QA234 QUESTION: I’ve always been very upset by and obsessed with what I consider to be the hairiness of my body. It has caused me a lot of embarrassment and shame from the time I was about fourteen. What I connect with it is wanting to deny my femininity. At other times I feel that I have this because I want to cover myself and hide in some way. I’m really not sure what it is, but I feel that it’s significant because a lot of my energy – more than I’m even conscious of – is obsessed with this. I also connect it to my vanity. And ironically, I’ve been losing hair on my head. And then in the last few days I have come in touch with my deep intent to see myself as being worthless. And I just wondered if you could comment on this?

ANSWER: Yes. In the first place, whatever the symbolic meaning is – and you’re quite right in your assessment of them – really does not matter so much, for these are old conditions that you have brought in your gene system from previous attitudes and that had to find their way into your present existence.

But the problem is not that; the problem is your obsession and your attitude, which is your not accepting this, is really a different way of using whatever you can in order to deny your body, your feelings, your self. Now, it is very important for you to see that the disturbance is not the fact, but your attitude.

By giving up the attitude, you will see. Learning to love your body and your being and your feelings and your femininity – all of that will be just what it is and not what you make it. That is the direction in which you need to go.

QUESTION: May I ask you something very specific about the hairiness. Is it related to the furthering an aggressive principle and has been translated into the hormonal expression?

ANSWER: Yes. But at the same time, hair is also very often in the psychic land of the inner symbols – as it comes, for example, in dreams – a symbol for sexuality. Now if sexuality and aggression are in conflict with one another, then such a condition may become structured into the gene system. It is not just the aggression alone. It is the conflict between the aggression and sexuality rather than using one to further the other.

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