How a Bald Head Led to New Beginnings | VictorSchueller.com

I’m bald.  Well, not completely bald, but I shave the hair I do have left off so there usually isn’t much on my head at all.  It’s all good though, because it just makes me dead sexier.  🙂  Or, at least that’s what my wife would say (in my dreams)!

Shaving my head has some benefits and it has its drawbacks.  I already shared one of my benefits — looking dead sexy.  (I think if I say it enough times I’ll get others to actually believe it)  Another benefit of shaving my head is that I can control the length of my hair.  When I used to get it cut, because what hair I do have is very coarse and has a mind of its own, it starts to stick up and not respond to any sort of comb or brush.  It just does what it wants.  Now, I can just shave it when I want, and I can control my hair.  Do I sound like I have control issues?  Yeah, I probably do to some extent.

One major drawback?  Heat loss, for sure.  Living here in Wisconsin in the cold winter months makes sure that my winter hat is my best friend.  Without it, I am miserable.

The other challenge of shaving my head, and the reason for writing this today, is getting a clean, close, and comfortable shave.  When you have to drag a razor across your scalp several times a week, you need to make sure you don’t finish with a bunch of cuts and gashes across the noggin.  Without getting too involved with the specifics, I play around with different razor options as well as different shave cream/gel products to get me the best results.

Recently I came across an article in which the author said that no matter what he had tried, he got the best results by simply using Ivory soap.  “Interesting,” I thought, as I was very familiar with Ivory, but I had never used it for shaving.  I thought it certainly was worth risking my scalp to give it a shot.

I tried it, and I loved it.  It gave me a nice comfortable and smooth shave.  It also gave me a side effect that I didn’t expect: it brought me back to my youth.

The sense of smell is believed to be one of the most archaic senses, and it has a very close and direct connection with the nervous system.  The simple act of smelling something can evoke strong emotional responses, and this is what I had experienced the first day I tried the soap.

Now, I wasn’t curled up in a fetal position, crying uncontrollably on the bathroom floor.  It was just a strong emotional thought, but it brought me back to my childhood.  We used Ivory soap all the time when I was young.  We used it to take baths and showers, and we used it to wash our hands.  To smell that soap once again brought back those memories — good and not so good.

I had a great childhood, but we never lived in excess.  We had a large family, and money was not in abundance.  I know that my childhood conditioning about money has held strong with me, and I have worked so hard to shake it, and when I smelled that soap, it just reeked of scarcity to me.

That was unfortunate, because mixed in the aroma were those wonderful childhood memories of my mom, who I miss dearly, and the wonderful times I had with her and the rest of my family.  I didn’t like that those memories could be tainted because of something as trivial as money.

Then it struck me — It didn’t have to be that way.  The only reason why I was experiencing those things was because I was choosing to associate those thoughts with the soap.  I am in control, and I can choose what I wish to associate with the soap, and what I don’t.  It’s up to me.

It was a new beginning for me — it was the opportunity to cast aside those thoughts and leave new memories with the soap, and ditch the ones that don’t serve me.  The soap went from something that brought uncomfortable feelings to now being something that can bring back those wonderful memories every time I make myself a little dead sexier.  Win win.

Just because something happened to you in the past doesn’t mean you need to carry it with you into the present.  Your life path does not define who you are or what you become.  You are always free to choose what thoughts you accept as true.  If you don’t like the thoughts you carry in regard to something, it’s up to you to choose new ones.  You always hold the power — the power to change the way you feel about your past experiences, and the way you choose to move forward with your new experiences.

Who thought a little bar of soap could be such a great teacher?

Let me know your experiences!  Do you have a proverbial “bar of soap” that brings back certain memories?  Do you have the opportunity to either relish past experiences or move past ones that don’t serve you?  Let me know.

On my radio show this week:

This week I will be welcoming “Heart Whisperer” Suzie Cheel to my radio show to talk how her near death experience led to a breakthrough, as well as how the “Heart Whisper” evolved.

Click on Suzie’s picture above to listen to the show!