REWRITING MY AGING STORY
I turned 63 in September. I don’t know what it was about that age, as opposed to turning 60, but, if I’m honest, I panicked. My inner dialogue went something like, “AACK!! That’s OLD!!” As if to verify that sentiment, I also received a new medical diagnosis that really threw me. ‘Vocal cord atrophy’ was discovered when I happened to ask my ENT about throat strain. (To be clear, I’ve seen an ENT annually for the hearing loss that developed when I was 30, which may be why I don’t think of that issue as an ‘old’ thing).
As an exercise scientist and yoga teacher who knows how to care for her body, the ‘atrophy’ — of anything in me — felt scary. Adding to my negative view of living in an aging body, my meniscus and calf muscle injury from the spring was taking much longer to heal than it would have when I was younger.
Facing my fears — of aging, pain, losing my ability to speak, being unable to do everything I enjoy physically, becoming lackluster, losing my vitality, and so much more….has been eye-opening.
Yet in that reckoning process, I’ve come to realize that my fatalist view of aging is entirely misguided! For one thing, I have benefited from learning even more about the resilience and wonder of the human body (wrote the neuro/kinesio/wellbeing geek!) I now have a wonderful voice therapist who’s helping me learn to release the grip of trauma and use my throat, mouth, ears, and voice in ways I never even imagined. By immersing myself in an Experiential Anatomy, Yoga Therapeutics course with my yoga teacher Judith Lasater and her colleagues, I have discovered ways of healing my knee, calf, and hip injuries.
Along this path, it dawned on me that this aging body is here to teach me things. Things that I am now eager to learn. Things that I am also eager to share. Knowing that we’re all aging has helped me in this journey — because it’s simply a shared human experience. We have been conditioned to believe that aging is ‘bad’ because youth is ‘good’, and that we need to ‘reverse’ or stop aging. We can’t. What we can do is improve aging for ourselves by embracing it, by embracing life, and by continuing to discover.
Becoming middle-aged and older doesn’t need to come with a sense of ‘resignation’. It can come with a sense of wonder and an appreciation of how life can be better at 60-something compared when we were 30-something. I’m now able to shift my perspective, prioritize what really matters, accept what is, and respond with more compassion at this age than I could when I was younger.
Yes, some parts of aging are still difficult, and still scary, but there’s also more room for wonder, creativity, exploration, and discovery.
In this spirit, I offer a few tips for those of you who also happen to be aging (as in, everyone!) and may also be feeling a bit unnerved:
• Notice the fear. What scares you? What hurts? Be with it — don’t shush it away.
• Invite curiosity. What can you learn? From whom? From what experiences?
• Imagine your ideal state of being.
• Create a vision of you in that ideal state of being, and step into that vision often.
• Develop small action steps to move towards your vision.
• Check in with your progress, and kindly nudge yourself forward.
• Stay flexible and adapt whenever you need to.
If you find that you resist the idea that you are aging, and feeling annoyed about the whole process, I understand! But please consider embracing the possibilities that come with continuing to learn and grow as you age.
Let’s all enjoy this journey.
Be well and in-joy!
Colleen