A large part of recovery rests in the physical body.
Here’s a perspective I hope you can start to embrace.
The Amazing-Aging Beauty Routine
The morning reality check: this body will be ash one day, and until then, I thought it would be a good idea to start appreciating and enjoying this body while I still have it — while I am still in it.
Time in a body-bottle: to appreciate the time in this body. My body holds 49 years. There is history in this body. Glorious stories this body can tell. This body holds its very own epic tales of horror, drama, comedy, romance, and adventure.
The landscape of my body holds scars and wrinkles of time. There’s a scar just below my lip that tells a story of foolish folly. A scar on my knee that tells of risk and adventure. And a scar below my navel that saved my life.
I’ve got a soft potbelly that says I had more important things to do (according to me) than crunching abs. And my soul is delightful, but my body doesn’t like to SoulCycle.
My less pronounced scars, the ones of most meaning — can tell you trills of a heaven, just as much as they can a hell. This body has traveled both.
Amazing wrinkle cream: I gently pat the wrinkles around my eyes with cream. Patting… remembering that I have lived long enough to witness these lines. Gently pressing (filling in) laugh lines with reverie.
I massage the lines on my forehead that formed over years of contemplation. Amazed at all that has run through my mind. There are lifetimes up there — mine, yours, and just about everyone I meet — I try to capture lifetimes in my mind. And the beauty lines that surround the eyes… oh, if these eyes could share their witness. These beauty lines are a measure of my time.
Privilege Powder: I dust myself with the realization that I am only at half-time. That I get the privilege to keep playing, and that I get the privilege to take a half-time break, as to decide how I want to play the rest of the game. Whether I think I’ve been losing or not, I get the privilege to keep going. Time, aging, becomes a gift — to embrace with grace.
Fountain of Youth: Injections include reminding myself that I am the youngest I will ever be, and to not discount myself from the wonder and magic still in my bones. To draw from the nutrients of my bone marrow. To remind myself that I don’t want to be young, per se, but I do want to keep injecting my life with carefreeness, playfulness, gracefulness, and wonderfulness.
Vitality Serum: To slather myself with vitality serum. Ingredients include; music, mischievous, play, dance, service to others, simplicity, spontaneity, laughter, appreciation, and a bit of raw rebellion sometimes. The serum focuses on human senses- to engage and activate sensuality. To not let my senses go dull; to keep them vital.
Evening Body Wash: My evening beauty routine includes disrobing any feelings of lack and not-enoughness, and to strip off socialized constraints from the day. Then stepping into a warm shower to wash my body from any bacteria of shame or unworthiness.
Anointing Oil: The last part of my amazing-aging beauty routine is the anointing oil of allure. With hints of lavender, it’s an evening massage, as I rest in the allure (the mystery and fascination) of this being human. To rest in the knowing that I can’t go back in time, and my only option is to keep moving forward. That the future of my beauty rests in the grace of aging.
The anti-aging game was actually aging me. The fear and the worry was exhausting. I had to stop dying to be beautiful and start daring to define beauty differently.
I had to stop fighting the current of time and embrace the flow of whatever comes my way. Whether it be sorrow, illness, hardships… or the trauma of sagging skin; to embrace the weathering of my life with as much grace as I can muster.
Nor am I after more time. I don’t need more time. I need to fill in the time I already have with this amazing-aging, grace-filled beauty routine.
And no more beauty regrets, because the one regret I do have is that I didn’t know how to experience beauty until now.
I missed my own beauty. I missed it in my twenties, thirties, and in my forties. I was too busy chasing beauty every which way but under my own skin. I didn’t get the chance to experience the sheer joy and delight of my dance, my rhythm, and my style.
I didn’t understand that my attempts were just as beautiful as my failures, my victories just as beautiful as my defeats, that my imperfections were my perfections. I didn’t understand that this entire outfit called being human is beautiful.
At this midlife point in time, I have the chance to change my beauty routine. A chance to let go of my youth (but not my youthfulness) and to experience the grace needed to embrace this amazing body as it continues to pass through the gift of time.
Originally published by Psych Central: World of Psychology: A Grace-Filled Beauty Routine
