Two weeks ago, early in the morning, I stood in semi-darkness in front of our bedroom mirror and got dressed. I saw my face in the reflection and was surprised about what I noticed. I immediately went to Andrew who was in the bathroom and asked if he noticed how tired and old I looked this morning. I was wondering out loud if an oncoming cold was the reason for my tired looking face.
Andrew stared at me aghast. By the look on his face I could tell that he did not find that I had changed. I came to the conclusion that I had apparently reached the age where a woman might look old and tired in the morning.
Interesting, I thought, and how nice that I didn't care much. For I look now, in my 40s, much better than I did in my mid-twenties. At least I think so. Although I had no wrinkles in my twenties, I was already very overweight, which got even worse later on.
Also in my early 40s I had not yet had a single wrinkle on my face. My skin tightened quite tight on my plump cheeks and two double chins. I had my wrinkles crisis with 42 when I had lost all my excess weight in 18 months, as wrinkles emerged out of nowhere. It was hard to get used to them.
To conceal one's own age doesn't mean denying it, but refuse any age stereotypes.
Shortly after my encounter with my aging self I saw an interview (http://www.katenorthrup.com/glimpse-tv/) and another short video (http://www.agelessgoddesses.com/index1) by and with Dr. Christiane Northrup, a physician and writer whom I've always liked a lot. In the 90s her book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, was for me as exiting to read as if it were a novel.
In the interview she was promoting her latest book Goddesses Never Age. She recommends among other things, that a woman should never reveal her biological age. A woman who does that would restrict herself and also would be reduced by society exactly to this age and thus ensure that she will soon feel as old as her birth certificate says. If she would make her age but younger or simply hide it then she would have the opportunity to develop her own way of life without being limited to her biological age. Dr. Christiane Northrup always answers to the question, how old she really is that she would have the wisdom of a 350 year old woman and the body of a 40 year old.
That sounded interesting, especially because this came from a highly valued author (who coincidentally lives in my neighborhood), but also sounded very old fashioned to me. I actually had always found it very liberating that women in our time are able to deal honestly with their age. We no longer live in the Victorian era where a woman was worth less the older she became. Of course, you could say the same about our present. There are circles where it is important that a woman is young and beautiful. But since I've never lived in such circles, I've never had the feeling that my value decreases with my age.
Christiane Northrup, however, doesn't mean that this is about the value of a woman, but about what she thinks of herself. She believes that women just because they are getting older do not need to age.
She claims based on decades of experience as a gynecologist that our beliefs determine how we feel. If we believe that starting in our 50s we are going to face increasing health problems, then this will happen.
In her new book her goal is to show women a way how to change their beliefs around age so that they can become crisp and healthy 100 years old if they want to.
Emotional well-being has more impact on our aging process than even the most expensive night lotion.
For several years I have been working on my negative beliefs on different levels. It is hard enough to change beliefs with which we grew up in the family. But it can be really hard if the beliefs we want to change are ingrained in society. It's impossible to escape these kinds of beliefs because we get bombarded daily with them, thanks to the media.
I do not believe that I can influence the development of my wrinkles much, no matter how much lotion I use (but frankly I use little of it, since I am too lazy and do not believe in its regeneration capacity).
But what I can influence is my emotional well-being. And in my experience my well-being is influenced by my ability to live authentically. Do I really do the things I want to do? Can I tell others how I feel? How do I deal with my anger? To what extent do I let my fears determine my life? Do I find joy and fulfillment in my life?
All this determines how old I feel.
I meet plenty of people in their 80s (my grandmother was one of them) who are fit as a fiddle and who claim that they still feel as if they were 20 years old. They would often forget how old they really are.
I think with this in mind I can understand why it might be a good idea if I stopped thinking about how old I am.
So do not be surprised when I will only give you a mysterious smile when you ask me about my age.
Karina
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