Getting older but growing younger
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Getting older but growing younger
I was thirty-seven years old when my mother turned seventy-five. This birthday milestone of turning seventy-five seemed such a long way away and at thirty-seven it seemed so very old, even though my mother never seemed old to me, simply ageless.
But today, having arrived, after a journey of many challenges as well as many joys, at the same age, I do not feel the ‘old’ I expected to feel. In fact, I am feeling younger every day, and do not consider myself old in the least, although I am sure that others around me do, as they remind me, often subtly, of this fact every now and then.
What a hugely damning set of ideals and beliefs we live with regarding ageing in the world today, ideals and beliefs that we move and live within, very rarely questioning them, simply accepting this is how life is and so it becomes our normal. But as I have discovered, as I make my way through this life, it does not have to be this way.
Over the years, I have come to see that there is an ingrained and readily accepted belief, held within these ideals and beliefs, that as we age, we become less able to contribute to society, that our body will break down and we will disappear into our sagging skin, our wrinkles and our grey hair, being treated at times like we are simply silly, forgetful and maybe even losing our faculties. Many older people often share that it is like they have become invisible. I was one who had accepted these beliefs, fed to me from young, without question and so was living with the expectation of eventually arriving at this point in my life, where many would not be able to see me for the woman that I am, but instead some caricature of what society, in general, sees an older woman to be.
It is not surprising though, that this has become a readily accepted belief for women in many societies today, as it is one that is fuelled by the world-wide media whose skewed focus seems to be mainly on outwardly beautiful, younger women. If we are older, the articles and advertisements that relate to us are, more often than not, about how to look and act younger – to be anyone except who we truly are. From facelifts to breast augmentation, Botox, the latest magic diet solution, the list to fight off ageing, goes on…
It has become obvious, from my lived experience, that as we age, we are often ignored and not considered to be a valuable part of society anymore. I have also found that we are observed intently for any sign – perhaps forgetting a word – that we are losing it, whatever ‘it’ is. Many mature actresses who have had very successful careers, talk about how the roles for older women diminish as the years go by and that they receive fewer and fewer scripts to consider, with some of them resorting to any method possible to stave off the inevitable ageing process, often harming themselves physically and even mentally, as they do. For this Hollywood outsider, I am not too sure if men experience the same.
Magazines, television shows and the internet are full of suggestions, and often outlandish claims, as to how to ward off old age, fighting the expected downhill progression for as long as possible. What an absolute waste of our precious energy fighting something that it is inevitable.
The truth is, we are ageing from the moment we are born, and we will eventually complete the cycle of this life – although some much earlier than others through illness or injury – but how we age, and the quality of our life as we do is totally up to how we live each and every day.
So how did I come to a place in my life where I am feeling young at seventy-five, in spite of all the ageing programming I had taken on and run with over the years? And how is it that I am feeling the best I have ever felt, which shows in the way I walk, the way I look — including the wrinkles and the grey hair — and the way I relate to those around me? Yes, this body is ageing and that has come with many bodily issues and associated pain over the last few years, but I have come to learn that I do not need to allow these discomforts to take me over and determine how I feel and move. Yes, I have had days of feeling sorry for myself, that I am looking old and my body is feeling that age, but it is in those moments that I realise that I have disconnected from me, from the inner essence of the innately wise and beautiful woman that I am. This disconnection then allows the inner critic to have its destructive say, that critical voice in my head that seems to take great glee in telling me that I am getting old and that there is nothing I can do about it. Wrong!
In moments like this, I have found that taking a moment to stop and connect to this precious body with its incredible design, focusing on my breath and feeling every part of it, from the tip of my head to the bottom of my feet, reconnects me to the awe of this vessel that holds me in every moment of every day. I have discovered that there is a way to move in a body that is naturally ageing, often healing, maybe in pain and feeling tired, without disregarding it, a way that is full of love for my body and the joy of the quality of this phase of my life. And when I move with this love and this joy that naturally comes with it, I feel like the young child who is learning to walk and celebrating every step as I do.
But going back a step or two… It was not until my mid-fifties, that I began to rediscover me — the true ‘me’ that I didn’t realise was there, as it was buried under layers and layers of those ideals and beliefs of what I thought a woman should be, how she should live and how she will age. As a result, my self-worth was almost non-existent, my self-esteem permanently parked on the floor and my self-love... what self-love?
At this time, all of what had happened in my life — and was still happening — was etched into my face, definitely making me look older than I was, as someone shared with me once. That was an ouch moment! As a result, I often didn’t like who was looking back at me from the mirror or the shop window I was walking past — the reflection of a very sad and un-well woman, one who I struggled to acknowledge was actually me and one who was getting older.
This rediscovery of me began when I reconnected to the Ageless Wisdom when I was fifty-five, an ancient wisdom that has been lived before through many different eras and has been brought to us by many wise teachers. Listening to the very simple teachings of The Ageless Wisdom, presented by Serge Benhayon , I began to realise that what was being presented was making sense of a world that often hadn’t made sense to me and in turn, it was making sense of my life and its never-ending dramas and ill health. I soon began to see that the ill quality of my life and my body, was in direct response to the ill way I was living, therefore, the only way to change that quality was to make different choices from the ones that I had been living. That was a huge ‘that makes sense’ moment!
That was a huge ‘ouch’ moment indeed, when that realisation landed, that no one else had created my life, the life that I was struggling to live. I had created the woman in the mirror, the mirror that I would avoid as much as possible, as it seemed to be indicating that ageing wasn’t something I could avoid and that it was happening much faster than I wanted it to.
Since rediscovering the Ageless Wisdom and its teachings, teachings that cut through the complication of the life I was living, the love and respect for the being I am and the body I live in, has expanded and expanded some more, and life has become way more simple and very joyful. In fact, I have come to realise that there is no end to that expansion. When I began to treat myself with the love that had been missing in my life, I finally began to understand who I truly was, and have always been, and that love then naturally flowed onto those around me. It was only by allowing the chaos and complication of daily life into my body and taking on many damaging societally accepted beliefs (lies), that my life had been so hard to live, and that struggle was obvious in my face, my body, and the way I was moving. I realised that I was being weighed down by more than some extra kilos.
Letting go of the many ideals and ill beliefs — ones that I had held on tight to — that had imprisoned me in a deleterious way of living and fearing ageing, was so very liberating and enlivening. It did not take long to realise, that I could no longer pretend that the way I treated myself didn’t matter; it did matter, and it had manifested in the way I lived, the way I looked at life and at myself, and everyone around me and it was so obvious when I looked in the mirror.
Slowly but surely, as I let go of all that no longer served my body and my being and began to bring my loving attention to how I nourished myself, on all levels, from the food I ate and what I drank to the loving way I prepared for sleep and the way I worked, my life began to change in ways I had previously thought not possible. At times, it seemed to be one step forward and two steps back, but I held steady and slowly my body began to change, as did the reflection in my mirror and the days that I actually looked younger began to increase. It was finally as I made my way into my sixties that I actually began to love looking at myself simply because I was now able to love myself more than I had ever done in this life and along with this I slowly came to realise that I was no longer fearing growing older, in fact, I was actually looking forward to it.
My seventy-sixth birthday is fast approaching, and with it the joy that another cycle around the sun is coming to a completion. I now look at this moment of completion, the day my age rolls over from 75 to 76, as a stocktake moment, an opportunity to cast my wise and loving eyes over the last year and all that has unfolded.
There have been some challenging moments, some painful moments and those are acknowledged not ignored, but they fade into the background when I recall the joy of being alive, of waking up each day with a purpose and looking forward to those beautiful souls who I will connect with during my day.
Each connection is a joy and an opportunity to reflect that fact that ageing is nothing to fear and that living in the fullness of the glorious beings that we are, brings a sparkle and a light to our faces that shines through us and out into the world.
Yes, in the eyes of the world I may be getting older,
but in truth I am growing younger.
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