Why Is Everyone Dying Their Hair Purple? And Why You Should Too 💜

Why Is Everyone Dying Their Hair Purple?

And Why You Should Too

Or whatever your version of purple looks like

I dyed my hair purple in my forties and I have never looked back.

Not because purple is trendy. Not because I was having a crisis. Because somewhere underneath two decades of doing what nurses do — shrinking, adapting, performing competence, and keeping it professional — there was a version of me that had been waiting a very long time to show up.

The purple hair was just the door.

The Weight of Who You're Supposed to Be

Most of us spend the first few decades of life absorbing other people's ideas about who we should be. Be appropriate. Be professional. Be palatable. Don't be too much. Don't be too loud. Don't be too you.

And we listen. Because not bucking the system kept us safe. Because the nervous system learns early that belonging is survival, and standing out can feel like a threat.

So we tuck ourselves in. We dress the part. We show up as the version of ourselves that gets the least pushback. And we call it maturity.

But somewhere in the body, and it's always in the body, something knows the difference between who you are and when you're performing.

What Purple Hair Actually Is

I'm not here to tell you to book a salon appointment. Your purple hair might be leaving a career that was slowly hollowing you out. It might be the boundary you finally held. The music you play too loud in the car. The way you stopped apologizing for taking up space.

It's any act, big or small, where you choose yourself over the performance.

And here's what I know from both neuroscience and twenty years of nursing: that choice is not just symbolic. It does something real in your body.

The Nervous System Notices

When you make a choice that aligns with who you actually are, your nervous system registers it. Not dramatically. Quietly. Like a small exhale after holding your breath for a very long time.

This is where ancient yogic philosophy and modern neuroscience shake hands.

The Yamas (yoga's foundational ethical principles) aren't rules handed down to make you behave. They're a framework for how to live in right relationship with yourself and the world. And when you start applying them to the small, daily choices of your own life, something starts to shift.

Satya — truthfulness — asks you to stop performing and start telling the truth about what you actually need, want, and value.

Ahimsa — do no harm — includes doing no harm to yourself. That includes the slow harm of never letting yourself be seen.

Asteya — nonstealing — means stop robbing yourself of the life that's actually yours.

Brahmacharya — nonexcess — is the practice of not pouring yourself out for everyone else while leaving nothing for you.

Aparigraha — nonpossessiveness — is the practice of releasing the hold on who you were told to be, so you can become who you actually are.

When these principles stop being abstract philosophy and start becoming lived practice, even in the smallest ways, your nervous system begins to build a new pattern (This is neuroplasticity). One of observing, listening, and integrating. One of trusting yourself.

Confidence Isn't Built in a Seminar

Confidence is built in the accumulation of small, congruent choices. Every time you act in alignment with what's true for you. Every time you let your actual self take up a little more space. You send a message to your nervous system: it's safe to be me here.

Over time, that message expands. The ability to be authentic in one area of your life starts bleeding into others. You hold a boundary at work. You stop wearing clothes that make you feel invisible. You say the thing you actually think instead of the thing that'll keep the peace.

None of these things require purple hair. But they all require the same thing purple hair required of me:

The willingness to listen to the whisper that says this isn't quite right and actually do something about it.

So What's Your Purple?

Not as a rhetorical question. As an actual invitation.

What is the thing you've been quietly wanting to do, say, wear, leave, start, or become that you keep talking yourself out of because it doesn't fit the image of who you're supposed to be?

You don't have to blow up your life. You don't have to do it all at once.

Start small. Start with one honest choice. And notice what happens in your body when you do.

That noticing? That's the beginning of everything.