As you notice crow’s feet, wrinkles, grey hair, sag, chin hairs, and cellulite appear on your body, how do you react? Do milestone birthdays – 40, 50, 60 – cause you to panic?
This was the subject of my conversation, Simple Self-Love, on What Really Matters, the Vicky and Jen podcast. As Vicky and Jen both turn 40 this year, we talked about how we can maintain a positive body image as we age – and how we’ve learned to love our bodies, period.
We talked about 7 tools that any woman can use to love her body at any age, and to accept your body’s changes as it ages:
- Mourning/celebrating losses. It hurts to watch our bodies age and lose their beauty. Honor this. Celebrate the beauty of your body. Grieve what you’ve lost.
- Integrity. We feel more beautiful when we are taking care of ourselves. Beauty has a high connection to integrity – to living out our values. We say we love ourselves, but then we do otherwise – skimp on sleep, exercise, and healthy food or overexercise and diet. Honor your commitments to your body by lovingly caring for it.
- Compassion/non-violence. Comparisons are cruel. This includes comparing yourself to a younger, prettier, thinner, better version of yourself, or comparing yourself to other women. Don’t make life a beauty pageant or about a giant “should” – I should look younger; I should be thinner.
- Acceptance. As the serenity prayer says, accept what you can’t change. Change what you can. Have the wisdom to know the difference. If you are going to change something about your body – say coloring your hair, or losing weight, or adopting an exercise program – use love as your motivation to change rather than vanity. (Vanity is a terrible long term motivator.)
- Know your true nature. Attach your self-worth to something other than your body. It’s a recipe for hurt and pain. Yes, we live in our bodies, so we want to take care of them. And at the same time, we don’t want to define ourselves by our appearance. How do we balance caring for our bodies without defining ourselves by our bodies?
- Gratitude. Appreciate what your body can do to take the focus on how it looks. Try something new. Expand your idea of what is possible. Use your body to create joy in your life – dance, create art, make love, hug your child, hug a friend – to expand your appreciation for your physical self.
- Authenticity. Adopt your own beauty standards instead of following what the media or fashion industry says is correct. Dress your body in a way that honors you, rather than what is “trendy” or “hip.” Being authentic to ourselves, to our deepest desires, means that our insides and outsides match, which feeds our integrity: we feel like we are being true to ourselves. As we age, we are more comfortable being ourselves in this way – and being ourselves in our bodies.
Go here to listen to the interview. You can also listen to an earlier interview that I did with Vicky and Jen on simple self-care.
Vicky and Jen is the top parenting/family podcast in itunes. VickyandJen.com offers candid and entertaining shows, helping busy families stay well informed, interviewing leading experts in parenting, health, nutrition, self-help and much more. Past guests include actor/environmentalist Ed Begley, author and discipline expert Barbara Coloruso, and Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees.
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[...] Learn to accept and love your body, however difficult it may be to do so. Read here on how to have a healthy body image. It’s not too [...]