Four ways to embrace ageing

How do you feel about ageing?

Is it something you dread or feel you need to fight against? If so, you aren’t alone.

In this post, I’m sharing four ways to help you embrace ageing.

Listen or read below:


Why it’s difficult to embrace ageing

Clients often tell me they feel invisible once they hit their late 40’s or early 50’s, and say things like, “I look old and frumpy” or “I’ve ‘lost’ my youthful looks”.

They compare themselves to younger women and mourn the loss of their youthful body.

All of this makes it difficult to embrace ageing.

I know this because I’ve experienced this too.

Yet it’s no wonder we feel this way.

From childhood we’re brought up to care about our appearance, and believe our value is based on how youthful and attractive we look.

This creates an expectation that we can and should ‘fight’ age, and if we don’t, we’ll let ourselves down.

But, if you rely on your appearance to define your worth, you set yourself up for negative body image and poor self worth as you age. 

Appearance is a very fragile foundation on which to build your worth.  Looks are temporary, and getting older is a harsh reminder of this.

How to embrace ageing

When you’re faced with the passage of time, how do you embrace ageing and see it as a new era of possibility in your life?

Well, to help embrace my body as it ages, I’ve been leaning into some core truths about age.

These truths and perspectives have helped me and my clients, and I think they’ll help you too!

Love your wisdom

My Mum used to say, “You can’t put an old head on young shoulders”

I got sick of hearing this as a teenager and 20-something, but I totally get it now.  With age comes wisdom, and the only away to acquire that is over time.

Although being young had its benefits, I wouldn’t want to go back. 

I remember being unsure of myself and painfully self conscious about my body. 

After many ups and downs in life, I know (most of the time!) who I am and what I want. 

I feel more comfortable in my body than I ever did when I was young, and I wouldn’t trade wisdom for youth now.

When you look back at your younger self, what would you say to her with the benefit of hind sight?

I’d say, “Don’t worry so much about what others think about you or what you look like.  Do what you want, not what you think you ‘should’ do.”  That’s wisdom.

Ultimately, the key to embrace ageing is the realisation that you have more to offer than how you look.

Be grateful

If you’ve made it this far in life, whether that’s your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s or beyond, be grateful for that! 

Age is a privilege that not everyone gets to experience.

To value yourself for your appearance alone is to deny the person you are and the life that you’ve led.

After all, who has got you through life?  You have, and more particularly, your body has carried you along the way, constantly working for you. 

If you have a body that is healthy and enables you to do what you want, be grateful for that.

Even if there are parts of your body that don’t quite work the way they used to, focus your attention on what you CAN still do, not what you are no longer able to.

Be pro-age

You can’t fight age – that’s not a battle you’re going to win.

From the moment you’re born, you are ageing. Nobody is immortal. There is no way to hang onto youth forever.

When you’re anti-age, you set yourself up in opposition to your body, which makes it very difficult to embrace ageing.

Instead, adopt a pro-age stance. Be open to the possibilities that older age can bring. See it as a gift rather than a burden, or something to fight against.

Accept body changes

Most women find it difficult to embrace ageing because they compare changes to their body with how they used to look (or younger women).

These comparisons are triggered by the belief that it’s ‘bad’ for our bodies to change, and that we have control over this, which we don’t.

Our bodies are meant to change, they aren’t meant to stay the same. You’re not meant to look 25 when you’re 50.

So, rather than layering any judgment on body changes, just notice what is.

So, for example, if you notice the texture of your skin has changed you might say, “I notice how the texture of my skin is different” without passing judgment on this change.

Ultimately, it’s the evaluation you make of the change that causes distress rather than the change itself.

So that’s it, four ways to help embrace ageing.

Remember that your worth as a woman is not defined by how youthful you look. 

Ageing is a process through which a woman gains wisdom, enabling her to refine and redefine who she wants to be and what she wants to do .

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