Embracing Midlife Wellness: Cultivating Peace With Aging And Body Image

As we women enter our 40’s and beyond, concerns about appearance often resurface, rekindling feelings of self-consciousness. What was once a conflict between budding maturity and body image is now a conflict between aging and body image.

You know how it goes: those “Oh no!” feelings that many of us thought we’d left behind in our teenage years.

The anxiety is similar, the discontent familiar. But now, at midlife, we have perspective, life experience, and even a bit of pessimism (born of physiological reality).

Unlike in our youth, our whole lives are ahead of us. We spend a lot more time in the presence of our own mortality, even as we try to outpace it.

But there is no getting around the physical reality of aging, no matter how energetically, healthfully, and gracefully we embrace it.

The Mirror: A Reflection of Anxiety

Do you find yourself examining your reflection more critically as the years go by? Maybe you scrutinize the lines on your forehead, panic over age spots, lament while tweezing the whiskers on your chin.

Many women in midlife become preoccupied with their appearance, leading to a mental battle reminiscent of adolescence.

It may even seem as if the struggle with body image never really ended before aging stepped in to complicate matters.