What if the thing you’re “fixing” about yourself isn’t the problem at all… but a quiet fear of not being accepted? Today, I talk about the hidden cost to your self-worth of staying “presentable” and how you can reclaim the freedom to be fully you.
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Women over 50 have lived long enough to know that cultural pressure to look younger. While decluttering my mom’s old recipe box, I came across evidence of that first hand in the form of a hair color ad from the 1970s. You’ll hear how that ad prompted me to explore how fear and shame get packaged as beauty, belonging, and “nice and easy” solutions. You’ll be invited to let go of the script, open your heart to your inner wisdom, value your uniqueness (gray hair and all), and embrace the truth about yourself that never needed fixing. You’ll also hear a light language transmission intended to support clarity, self-trust, and emotional freedom so you can make decisions from love, not fear, and keep designing your life your way.
Listen and discover:
- Why “beauty standards” often carry a hidden message of shame and how to spot it in everyday choices like hair color or dieting.
- The real cost of staying acceptable (time, money, energy – and the ways it can shrink your voice and visibility).
- A midlife reframe that aging isn’t something to hide; it’s something to celebrate, because wisdom is earned.
- A simple discernment practice for clarity: how to make choices from self-honoring truth (not fear of judgment).
Resources & links mentioned:
“Going Gray” book by Anne Kreamer
Design Your Life, Your Way – next steps:
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TRANSCRIPT – Stop Hiding: Reinvention & Self-Worth for Women Over 50
The Cultural Pressure to Hide Who We Really Are
Be yourself. Great advice. Right? Yeah. Especially for women in midlife. Like. Like we are. Like I am. The only problem with that is that our culture has a tendency to want us to think otherwise. And this was became apparent to me recently when I was deciding to do some decluttering. You know, before the first of the year I was I was in this mode of trying to clear out, clear out the old before the new came in. And so my mom had this had I’ve inherited from her this lovely recipe box, and in it were all types of, oh, she had little index cards with recipes on them. She had a whole bunch of newspaper clippings and magazine clippings dating back to, I think, some I think the earliest one I saw was from sometime in the nineteen fifties. Um, so it was it was a long time ago. And I’m going through these and, you know, kind of looking at them and saying, is this something I really want to make now? And I would toss it. And then there were, there were a couple that were like, well, yeah, I might, I might fix this for myself sometime. And so I would save it.
When “Be Yourself” Means Hide Yourself: A 1970s Hair Color Ad
But then I came across one that it was this folded piece of paper. Now most of these were little tiny scraps, you know, that she’d like cut out of a newspaper. But this one was a whole big full page page from a magazine, actually. And in fact, it was from Family Circle magazine. I don’t even know if they’re still around these days, but but they were in the nineteen seventies and so, so on this one side were all of these low calorie recipes. My mom, my mom and I both have dealt with, uh, our weight over the years. And so she was, you know, there was a lot of the things that she was collecting. In fact, actually, for a while, she was a Weight Watchers lecturer, um, when I was really, really little. But anyway, so there’s these low calorie recipes and, but then I flipped it over and when I saw on the other side was an ad for a Clairol, uh, product, hair coloring, uh, called Nice and Easy. And, um, if you’re listening to this podcast, I encourage you to after you’re done listening to it, you might want to go to my YouTube channel and watch it, because on the YouTube channel, I actually Have the ad because I wanted to. I’ve since thrown out that, uh. Thrown it out. But I saved the picture of it. So anyway, the the headline, the bold headline on this that the ad pictures a woman. She’s got her head leaning back. Her long brown hair is flowing. And there’s a, there’s a lovely, uh, in the corner picture of a of a man sort of nuzzling her neck and she’s, you know, smiling. Uh, but the headline says it lets me be me.
The Real Product Isn’t Hair Dye—It’s Shame
And then you go down to the bottom and it read and tells you a little bit more about nice and easy hair color, but the but the part that really caught my eye was where it says, now whether you want to color or conceal. And I went mm. Isn’t that interesting. Yeah. So in other words This hair color is going to let me be me. Uh, as long as I don’t look like me. Hmm. I don’t know about that. So what I think is that the real product here isn’t hair dye. It’s actually shame. And this idea that our natural self, as we get older, as those gray hairs start to come in, is something that needs to be covered up. It needs to be corrected. And maybe that’s why the tagline down at the bottom of this ad in in small print, uh, there’s a picture of the box of hair color and it says nice and easy hair color. And below it now, nice and easy hair color is in bold font, by the way. But then in not bold font underneath it, it says it sells the most. Yeah. I don’t doubt that fear has always been profitable. Ah. I wanted to take that out. There we go. I wanted to put I, I accidentally put the hair color added as full screen instead of putting me as full screen.
My Mom’s Relationship with Hair Color and Body Image
So this got me thinking about my mom, you know, not just about all these recipes that she had cut out, but also about her relationship with hair coloring. Now, again, I know she didn’t she didn’t save that for the hair color ad she shared, she shared. She saved she saved that for the low calorie recipes, which also, now that I come to think of it as something else. Oh, yeah. In fact, I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. Wow. Yeah. Um, it’s not just shame over how our hair looks, but it’s also how we look physically. And that my mom was always had this. Or, let’s put it this way, since I was a kid. Now I don’t I don’t remember looking what pictures. I’d have to go back in and look at pictures of her with my brother and sister, my older brother and sister, because there’s a ten year difference between my sister and I. And so I don’t know what my mom’s weight was when she was with them. Probably a little bit heavy. Not probably not as thin as she would like to be, but. But my point is, is that my mom was always for as long as I’ve known her, except for this brief time when I was little, when she had lost a lot of weight, and she did it through Weight Watchers, and she became a Weight Watchers lecturer, so she was helping other, um, probably mostly women. But I know men, too, to be able to lose weight. But after that, she she wound up putting weight back on. And she was always like I say, I remember growing up, always dealing with her weight, you know, the weight would come on and then she’d. But later, as later in life, it was always kind of increasing and and that’s also we’re supposed to be the the culture tells us that we’re supposed to be young and thin, you know, and if we’re not, then there’s something wrong with us, and that sucks. Okay, I’m not going to miss words with this. This sucks. So. Yeah.
When Women Over 50 Start Coloring Their Hair
So anyway, I got I got sidetracked by the weight thinking about that. But also the hair coloring for her too, is that I know when she was, I think in her late fifties, because I think I was in high school probably at the time. There’s a big difference in ages between my mom and I. She was thirty seven when I was born, I believe. Yeah, thirty seven when I was born. So I was the I was the caboose, as she liked to call me, you know, the, the, the last one of the, you know, the baby of the family. Um, but she started calling her hair, you know, like I said, I think she was probably in her late fifties. She was working full time then, and I suspect that she started coloring her hair because she didn’t really want people to see the grey hair as a, you know, in your face acknowledgement of the fact that she was getting older. Even though, let’s face it. Well, I think her face is okay. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think she really had wrinkles too much. We we inherited good Hungarian genes from my grandmother because I know my grandmother, when she was in her eighties, still looked like she was in her sixties. And, you know, because she had really good skin. And, uh, so I think my mom probably had that as well. But anyway, so so my point about this is that I don’t even know what her hair would have looked like. I don’t know how much gray hair she would have ever had, because she colored it right up until her passing at seventy eight. She was always dyeing at, um, you know, some sort of blonde highlights and things that she would have. And you know, it’s it’s. You know, I wondered, you know, I know she liked going to the hair salon every week to get her hair done. You know, I think that was that was a treat for her. But the coloring part of it, though, I wonder because I know if she really enjoyed it.
My Own Journey with Hair Color and Self-Acceptance
That’s what I was going to say before I, before I go on, because I know for me, I also used to I didn’t I didn’t color it, color it, I didn’t, you know, dye it all one color because that just seemed to be like way too much for me to to deal with. But I know when I was a kid, so I had, um, sort of dark blonde hair, but I would get in the summertime, I would get these little streaks of really, really blonde hair. Right? I used to wear my hair parted in the middle was long, and then I would get these two, two blonde streaks either side of my face. And so I think when I. Yeah, when I graduated from high school, um, the one thing I did was get a perm. That was the first thing I decided to do. But then I also decided to start highlighting my hair because my hair had turned quite dark in my teen years. And so I missed having those blonde highlights. And so I started getting my hair frosted. And I did that for probably a good fifteen years or so. And it’s expensive. It does get expensive after a while, but I’m not here.
Should You Color Your Hair? Only If It Makes YOU Feel Good
I don’t want to say that, you know, if you are listening to this and you’re going like, well, I color my hair and I’m okay with it, fine. If you’re okay with it. And if you enjoy doing that and if you think it makes if it makes you feel good, if it makes you feel good, then keep doing it. But. If you’re coloring your hair. Because there’s an element of fear that you’re not going to be accepted, you’re not going to be liked. You’re not going to be appreciated for your wisdom and experience and the years that you have put on this planet. And and now I know some people turn gray early. Early, you know, even like in their thirties and stuff. But if if you’re now in your fifties, if you’re in those midlife years and you are starting to get those gray hairs and you’re like, I don’t want I don’t want people to see it, I don’t want them to think I’m getting old. Well. I encourage you to think about it. Really? Really think about it.
The Hidden Cost of Staying “Acceptable” as Women Age
Because. I want you to think of the cost. Think of the cost of staying acceptable. Now, that’s just in the money. You know, that you spent, whether you’re buying your own, uh, buying hair color and doing it yourself, or you’re going to a beauty salon and having it done. And of course, the time it takes to do that because, you know, you got to leave that stuff on your hair for a while. But it’s that quiet, shall we say, belonging tax that you pay when you feel. Like you have to stay acceptable to be taken seriously. Because if you don’t question it. It doesn’t just shape your hair. It shapes your habits. You know, you end up editing yourself and other places to. Like, you’re not speaking your truth. You’re not being visible. You’re you’re you’re hiding yourself. You’re not showing up at networking events. Um, perhaps, or you’re not, you know, meeting friends or just not not raising your hand and volunteering and say, yeah, I want to do this. I’ll step up and be a leader in this situation. And and you’re you’re hiding your voice. So you’re not you’re not speaking out. And.
Why Making It Past 50 Is Something to Celebrate
What I know for sure is that if you have made it past fifty, heck, have you made it past forty? Frankly, that’s not something to hide. It’s something to celebrate, you know? Really, it is something to freakin celebrate. Because every year, every year that you are alive and you are kicking on this wonderful, wonderful planet of ours is another chance you have to share what you’ve learned to stop performing and start living, to design your life your way, instead of following a script that someone else wrote for you. And maybe That’s just about the most radical thing that we can do at this stage of our life. And in fact, frankly, it’s it’s maybe I didn’t I didn’t say that the way I wanted to say that. Maybe the most radical thing we can do isn’t to defy the culture. Maybe it’s to stop asking for permission. Hmm. Think about that. Oh, yeah.
Why Your 60s Can Be Better Than Your 40s or 50s
I you know. This is a wonderful time of life that that you’re in. You know, if you are if you are in midlife, this is this is a really great time to be because I know for I don’t I don’t know about you, but I know for me. Every decade I’ve gotten through has been better than the last one, you know? My forties were decent. My fifties were really good. I really I did a lot in my fifties and my sixties. I’m only a couple years in so far, but so far I am loving it. I mean, in my sixties I finally got up the nerve to really design my life my way, and I made a change in my marriage. And I’m living in my own apartment now and getting to decorate it the way I want. I have I have pictures on the wall. I’ve got, I’ve got a lovely, um, I inherited this. A plaque on my wall is maybe one day I might actually do a podcast episode about this, but it’s something I got from my mom, and it’s the Serenity Prayer. And it says, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Healing from My Mom’s Struggles with Weight and Self-Image
And I love that because, you know, that’s something that they they use in Alcoholics Anonymous. And, um, I think also in Overeaters Anonymous, which my mom was also. She also did that for a while, too. Like I said, she she in her, in her midlife, she was really struggling with with her weight, among other things, a lot of health problems. But I you know, when people pass in your life, you you may wind up inheriting a lot of things. So I inherited a lot of pictures and heard a lot of documents and and from my mom, I also had inherited all of these books from Overeaters Anonymous. And, um, and it was interesting, you know, just kind of perusing through some of them and, uh, but I wound up donating them because I didn’t want that energy in my apartment because, again, I’ve I’ve also had my own my own journey with weight. And, uh, if you have been a subscriber of the podcast, when it was a couple episodes ago when it was known as Live love, live love, engage and um, uh, so if you had especially watched, if you’ve been a subscriber to me on, on YouTube and looked at it, you will have seen over the years, um, my weight go up and my weight go down, my weight go up and my weight go down. And I’m bound and determined that this last time I released a lot of weight last year and I’m keeping it off. I’m keeping it off this time. I am very tired of that weight roller coaster. It’s not healthy for you anyway and I’ve been blessed so far, so good and that I’m healthy. Unlike my mom who was on every type of medication, it seemed like because she had high blood pressure, she had diabetes, she had heart problems. And a lot of it was, I think, due to, well, she used to be a smoker a long time ago, but she quit when I was a kid. She stopped smoking so that she could pay for my dance lessons. Thank you, thank you mom. I appreciated that so much. I don’t know that I told you that enough when I was alive. When you were alive. But I’m telling you now, wherever you are, I really, really appreciate it. Because I loved dance class. I took ballet, tap and jazz, among other things, and loved it. Loved it.
Applying the Serenity Prayer to Gray Hair and Aging
But anyway, the Serenity Prayer. I want to go back to that for a second, because I think it applies even to the situation we’re talking about here. So it’s to accept the things I cannot change. Well, we’re going to get older, God willing. God willing. You know, you’re going to wake up tomorrow, hopefully. You know, and that’s what I’m counting on, waking up again tomorrow. So that’s something, you know, we can’t change. We, you know, hopefully you don’t have control over how long you are going to be alive on this earth. So that’s one thing. Um, courage to change the things I can. Okay, well, if you aren’t happy with your gray hair, if you aren’t happy about perhaps the wrinkles on your face. I know some people go and get plastic surgery. That freaks me out. So that’s not something I would do. It took me years just to get my ears pierced, folks. Okay. I was, I was like, it took my daughter wanting to get her ears pierced. And I’m saying, well, I don’t know. And she’s like, if you get them done, mom, what about that? And so I was like, okay, I’ll get my ears pierced. If I get my ears pierced, then you can get your ears pierced. I should have done it years ago because you can wear these lovely earrings and they’re better than the clip ons, which hurt. But anyway, so if you want to change, you know, and and you want to change your hair color again if you want to do it because it makes you feel good, that’s the important thing. It’s got to make you feel good. Don’t do it for anybody else. Don’t do it for your significant other because they don’t like seeing gray hair. Don’t do it for your boss, maybe. Or or don’t do it for your employees or whatever. They can, they’ll have to deal with it. If you don’t. But if you do decide, then that’s up to you.
Tapping Into Your Inner Wisdom About Self-Acceptance
And so then the third part is the wisdom to know the difference. So that’s where I always encourage I always when I’m working with my clients, I’m always telling them how important it is to. Go within and, you know, spend time getting to know yourself. Listen to your higher self, whether that is through meditation, whether that is through journaling, whatever way you have to be able to spend time to be still and know and say, you know. And it might be, maybe you like pendulums. I actually have a pendulum. Those are very cool, I, I, I didn’t believe in that stuff for the longest time until I tried it for myself. And I was like, oh. Mm. It really does work. So. But anyway, that’s a way of tapping into your higher self, your, your, your, your inner wisdom, your guidance. And, you know, sit with it for a while and say, okay, yeah, I got gray hair coming in and I do. I’m fortunate that it it almost looks like the frosting I used to spend money on, which is kind of cool. It’s coming in nice, nicely, very slowly. I’m grateful for that. But you know what? If I eventually have a hair white hair? Fine. Because it means that I’ve lived long enough to have all that white hair. And again, that’s something to celebrate.
Why I Stopped Coloring My Hair: A Book Changed Everything
So be discerning about what you want to do. Do I want to color my hair? Do I want to stop coloring my hair? You know, I didn’t even mention that. I said that I had colored my hair. You might be saying, well, why aren’t you doing it now? Especially if you got gray hair. Well, I’ll tell you why. I read a book a long time ago now. Gosh, it’s probably over. Oh. Yeah, I don’t even remember. It was. It was. It was before my sister passed. So it’s probably been fifteen years now. And it was. I don’t remember the name of it right now, but I will put it in the show notes when I do find the name of it. It was something about going gray, maybe going gray or something, but it was a it was a book written by a woman who started going gray, and she was, um, she started interviewing people and, and trying to figure out and, you know, and looking at our culture and looking at, like, the history of hair color and, and these messages that we get And you know, about being reluctant to or being shamed, as I talked about at the beginning of this, I talked about shame being shamed into the fact that we’re supposed to be young and thin, and we’re supposed to look that way all the time. And I didn’t even talk about. Anyway, so she decided to stop coloring her hair. And so I did too after that.
The Double Standard: Why Gray Hair on Men Is “Distinguished”
But I didn’t even talk about one other thing here. Is the frickin double standard. There is again, in especially in Western culture. And I don’t know what it’s like in, in Asia or places like that. But I know here in the West, especially in the United States in particular, that when men turn gray, oh, they’re suddenly distinguished looking and, and and heck, even sexy. You know, I mean. Let’s face it, George Clooney looks really good with grey hair. I’ll admit it. He looks I frankly, I almost think he does look sexier now that he’s in his sixties compared to when when he first started his acting career way back, and when he was on ER, when he got his first really, really big break. But then again, then there’s like Steve Martin, you know, he turned grey what in his thirties. And he’s been he’s been all white hair throughout his whole career. And he never tried to hide that. But why is it that women. Are meant to feel that. Oh you know, she’s old. If she’s got grey hair now I will say over the last decade, maybe, maybe even more now, it seems to be changing a little bit, a little bit It, and that there are younger women who actually go in and get their hair dyed gray.
Women Over 50 Embracing Natural Gray Hair: Jamie Lee Curtis, Helen Mirren, and More
And there are now actresses out there, you know, like Jamie Lee Curtis is somebody that comes to mind. Um, Helen Mirren is another one. You know, who, uh, even Meryl Streep I think as well. She’s got, you know, gray hair or white hair and and shows it. I’m just thinking of something else. But you know what? I’m going to probably save that for another. It’s it’s going to get me off on a different tangent. I’ll save that idea for a future episode. Um, it does go along with this, but it’s like, I think I’ll deal with that in another time. The point is, is that it’s still, you know, I talk to friends who, in fact, I have a lot of friends and and I’m thinking right now, I, I have I’ve met some lovely women, um, that meet every Monday morning for coffee and and then we do some oracle card readings, and they’re, uh, most of them are actually older than me. They’re probably in their seventies. They’re one or two, I think, or even in their eighties. But I’ve noticed that they all color their hair. They’re all blonde. I’m the only one who is, uh, brown with some little gray streaks coming in there. I might have to ask them, maybe just out of curiosity. Or maybe ask one of them when I get, uh, just out of and say I’m doing a survey and I’ll just say I’m curious why why do you color your hair? And in fact, if you would love to, like, comment and let me know, what do you think about this? I would love to know. Do you do you color and if so, why? And Or if you’ve stopped coloring, you know, contact me. You can, uh, you can reach out to me. Probably the best place is connect with me on LinkedIn. Um, I’m at Gloria Grace Rand. You can find me on LinkedIn. That’s a really good place to connect. Or you can even go to my website. You can go to, uh, Gloria Rand com or even Gloria Grace Rand com, and that’ll that’ll work as well. And then just there’s a contact button right on my home page, or you can go to contact page whatever. And, you know, let me know. I’d be curious. Curious to know. And um, yeah.
Light Language Healing Transmission for Clarity and Self-Acceptance
So so I think that’s that’s where I’m going to I’m going to leave this conversation just for a moment, and then we’re going to come back. I’ll kind of recap a little bit again at the end here. But what I want to do first right now is something that I do when I do my solo episodes, is I like to share a healing modality that I have been doing now for five years, over five years now. And it is called Light Language and it is a for me at least, it’s a sound healing modality. I speak and sing, uh, a language of love, and it’s something that I’m able to, I, I it’s a multi-dimensional language that I share and that comes through me. I’m not. Um. Yeah. I’m not really conscious. I, I’m conscious while doing it, but I’m not the one just coming up with this. It comes through me. It comes through me from from other, other sources. I’m just going to leave it at that. And if you if you want to know more about it, you can, uh, again reach out to me and I’ll tell you more about it. But for brevity’s sake, right now, what I would encourage you to do is to listen with an open heart and, uh, and an open mind and not worry if you don’t understand what I’m saying, because it’s meant for your heart. It’s meant for your soul.
Setting Your Intention for This Healing Session
So if you’re listening to this right now or watching it on YouTube, I encourage you to pause it. And especially if you are driving, if you’re if you’re driving, if you’re not driving, if you’re just sitting down someplace where you can just be still and be quiet for a little bit. Um, great. That’s awesome. And what I would encourage you to do, and I do this with, with my clients as well, is I encourage you to set an intention, and maybe it’s right now is to set an intention for clarity about what to do. Do I want to either continue coloring or start coloring or stop? So maybe just some clarity around that or anything else that’s going on in your life that you would love some support with. So I will invite you to trusting that you’ve paused this to just sit back and, uh, maybe just close your eyes, take a deep breath, exhale. And just kind of let the cares of the the day or the evening. Whenever you’re listening to this, just wash away for a little bit.
[Light language transmission – audio only]
thank you for listening, and I hope you received that with the love that was intended. Because it was it was, um, you know, intended to be for your soul’s highest good, whatever you need right now. So I, I just want to say thank you again. I want to thank you for, for listening to the podcast. And I am so grateful that you are here. And I’m really looking forward. I’m so excited that I have changed the name of the podcast this year, and I’m calling it Design Your Life Your Way. I really it it’s so aligns with me and I’m hoping it is resonating with you And if so, I would love for you. You know, just again, let me know. And, uh, you know, leave a leave a comment, leave a, you know, leave a review, uh, uh, for us, uh, on wherever you are are getting this podcast and, and I also want to let you know one other thing too, is that if you are at a crossroads right now in your life where you’re, uh. You know, going through something that has made you kind of rethink, like, do I want to keep going this way? Do I do I want to change gears? Or maybe something has happened and you just need somebody to bounce some ideas off of.
Support for Women at Midlife Crossroads
You know what? I’m here and and I would love to talk with you. So if you want to, you can go to engage with Gloria dot com, and that’ll take you to my calendar. And you can schedule a call. No obligation. I’m not going to enroll you in a, you know, coaching package or anything like that. Got a little bug flying around me. Um, you know, we’ll just talk. And, of course, if if you find that you you really resonate with me and you’d like support. Of course I will. I will share some ways that we could do that, but. But I don’t want you to feel if you’ve if you’ve been listening to me, I hope you know that I’m not a I’m not a high pressure gal. That is not me at all. In fact, I probably too much of an under pressure person sometimes. But anyway, I I’ll put that in the show notes so you can have it. Um, and I just, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. And if it’s not me, go reach out to someone else. If you’ve got another good friend or a family member to talk to, or you’ve got your own coach, go talk to them about it. Know that there’s always support for you out there. You do not have to go through life alone, trudging your way and just saying, yeah, it’s, you know, I’m going to I’m going to figure this stuff out on my own. That gets exhausting after a while, so don’t do it.
Final Thoughts: Color Your Hair for YOU, Not for Acceptance
And if you want to color your hair, do it because it makes you feel good. Don’t do it because you think it’s going to make you acceptable. Okay, that’s my last word on the subject. So until we meet again, go out and make today great and fabulous and amazing as you are.