Leadership Skills:
Four Ways of Overcoming Perfectionism We can become better leaders and human beings and release ourselves from the bondage of perfectionism by practicing these few ideas.

Your Lifework & Self Confidence

Believe in Yourself!" If your self confidence is being tested by unemployment, underemployment, a promotion, job interview, child raising, or life(!) affirm your successes and renew your faith in yourself. We can’t wait for other people to bolster our confidence and nourish our being!

Trust Yourself – The Hero’s Way! We need to trust ourselves rather than blindly following the latest guru of the day. Doing our best to be good human beings; loving our children, spouses, making a decent home and livelihood is a heroic journey!

Lifework for Women

The Big 40!Read the treasures within Teresa's time-capsuled column, written upon her fortieth birthday - a decade ago! Herein, are issues many woman must face and grow through.

To Dye or Not to Dye? Herein, is more food for thought for aging women wanting a more natural look but struggling with societal dictates and personal insecurities.

Your Lifework & Furry Friends

Tribute to Shybaby Herein, is a tribute to Shybaby our sweet little cat who taught us so much about living in the present moment.

Life Lessons I Learned from my Cat My precious little cat is dying of liver cancer but her legacy lives on. This sweet soul taught me important life lessons: patience; breathing and being; the preciousness of the present moment; to keep things in perspective; and to do your best to keep loving, no matter what…

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I am absolutely no stranger to the concept of life long learning, particularly in the arena of self discovery. To me, this is the greatest and most important journey of all. One of my greatest teachers was my fortieth birthday. Although I had forty years to prepare for it, the big Four Oh managed to catch me by surprise.

How does forty years pass so quickly? For some odd reason I thought I would be exempt from the aging process. During past birthdays I felt better than the year before, full of life experiences, more confident, competent, and closer to my own beauty. I had the sense of life endlessly expanding before me, until forty loomed near, and then I began to feel haunted.

Haunted by the merciless march of time. The illusion of time spinning endlessly before me was dispelled forever. Forty is a milestone because it marks the end of the first half of life and the beginning of the final sequel on earth. For me, it has been a painful transition viewing my life from this new context. It has pressured me into serious reflection of my past forty years, with the unsettling question arising, "Do I want my next forty years to be like the past forty?" Upon hearing a definite no reply, I spiraled into a spasm of agony and dark well of tears.

Not desiring a repetition of my past, cast a dark veil over the years I had lived. I felt the anguish of having lived so many years for so many others. Years spent trying to be someone I'm not. Trying to please others, win love and acceptance, shape shifting, turning one face then another like a prism of many facets. With a painful futility, common to many women, I sought to find inner worth through the eyes of others. And of course, that inner worth, love and acceptance always eluded me and the outside props repeatedly dissolved and escaped me.

Turning forty forced me to re-evaluate my entire life, values and beliefs. I saw how I had used relationships, careers, and being accepted and recognized by others, as thin veneers to cover my own pain and emptiness. My pain and emptiness sprang from a lifetime of denying myself, refusing to acknowledge my own feelings, my own truth, often making someone else or something else more important. Can there be anything more lonely or painful than the abandonment of self? In the depths of this place, I think not.

This momentous birthday helped me understand I was not wrong throwing myself into the world, seeking to find myself, and make my mark externally during the first half of my life. But it would be tragic if I followed this path for the next forty years, as I would truly face a lonely death, devoid of the spirit of self. Not only did my birthday bring home the pain and shortcomings of my life and the required metamorphosis, but it also reinforced what I had gained through the years.

Many warm, intimate wishes from special people upon this day reminded me of the value friends. My five year old boy and his little 'sister' friend sang me happy birthday ten times and told me I was beautiful. Their pure innocence did much to restore my joy in life and my faith in myself. The three of us blew out the candles upon our cupcakes and made a wish. It was fitting I had but one candle, symbolizing my first year in this new era of life. My wish? I wish to live the next forty years being true to myself.

Copyright © 2004 Teresa Proudlove - Yourlifework Enterprises. All Rights Reserved.

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Giving up the quest for a glamorous, youthful look was especially difficult for me as I had been the fashion queen; owning fashion boutiques, doing image consulting and writing a fashion column for ten years. I had felt pity for my sister-in-law years ago, when she decided not to dye her hair.

At that time I vowed to never “let myself go,” and remain as youthful and glamorous as human powers would permit. Yet, rather suddenly, more years of dying my hair passed and I found myself resenting being held hostage every six weeks to grey roots, chemicals soaking my scalp, dark stains along my hairline, and fumes in my eyes and lungs.

More and more I begrudged the societal message clouting us: “Women lose their value, beauty and worth as they age and must do their utmost to hide the fact.” Proof of this message drives the multi-billion dollar beauty/anti-aging industry which goads us into defying nature and negating the beauty, vitality, sexuality and worth of aging, grey-haired women.

Now it is commonplace to perpetually dye greying hair; surgically nip, tuck and lift aging faces; Botox worrisome wrinkles away; lyposuction fat off thighs; enlarge small breasts; pluck “inappropriate” hairs (then draw eyebrows back on!); wear make-up with toxic ingredients; and keep wearing current clothing that was in style when we were teens. Unwittingly, we have been drawn into an anti-aging war being battled upon our bodies.

Each of us has to draw the line between wanting to look good and becoming a slave to twisted societal demands. Where do we say “Enough is enough?” Letting our grey grow is the “road less traveled.”

The idea that we must be beautiful, youthful and lithesome to be acceptable and of worth is deeply ingrained within each of us. It can be an unnerving, shocking journey dumping our societies’ shallow values, and coming to accept our bodies as they are: grey hair, no hair, overweight, wrinkles and all.

Three years ago, when I decided to stop dying my hair, with the support of my husband and young boy, I faced deep fears. Being mid-forties and grey-haired would I lose my man to a younger, prettier woman? Would they see me “on the way out” in my professional career? And what was I to do on those days the mirror reflected an old, unsexy, grey-haired woman? It’s interesting - I had to dig to the depths of my roots - in order to grow-out my roots. To grow grey I had to find the courage of my convictions and move against the mass belief. I had to go beyond my fears to find my own beauty and worth inside.

Now, having experienced grey hair for three years, I can say it is incredibly freeing and comfortable to be who I am, just as I am. To rise above societal beliefs and find our own intrinsic worth, beauty, vitality and sexuality let us begin with accepting, and caring for our bodies and our precious selves.

Given the toxicity of many beauty products and treatments perhaps the question of – “To dye or not to dye?” – should read… “To die or not to die?” that is the question.

Teresa Proudlove's BioTeresa Proudlove; storyteller, coach, internationally published writer and entrepreneur helps people remember their authentic Self and gifts. Living her passion, Teresa has lead thousands of people through her “Livelihood” workshops. With wisdom and heart Teresa inspires people to create the life and work they love.

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