The Balanced Life, Huntsville Alabama

Recently, my husband and I were at a baseball game and we were sitting behind an “older” (older feels kind of relative at this point in my life…but I think she was older than me) woman who’s hair was really short and looked a bit unkempt. It would have been easy to make an assumption that how her hair looked really didn’t matter that much to her.

My husband later asked me, “Do you think a lot of women get to a point where they give up on how they look?” and that gave me pause. Do they? As a middle-aged woman myself, I am acutely aware of how my body and my appearance have and continued to change. I notice that I need more sleep, that my hair is thinner and harder to manage, I have to wear readers to read pretty much anything up close, that I feel a little creaky in the mornings…and that’s just for starters. 

But is there a point when we just give up? 

Maybe on some things. For many women, they are just dog-tired. They’ve worked jobs, managed a household, incubated, gave birth to and raised children. They’ve had a period once month for decades. Maybe they’re entering menopause and all the fun that comes with that years-long experience. Oh, and let’s not forget, the pervasive societal and cultural expectations that we always appear young and put together are exhausting and expensive.

For example, I gave up coloring my hair two years ago after coloring my roots for probably 15 years. Considering it took at least an hour and a half each time I went to the salon and cost upwards for $100, and I went every six weeks…you do the math…it was a lot. A lot of time and money. It got tiresome so I stopped. And that was just my hair. I’m learning to love my gray hair and follow several women on Instagram who are leading the charge with their natural color as we age message and you wouldn’t believe the comments. In particular about how much older they look with gray, silver or white hair. Why is looking “older” a problem? Or more specifically, why is looking your age a problem? You’d almost think getting older is a shameful thing to do! 

What I’m noticing in this phase of life is a sharp divide: women who are doing all they can to look as young as possible or those who have “given up” (please note- there is no judgement here. It’s simply an observation).

But what if we worked to find a happy medium? 

Could we give ourselves permission to age, since it’s happening to all of us, but to do it in a way where we embrace each stage of life, and we treat ourselves with kindness all along the way? 

What would it look like if we found this middle ground? I have a few ideas: 

We stay active, but by doing things we really like to do. So, rather than force ourselves to do exercise we hate or dread, we find some form of consistent, moderate movement that we enjoy and can stick with. We keep our bodies flexible and strong, which helps as our bodies get older, by doing movement that’s enjoyable. 

We eat a balanced diet, that includes food we enjoy. Diet culture has affected many, if not most, women at some point in their lives. What if we let go of restriction and harsh control over our diets go and rather embraced eating a balanced diet that sufficiently fuels our bodies but also simply enjoyed those foods that we’ve been told all our lives are “bad” in moderation? This responsible approach to eating could really help us enjoy food more and take better care of our bodies in the process. 

We talk to ourselves like we love and respect ourselves. That harsh inner voice has got to go, ladies. We have worked too hard and lived too long to continue to cut ourselves down with our thoughts. Challenge those thoughts that come in that don’t support you being the best version of yourself. Reframe them to be kinder and more supportive of your humanness. Embrace the fact that we were never intended to be perfect and any efforts to achieve that result in chronic dissatisfaction. 

We respect what our bodies need. Many of us have hustled for a long time, and probably will continue to do so. We’re so used to (addicted to, perhaps) being busy that resting and being still results in feeling unproductive, lazy and guilty. But the reality is, that what our bodies need changes over time, and we’d do well to respect that. So, learn to tune in. Rest when you need to rest. Commit to not over-extending yourself. Dial back if you need to dial back. On the other hand, if your body is craving movement, get out there and move. Commit to staying hydrated (and eating that balanced diet as mentioned above). Fuel, move and rest your body as needed. 

We wear clothes that we like and feel comfortable in. One of the women I follow on Instagram is a fitness influencer and pro-aging advocate who is in her 60’s (@hergardengym). She wears lots of cute workout and going out outfits and boy, does she deal with a lot of criticism. She needs to “dress her age” and “grow up” and “remember you’re a grandma”. These comments burn me up. What does “dress your age” even mean?! Because you’re sixty, wearing a bikini is now “inappropriate”? Is it because you’re a grandma, you need to wear a housecoat all day long? And sadly, many of these comments come from other women. Seriously, ladies. Let’s embrace this period of our life as a time to just wear what the heck we like and feel comfortable in. And let’s stop shaming each other. Life is too short to wear clothes we don’t like or feel comfortable in simply because someone else says we should. 

So, let’s not give up. I see mid-life as an amazing period: We’ve lived a long time, so we have lots of wisdom and experience to guide us but hopefully we still have a lot of life left to live. At this point in our lives, we are acutely aware of how fast time is passing and how quickly things change. Rather than mourn our “lost youth”, let’s celebrate getting to this point in our lives and what we have to offer. We’ve survived many challenging situations and while there will be more to come, we are strong and capable. 

To my fellow middle-aged ladies, I see you. I’m here to help if this aging thing has got you down, as are our other therapists in the practice. Feel free to reach out at info@thebalancedlifellc.com or through the Contact Us page of our website. We’d love to support you on this amazing journey!