🌸 I feel invisible.
🌸 I want to go back to the person I was once proud to be.
🌸 I’ve lost myself along the way.
🌸 I’m 50 and feel I’m on the down slope of life.
🌸 I once enjoyed how I looked. Not anymore.
🌸 I look at myself and think I’m too big a challenge.
🌸 Now the kids are older I should be able to spend time on me.
These words are all real words from real women. Women of midlife. Women like me. Women who voluntarily and with huge degrees of vulnerability put themselves on a TV show called “Ten Years Younger “.
I find watching the programme quite emotional if I’m honest. It’s like listening to myself telling people why I’ve launched my colour business.
My business like that of my most solopreneurs I suspect, is founded on a personal journey. I left the toxicity of a professional ‘job for life’ career at 53! There were many reasons – stress, workload, politics, compromised ethics, a nasty health scare and misdiagnosis. And of course, midlife and empty nest to boot! Oh, and imposter syndrome – let’s not forget that!
I spent years, as a single mum of two ‘gorgeous boys’ putting the needs of others first. The needs of my sons, elderly parents, ex-husband (and his poisonous, finance-absent vitriol), new partner, demanding and gruelling sporting schedules of both boys, working after hours …the list is endless! I lost myself. I gained multiple pounds – but sadly of the donut kind not the cash kind! I hid in black. It’s slimming isn't it? I was invisible and was happy to be. Who was I anyway?
My marriage stripped every ounce of self-confidence I had – to say nothing of my bank balance – I had no time for friends or family really. I felt lost.
When the boys became more independent, I had an overwhelming sense of lack of purpose. They didn’t need me anymore. I had no ‘hobbies’ to revert to, no interests really. My friends had, understandably, lost patience with me always cancelling or being absent at get togethers. I had lost a sense of self. And oh, my goodness, ANY sense of style! (Insert monkey with hands over his eyes emoji here!).
Big black tents were the order of the day. I could so easily have been one of those women on Ten Years Younger. I wince at photos of myself from those times. I had certainly aged ten years – and some.
When I came across colour consultancy, quite by accident (or maybe it was the universe connecting me), I was very cynical, sceptical. I had had my colours done years ago and been told to wear all the colours I hate and were wholly unfashionable for a then slim, tall, ‘girl about town’. Yes, I was! Once! Hard to believe looking back. Fast cars and fast men were the order of the day back in my twenties.
Anyway, back to the story …
At the colour consultation – the recent one, not the one years ago – I sat like an Amish lady in front of a full length mirror with no make-up, hair scraped back into a white head square that tied at the back and thought – oh my goodness, what a mess. How have you got to this state?
Rectangles of fabric were systematically draped over my shoulder in a carcophony of colours. Every colour, shade and hue. Instantaneously I could see the colour drain, drown or ignite me. I shrieked “Get it off!’, “No, no, no!”, like some sort of mad woman. But the transformation was incredible to me. Wearing the right colours made me look radiant, enhanced my better features, minimised my fine lines (are crow’s feet an inevitability, a necessary evil, of midlife? Like the menopause. Anybody know?), reduced my dark circles - blimey did they need it - and even, dare I say it, some of the colours made me look slimmer. Yes, slimmer! Wow! I was sold!
I knew that as a self-confessed nurturer, somebody who gives better than they receive, that I wanted to be able to offer this enlightenment to other invisible, midlife ladies who’d also neglected themselves in the long list of things to do.
So, whilst I don’t offer expensive cosmetic aesthetics, dentistry or medical procedures, I do offer hope. And help. The TV show simply reaffirms that there are many, many women out there who need help. My help. But I don’t know about you, I don’t want to look back with regret and wish it was ten years ago. I want to make the best of who I am. NOW.
Because I have learned that I matter. You matter. I am enough. You are enough. You do deserve to be YOU.
You are NEVER too old and its NEVER too late to be who you want to be, do what you want to do and live a life of authencity and adventure. Don’t settle, accept. Live and enjoy. Invest in yourself. I did. And I’ve never looked back!
Why not book a free 20 minute discovery call with me and we can talk about your true colours?
