Yesterday was one of those productive days where you get through a tonne of ‘to dos’ on your list.  It felt satisfying to have cleared so many tasks by the end of the day. 

I’ve desperately needed a haircut for weeks. I’m one of those people who doesn’t like going to the hairdressers, as they often haven’t appreciated how difficult it is to comb through my long fine hair when its wet and end up tearing loads of it out.  Which I find very stressful and not the pampering treat going to the hairdressers can be. 

I had an amazon parcel to drop off at a UPS site and the car to get washed.  I left the car with the young man at the jet wash and walked to where I thought the UPS place was.  I had 45 minutes until I collected the car and it looked like an area that would have a hair salon.  I was moving at a fast pace, no doubt quite high on adrenalin.  Nothing better than getting another job ticked off the list whilst there’s time to spare.  I wandered up the street and saw a barber shop ahead and then ‘bingo!’, the next door along said ‘salon’ ‘walk-ins welcome’!  I asked the stylist who had given me her attention if they had space for me?  Checking her phone, she said ‘yes’, Katelyn would be with me in a few minutes.  Perfect!

Katelyn was young, with a soft warm face, beautiful make-up like most twenty somethings these days, and she had a gentle way about her.  She invited me to the chair and draped a gown around my shoulders as she asked me what I wanted done today.  We chatted about how much to trim and the shape that I liked around my face.  She was peaceful and gentle and didn’t need any small talk. Katelyn focussed on my hair with a look of quiet concentration. She was describing to me, and it seemed like partly to herself too, what she was thinking and doing.  I did make a little bit of small talk, but I quickly realised it wasn’t necessary for her.  I sat there without any demand on myself for conversation, feeling increasingly reassured that she was thoughtful, skilled and focussed on her work.  And as I sat there, I noticed myself coming down into a calmer state of mind.  I became aware of how my body felt in the chair and what else was going on around me.  I noticed who was sitting beside me and how they were interacting with their stylist.  It made me reflect on how quickly I must have been racing around all morning. 

Since my work coaching people and with the horses is leading me into an ever-greater awareness and emphasis on the relevance of the states that we are inhabiting in any given moment, I became curious about Katelyn.   I was noticing that her presence was having a significant impact on me.   So I asked her, ‘what do you enjoy most about hairdressing?’.  She looked up at me, happy to have been asked.  Without hesitation she said ‘cutting’, ‘I love cutting hair, I could cut hair all day long’.  I smiled as that sunk in, it wasn’t a surprise.  I told her that as I was a coach,  I am always interested in finding out about people.  I wanted to prelude and explain my curiosity and my questions.   It felt natural and she seemed to welcome my curiosity and so I asked her how she felt when she was cutting hair (I was sure I already knew what she would say, because I was experiencing it!).  And just as I thought, she gave a flowing description of how she goes to this calm zone where she becomes totally absorbed and lost in the process.  She loved cutting hair!  She was cutting my hair, but more than that, she was influencing my whole being!  The calm that Katelyn had given me,  I took with me out of the salon and it lingered, and I reflected on the experience into the evening.  Being reminded again of our influence on one another, and in a high-speed world, of our need for one another.  Especially our need for those who are carrying their own feeling of calm.  A calmness that is big enough to share!  I was thankful that this young woman had found a career which suited her so well, in which what she did everyday gave her a feeling of calm that was real and tangible for her, and thankful that because of that I got to experience it too.  It was just what I needed!