The Sacred Art of Self-Decapitation

Because the world doesn't need more "reasonable" women

A few years ago, a friend and I stumbled upon an art exhibit that stopped us cold.The entire collection was headless women. No faces, no eyes—just silenced bodies. We didn’t even have to look at each other to know the answer: Absolutely not.

I could feel a familiar, heavy mix of weariness and rage bubbling up.

When women see images like this we don’t need to discuss it we know what it represents. A patriarchal society that loves to turn women into parts to be consumed, bodies devoid of humanity.

The only thing my girlfriend and I said to each other was “nope,” and we moved on.

But the image stayed with me. I often get intuitive hits just as I’m waking up in the morning. The next day a wild visual dropped in.

A headless woman, smiling, holding her own head like a purse. My heart skipped a beat in equal parts fear and curiosity.

My first thought was, “WTF?”

My second thought was, “Nope.”

My third thought was, “Damn it.”

I know when I get hits from my intuition it is at my own peril if I don’t listen to them.

That download led to the headless women making an appearance in my upcoming book Joybellion: Transforming Midlife Insignificance Into Freedom, Power, and Everyday Magic. She is the mascot my intuition chose for women in midlife.

You may be reacting like I did when I saw that artist’s collection of headless women, but hear me out.

The patriarchal version of the headless woman is an object. She’s fragmented, dehumanized, chopped into pieces for someone else’s pleasure. A vibe we’ve had to navigate for decades.

Our version of the headless woman is the opposite. She is a symbol of defiance, wildness, and wholeness. She has found her head and holds it close like a favorite purse.

She chooses to live below the neck so her heart and body lead the way.

Her detached head is the mind and ego in their rightful place—important, but no longer in charge.

And honestly, in the times we’re living in, this feels less like an edgy metaphor and more like a survival strategy.

We’re swimming in a culture that is actively trying to scramble our brains:

endless information, hot takes, outrage cycles, polarizing headlines, fear, drama. It’s like the entire system is designed to keep us spinning above the neck, disconnected from our bodies where creative solutions wait to guide us through this mess.

Because here’s the thing: your body always knows.

Your mind can be convinced that shit is gold if the story sounds good and is repeated often enough.

Your body can’t be swindled.

Why the head has to come off (kind of)

When I say “headless,” I don’t mean lobotomized. I’m not anti-mind. I love my mind. She is clever, organized, a total egomaniac who believes she runs the show and would like a gold star for surviving decades of patriarchy.

But the mind is also where most of our conditioning lives:

all the “shoulds,” all the ways we contort ourselves to be liked, palatable, non-threatening.

The mind is a brilliant defense attorney for the status quo.

The body, on the other hand, doesn’t do debate. The mind is an egomaniac; the heart is a truthmaniac.

It does sensations. Tight chest. Nausea. A lump in the throat. A full-body yes. A dead-weight no.

So I started playing with the idea of self-decapitation as a sacred, midlife move.

Not someone else taking our head (that’s violence).

Us choosing to set it to the side for a moment. On purpose.

I see the headless woman holding her own head like a purse. At first it’s a full-sized purse—because we still rely heavily on our minds. As we learn to live more rooted in our bodies, the purse gets smaller, like a clutch. We keep it because we need it, but it doesn’t run us anymore.

Look, I know how this sounds and looks. I am essentially pitching self-decapitation as a wellness strategy. It’s weird, it’s a little dark, and it’s definitely "out there." But that’s the magic of it: my visual turned a painful, rage-inducing symbol into a private joke and a quiet revolution.

Are you pissed?

We’re living in an era where:

• Women’s rights are being rolled back.

• The older a woman gets the more disposable she becomes unless she makes herself useful or ornamental.

• The systems around us insist we be logical, reasonable, calm, and endlessly forgiving in the face of deep harm or be shamed.

And then there’s us: midlife women whose hormones have stopped smoothing out the edges of our feelings.

These days I rarely chat with a woman in midlife who, at some point during our conversation, doesn’t express some level of anger.

We’re tired of being dismissed and we’re tired of being “good sports” about it.

From the neck up, we can talk ourselves into staying small:

“It’s not that bad.”

“I should be grateful.”

“I don’t want to rock the boat.”

From the neck down, our bodies are screaming, “I have no more fucks to give.”

The world does not need more women trapped in their heads running cost–benefit analyses on whether it’s safe to tell the truth.

The world needs more women rooted in their bodies, in their holy rage, in their love, in their refusal to pretend that harm is harmony.

Living below the neck

Another girlfriend and I often chuckle about our type A personalities that default to thinking instead of being.

We constantly remind each other to live below the neck.

That’s the motto for the headless woman:

Live below the neck. Act from below the neck. Speak from below the neck.

Practically, that looks like:

• Before I respond, I pause and ask: what is my body saying about this? Tightening or opening?

• When I feel anger rise, instead of shutting it down, I get curious: what truth is this anger bringing to the surface?

• When I have a big decision, I imagine letting my chest, gut, and intuition weigh in first. Then I look into my head purse and let my mind help with the logistics—not the verdict.

I can’t stop seeing this as a whole little era we’re in:

We’re not striving to be good girls in midlife. We’re entering our Headless Woman era. It’s also an exhilarating reclamation.

The World Needs Your Holy Rage

I keep hearing midlife women say, “They have no more fucks to give.” And underneath that, I sense a river of anger trying to find a healthy outlet.

I’m offering a virtual, two-part Joybellion salon called Holy Rage for the midlife woman who is done being “reasonable.”

We’re going to learn the art of living below the neck, even when things get heated.

If that sparks something in you—if your body just did a little dance or your inner voice whispered “ooooh yes”—sign up to be the first to know when I launch.

We’re not losing it. We’re finally tapping into our truth.