on cutting bangs as a spiritual act

I cut bangs last Tuesday.

Not dramatically. Not during a breakdown. Not after a fight. No one cheated. No one left. Nothing collapsed. Which almost makes it more suspicious. Because culturally, women do not cut bangs in stable emotional climates. Bangs, they are transitional. They arrive like the weather.

For a split second after the scissors did what scissors do, I experienced the classic flicker of regret. Not because it looked bad, but because I did not recognize the woman in the mirror. My face looked altered. Smaller, almost. My eyes felt more pronounced. My forehead, which had existed as neutral territory, was now occupied. There was something touching my skin constantly. It felt like an accessory rather, the bangs, which was in itself the signature I've been yearning to adapt. So what makes it spiritual? 

It felt intimate. Unlike loose strands that demand to be tucked away, bangs insist on staying. They hover. They interrupt. They refuse to be ignored. That is when I realized this was not about aesthetics. It was about energy.

Women go through phases. And no, I do not mean the menstrual cycle, though let’s admit it has sponsored many bangs. I mean phases in the broader sense. Emotional, Hormonal, Situational. The constant dance of the multiple shadow females inside us. We are constantly shedding versions of ourselves that the world has just gotten comfortable with. Death and rebirth. A repetitive cycle. Hair then becomes the first sacrificial offering.

Across cultures, hair has symbolized power, sexuality, grief, devotion. Think of women in monasteries shaving their heads. Think of post-breakup haircuts. Think of the cultural panic when a “good girl” cuts her hair short.

Hair carries weight and saves energy. Not physical, but intangible. So when we cut it, we are not just trimming keratin. We are editing memory. 

But bangs are different from a general cut. A general cut says maintenance. Bangs say recalibration. They redraw the architecture of your face. Altering how light hits your features, your eyes framed differently. Introducing softness or severity depending on the day. They destabilize familiarity.

And familiarity is what keeps identity intact. The male gaze wants women digestible. 

Bangs disrupt that.

The forehead is not neutral territory either. In many traditions, it is the site of intuition. The third eye. The place of tilak, of bindis, of symbolic marking. It is where we announce belief, status, alignment. To cover it, even partially, feels like a private gesture. It is both a veil and an announcement. It says “I’m here, but you do not get full access.” There is something deeply satisfying about that. People look at you differently with bangs. Not necessarily better or worse. Just differently. There is always a microsecond where they attempt to reconcile the old you with the new framing. It is subtle, but it is there. You can see the recalculation.

“What is going on with her?”

That question is the point.

Because bangs are rarely about wanting to look prettier. They are about wanting to feel shifted. They are the physical manifestation of internal chaos. You are not who you were. You are not fully who you are becoming. So you cut something visible. And suddenly the in-between has shape.

For me, the bangs feel like they belong to my shadow self. Not the dramatic shadow. Not the destructive one. The one that does not want to be neatly tied back into a bun of productivity and palatability.

A bun is surrender, bangs are rewiring.

They fall into your eyes at inconvenient times. They require care but resist control. You cannot completely discipline them without losing their point. Every time they brush against my forehead, I feel a small physical reminder of my presence, my being. It’s the type of inconvenience you create for yourself. It suggests that you can be slightly uncontained. Perhaps the spiritual part is this.

Reinvention does not always need a crisis. Sometimes it can be elective.You can shift because you are curious, not because you are broken. That might be the most radical part of all.

Cutting bangs without catastrophe. Changing shape without apology. Letting your face look different and not rushing to correct it. It is a small act. But small acts accumulate.

And in a life where women are constantly asked to remain legible, consistent, and easily categorized, choosing slight illegibility feels holy.

So no, I did not regret the bangs. I recognized them. And this wasn’t to make a statement, it’s a long call to my shadow self, to dance in the chaos and to be the one in control.