I talk about aging gracefully all the time. It’s not pleasant looking in the mirror and seeing the changes. It’s not great when your kids ask if you’re older than Susie (fake name but it’s a 60 year old lady we know)…….the joys of having a 10 year old! There gets to a stage though where we just have to stop caring about the aging process and embrace it.
There are many choices available to us but when it comes to our body, either we accept it or we don’t.
If we accept it, we’ll grow to love and respect it and ultimately look after it. If we’re patching things up, we’re not dealing with the deeper issues. We’ll be constantly fighting against an enemy that we can’t defeat. We can’t fight nature or time or fate!
I know I could change my face. I know I could have botox and fillers but I don’t. I know that if I’m not happy, that’s not going to fix it and all I’m doing is patching up a hole. I can’t change the fact that I am growing older and to be honest, I’m not even sure that I want to.
- It just doesn’t seem right to me that I eat healthily and workout to keep my body and mind in good shape and then I inject chemicals into my face to change its appearance.
- I have 2 daughters. I teach them to love themselves for who they are and to be confident in their own skin. How can I do this authentically if I feel that I need to inject chemicals into my body to make myself look good and to make myself feel good myself.
Confidence is a massive thing for young girls and women nowadays with images being thrown at them day in and day out on social media. You just have to look at the number of body and face altering apps out there never mind the millions of doctored images celebrities and influencers post. They’re being told what they need to look like to be accepted, to be successful and to be loved.
The reality is that acceptance, success and love all come from within. If we put the emphasis on things like botox and fillers, our girls and women start to live their lives for the next fix. They look outside for happiness instead of within. They know that every 3 to 6 months they need another vile to maintain their looks to feel happy about themselves. All of this stuff detracts from actual living. Happiness comes form the experiences.
I can’t live one life and preach something different to my girls. I know what a tough world we live in and I would so much rather that they focus on living rather than trying to become a slave to social acceptance. Life is too short to spend it unhappy with yourself.
- I have a son.
I don’t want my son settling down with an insecure partner.
Life will throw a whole pile of crap at our kids and they need to be ready to focus on what’s important.
I see so many marriages and relationships break down on the basis that the man leaves his partner for someone else. I’m not a callous woman but I’m often left wondering why these women are so surprised that their partners leave them or cheat on them. There before the grace of God and all of that, but if you don’t love yourself and respect yourself for who you are, how can you expect your partner to love and respect you.
There’s a saying “if you don’t love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love you?”. I spent a number of years of life doing family/divorce law.
At the end of the day, each to their own but for me, I’m going to try to accept my lines just like I’m accepting the onset of menopause and the actual physical aging of my body that botox and fillers can’t fix. That makes me think of a time I was in Miami with my kids. My Quinny is a fairly blunt kid. She keeps me in check and says it as it is.
So we were in the mall and walked past an old lady who had obviously had a lot of facial surgery. Quinny says “ she needs to fix the rest of the skin on her body”.
It’s a fact though. What are the botox and filler users doing to combat the loss of collagen and the sagging neck, chest, batwing (tricep), booty and above knee skin sag?
Quinny loves to wiggle the loose skin around my triceps which drives me nuts. Of course she finds it funny. “You’re getting older mum. It’s no big deal. Chill”, and that’s from a 10 year old.
Let me tell you a funny story. I did actually have botox about 10 years ago. I was having my skin checked and I saw a leaflet advertising botox. I asked the doctor about it and the next thing I know, I am telling him to stop at 6 injections! He tells me that a few more injections will make so much more of a difference but I refuse.
I didn’t feel a huge difference right away but by the time the evening came around, I really felt it. I went to my capoeira class (it’s a martial art where you spend quite a bit of time doing cartwheels and handstands) and I felt like my forehead was falling off. Every time I tried to go upside down, I found my hand reaching out to hold my forehead in place. It was so scary that I sat down and didn’t do the rest of class.
I spent the next 3 months massaging my forehead every day trying to bring life back to my numb head. I couldn’t move my eyebrows and I felt like my eye lids had been stretched. I’m sure after time you get used to it but for me, it just felt really unnatural.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly like the fine lines I see around my lips nor do I like the lines in my forehead and the deep groove between my eyes but these lines have come from years of life. There are years of frowning at the boy lawyers I’ve worked with, my naughty kids, my distaste at things unpleasant in life. There are also years and years of laughter and celebrating the joy I have experienced.
I’m wise enough to know that we all need to do what we need to do to be happy but what if we stopped looking at the body as a way to attract friends, a partner and success and realized that it’s what inside that helps us achieve our goals.