In my last blog, I talked about one of my tugboats that has slowly steered this cargo ship of mine away from being pulled into the strong "anti-aging" current.
About 5 years ago I stopped buying, looking, and studying women's fashion /lifestyle magazines, along with all the anti-aging ads found in them. Instead, I began collecting images of older women (and not those of 60/70 year olds who look 40!) I'll be honest, it was hard. At first, any older woman who looked her age, didn't look good to me. Fifty years or so of only seeing young, perfect models and actresses as the standard of beauty makes it very difficult to expand one's idea of beauty. But overtime, without the constant pull of youth culture, I did start to find some of these faces, eye catching, quirky, touching, mysterious, and alluring. As the months and years went by, without constant fashion magazine input, I saw in these photos a culmination of lives filled with experiences, hardships, heartbreaks, loves, depth of character - which now seem so beautiful to me. And importantly for me, I found aspects of myself mirrored in those faces.
Your idea of what is beautiful may be totally different from mine, but that is really irrelevant here. If you find yourself barraged with concepts and images that trigger or instill negative and depressive feelings within you, then make a conscious effort to exchange that discouraging soundtrack and slideshow with your own curated gallery that will help you see the pro-age beauty in you and others.