Warning: I get a little emotional in this one...

Why are we so afraid of aging?

I’ve discovered that aging is living. And living is aging.

We are born and we start living (or even before then). And from that day we start aging, too. And we continue aging until the day we die.

And between the moments of our birth and death, we are so many different kinds of beautiful.

And yet, most women are afraid of getting older.

But who said aging was a bad thing?

There are so many negative things associated with aging.

For example, a lot of people get sick when they get older. But does getting older make us sick?

Most often, it come from unhealthy habits we had when we were younger.

Imagine hitting your hand with a hammer.

Ouch! That would really hurt, and it might do some damage—but it will heal.

Now imagine if you keep hitting it, again and again… Eventually all of those little hits will accumulate, and that hand is going to fall off.

So it’s really a matter of taking care of yourself over time, and making sure your daily habits (what you eat, what makeup you wear) aren’t just another whack of the hammer.

The good news is...

If you have abused your body, or gotten sick and your health has going downhill— you can rejuvenate!

Whether it’s through fasting, cleansing, eating the right diet, getting more sleep or exercising—it’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can always get healthier.

Right now, you can start to take care of your emotions and your psychology.

I’m a big, big proponent of therapy and personal-growth workshops. Anything it takes to love and care for yourself.

Aging isn’t the problem—coasting is.

Because when you’re coasting through life and allowing bad habits to accumulate, you can only go in one direction.

So its important to take action. If you’re healthy, then do what it takes to stay healthy. And if you’re not as healthy as you can be...

...then take action right now, and do what it takes to get on the path toward being healthy.

It’s best not to wait until things are coasting downhill—start at neutral then work your way up.

This opportunity is always available to you, and that’s good. Now let’s do whatever it takes to go from good to better.

Because I promise you, whatever age you are right now, it’s a beautiful age to be.

There is a beauty in every stage of life.

Newborn children are so beautiful to us. And Toddlers, too—when they get their little fat role around the neck and that roundness—are beautiful.

Then there’s a beauty to adolescence when you see the beginnings of the adult emerge from the child. And Teenagers—wow!—they start blossoming, and it’s so beautiful.

A young woman in her 20’s has a totally different kind of beauty then she has in her 30’s.

And when you hit your 40’s? With your maturity and the new definition in your muscles and ligaments—Ah, I love women in their forties, i think they’re so beautiful.

When a women hits her 50’s there’s a whole different kind of beauty. It’s as if you see the youth and the elder, and they start to merge and join together.

In the decade of her 60’s—well, these are the pictures we hang on our walls. These are the women we seek when we want see the details of the wrinkles and the age in the hands. There’s a deep inner beauty there.

And my goodness, the 80’s... we want to know what that woman has experienced, and we want a piece of what they have.

Have you seen the picture of Georgia O’Keeffe in her studio? With the sun raking across her face… You can see the roadmap of her life in her skin.

But god forbid we get a wrinkle on our faces!

The veil between the inner life and the outer life gets thinner as we age.

The feelings, the life experience, the sadness... all the tragedy and births we’ve seen by now start to come through. Our tenderness, our compassion, our inner beauty shows on the outside

But so many people when they start to get elderly also start to get ignored, and they give up.

They give up trying to be seen... and there’s so much life experience we can glean from them.

Start appreciating the beauty in Your stage of life.

If you’re in your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or beyond… That stage of your life provides its no distinct and wonderful kind of beauty. And that’s not all...

You also have your own unique beauty separate from every other woman of that age because only you have lived your life...

And you are unique and beautiful yourself.

So look in the mirror...

...And start finding the things that you love about your own unique character and age. Then start celebrating it!

Because if you do that—and I’m starting to get emotional now as I write this—if you celebrate your stage of life, you are going to be an example to all the women younger than you who need it.

Women want to see that they have a wonderful place to go! And it’s up to us—it’s up to You!—to set the example for our daughters, our grand-daughters and our grand-nieces.

Do it for all the women that you’re never going to meet because you’re going to be gone.

Your age is your legacy to them.

So celebrate!

Celebrate your beauty, and celebrate your life. Because your life is a beautiful thing. And YOU are a beautiful thing.