Aging Beautifully part 3

The one truth in life: time and ageing cannot be stopped. And why would we want them to? Staying stuck in our twenties would rob us of major opportunities for personal growth, so we must be diligent when it comes to fighting against the forces that seek to stifle us in this regard. Do we want our daughters and granddaughters to feel the pressure of having to look fabulous as a means to being ‘successful”? Do we want them to think — even for a second — that they are no more than trophies and that once they lose their shine, they will be discarded?

Defining ourselves as ‘beautiful’ or ‘unattractive’ is a fundamentally passive way of being in the world. It requires us to be beautiful, and that takes all the power of action and puts it into someone else’s hands. Is it the Media that gets to determine our beauty, or ourselves? Why worry about being seen when we can be the one with the vision instead?

You are told you are ‘amazing for your age’ if you have any semblance of muscle on your body. You are asked quietly if you’ve had ‘work done’, if your skin happens to be reasonably unwrinkled and with a glow over and above the norm. God help you if you look too healthy as then you are not really ageing normally. All of this is untrue and the underbelly of ageism.

Many conversations involve us having to cope with change of one sort or another and at any age change is hard. Many of us are not ‘change resilient’ as the pace of change wasn’t as fast when we were younger. We are vilified behind our backs as not being able to ‘get with the program’ because of our age, but it’s not our age that’s the problem. It’s that we are simply different from the younger ones that seem to be driving the agenda when it comes to work, education, healthcare marketing and consumerism in general.

We need to FIGHT against ageism as it is toxic and is only just starting to show its true colors. We shouldn’t have to gracefully retire to a place containing only people of a certain age. I like diversity and don’t want to be the only older person in a team of younger people. I don’t want to live in a retirement village where there are no younger men to quietly observe as they run into the surf. Why do I have to behave differently because of my age? Here are some of the things I’ve done to calm my mind and confront the aging process with a little bit of grace:

1.     Get a bit more fit!  This is important, unless you want to end up with a broken hip and end up unable to get around.  Check your balance, work on one thing at a time. 

2.     Get CLARITY on your life direction. If you are uncertain about what to do between now and your entry to your coffin, then focus your energies on something that is meaningful to do. Not on yourself and shopping and other diversions. Get a CAUSE and dig deep into helping others and you’ll find your life will change for the better and will become the life of your dreams. You won’t have depression or nagging thoughts about what your life is about, you’ll be living a life of meaning.

3.     Find your TRIBE. Find people you truly resonate with and then co-create with them. Get a project and become part of the team to deliver that project. You’ll find that all sorts of personal issues will come up and you’ll find ways to resolve these and have grown in the meantime. You’ll get out of your comfort zone and grow some more. The harder the project the more fulfilling.

4.     Eat a CLEAN DIET. Once you clear out the gunk caused by the artifacts we are currently eating and that are masquerading as foods, then you’ll immediately feel better. Initially this will be the hardest thing you ever do, but in the end, you’ll feel like a goddess in control of your world.

5.     Stay Positive. Look for the beauty in life and others.

 Instead of avoiding the realities we need to start talking about what this means to us as individuals and how society is not currently supportive of this important process. We need to get angry about what is going on. We need to lobby against the toxicity of ageism, if not for ourselves, then for our girls.

As we age, this is what we want for ourselves, too. No more having to comply with someone else’s agenda and having to do things we don’t really want to do. It’s time to let go of the way others see and define us and instead decide how we want to see ourselves. In this way, we can turn invisibility into a real gift, because it gives us the opportunity to embrace who we are in our own skin without caring about what others think.

Part of seeing yourself accurately is getting in touch with your hopes and dreams — and they may have been buried beneath years’ worth of other commitments and expectations about what you ‘should’ be doing. If the thought of naming the purpose of your life is too overwhelming, just start to notice what you like and dislike about your life right now. Use a journal to record your thoughts as they come. This simple exercise will help you be more present in your life and will clarify your vision of who you want to be for the next phase. We can help you launch a new age-perfect product line, it is never too late to be creative, and successful!  We can help you bring your dream to reality.  Bring your creative side out of the dark, come see us and we will help you create the best product line for your age group, and get you started on a new path.  Call us anytime, we are here to help!