Today, my mind is preoccupied with two positive words: “fierce” and “visible.” Many women over 50, question their visibility. I can help you feel visible by introducing a new word into your vocabulary: fierce. And here’s how we maintain our relevance after 50.

As we age we lose our visible looks. When those negative feelings come rolling, not creeping in: we no longer feel visible. We feel we look old. La-De-Da, oh how we wish we could take a magic wand and stave off the visual signs of a lost youth. We try Botox, facelifts, and fillers. We have breast lifts, tummy tucks, and Liposuction.

Most women forget the main ingredient to a woman’s beauty is her charm, that inner beauty, that exudes relevance. When you feel relevant, you are powerful and secure as you age.

Relevance after 50

I am going to brighten up your day because I am going to show you how relevant you already are, darlings.

After you read my thoughts and answer your questions, I think you will walk with your head a little higher, your gate a little quicker, your smile more genuine as you feel your power as an older beautiful woman.

The knowledge that you already are a fierce woman comes with awareness. 

You probably say to yourself, as my friends have told me, “I would never want to be a fierce woman. I am not mean, aggressive, blustery or relentless. It is an awful word.”

Darlings, to feel beautiful and visible after 50 and beyond you, must feel ‘fiercely awesome,’ about the inner you.  

So, once again please take out paper and pen or go to your computer and do the following:  I want you to write down everything positive about yourself putting the word fierce in front of it.

I will help you get started by mentioning a few reasons I feel fierce after 50:

I am fierce because I am grateful.
I am fierce because I love deeply.
I am fierce because I own my feelings

Now, it is your turn. What makes you fierce?

I hope you are feeling your relevance, your power, your self-worth.

My lesson is just the beginning of your journey. Feeling fierce can be the force to propel you into a new adventure. Your self-esteem should climb along with your desire to feel beautiful as an older woman. The outer you is a shell. The inner you is your substance.

To spur you on, I am going to relate a true story about a friend of mine who felt invisible, all because of her age.

I met her several years ago when asked to give her a ride. Immediately, I knew I was dealing with a pistol-packing mama. She was fierce and visible.  I was in my ’40s. She was in her ’60s. At the time of that first meeting, it never occurred to me to use the adjectives, fierce or visible to describe a woman. The words may have been passionate and striking. Today I would define her as fierce and visible.

My visible and fierce girlfriend, close to 70, was no sissy 15 years ago when she walked into her living room in New York and informed her husband they were leaving New York for a community where she could feel fierce and visible.

She explained to him that she felt old; no one looked at her any longer as she strolled down 5th or Madison Avenue. She went on to explain to her husband it was time to, get out of Dodge City, by shifting gears. She wanted to move to a community where she could once again be noticed for her visible self. He was all for her plan, lucky her.

My girlfriend had the doggedness and strength of purpose to live up to her words. They moved out of Manhattan to Rancho Mirage, California; a sleepy community of older people.

I met her at that time of her life. She was fierce. She was visible. She was vibrant. She had owned a small newspaper in Manhattan.  She was loved and respected. Her eyes as blue as the bluest sky sparkled. Her smile was radiant. She became one of my role models. At the time I was in my 40s.

She explained to me that a woman should reinvent herself every ten years. I watched her do just that. She went from newspaper owner to jeweler. She now designs jewelry and her pieces are as fierce and visible as she is.

One day I said to her, “Time to reinvent your jewelry line. You have to learn to make earrings to go with your handsome necklaces.”

She told me she did not know how to do that.

“Try making some for me. I will be your model,”  I said.

And I was. I knew she would take my challenge because she was fierce in trying everything

So, you see my darlings; I know many older women who in their late ’50s and beyond feel like my friend did; a woman who felt she had disappeared when she walked down 5th Avenue… invisible.

For a time she was so self-absorbed in her outer looks that she forgot her essence and provocative persona. She forgot she had a voice. She forgot how fierce she was.

And then ‘she got it.’ She figured out how to live happily in her world. And then she did something about it and made it happen.

You can do the same thing. Look at the fierceness list you created. Figure out your path. You have an excellent opportunity to be one of the women who choose to recognize, like my friend, your fierceness. When you do, you will become visible and vibrant.

If you are one of the thousands of women feeling invisible, it is time to take the bull by the horn and… shift like my dynamo girlfriend.