Embracing Gray Hair or Not – Own What Happens to You Naturally

Have you noticed? There is a gray hair revolution going on and it’s sweeping the nation! More and more women are embracing their gray hair, at whatever age it shows up – and rocking it with confidence and beauty.

“What makes this movement feel so revolutionary… it’s about women owning what happens to us naturally.” – Deanna Pai, beauty writer, glamour.com

It is natural – and it represents what is key: our individual choice.

Today many of us have an array of choices when it comes to cosmetics. The most common beauty products marketed to women are meant to make us look younger – i.e. hair color, skin creams and more recently, injectable fillers.

Coming into our fifties is a period of transitions.

While we are aging, it can also be a liberating time. We are finally beginning to let go of what culture tells us is desirable and step into the beauty and power of experience and earned wisdom.

There’s no face cream, hair dye or injection that can fool anyone into thinking we’re twenty-five again.  And although we still want to feel good about how we look, most of us are much more focused on what truly matters – like our health, our lifestyle, and how we feel, rather than how we appear.

Reaching fifty is a bit of a wake-up call.

A reassessment of what we’ve done with our lives in five decades and what we want to do with the second chapter of life. It’s a marked time for reconnecting with ourselves. A chance to reflect on that inner girl we once were and may have lost sight of over the past few decades of running around in our busy lives.

We look in the mirror at what fifty looks like and wonder how we got here.

The years have passed in a blur. How few days we can truly recall out of the many we’ve lived – and yet our bodies have kept count of each of those days.

We lose the youth, but we gain a superpower. The growing determination to be who we are – not to be something for others, but to more fiercely be our authentic self.

So, the question arises. If we’re not trying to look younger for others and we are determined to be authentic, why color our hair, or use wrinkle creams or even makeup?

The answer is very personal.

We make choices to use or not use cosmetics such as hair color based on how they make us feel. Not on how they make us look to others.

People who love us don’t care what color our hair is. It doesn’t change who we are inside. Hair color doesn’t affect what we are capable of, limit our strength, diminish our faith, our lower our level of badassery.

What we choose to do or not do about our appearance at this age is (or it should be) about us.

It a transition to self. To making choices that feel right to us at any given moment. We are naturally drawn to make choices that make us feel more. More empowered, more confident, more us.

And while we are choosing to come into our most authentic self, let’s be mindful not to judge others for their choices.

Another woman’s choice to be gray or to color her hair, to wear makeup or not, to use fillers or to shave her head entirely and wear a neon bikini is her choice. We should each do whatever feels good – without overthinking – and without fear of judgement.

What other people think of our gray hair, or pink hair, makeup-free face or penciled in brows is not our problem, it’s theirs.

As midlife women – we should encourage and embrace each other, both for our individuality and our commonality.

For me personally, I choose to color my hair and use cosmetics. It makes me feel good. I put makeup on every day even when I’m alone and not leaving the house. It makes me feel put together when the rest of my day can be falling apart. When it no longer serves me on the inside, I will stop.

Do what feels right for you.

The older we get and the more our age is visible externally, the more important it becomes that we do whatever we need to do to feel good internally. Whether we choose to use the creams, makeup, and hair color… or to be naturally gray – it should be for us – not to please anyone else.

So, to my beautiful gray sisters – rock on! When coloring my hair no longer serves this girl, I will happily join you and embrace the gray.

Cheers to our choices and to doing or not doing whatever it takes us to wield our bold, beautiful, and confident midlife superpowers!

– Marlene

_________________________________________________

Subscribe below and receive a FREE printable download – 11 Powerfully Positive Affirmations plus a once-a-week update of the latest Cheers to Chapter Two post!