Dreams are funny things. I hardly remember mine these days, but have found myself in multiple cinematic features this week while sleeping! Maybe it’s the new ProgestAvail I’m trying at night to help balance my hormones, but last night’s dream was strange.
I met a younger version of my mom.
She was 32 years old, and as petite as Jackie Kennedy, with an elegance and smile I cannot describe. In my dream, I was a solid 51-years, strong and wise, watching her relax in the room talking about her children and my dad. I marveled at her beauty, fixated on that aspect although I wished I had paid more attention to what she was saying. LOL. Her skin like cream, and her black hair flowing around her face, a light exuded from her that I had never seen before. I appreciated this woman before me, and all she had endured in her life and was about to endure. She had yet to suffer through my dad’s lifelong battle with cancer and heart disease. She had yet to embark on her doctoral program. And she had yet to witness the loss of many dear friends from this world. Her smile revealed that innocent beauty that youth will accentuate. She had yet to wrinkle and gray.
On the flip side, I sat there as a 50+ woman, in a stage of my life where the I have heaps of Life lessons in my experience, and a few more wrinkles because of it.
On a most basic level, this dream informed me about getting a new perspective on “aging”. What does “aging” mean and what is our relationship to our “age”?
First and foremost —
Aging is not a disease, and should not be treated like one.
Second, how old are you really?
I read once that we have three types of ages:
- Chronological Age — Number of years since you were physically born into this world.
- Physical Age — How old your body really is based on its vitality (or maybe measured through telomere length, an interesting test).
- Emotional Age — The age we act and think.
I found the whole exercise fascinating because our “age” paradigm needs to shift big, especially as the chronological numbers climb higher. ☺️
Also, I would like to add a #4, and this one, I believe, should be #1.
Our Spiritual Age
Our Spiritual Age is beyond the calendar, the bone density and our emotional state. “Aging” has a negative connotation, except in this Fourth Age. The spirit, perhaps, prepares its journey for beyond what is in this life as we “get older” in chronological age. Hopefully, it is awakened within each of us in this lifetime. Some people have moments when they connect to the part Beyond the Physical Plane. I remember mine. I was in a church with my sister, and I felt something magnificent for the first time in my life. I was a cherished and loved soul, boundless light and energy, not just a physical being. Do you have a moment you felt “spiritual” or, some might say, “born again”?
Our Spiritual Age won’t follow the definition of a physical “continuum” because there is no “age” here. But it will be an aspect of our true beings that grows more profound as our bodies appear to be in physical decline, and it is precisely why the “aging process” needs to be redefined.
I remember bitching about something in my job with a friend a couple of years ago. Not a highlight in my life, but I was stressed to the max. She said, “Watch those negative thoughts! They’ll shorten your telomeres.” This woman, “older” by our aging terminology, has a face that beams with light and beauty. She gently reminded me that negative thoughts, feelings, stress — all bound in a physical reality — will age us more quickly. I can’t judge her spiritual age, but I’ll bet it’s strong.
We both laughed. I felt my face soften as I laughed.
What if the stresses of life and our negative thoughts actually propel the physical aging process?
All the more reason to find your spiritual bliss and live there instead!
Don’t tarry too long in the physical world of “aging” (although I promise a few fun blogs about how I play there).
Shift the paradigm of “aging” and what that means.
Aging is not a disease, but an opportunity.
Don’t buy into anyone else’s program of what that means for you. Instead, tap into what is beyond innocent beauty or stressed-out wrinkly skin. Tap into the soul that does this Life in a unique way. It sees the good. It helps others. It never loses hope. It connects to Love. It dances, even when the body creaks. It smiles, even in the midst of fear. It embraces and spreads goodness, no matter where it goes.
Shift your perspective.
I bet as we mature in Spiritual Age, the telomeres get real long.
