Defying Age and Other Lies

Seriouslyourself

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Oh hello, how are you? Nice to have you joining me today. Come on in and get comfortable. I wanted to talk today about something that I think really is important when you're considering being seriously yourself. And that is that if you are listening to me right now, you are getting older period. Right? We know that, everything inside us knows that time moves forward, and sometimes it kind of loops around but our life has a certain forward pathway from being a baby to hopefully being an elder, right? That's our life here on this planet.
Unfortunately, at least in the U. S. Where I live and I think in a lot of countries we're told that that's not the goal. Isn't that weird? The very thing that is, is not the goal, or if it is the goal to get older, you must do it without appearing to age at all. And especially women are targeted. Girls are targeted. Can you even imagine I was thinking the other day like how many ads with messages have I gotten in my life, not even to mention in a month or a day, right. About anti aging or age defying or wrinkle resistant or age erasing, how ridiculous is this? How absurd is this? This contradiction of what we know is exactly right for us, right? I've listened to girls in high school complaining about getting wrinkles and saggy things and they're using creams and makeup and solutions and I'm not criticizing them because I'm absolutely certain I did the very same thing.
And now I look back at pictures and I think, oh, good grief, what in the world was I worried about? And I like to think that maybe my 100 year old self would look back on me right now and think, oh good grief, what on earth were you worried about? You could try that yourself. Imagine yourself 20 years in the future and even if that 20 years seems like a time when you may not even be on the planet, that's fine. Just imagine that one looking at you now. I bet the first thing she would say was not, "oh my you really should be getting some kind of treatment for those crow's feet". It just seems kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? Yeah, it is ridiculous. And yet we spend a great deal of money, a great deal of time, a great deal of energy of mental health pursuing this lie and fostering it. Oh my gosh, doesn't she look fabulous for her age, right? Doesn't she look great? I bet she's had something done, right. Now make no mistake if you have something done alright. If you get a little Botox or whatever, you know, is the thing that's fine, do what you need to do, feel good about you.
But I want us to imagine for a minute that this lie that we carry around that this myth, that skin that has been out around the sun skin that has been in the fresh air skin, that has been lived in skin that shows years is a dead thing, right? Is a scary thing, right? It's something that leads to death. That's what we think, right? And I suppose that's true, but that isn't what leads to death, that is just the result of living, ha, It's just the result of life, right? Death follows life. So if we take that stigma away from it, how amazing could it be if from the time you were little, you had this realization that you got to live and as you got to live, you got to live into what every little kid wants when they're very young and that is to be a grown up? Oh my goodness! Little little kids can't wait to have homework and to drive a car and generally speaking some some don't, but you know, they wanted they play grown up, right? They want to they want to age, of course they do, that's their job. And then we forget and we start thinking, oh we're supposed to anti age, we're supposed to age defy we're supposed to trick time. All of these little catchphrases that we're seeing all the time, in magazines and on television, and social media.
Yeah, Is that why you're here, are you here to fool, fool the world, are you here to express that the only vibrancy comes from the kind of vibrancy we see in youth? That without smooth skin, we have no light, we have no life? That with gray hair, we have no shimmer and shine that with any signs that we have been here more than a couple of decades. We should be hiding? I don't think we want to live that way if we are really wanting to be seriously ourselves. You know, the first thing we have to do, if we really want to feel good about being every age we are, the first thing we probably have to do is shake our heads really hard and get out of the mindset that we've been swimming in, right? We have to get out of this idea of what is right of what is appreciated of what has value of what is beautiful and recognize that those things are found at every single age and stage of our lives. They have to be, they have to be because they are inevitable and what and who we are is not disposable, right? And what and who we are at our fullness that are most comfortable is not to be tethered to ideas of shame, right?
If you look at your knees and your knees are wrinkly, why should that be a shame if you're really considerate, like, so what, you know, like maybe that's where your skin has wanted to be now. I've known people that were extremely fit and they'd stand up and they go and look at my look at my knees and they're just covered in wrinkles. Yeah, that's where that skin went. Okay. You know, what are you gonna do have have a knee lift? I suppose you could. But what's the message? What's the thing you're responding to that you were never supposed to get here, that you aren't worth being in your fullness at every single stage.
I'm sure that there are forces. Maybe it's about capitalism, right? Can't sell what actually happens because nobody would pay for what actually happens. Imagine if we were selling wrinkle cream, people be like, well, if you just wait, you're going to get that anyway. I mean, like make you wrinkle cream. That'd be hilarious. If I think about it, what if wrinkles became the mode and everybody was, you know, buying creams that would pucker up their skin, they probably couldn't get the, you know, the exact precise look that you would get with true aging, right? And so that would become really wanted and desired. That's all that is, you know. You know, if you really allow yourself to look at what is real, all that is is being sold a bill of goods that somehow you are not supposed to be here past how you looked at 25. And of course, we know that's not true. You know, that's not true, my dears.
So, imagine what it's like to be born. You know, you're born, you're here and you have this amazing gift. And if you're really, really lucky, you get to be well and feel pretty good through most of it and I know a lot of people don't, but a lot of us really do get to feel quite well and if you're really, really lucky you might get 70 80 90 some people are getting 100 good years. Isn't that incredible? A century of life. And what would it be like if during that century of life you were not believing that aging should be happening to you from the time you were 10? You know, my granddaughter, not too long ago, she asked me, well grandma when I'm 25, how old will you be? And I kind of chuckled and I said, oh Lucy, I'll be an old lady. And she looked at me, she goes grandma, why would you want to be an old lady? And I'm like, well because I'll just be older and I'll be a woman. So I guess I called that an old lady and she kind of shook her head and look at me and I thought, you know, I believe she's imagining something she's seen in a cartoon, right, where the old the old lady witch? And she was like why would anyone want that, right, old lady? She was imagining something she had been taught and she wasn't even five, she wasn't even five years old.
So you know, we could talk about this in terms of everything, right? We could talk about it in terms of body image. We could talk about it in terms of the value of each individual. We could talk about it in terms of control, right? Who and what controls your body. We've been thinking about that a lot. Especially, you know, in the month of June here in the United States in 2022, we've been thinking about control and who controls bodies and what that means. Who has a control on life and bringing life into the world and what that means.
And I think what makes it really hard inside is when a basic obvious truth is denied. And that basic truth in this case is that people are here to grow old if they are lucky and it is not a bad thing. And it is not fair to re-violet, to try to polish it, or change it, or eliminate. It's not fair to anyone. And I would say just to align those two concepts and I think I'm talking about control later in the month. So hang on for that one. But you know, we don't control anyone's body. We really barely control our own. If you think about it, we barely control our own body. And we can do these jokes right of it. Like, well, we can get any plastic surgery we want and we can do as much attending and exercise and changing as we want and we can. But ultimately, our bodies keep the score. They know they need to be fed, watered, tended, and loved and we don't control others bodies either. That's even more obvious. We don't even control children's bodies. Trust me, I've worked with so many parents who were so frustrated that they couldn't help their kid to be eating or potty trained or obedient. We don't control, we just don't control what it matters of the body. We don't. So I would say release that lie.
And today really look at how can you step out of the myths? How can you step out of defying what is beautifully laid out in front of you from the day you were born and live into its fullness and its vibrancy and it doesn't matter how old you are. You can step out of that today. You can start seeing where your believing lies and embrace where you know it is good to be and that is in your truth and in your beauty and in your age.
Thanks for joining me. I hope that this has been helpful for you and I really look forward to more. If you agree, disagree, like it, don't like it. Please message me and let me know what you think. And I'd love it if you would follow me and leave a review, those reviews people actually pay attention to not just me, but when they're looking for a podcast, they want to know what do you think? So, let them know if you like it. As Glenna Joy would say, "if you don't yeah, well, you know, you can just move on". Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time. Bye.
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And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.