What you Believe about aging will Come True
Believe that you are a blade of grass reaching for the light!
As many of you know, I speak to women who are over 50 -- as I say, #FierceOver50 We are exhausted achievers who know we must find a better way through the next 20, 30, 40, and 50 years. We have no time to lose. We are taking the ferociousness that got us here and giving it new meaning. I call it “finding your new fierce!”
Looking back, I found it interesting that I’d been told several times, in preparing for talks or workshops, specifically and even vehemently, not to use the word “aging.”
“Why?” I would ask.
“Women,” one woman who had invited me, herself well over 50, explained, “don’t want to face what is happening to them.”
We have been taught that aging is an unstoppable, irrevocable, and brutal force that we have no control over: it is a steep downhill slide for our bodies and our minds. And, the momentum from that slide lands our hopes, wishes, and dreams in a mess of rubble at the bottom of the hill.
Factoid here: Many studies point out that only about 25% of the misfortunes of aging are determined by our genes. In fact, 75% of our desired longevity results from lifestyle and environmental factors.
Game Changer: Lifestyle includes what we believe about ourselves.
“What I believe about myself”? As a lifetime “do-er” and “achiever,” this was very hard for me to get my very stuck and stubborn head around. What????
After I turned 50 and I knew that I had to do things differently, my first thought was that I just hadn’t found the right form of “do-ing” that would get me off the aging rollercoaster.
I had just begun to intuit that I needed to “do” things differently when I began reading Dr. Christianne Northrup’s book, Goddesses Never Age (2015, Hay House).
Most simply, Dr. Northrup insists, “Your thoughts and beliefs are the single most important indicator of your state of health” (p.10).
She wants us to be like that tiny blade of grass that -- against all odds -- pushes its way up through the concrete toward the sunlight. She wants us to live with vitality -- to find that sunlight and grow towards it, fiercely owning our right to take care of ourselves and not others, at this time of our lives.
Imagine yourself as that little blade of grass, struggling to poke through the gravel and concrete. What is the gravel and concrete in our lives that keeps us small, keeps us subject to all of the chronic, debilitating issues that aging can bring to our door?
In a word, the gravel and concrete that keeps us from growing toward our sunlight is a simple 6 letter word:
Stress. Yes, stress.
Stress, itself, is a good thing. We know. We have used it to get things done, to achieve all that we have achieved.
The problem is when stress -- and then add in some trauma for good measure -- becomes the new normal. We can no longer see it, feel it, or taste it. But it is keeping us hidden from the sunlight or the spirit in our lives. It distracts us from owning the beliefs that can support us in living our most vibrant lives.
The deep and invisible stress that we carry in our bodies is what causes the pain, inflammation, weight gain, anxiety, loss of sleep, and more.
And the sunlight that we need to continue to grow, thrive and counteract stress is not a return to the all-out-exercise-the-hell-out-of-our-bodies. If anything, that just adds to the stress in our bodies.
Do you believe you are that single blade of grass? Or, do you believe that you are a slave to an inevitable aging process?
Through your own commitment to your life and your body, you have the power to shift from the genetic cards dealt to you to a hand that you compose yourself. Be that blade of grass!
Through my Body Vitality Method, I teach the breathwork, self-massage, movement, and gentle strengthening that brings just the sunlight that you need.
The Body Vitality Method is different because it acknowledges that, right now, stress is a huge part of that 75% that contributes (or more specifically, detracts) from healthy aging. And it offers a different way to take care of yourself in response to that.
But learning to draw in this sunlight is a slow-growth process and it is best done among other women who gather with the same aspirations. One workshop, one class will not flip that switch.
This is why I started the #FierceOver50 Gathering. Because you can age with an ever-growing vibrant vision for your life for what you want to do and how you will accomplish your vision in innovative ways that support a “new” fierce.
But this requires us to see what the legacy of stress and the pain it causes are actually doing to us. We need to establish a new relationship with our bodies, our to-do lists, our exercise practices, our families, and more.
This is what the #FierceOver50 Gathering is all about. To learn more, click here: