Pat Wanas - Not Aging - Maturing

Fourteen years ago, at 51—an age when many people begin thinking about winding down their careers—Pat Wanas did something very different. She started over.

After years of owning a salon and day spa in North Carolina with her husband, Pat moved with him to Jacksonville and decided her next professional chapter would be hers to build on her own. It was intimidating. It was also exactly where she was supposed to be.

Pat opened The Metamorphosis Life, a holistic and organic hair salon built around a philosophy she had been developing for decades: true beauty begins within.

For Pat, it wasn't simply about helping women look good. It was about considering the health of the whole person. And in many ways, that philosophy describes Pat's life as well. She's been a hairdresser for 46 years, but she has never stopped evolving.

Early in her career, Pat worked as a colorist in a busy salon, sometimes performing so many highlighting services in a day that the skin on her face would peel from exposure to the chemicals. She knew there had to be a healthier way, but the beauty industry hadn't caught up yet.

As cleaner products slowly became available, Pat embraced them. She studied ingredients, researched alternatives and eventually built her Jacksonville salon around products and practices that aligned more closely with the health-conscious life she'd already been living for years.

In fact, Pat's interest in wellness began long before "clean living" became a trend. As a teenager, she was already paying attention to nutrition. At beauty school, she befriended a woman ten years older who was a vegetarian—still fairly unusual in 1979—and became fascinated by what she learned from her.

Movement became important early, too, although for a very different reason. Pat had been hit by a car at 15, breaking her pelvis, and by 18 had developed a herniated disc. A chiropractor told her that if she wanted to remain a hairdresser—spending long days on her feet—she would need to keep her core strong for the rest of her life.

So she did.

"Start small," is the advice she gives people who feel overwhelmed by making healthier choices today. Walk before you run. Drink a little more water. Find movement you enjoy. Pay attention to how you feel.

"It's a journey. It's not a sprint."

That willingness to take one step, learn from it and then build upon it has become a pattern throughout Pat's life. She learned it in business, too. Years ago, while running her North Carolina salon, her son handed her a book about economics. One idea particularly intrigued her: before spreadsheets, analytics and endless streams of data, people learned about their communities simply by observing what was happening around them.

Pat began looking out the front window of her salon differently. She watched. She noticed. She made small changes based on what she saw—and they worked. That experience reinforced something that has been part of Pat since childhood:

Curiosity.

It is also at the heart of how she views growing older. "I don't see us as aging," Pat says. "I see us as maturing. And there's a big difference." To Pat, aging suggests slowing down. Becoming too old for this or too old for that. Maturing means something entirely different. It means building one experience upon another.

I learned this. What can I learn next?

It means staying interested. Embracing what is new instead of automatically criticizing it because it isn't the way things used to be. Maybe the new way is better. Maybe it isn't. And if the old way really was better?

"Then it's up to you to bring back the old—but reinvent it."

It's hard to imagine a philosophy better suited to Pat. Over the years, she continued expanding her understanding of wellness. After noticing increasing hair loss among her clients, she became a certified nutritional health coach in 2019. More recently, her own health journey sparked an interest in biofeedback, which she now incorporates into the broader holistic approach of The Metamorphosis Life.

None of these pursuits feels like a departure from what came before. Each is simply another layer. Another question. Another thing to learn. Another way to help. That last piece may be the most important.

Pat's strength wasn't developed only through education, career or entrepreneurship. Some of it was forged much earlier, during one of the most difficult seasons of her life.Years before the North Carolina salon and the business she would later build with her current husband, Pat went through a difficult divorce from her first husband. She found herself raising two young children, ages five and one, on her own. She worked two jobs because she had to. There wasn't much help available, so Pat learned how to keep going. She survived. Her children grew up. And she came out the other side stronger.

Looking back now, Pat sees that experience as foundational—not simply because of what she overcame, but because it deepened her desire to help someone else along the way.

"Maybe it wasn't just for me," she says. "Maybe it is to help others get through it."

It's a philosophy rooted in the way she was raised as the middle of five children, when helping wasn't something extraordinary. It was simply what you did. And Pat believes it still can be. Give someone a dollar. Pick up the discarded can you see while you're walking. Help someone who needs it. Start small.

It's interesting how often those two words appear in Pat's philosophy. Want to improve your health? Start small. Want to become more giving? Start small. Want to change your life? Start small. Then keep building. Today, at 65, Pat is still building.

She's dreaming about new ways to empower people—not only with their health or appearance, but to become more conscious of their lives and the world around them. To notice the good. To recognize abundance. To expand their imaginations and see possibilities they might have overlooked. The details are still unfolding. And perhaps that's fitting. Because at this stage of life, Pat doesn't believe she's approaching an ending. She's still curious. Still learning. Still serving. Still dreaming.

If she could sit down with her younger self today, she wouldn't tell her to take a different road. She'd simply say:

"Don't change. Keep going."

And then perhaps the advice that has carried Pat through nearly every season of her life:

Stay curious.

Because when you believe you're not simply aging, but maturing, there is always something new ahead.

Are you a woman over 50? We’d love to invite you to join the 50 Over 50 Project! Together we can change the narrative on aging - showing the unique beauty, wisdom and power that can only be attained by living life! CLICK HERE for more information and to join the ProAge movement!