Feeling Fabulous in your 50's ( or whenever)

Christiane Northrup is busily telling us that Goddesses never age.

And she's right, we just grow ever more fabulous with each passing year.

I feel sorry for the people that don't get that.

For the ones who think that, once you hit a certain age, you become  "unf**kable" or invisible.




That somehow women become irrelevant.


And so we start dreading certain birthdays... especially if they end in a zero. We dread turning 40 or 50 and cannot imagine ourselves at 60 or older.


We slather on "anti-aging" creams in the hopes that somehow, this will magically turn back time. Or we go for a little botox or something else to just freshen us up a bit.


What we really need to do is embrace who we are now. Embrace all that we have been through to bring us to this point. All those struggles, the highs, the lows that are our life - they mean something and not just to us but to those that shared those times with us.


And those experiences leave lasting reminders.


When I went through my divorce ,while also having a baby and starting a new relatiosnhip, my hair started falling out in clumps and then, one tiny patch of it ,went grey. I was thirty at the time. And it didn't feel like the end of the world. It felt like a badge of honor "Look what I've been through and I'm still standing"


When that patch got bigger and whiter, when my eldest was a teenager, I knew that I was wearing the badge of all mothers that worry and fret over their kids and wonder if the kids will survive the coming years in one piece ( they all did, relatively unscathed)


All those wrinkles around my eyes are from the smiles and the tears of being a Mum. Those stretch marks are where not only my skin had to stretch to birth the new me that was being born - the mother that would do anything for her children.


We need to stop fearing the numbers: the ages, the dress sizes, the pounds or kilos that stare back at us.

Those numbers do not define us.


They measure one small aspect of who we are and that is all.


How to feel fabulous, at any age, is a state of mind. It always comes back to loving ourselves and loving all the varying "you's" you have been . A new "you" emerges over the years. You let go of old ideas of how life "should" be and instead go with what is. You stop focusing on the "shoulds" and do what makes you happy. You realise that all the time you have spent angsting over "what will people think?" was wasted because people aren't thinking about you at all, they are too busy worrying about their own shit.



You have had an amazing life. You have had struggles and triumphs. You have survived your twenties, thirties, forties and are in your fifties and beyond. Not everyone is so lucky. Each day is a blessing and carries within it its own reward. Start looking for them and realise life loves you, start loving it back.




Want more tips for loving your life? Check out my book "The Goddess Guide to Sex, Love and Life"

Growing vs Aging

Is it possible to age without growing? This is todays writing prompt for the NaBloPoMo and it's a great question.

Let's look at the term aging for a moment. Aging merely calculates the number of years since your date of birth. As a culture we are anti aging - just check out any cover of a magazine for the latest tips on remaining youthful or any cosmetic counter for all the very latest creams and potions to fight the ravages of time. But the truth is that aging is a given. The years are going to pass regardless of how much we try to stop them.

The only guaranteed anti-aging device is to die young. Hmmm doesn't seem like much of a choice does it?

As George Bernard Shaw says 

Youth is wasted on the young.

When we are young we think we know everything. We think that we will live forever, that we are invincible. We also think that we are the only ones having sex ( Miley Cyrus is famous for stating that people over forty don't have sex anymore. You are sooo wrong Miley! So very wrong.) or at least that we are the only ones having hot, steamy sex.

The truth is very different ( a) sex gets better with age ( b) there is always so much more to learn (with sex but also just in general) (c) nobody lives forever.

How we age is a different matter all together.

Christiane Northrup has just written a  great book called "Goddesses Never Age" which talks about the effect of our thoughts on aging  and the impact that has on our bodies.

In my own life I look to some of the older people that I know. My ex mother in law is 86 years old and still just amazing. She travels the world. She still lives in her own house which she built - out of mud bricks while in her 60's. People thought she was mad to even attempt something at that age but she didn't let that stop her. You can read more of her story here. 

The most impressive thing in all of that was the way Dhaj continued to grow and evolve into the person that she wanted to be. Other people's opinions were of little interest to her, what mattered was what she envisioned for herself.

On the other hand is my own mother who is now 82. In her 70's she decided that she could no longer travel the two hours to come and visit me, she was too old to be making such long trips. A completely different attitude to the process of aging to Dhaj.

Aging is inevitable. Growing, on the other hand, is a choice.

In any given moment we can grow into a better version of ourselves.When a car cuts us off we can flip them a hand sginal or breathe and grow a little wiser and softer.

We can choose to grow by learning something new, stretching ourselves in different ways. We can take up exercise or start yoga or dancing. We can develop a spiritual practice such as meditation or go on a retreat or travel.

Growing is always available as an option.

How are you choosing to age? Are you finding new challenges and stretches? Or are you settling, comfortably into old age?