Heaven Is Really Just About Wearing a New Pair of Glasses

Do you ever wake up after a good work out the day before and suddenly feel it could very well be your 90th birthday? Aches, pains and soreness everywhere! Not just a good, normal sore that you actually enjoy having after a workout, but the kind of soreness that no longer feels quite right and leaves you wondering whatever happened to the idea that working out was suppose to make you feel better, infused with life, refreshed, more functional in daily life and not like a rickety and feeble 90 year old. 

I recently felt this way a few weeks back. Plopping down to re-group for my next client one day I found new questions beginning to pester me...  "Why am I so incredibly sore?... It's not like I've made drastic changes in my workout routine? Maybe it's old age setting in? Is there ever a point one gets too old to workout?"

I fumble around with these thoughts along with interesting feelings of anger, and denial and I notice my attempts to replace the thoughts and distract myself with busy work.  What is it with me and getting older?  I do admit it's not something I want to experience, but he big question know I need to ask myself is WHY??? And so I do.

I thought of the obvious reasons... wrinkles, gray hair, the possibility of being less active and gaining weight, loss of memory and brain function, etc.. etc... Those reasons really do stink and so I gave myself permission to say so. Then in an attempt to settle my mind on something better I remembered some insight I recently read about this inevitable fate of us all... 

The author of the book I am presently reading paints a picture of herself at a beach (she's my age and she too can hardly bring herself to admit she's knee deep in her middle age).  She candidly talks about a mild case she has... what she calls "Butt Mind"... It's when she goes through periods, especially now that she is in middle age, of comparing her butt to everyone else's butt and that she especially agonizes and struggles over it when she finds herself at tropical beaches because she almost always comes up with a "worse than" kind of butt than everyone else in her never ending comparisons.

She shares how it all started on one occasion. She found herself in heavy "Butt Mind" while on the plane to another tropical beach destination.  Teenage girls were everywhere on this flight with their tiny shorts, youthful glow and stunning physical appearance. She caught herself going there but then tries to quickly remind herself of what she believes at a deeper level... "that a person being herself is beautiful-- that contentment and acceptance and freedom are beautiful and that heaven is really just about wearing a new pair of glasses".  She tried to remind herself to spend less time thinking about what she sees and more time thinking about why she sees it that way.  When she arrives at her destination she determines to live this kind of freedom out loud and decides not to wear a coverup over her swimsuit as she ventured out to the beach one day. In her book she quotes... "I had decided I was going to take my thighs and butt with me proudly wherever I went."

She shares about the first girls she saw on the beach.  "They were young, nine or ten years old, enjoying splashing and playing... fearless, unself-conscious and lovely!  Not yet affected by the obsession of what they don't have and forgetting what they do have. They played freely without a thought about their flaws, not yet measuring or comparing and still able to get caught up and lost in everything around them with awe and innocence."

The second group of girls (like dogs from hell, she said... lol)... were four teenagers who ended up waiting for the same bus as she. As she found herself in their company she immediately felt less than, and the fact that they looked at her, and then at each other with amusement... well let's just say her initial thought wasn't very nice... But then her heart softened she says... "I felt deep compassion for them: I wanted to tell them the good news-- that at some point you give up on ever looking much better than you do. Somehow you get a little older, a little fatter and you end up going a little easier on yourself. Or a lot easier... Ugliness is creeping around in fear. Beauty is simply being loyal to yourself."

So that's it!  The insight that I think has set me free from the ugliness of the fear of middle age creeping around me is the idea of being loyal to myself!  Being happy with who I am.. not that I haven't been happy with me but I guess I haven't been happy with who I may become...THE UNKNOWN!!!  I have feared who I may become in middle age and old age. Instead, I determine when I see who I am becoming that I will not judge my aging body so harshly and torture myself by playing the "Mind Butt" game (c'mon, you all know you do it too!) but instead to be gentle with myself and my new changes... to be like the nine and ten year old girls who aren't so self aware and who get lost in moments and the wonder surrounding them... and also to cherish and spoil myself as I age as if it's something to celebrate... maybe getting caught up in slathering myself with a new divine smelling lotion or enjoying wearing a new T-shirt that makes me "feel sexy and free"(LOL) or maybe trying a new shade of lipstick... you know-- a kind of honoring myself and the new season that approaches and the changes that come. Not doing all this because I'm ashamed and trying to cover up or in an attempt to numb some kind of pain, but doing little celebratory things because who I am in every season is worthy of love and joy and celebration... and pampering!!!  No harsh judging, comparing, or belittling because I recognize that it's a beautiful process. 

"Sometimes (author of my book says)... you tend to your spirit through your body... you start with the outside and you get it right."