It’s my birthday! And I have some words of wisdom.
I racked my brain with what to share on this week’s minisode and decided to bring you what’s on my mind as I take another trip around the sun. In this minisode you’ll hear:
- What I keep telling myself when I find that I’m judging others, or even myself.
- My thoughts on aging in general.
- An update on the process of growing out my grey hair (did I change my mind?!)
Resources from this episode
Conversations about shit that matters with unqualified people on aging
Right-click to download the .mp3
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Andrea 00:00
You're listening to Make Some Noise Podcast minisode number 443.
Welcome to Make Some Noise Podcast, your guide for strategies, tools and insight to empower yourself. I'm your host, Andrea Owen, global speaker, entrepreneur, life coach since 2007, and author of three books that have been translated into 18 languages and are available in 22 countries. Each week, I'll bring you a guest or a lesson that will help you maximize unshakable confidence, master resilience and make some noise in your life. You ready? Let's go.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. It's my birthday. I mean, if you're listening to this, on the day that this episode comes out, April 15, I'm a Tax Day baby. And shout out to all of my Aries listeners out there. I feel for your partners. Just kidding. Not really. I'm not really that into astrology. I do know that. Obviously, Aries is my rising sign, and apparently you have a moon and a sun, and I can't remember which is which. But I'm also a Libra and a Gemini. Again, I can't remember which one is the sun and which one is the moon. But Aries, Libra, Gemini. I feel like Aries and Gemini together. Maybe that's where I get all my feistiness from. But yes, it is my birthday today. And I was thinking about what I am going to bring you on this particular minisode, and let's just talk about what's on my mind.
What's on my mind, of course, as I'm taking one more trip around the sun, is the concept of getting older, I have not made it a secret that I have struggled with aging. And when I first started to feel challenged around it, I think it was probably when I turned 39 is when I started to kind of panic of like, oh my god, I had that, I think the realization that many of us have at various ages of times ticking by and of course that's like obvious. Obviously. But I think that we hit certain milestones or certain points in our life, where we are just heavily reminded of that. And for some reason, I had a harder time with 39 than I did with 40. 39 felt like okay, shit’s getting real around here. Do with that what you… What… I don't even totally remember what the deeper thought process was. But I distinctly remember 39 being hard and then entered my early 40s is really when I started to see changes on my physical appearance, the aging thing that happens, and I started to beat myself up because I was struggling with it. I told myself, but think of what I do for a living. I should be better than this. I should be more evolved than this. I should be the type of person, that type of a woman more specifically, that walks into every year that I get older as embracing it. You know, quote unquote, age gracefully. And I didn't know what that meant. I've done a couple of episodes. Gosh, it's probably been a couple of years now I did a conversation about shit that matters with unqualified people with my friend, Ella. I'll pop that in the show notes. Where we talked candidly about this. But I also see comments online, when, say for instance, someone is asking about who knows they're talking about their struggles with aging. I'm talking specifically with women. Inevitably, there are people in the comments who say, aging is a gift. we should embrace it. Not everyone gets the privilege of getting another year older. Not everyone gets the privilege of turning 40, of turning 50, of turning 60 ,and so on. And they're right. They're absolutely right. We should feel grateful that we get to get older, and that we have our health and all of these things. And give people the dignity of their own process. That's what I keep telling myself when I find that I'm judging someone else for their process and when I'm judging myself. When I feel like I should be in a different place, whether it's with trauma that I have gone through, whether it's with the aging process, whether it's with parenting, whether it's with my marriage.
Any big identity that we carry, how we walk through that, how we handle it, if there's healing that needs to be done, how we heal from it, is unique to me, it's unique to you, it's unique to her, it's unique to them. And I just I tell myself that over and over again. Give people the dignity of their own process. It's both, it's a paradox. It can be both a time of gratitude that we are turning another year older, and we're still here, and we're still kicking, and all of the things that we still have our health. And at the same time, we live in a culture that values youth and beauty and these particular beauty standards and ideals that are, for most people impossible, and for everyone impossible to keep. So it's both, it's absolutely both. And I try my best not to judge anyone else or myself about whatever that process looks like.
Another perspective that I've been thinking about lately is, you know, I've mentioned just here and there casually, and I'll dive more into the specifics of this chronic illness that I'm dealing with. I'm getting a second opinion, just to make sure what I have been diagnosed with is actually it, and my doctor agrees that I should see a second specialist about it. So when I get that official diagnosis, if it's the same one from the second doctor, I'll come on here and talk about it, but part of what alerted me to going and getting more blood tests and basically not shutting up about it to my doctors to figure out what was going on is some fairly rapid weight gain that I had. I gained about 25 pounds over the course of about, gosh, I don't, it was less than a year, I don't remember exactly how many months. But it was it changed the shape of my body, it changed the way I looked naked it you know, I went up two pant sizes, had to get all new pants and had to get new underwear. Again, you all know how I've talked about in previous episodes, when I thought something was wrong with my note, which is my butt was getting bigger. But it's the coming to terms with okay, this is likely how I'm going to look from now on this is my body is comfortable here, I don't know if the weight that I gained is ever going to come off and coming to terms with like, okay, this is my new size, this is the size that I'm going to be now. And, and just going through the process of that.
And I'm very grateful that it's actually been a little bit easier than I had originally thought that it would be if someone would have said, Hey, you're gonna gain 25 pounds in a few years, I'd be like, oh, that's gonna be that's gonna be complicated. It wasn't as complicated as I thought it was going to be, I’m grateful for that. However, the perspective, you know, as I catch myself in the mirror, you know, looking older and in a larger body, and what I have started saying to myself that I'm really leaning into that has been working for me, and I'm sharing it with you in hopes that it might be able to help someone else out there. And if not, that's your process. Give yourself the dignity of your process. But what I've been telling myself is, okay, it's my turn to be in this body now. I had to turn in a different body. Just like I had a turn at being single. I had a turn at being a teenager at one time. I had a turn at having red hair. I did. It was like an auburn that I had for…. I had a turn of having bangs for a long time. I had a turn having braces. I had a turn of being in a very dysfunctional, toxic and sometimes abusive relationship. I had a turn of being dysfunctional, toxic and abusive with myself. I had a turn of being an alcoholic. Now I have a turn at being in this, and you know some of those things that I've had a turnout have been great. I also had a turn of having a great time in my 20s, having such fun free times when I had way less responsibilities. I had a really amazing group of girlfriends and a lot of freedom. Didn't have children. I had a lot of fun back then. We had a turn at that and it was great. My we're gonna go back to it. Nope. And that's okay. I have lots of fond memories and now, this is a new chapter in my life, I'm having a turn at being in a larger body that is older, and my face looks different, as does my neck and my boobs and my hands too. They look really different. Pretty much everything. Oh my gosh, as my hip popped, I don't know if you just heard, I was laughing. Anyway, when I catch myself in the mirror, and I sort of have you ever had your body change and you kind of like do a double take and in the mirror like, whoa, I don't recognize that. That's still kind of where I'm at. And what I told myself, I'm like, this is my turn. This is my turn here and it's going to be okay. This is my turn here and I am working on my health. And you know, and that's really at the end of the day. How do my labs will look. How do I feel every day.
That's another thing about getting older. We don't get we don't get away with a lot of stuff physically as we used to. I don't get away with not stretching. I don't get away with like, not sleeping well, for more than like a day. I mean, I haven't drank in over 10 years, but I probably would not be able to get away with drinking. I can't even imagine what a hangover would do to me these days. It's just a little less forgiving, I think is what's really what I'm really starting to feel. And I'm like, okay, so now I need to have a turn at really paying attention and being intentional of how I take care of myself how I take care of my physical self, how I take care of, of course, like my mental and emotional health, which we talk a lot about here on the show. But again, I've always been the type of person that takes you with me through whatever journey I am going on. I started way back in 2008 on my blog, talking about disordered eating, and the journey I was going through with that with my therapist, I've talked to you guys… You've just gone with me through all of my stuff. And this is no different as I turned 47 today, and I am rounding the corner and heading towards 50.
And I will say this that I would love to end with, I wouldn't trade any of that for the wisdom that I have now. Not just the wisdom of like lessons learned that for sure, but also the wisdom that my body carries. I am so much more quick to listen to my instincts now. And I don't know if it's actually louder if my gut instincts are louder than they used to be, or I have just opened the door and trust myself more. And it's just more clear than it was. That's amazing. And I hope that you're in a place where you're feeling that where you can look forward to a place where you're feeling that. Absolutely, I wouldn't trade going back to the way my face neck hands or boobs used to look. And I didn't get to keep the wisdom. That's been just a joy and I'm incredibly grateful for that.
I forgot that I was going to mention this as well. I think one of the reasons I started thinking about this over the last couple of days is because my gray hair, I probably have about four, three or four inches of regrowth now untouched color, and I'm very salt and pepper. And people can tell now. It's not where like, people aren't sure. They notice. And a lot of people are asking me about it and commenting about it. And it's all been it's all been great. I had a moment where I saw a tick tock that I had made last summer, right just gotten my hair done and really beautiful highlights, my colorist is a genius, and I was like oh my god, what have I done? Oh, who on Earth? What decision did I make to grow out my gray hair? Good. How beautiful those highlights are. And it honestly was just a minute of thinking. Should I go back? Should I run to the salon right now and have her put those highlights back in and very quickly. I decided no, I had my turn. I had my turn at having that kind of hair. And now I'm going to this is my turn. This is my turn to be gray. And if you decide that that's an amazing process for you. And if you decide no that you're going to color your hair until the day you die and they're gonna bury you with amazing color highlights covering up all your gray. That is your process. And that's amazing. We have to I think that we have to just do what we're ready for. And I will no longer allow myself to be shamed into doing one thing or another and I hope that you don't do that to yourself either.
Alright, my friends, thank you so much for being here and listening to these shows. The interviews that I do with guests as well as these minisodes. I've really loved bringing them to you. If you have a question that you would like for me to answer on the show, I'm open to hearing about it and if it can definitely help other people. I will take it into consideration. Again, thank you so much. And remember, it's our life's journey to make ourselves better humans and our life's responsibility to make the world a better place. Bye for now.