.”

Until I realized I was the common denominator.

That realization wasn’t about blaming myself. It was about becoming conscious. It made me start looking inward instead of continuing to ask, Why does this keep happening to me? Yes, I played the victim card.🥴

I began to see this wasn’t only about who I was attracting, but how I was relating to the pattern.

I was relating to it through wounded self worth and through continuing to accept behavior that reflected what I unconsciously believed I deserved.

It was a tough pill to swallow and it was also the beginning of everything changing.

It led me into deeper inner work and into healing the subconscious. When I learned that we operate approximately 90% of the time from our subconscious, I began to recognize how unseen beliefs and old patterns had been shaping my choices without me realizing it.

As those habitual patterns began to shift, my choices shifted too.

What I tolerated changed, and what I was available for changed. I began to live from a different energetic vibe, and the kinds of relationships I was drawn to changed.

And eventually, my relationships changed.

That is how I called in my husband. And let me tell ya, I scored big time. I got a good one. ♥️

That experience taught me something I’ve never forgotten: patterns we don’t make conscious often keep recreating the same outcomes.

That’s one reason I believe subconscious work can be so powerful in healing too.

Because sometimes it isn’t only what we’re doing that needs to shift. Sometimes it’s the pattern underneath how we’re approaching it.

And when that changes, so much can begin to change.

Just like I had patterns I couldn’t see in relationships, I began to realize similar unconscious patterns can show up in how we relate to our bodies too.

I began noticing where I was pushing.

Where I was relating to symptoms through fear.

Where old patterns of over functioning and striving were showing up in how I approached my body.

And that awareness changed how I supported myself.

It helped me approach healing differently.

And that has deeply shaped how I help women now.

Because I’ve seen that many midlife women are carrying patterns underneath the symptoms they’re trying so hard to fix and feeling like nothing is working for them.

Not because those patterns caused the symptoms.

But because bringing awareness to them can become part of healing.

That’s why the work I do isn’t only about supporting hormones, stress, metabolism, or hair from a dna, root cause perspective.

It’s also about helping women gently see and shift the patterns they may be living under.

Because healing isn’t only about changing what’s happening in the body.

Sometimes it’s also about changing the patterns the body has been living under, so the body can feel safe enough to prioritize repair rather than remain in protection.

And this is why that teaching has stayed with me for so many years:

How you relate to the issue IS the issue.

Because sometimes the shift begins not when the circumstance changes first but when our relationship to it does.

And I’ve seen how powerful that can be.

P.S. If this resonated and you’re navigating hair loss or midlife symptoms and are curious what it could look like to work together, I offer a Hair + Wellness Consult where we can connect, talk through what you’ve been experiencing, and explore whether working together feels like a fit.

Book a consult here: Hair + Wellness Consult

What I’ve noticed a lot is that women will talk about how awful their sleep is, kind of make fun of themselves about the brain fog and mood swings, do the eye roll, and chalk it up to “getting older.” But when they start noticing hair loss, they begin researching and asking their girlfriends what to use to help with it. It gets them to pay attention to what’s happening in their body, without realizing that it’s another symptom, just like the brain fog, mood changes, and lack of sleep, sending a message that something is off.

The thing is, by the time your hair starts thinning, shedding, or losing its quality, your body has often been trying to communicate with you for a while. This can look like lower energy, more sensitivity to stress, sleep that doesn’t feel as restorative, or simply a sense that something feels off and you just don’t feel like yourself. Hair just happens to be the signal that’s so hard to ignore.

So much of what you’re experiencing doesn’t come down to one single cause. It comes from the environment your body has been living in over time. This includes the habits you’ve had to rely on that became your new norm, being “on” all of the time, the stress your body has learned to carry, and the ways you’ve had to push through, override, or keep going. Even the “right” things, like trying to eat better, taking supplements, or working out, all become part of that environment.

Your body is constantly responding to all of it. Not just what you do occasionally, but what you’ve been living inside of consistently. Over time, your system adapts to that environment, and those adaptations begin to shape how your body functions. Eventually, that shows up in ways that are harder to overlook.

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A lot of what’s out there focuses on what to add or what to change, whether that’s a new supplement, a different product, or a better meal plan, and while those things can be supportive, they don’t always help the same way in every body. Your body isn’t just responding to what you’re doing right now. It’s responding through the lens of everything it has already adapted to, including the patterns it has developed around stress, recovery, and repair, and how supported or stretched your system has been feeling for a long time. Your body has a pattern and is uniquely wired. The way your system responds to pressure, handles change, processes stress, and moves into repair is different for everyone. These patterns influence how your body expresses symptoms, including what you’re seeing with your hair.

Midlife is often when these patterns become more visible. It’s not because something is suddenly going wrong, but because the body is no longer compensating in the same way. Hormones begin to shift, recovery isn’t as quick, and the body becomes more honest about what it needs. Things that once felt manageable now feel harder to ignore, and symptoms begin to surface more clearly. This isn’t a failure of your body, it’s feedback.

The shift doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from understanding more. When you begin to understand how your body has been responding, what it has adapted to, and what it may have been needing but not receiving, the support you give it starts to land differently. It becomes less about trying everything and more about doing what actually fits your body.

This is where personalization becomes important. When you have an understanding of how your body is genetically wired, you naturally stop chasing solutions that weren’t tailored for you. This is where I bring in DNA with clients. It’s a way to understand how your body is wired to respond to stress, hormones, and repair. It gives us a clearer picture so we can support your system in a way that makes sense for you.

Your hair is not separate from everything else that’s going on. It reflects what your body feels safe enough and supported enough to prioritize. When the body has been in a more protective or depleted state, it redirects energy toward what it needs most. Hair becomes secondary until the body feels like it has enough resources to return to growth and repair.

Instead of asking what you need to fix to stop your hair loss, it can be more helpful to ask what your body has been living in and what it needs now to feel supported again. When that begins to shift, everything else starts to follow, including your hair.

If this is resonating and you’re starting to see yourself in this, I offer a Hair + Wellness Consult where we can talk through what’s been going on and see what your body might be needing.

No pressure, just a conversation to see if this feels like the right next step for you.

Book your Hair + Wellness Consult here 🫶🏽

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And I want to say that right away because I didn’t have the experience of feeling better overnight like some women talk about. So, if the same goes for you, you are not alone!

What I realized pretty quickly is that hormones aren’t something you just “get on” and everything magically falls into place. They’re something you have to work with, especially when things are showing up in ways you can’t ignore, like your hair.

That’s why I always share that it’s so important to have a great doctor or NP, and even more importantly, to be able to advocate for yourself because no one knows how you feel in your body better than you do.

When a supplement or topical worked for your girlfriend dealing with hair loss, of course you want to grab that for yourself too. But the truth is, I’ve seen over and over again women feeling frustrated and defeated because it doesn’t work for them. They start to think something is wrong with their body or that it’s failing them.

What I share is that based on biology, two women can be on the exact same protocol and have completely different experiences. Annoying, I know!

Being in midlife and dealing with hormone shifts and hair loss, I knew that I had to understand more about how my body was responding to those changes.

For me, everything shifted when I stopped asking general questions and started asking specific ones that came from understanding my body on a deeper level.

Even though you may know what your hormone levels are, it’s just as important to understand how your body is wired to actually process them.

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Using results from my DNA report, these were some of the questions I asked that were specific to my body, based on the symptoms I was experiencing… hair loss included.

• My hair is thinning and I know my genes make me more prone to hormonal hair loss, could we test my DHT levels so I can target this right away?

• Because I’m genetically prone to making more of the less favorable estrogen metabolites, could my hair loss, belly weight gain, and brain fog be linked to how I’m clearing estrogen?

• Since I have a tendency toward higher SHBG, which can bind up more of my testosterone and leave less available for my body to actually use, could this be why I feel tired, don’t feel like myself, and experience low moods?

• Given that my body may have a reduced response to progesterone, could that explain why I’m still experiencing breakthrough bleeding and hair loss?

• Given that my genes show a tendency toward both lower testosterone and higher DHT conversion, how can I safely support testosterone without worsening DHT-related symptoms like hair thinning and weight gain?

This is where everything changed for me.

Because I understood how my body responds genetically, I stopped looking for the quick fixes and started asking the right questions.

Because hormones can be tricky to navigate but when you understand how your body is wired, it becomes so much more clear.

There’s no second guessing.

Less trial and error.

Less wasted time.

And honestly a lot more peace of mind because you’re no longer trying to force your body into something that works for someone else.

You’re actually working with it.

What I want women to understand most is that if it hasn’t felt easy, it doesn’t mean nothing is going to work for you.

It might just mean your body needs a more personalized approach.

If you’ve been experiencing hair loss and other midlife changes, understanding how your body is wired to respond and having the right questions to ask your provider can help you move through your HRT journey with more clarity, less guesswork, and more personalized solutions.

If any of this resonated with you and you’d like to chat, feel free to leave me a message here. I’m happy to help!

Across cultures and throughout history, hair has carried deep meaning. It has symbolized vitality, identity, strength, and life force. Long before we understood hormones, metabolism, or nervous systems, people instinctively recognized that hair reflected something about a person’s overall wellbeing. Healthy hair often signaled youth, fertility, and resilience. In many traditions, hair was treated with great care and intention, and it was sometimes only cut during important life transitions such as grief, spiritual commitment, or the beginning of a new chapter.

Hair wasn’t just something people styled. It was something that represented who they were.

And interestingly enough, that hasn’t really changed.

Even today, hair continues to carry emotional meaning in ways we don’t always talk about. After years in the salon, I’ve noticed something that happens again and again. A woman sits down in the chair and tells me she wants a big change. Sometimes it’s after a breakup. Sometimes it follows a difficult season, the end of a relationship, a career shift, menopause, or the feeling that life is moving into a new phase. She might say she just needs something different.

To someone outside the salon, it might look like it’s simply about a haircut. But anyone who has worked behind the chair long enough knows it’s rarely just about the hair.

Hair often becomes the physical marker of a life transition. Cutting it can feel like letting go of something old. Changing it can feel like stepping into a new version of yourself. The external change helps reflect the internal one that’s already underway. I’ve watched women leave the salon looking lighter, not just because their hair is shorter or styled differently, but because something inside them has shifted as well.

Hair has a way of holding meaning like that.

There’s also another layer to hair that I find just as fascinating, and that’s the biological side. Today we understand something that earlier cultures could only sense intuitively: hair reflects what’s happening inside the body. Hair growth depends on the body having enough resources to support it. Hormones, metabolic health, nutrient availability, blood flow, and nervous system regulation all play a role.

When the body is under prolonged stress, it reallocates its energy toward survival. Hair growth isn’t essential for survival, so it is often one of the first things the body pauses when resources need to be conserved. This is why many women begin noticing changes in their hair during times of stress, burnout, hormonal shifts, or major life transitions.

In many ways, hair has always been telling us the truth about what’s happening internally. For centuries people associated healthy hair with vitality and overall wellbeing. Now we understand that there is biology behind that intuition. When the body is thriving, hair often reflects that. When the body is under pressure, hair can reflect that too.

This is part of the reason why hair feels so personal. It sits at the intersection of beauty, identity, and biology. When women notice changes in their hair, it often becomes the moment they can’t ignore which get them to start searching for answers.

Rather than seeing the changes in hair as purely cosmetic, I see them as information as to what the body is trying to signal. With clients, I focus on helping women understand what their body might be needing by looking at deeper factors influencing the hair loss, shedding and thinning.

If you’re experiencing this, what might your body be needing you to pay closer attention to?

But when my friend was cutting my hair and showed me the bald spot on my own head, I had a bit of a moment.

One of the first things the doctor asked me about was stress. I remember thinking, I’m not stressed. At least not in the way we usually imagine stress.

I was doing everything I knew to do to take care of myself. I was on hormone replacement therapy and my levels looked great. I ate well, exercised regularly, and had spent years doing personal work to support my mental, emotional, and physical health.

I was doing breathwork, meditating, reading, and always learning new ways to support my body. To me, it really felt like I was doing everything right.

But the alopecia and the other changes I began noticing in my hair got my attention. When I put my hair into a ponytail, it felt significantly smaller. My go-to bun that I had worn for years didn’t work anymore because the hair at my temples had become so thin.

At the time I didn’t feel overwhelmed or burnt out. As a matter of fact, I was about to go on an amazing trip to the Philippines and I couldn’t have been happier. My life felt full and meaningful. I always joke that I can’t believe doing hair is how I made a living because it’s so fun, and being with my clients every day is something I genuinely look forward to.

But when I look back now, I can see something I didn’t fully recognize then.

Stress doesn’t always show up as chaos or emotional overwhelm. Sometimes it’s the kind that slowly becomes normal.

For me, it looked like a long commute. Most days I was spending between two and a half to three hours in the car getting to and from the salon. Ugh, I know.

Then there was the work itself. Like I said, I love what I do, but it’s also physically and energetically engaging. I’m standing, moving, listening, creating, connecting, and holding space for people all day long. It’s work that I love, but it still asks a lot from my body. I call it Hairapy. Hair and therapy for both me and my client!

On top of that, I had been dealing with insulin resistance and prediabetes for several years. It wasn’t something that felt super obvious in my day-to-day life. I had gotten used to pushing through symptoms and moving through my day, but behind the scenes it was influencing my body in ways I didn’t fully understand yet.

None of these stressors felt extreme on their own. But together they created a steady load that my body had been adapting to for years. It was the kind of stress that slowly became normal.

The changes I was seeing in my hair were really the thing that made me start asking deeper questions about what my body might be asking for.

That curiosity eventually led me back to something I had already done a year earlier — a DNA test.

One of the things I appreciate about this kind of testing is that you only have to do it once. Your DNA never changes, but the way your genes are expressed can. The test becomes a kind of blueprint you can return to anytime new questions about your health come up.

And as someone who is a little woo but also very practical, I like understanding the science and the “why” behind things. So I dove deep.

From all the inner and outer work I had done, I already believed that a regulated nervous system is the foundation for any healing journey. So I studied my report through the lens of how my body might need to be supported in that way.

My genetic profile reflects a nervous system that is:

• Very aware of what’s going on around me
• Highly reactive to my surroundings
• Able to easily pick up on people’s moods and energy

And also:

• Slower to calm down after stress
• More sensitive to changes in blood sugar
• More affected by stress that builds up over time.

When I saw that, a lot of pieces of my life began to click.

My work behind the chair requires a high level of presence. I’m constantly interacting with people, listening closely, creating, and responding to the energy in the salon. I thrive in that kind of environment, and it’s a big part of why I love what I do so much.

But it also means my nervous system is “on” all day.

Add the long commute and the physical nature of the work itself, and my system was likely being activated for much longer than I realized.

Another insight that stood out in my report connected directly to something I had already been dealing with for years — blood sugar instability.

My results suggested that my nervous system is particularly sensitive to fluctuations in blood sugar levels. When blood sugar rises and falls too quickly, the body interprets that as a stress signal. Stress hormones are released to stabilize things, which can keep the nervous system in a more activated state.

Seeing that connection helped me understand that supporting my blood sugar wasn’t just about metabolic health. It was also about helping my nervous system feel more stable.

Another pattern in my results related to how my body processes stress hormones, also known as cortisol, once they’ve been released.

Some people experience a stressful moment and their body settles fairly quickly afterward. Others release those stress signals just as easily, but the body takes longer to fully calm down again.

My results suggested that recovery time matters for me, so I began to prioritize rest and relaxation. That was not easy for someone like me who is always going, but I digress.

When I looked at that alongside my lifestyle — long commutes, full days behind the chair, and the constant energetic engagement with people — it helped me understand why my system sometimes felt like it was under a constant low level of stress that I didn’t really notice at the time.

At a cellular level my nervous system also requires strong nutritional support to function well. Minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants are some of the basic building blocks the nervous system relies on to regulate effectively. When those building blocks are low, the system can feel like it is constantly trying to keep up.

Seeing these patterns through my own biology was incredibly eye-opening. For the first time I didn’t have to guess what might work for me.

I had a blueprint, and with that came a surprising amount of relief.

No more time or money wasted on solutions I hoped might work.

Having that blueprint didn’t mean everything changed overnight. It still requires patience, curiosity, and a willingness to observe how your body responds over time. But instead of blindly trying things, I was able to make more informed decisions based on my own biology.

This is also why, when I work with women experiencing hair loss, I focus first on helping the body move out of survival mode. When the body begins to feel more regulated, that’s when repair can start to happen again.

And repair is what eventually allows growth to return.

Through my own experience, what became clear to me is that the missing piece for many women going through this is personalization. Every woman’s body is wired differently, and it needs to be supported in that way.

Helping women understand their body’s blueprint and support their health in a way that is tailored specifically to them has become a fave for me.

I’m not here to down play hair loss because the feelings that come with it are REAL!

The reframe for me is my hair loss became the messenger for me to find out what my body was trying to tell me and it’s been a huge factor in feeling my best at 56.

Can your hair be trying to tell you something?

Every so often a client some into the salon and tells me she started a supplement a couple of weeks ago and thinks it’s already helping her hair grow.

I completely understand why it feels that way. When we’re worried about our hair, we start paying attention to every little change. We look more closely in the mirror. We notice what ends up in the brush or the shower. When we finally start something new, it’s natural to want to believe that this might be the thing that’s finally working.

The thing is that hair simply doesn’t respond that quickly.

Hair grows in cycles, and those cycles begin months before we see anything happening in the mirror. So if we start a supplement today and a couple of weeks later feel like our hair is growing faster, that growth actually began long before the supplement entered the picture. That hair follicle was already in its growth phase.

Each follicle on the scalp moves through a repeating cycle that unfolds over months and even years.

Here’s a super simplified way of what that cycle looks like.

The Hair Growth Cycle

Anagen | Growth Phase

This is when the hair is actively growing.

This phase can last anywhere from 2 to 7 years.

Catagen | Transition Phase

The follicle begins to shrink and detach from the blood supply.

This phase lasts about 2 to 3 weeks.

Telogen | Resting Phase

The hair rests in the follicle before eventually shedding.

This phase lasts about 2 to 3 months.

After the hair sheds, the follicle begins producing a new hair and the cycle starts again. What this means is that the hair we see growing today actually entered its growth phase months ago.

Hair growth is slow and hair changes reflect what has been happening in the body over time, not just what we started last week.

Thinking about hair in terms of a general timeline can make this much easier to understand.

Month 1

Something shifts in the body.

Stress increases, hormones change, illness occurs, or the body experiences some kind of internal pressure.

Month 2–3

The hair that responded to that shift enters the shedding phase.

This is often when we start noticing more hair in the shower or brush.

Month 3–6

If the body begins receiving better support, new hairs can begin growing again.

But it takes time before that growth becomes visible.

What we’re seeing today usually reflects what the body was experiencing several months ago.

This is why chasing the newest product or supplement rarely provides the full answer. Hair tends to respond when the body itself begins feeling supported again. When the internal environment improves, the follicles often follow. It just takes time for the hair cycle to catch up.

I hope that seeing this timeline gives you a better perspective of what’s really going on behind the scenes. My goal is to help you understand why quick fixes don’t work so that you can start focusing on personalized support for your body in ways that allow the hair cycle to respond over time.

As you can see this process requires a lot of patience and the sooner we focus on targeted solutions, the sooner we can get results.

I had blood labs done only to have my doctor tell me everything looked normal. I was so disappointed and remember thinking how strange it was that I almost hoped the labs showed something was wrong, just so I would have an explanation for what I was feeling.

I didn’t really have the words to explain my experience. The only thing I said to my doctor was, “Well, the one thing I know is that I don’t feel like myself.”

She said my hormones were “normal” and that I was still too young to be going through the change. Thankfully, we now know that every woman experiences changes at all different ages! Her recommendation was to get on antidepressants because this is what had helped so many other women like me feel better.

Probably out of desperation, I had the prescription filled. But I never took them because intuitively I knew I was not depressed.

I’ve heard so many stories from women who have had a similar experience, and I’m so grateful that now there is so much more awareness about the changes women go through in midlife.

Unfortunately and fortunately, it wasn’t until ten years later that I finally got the information I needed to get real relief.

Breast cancer runs in my family, so I was afraid to go on HRT. My mom, my older sister, and my friends weren’t on HRT, or they didn’t talk about it, so I had no examples to go by.

So I went into the rabbit hole researching any information I could get and finally found a nurse practitioner who was knowledgeable and helped me start my HRT journey.

At first, I was a little disappointed because I wasn’t the woman who had the “OMG HRT changed my life” experience. There was a lot of testing and trying different forms of HRT, whether it was topical, pellets, or compounded formulas, which took quite a bit of time and lots of patience.

I finally understood that HRT wasn’t the end all be all. It’s part of a holistic approach to feeling better.

As someone who has always exercised and tried to eat “right,” I’ve experimented with plenty of fads and workouts because that’s what made me function and feel better. Until it didn’t.

So, in true late-night scrolling fashion, I began another deep dive into what I could do to optimize my wellbeing. This time I found testing that took the guessing out of everything.

The testing showed me how I’m genetically wired to support my nutrition and gut health, how to best support my detox pathways, which became especially important on my HRT journey, how my metabolism and blood sugar respond, and even how my nervous system is wired to handle stress.

For the first time, I wasn’t guessing.

I had a blueprint.

With that blueprint came freedom. No more time or money wasted throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it would stick.

What I didn’t understand at 44 was that nothing was wrong with my body, and it wasn’t failing me. It needed personalized support specific to my body.

That blueprint gave me relief, not because it fixed everything overnight, but because it helped me finally understand how my body is genetically wired to function at its best.

It’s also the foundation of how I support midlife women today.

This is why I say hair loss is often the signal and that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution.

It’s not just about the hair. It’s about finally listening to what our bodies need.

And if you’re in that place right now, feeling off but not quite knowing why, maybe the question isn’t what should I try next.

Maybe it’s what is my body actually asking for?

Hair loss is usually not the first thing that changes in midlife. It’s just the first thing we can’t ignore.

Before that?

We were doing everything “right.”

Eating clean.

Working out.

Buying the good supplements.

Showing up for everyone.

And still… something felt off.

The weight that showed up out of nowhere. The brain fog. The kind of tired sleep doesn’t fix. The mood swings that made you think, Who am I?

We didn’t feel like ourselves anymore.

But we pushed through.

Until our hair changed.

And that’s when it hit.

Because hair isn’t just hair.

It’s how we’ve seen ourselves for decades.

It’s our style.

It’s our creative expression.

It’s our identity.

It’s part of how we feel attractive, put together, and confident.

So when our part starts looking wider,

when we notice more hair in the brush than usual,

and when we realize we’re constantly adjusting our hair to hide something,

it hits.

Of course it’s emotional. Of course it feels personal.

And here’s the thing:

Hair loss is often the symptom that finally gets our attention and it’s rarely the first thing that changed.

By the time our hair shifts, our bodies have usually been compensating for a while.

Stress. Hormonal shifts. Sleep disruption. Blood sugar swings. Nervous system overload.

The body is smart. It adapts. It prioritizes what matters most for survival.

Hair? We don’t need it to survive.

So when life stretches us too thin, the body goes into protection mode.

It redirects blood, vitamins, and nutrients to the organs we need to stay alive. It’s not even thinking about hair.

I’ve been a hairstylist for almost four decades. I’ve walked hundreds of women through hair changes. I’ve reassured them. I’ve listened. I’ve even recommended the supplements and serums everyone else recommends too.

Until it happened to me.

A friend gently pointed out a small bald spot while cutting my hair.

I remember the exact feeling in my stomach.

Then watching vacation videos and realizing that the only thing I was focused on was how wide my part looked.

It shook me more than I expected.

And it gave me a whole new level of empathy for the women who have sat in my chair feeling the same way.

It doesn’t matter if you’re thinning a little or losing a lot.

It’s subjective.

If it feels big to you, it is big.

I used to think that sounded a bit dramatic and now I know better.

Like a lot of us, I tried all of the things. The serums. The supplements. The “this worked for my friend” protocol.

And what I realized after spending time and money on things that didn’t work is this:

External solutions don’t solve internal imbalances.

Hair loss is a response to something deeper. It’s about what the body has been navigating underneath the surface.

When we start listening to what the body is signaling, things shift.

Our bodies feel supported. They begin to feel safe again. And from that place, hair has a sustainable chance to grow.

The goal is to understand our bodies and support them in a way that restores safety and balance so the body can return to its main priorities.

That’s what this space is about.

Not panic. Not pressure. Not chasing every new product.

But learning how our bodies are uniquely wired so we can support them with personalized solutions.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for hair loss.

Because healing doesn’t happen from the outside in.

It happens when we rebuild from the inside out.

If you can relate, have you ever thought about it this way?