Saturday was my 40th birthday.
I'm excited to eat all the cake without calculating how many miles I "have" to run to burn it off. I'm ready to keep pushing myself in ways that feel good and right.
I have no more judgment left for myself or anyone else.
I'm proud to look 40.
There shouldn't be any shame around getting older. I am tired of using negative language when we talk about aging. We talk about "fighting" wrinkles and "rewinding the clock" age but do we really want to stop getting older?
My goal is to keep marching on with grace. To perform acts of self-care that feel good and make me feel good about myself.
I will not be shamed by marketing that tells me my age is a problem I need to fix.
For a while now I have been trying to reconcile my chosen career as an esthetician with the idea of radical self-acceptance. It seems that promoting skincare and skin treatments is inherently an act of changing oneself and that if a person truly accepts and loves oneself they would not be interested in the services I provide. I reject this - I think it is possible to be happy the way I am and still indulge in some acts of vanity.
I do not believe in taking great risks for beauty. I do not believe that there has to be pain and sacrifice while chasing an idealistic image.
This is how I have chosen the treatments I offer and the products I use. I believe in low-risk, high reward. Holistic treatments that stimulate our bodies' own processes to keep the skin functioning properly. I think of it like changing the oil in your car rather than replacing the whole transmission.
Let's be anti-anti-aging. Let's be pro feeling great and taking care of ourselves in a non-stressful way. Let's start tuning back into the wisdom our bodies hold and use our energy, sleep-quality, digestion and mood guide our actions instead of a desire to fulfill an external expectation of what we should look like in order to be worthy of love and respect.