The Secret of Staying Young

After my cycle class one of my students came up and wanted to talk with me about feeling age creeping up on her. She is forty-two and beginning to feel the first pangs of getting older. From my perspective I smiled and assured her that forty-two was very young. I had better than a decade on her but nevertheless could understand her plight. I remember my own realization in my early forties that I was aging. It is when the first sign of wrinkles appear and perhaps the first few grey hairs arrive. Suddenly there are mild aches in the joints and energy drops a bit. I could only assure her that everything she was going through in body and mind was totally normal and that everyone feels the pangs of aging throughout their lives. Each decade brings a different realization and a different set of issues but the emotions and the feelings are the same. However I had a secret that I would share with her that would help her through each phase of her life.

First I said, look ahead and tell me where you want to be in ten years. Envision yourself and then find a role model – someone ten years older that looks good, acts young, and is happy. Second look back ten years and see yourself. Envision how youthful you looked and at the same time how insecure and unhappy you were with your body-mind at that time in your life. Remember back when you were insecure about wearing a bikini and now if you had it to do over again you would have strutted your stuff with pride! Your body is never going to look the way it did ten years ago even if you work hard, take care of yourself and stay healthy. It will look great for a woman your age but you can never be thirty again. So remember you will never be forty-two again with the body and the mind you have right now. Strut the stuff you have right now and embrace the beauty of being in your forties. Trust me when you reach your fifties, if you don’t you will regret it and wish like hell you could go back and put it out there. Be proud, be happy and above all be confident. Each age brings an added beauty to the soul. The maturity that enhances your soul with wisdom is the softness, warmth, beauty and comfort that becomes the radiant light of the aging body-mind.

So the moral of the story is…don’t cover up and focus on every wrinkle and sag. Enjoy the present wherever the present may be for all too quickly it will pass. As each page of life unfolds and each new chapter is written be happy in the moment with an eye on the future. Work hard today and tomorrow will take care of itself and you too will forever be young.

Doctor Lynn
www.doctorlynn.com