Although I’ve had a full beard since late 2016 and sported a few full beards before then, it’s only recently that I’ve gotten interested in proper beard care. What I didn’t expect to find here was a connection between beard care and self-care. Here’s what I’ve experienced thus far.
This has been a gradual process. It started when I felt sufficiently unsatisfied with how my beard looked that I knew some changes were in order. I thought back to how my beard used to look, what made it look that way, and what I could change to bring that look back. After searching YouTube for advice, I also started brushing my beard differently (including brushing it while still in the shower), letting it grow more by trimming it less often, using scissors instead of an electric trimmer to trim my mustache, and switching to a beard wash instead of using normal body wash. Those simple changes have made my beard look and feel much better than it has in a long time. It’s still early, so I’m certain that with continued care, my beard will get even healthier.
It helps that several things I was already doing (at least some of the time) for my own health also improved my beard health. The most helpful ones were eating good food, improving my sleep, and getting good at eliminating lots of stress while effectively managing that which remains. It took time to figure out what to do in those areas, especially with my emotions. Since I’ve healed so much of the pain around my dog Sawyer’s death, I now have much more time and energy to take good care of myself in other areas, including caring for my beard.
Anytime I’ve made huge changes in my life, I only did so when things got bad enough to make the pain of change smaller than the pain of staying the same. That seems to be how I make all major changes in my life, and it appears to be the case for most other humans as well. Why make huge changes if everything is going well? In addition to that being unnecessary, there are also the risks that such changes will make things worse and that returning to the previous position won’t be possible. In contrast, when enough things are going badly, it’s worth experimenting to see what can be improved. Such situations almost always have at least a few areas that are clearly in need of improvement, and starting there tends to make things dramatically better.
There is also the issue of being comfortable with the way things are. As long as they aren’t excessively painful, there’s a tendency to keep things the same. I can overcome that to some extent by making small changes, as I’ve done for many years. However, sometimes that only works to temporarily relieve some uncomfortable symptoms of a deeper problem. The dietary changes I made a few months ago only came after about a week of gastrointestinal discomfort that my usual methods of treating failed to fix. Once I made some major changes, the symptoms went away, and, I hope, the underlying issues also did. Since my health has gotten much better over the last few months while sticking to healthy eating more often than not, I believe I’m in the clear here. I hope I can learn to make important changes before things go way off the rails.
As my beard continues to look and feel better, so do I. I’m enjoying the scents, rituals, experimentation, and improvements in the health of my beard. Beyond all of that, this is another form of self-care, which always makes me feel good. It’s nice to take care of myself and feel even a small amount of self-love. I first realized the connection to self-care when I noticed myself looking forward to caring for my beard each day and feeling happier afterward. That was a welcome observation. Additionally, since I never paid much attention to beard care until recently, I’ve never seen the full potential of my beard. It’ll still take a while for me to learn how to properly care for it and for it to settle into the form I prefer. I look forward to seeing what it looks like when that happens. Until then, I’ll keep enjoying this journey and the benefits that come from taking good care of myself.