Lots of women of a ‘certain age’ have told me how they dread aging. The trouble is, this ‘certain age’ seems to be getting ever younger. Sure, men do worry about aging too, but men are socially allowed to age and still remain admired and respected. You’d be forgiven for thinking nowadays that a woman aging is the biggest taboo around. George Clooney was voted ‘sexiest man alive’ when he was forty-five. There are many very beautiful forty-five year old women around – but what chance would any of them have of being voted ‘sexiest woman alive’? ‘Sexiest woman in her forties’, maybe, if she’s very lucky. Beauty means youthfulness, as far as the cosmetic industry is concerned. When was the last time you saw a beauty product that promised to make your face exude more ‘character’ rather than just ‘younger’?
But what really drives fear of aging for women?
Fear of aging and ‘becoming invisible’
Time was when women could feel relaxed and comfortable about getting older. Beauty products have always been with us, of course, but women felt allowed to look and be older. They could wear their age like a badge of experience and wisdom, not of shame and embarrassment. Now we are deluged with images of extremely young (and sometimes extremely airbrushed) women selling chocolate (exactly how much chocolate do these waif like goddesses actually eat?), clothes and, well… everything. Showing the signs of aging – especially if you were once publicly young and glamorous – is treated like some kind of crime.
Celebrities are snapped committing the great sin of aging. Cellulite, wrinkles, expanding waist lines, are all minutely examined and held up as evidence that the cardinal sin of aging is being committed by the once younger person. No wonder we feel that youth is the thing and almost forget that we have a massively aging population – not one solely populated by the under 25s. In advertising land nearly everybody is young. No wonder so many women fear committing that ‘crime’. No wonder so many women start to feel ‘invisible’ – as if they were a non-person.
The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
The new session Overcome fear of aging for women from hypnosisdownloads.com seeks to encourage women of all ages to see through the hype and the brainwashing and to feel relaxed and confident about growing older. It encourages health and vigour and pride in one’s appearance, but seeks to reduce that all-consuming fear of aging and redress the balance so that the decades won’t be wasted fretting about the passage of time but instead can be spent productively enjoying every moment of that time.
All the best
Mark
