Changing My Self-Worth Pie: Letting My Hair Go Gray
I will be the first to say that as we age, I hold no answers to what is acceptable to fight against in our natural aging process. I am 100% for body autonomy. But I will say time and time again that we should be careful not to tie too much of our worth to our appearance. If we spend so much time focusing on our appearance, it can take up space from other more important things in our lives.
Fashion can be fun. I love the idea of someone getting a new haircut or switching up the color. And I love clothes and jewelry - I love to pick out my outfit and get dressed for the day (regardless of my destination). To me, that is pure joy. I also like how it makes me feel to wear certain clothes (vs being in my lounging clothes all day long). However, there is a big difference when an individual spends most of their day consumed by thoughts about their body shape, size, and appearance. For example, when someone feels they cannot leave their house without looking a certain way, it starts to tip the scales in the opposite direction of playful and fun.
Hence, my decision to face my gray hair and stop dying it. I realized it was no longer “fun.” And that mentality shift was my impetus for making a change. It was becoming too much of my focus - wondering if the sun was causing my color to change or if I had any significant events between my color appointments that would align before my roots started to show—or worrying that my roots were showing and someone will see that I am (shock!!!) gray. It began to feel like I was spending a lot of time and energy hiding a part of myself. Like inherently I felt some sort of shame tied to it. I did not like the element of self-consciousness that I was feeling. This is a profoundly personal decision. One that is right for me. One that makes me feel free. One that lets me feel closer to who I am with nothing to hide.
We all desire to be loved and feel attractive and accepted. The absolute reality is that our bodies change continuously throughout life. And if we are so focused on fighting all those changes, it will take up so much of our time and energy that we will miss some of the beauty and magic that comes in the in-between years of being young and old(er). When we shed the paradigm of traditional beauty, we are certainly swimming upstream. But if we want a life full of inherently meaningful connections, these go far beyond the exterior. If you were to think about why you love your friends and family, it probably has very little to do with how they look or their body size. If we can tie less of our self-worth to our ability to control our body shape, size and appearance, our life could feel much bigger and more joyful.
But how do we know if we base too much of our self-worth on our appearance? An exercise I do with my clients sometimes is to have them make a pie chart of what determines their self-worth. First, they list all the things they attribute to their worth (maybe being a good parent, a supportive spouse, an excellent employee, appearance, etc.). Then, we look at the list and assign each of them a percentage of the pie (with all the pieces adding up to 100%). If an individual inherently feels too much of their worth comes from the way they appear or their preoccupation with their ability to control their body size and shape, we focus on how we can shift the pie so they feel their worth inherently comes from other places (and less so from appearance). We see what steps we can take to work towards what they want that pie to look like and how they can get there.
Not long ago, a hairdresser said to me, but you have such young kids - you don’t want to stop dying your hair. What people fail to say is that it will make me look old. That is the fear. Because the reality is we spend so much damn time chasing the beauty of youth. And is that so much more worthy of how I actually feel? I don’t think so. I don’t want to think about my hair color all the time. I am changing my self-worth pie.
I am ready to dive in. I am doing this first and foremost for myself. I want this. But I am also doing this for my kids - because I want to show them over and over again that bodies come in all shapes, sizes, and colors (even hair colors). I am doing this for society because I think it’s important to continually show that we can break traditional beauty standards and molds (such as looking at someone’s body size does not equate to healthy, or not healthy OR gray hair makes someone old and not attractive). And I’m doing it so it’s a little easier for someone else to step up. So be gray. Be beautiful. Just be authentically you in whatever way that may be.
And remember, this is a hard journey. Reach out to see how we can support you along the way. I’ll be there…letting my roots grow during this very slow process!
