Shades of Strength

Finding confidence in our natural hair color as we age

Jean Edelman: Great to be with you this week. This week I was thinking about the word ‘grey’. It seems to be the color, the hair color that is. Maybe it’s because of my age, but I see young and old with beautiful grey hair. It has become a color of youth and not a color of age.

I never colored my hair until August of 2020. It may have been the effects of Covid, but this January I decided I was going to stop. I love others and grey hair, and I’m loving my beautiful grey highlights as they start coming in again.

For me, it was Covid. The Covid just made me feel old before my time, and I think we were all struggling with our emotional selves and we were all doing what we could do to feel good and look good. But now that we’re on the other side of this, the freedom to be ourselves is easier, being more authentic.

In fact, I see hair, colors of blue, red, all colors of the rainbow now. And I think it’s pretty cool. Our hair is such an identifier of our self, our self-esteem, our self-confidence, our statement. A dear friend of ours passed away from cancer a couple of years ago, and it was her greatest joy that she didn’t lose her hair during her treatment. It meant so much to her.

Our hair is important to us and I do think it’s fun to observe others and their hairstyles. It is their personal statement. It is our personal statement.

So no matter our age, it’s acceptable to be grey. It’s awesome. And it has become a fun statement. So an action item for this week is do we color our hair and think about would at some point would we be comfortable going to our natural color? It is a question to think about. Men seem to accept grey more easily. They look distinguished. Why are women not thought of in that way? It’s very curious.

So my word of the week is very simple. It’s Grey. [also commonly spelled ‘gray’ in the US]

The G is for Gem. You know what? We’re all gems. And our goal should be to shed our loving light on all we meet and feeling comfortable in our bodies inside and out. And this means our hair. Let it be our statement.

The R is for Rare, sparse, few and precious because that is us. We are one of a kind. No one can compare to us.

The E is for Embrace. Embrace who we are because our inner body shines. Our outer body.

And the Y is for Youth because our hair color should not dictate how young we feel. Aging is natural. Our hair changes. Our bodies change. But the point is how we feel inside. Are we moving? Are we breathing? Are we getting outside for our walks? Are we waking up with good energy? Are we sleeping? Do we have good self-care?

That’s what it’s all about, not the color of our hair. Have a wonderful week, everyone.