359: Power-FULL Aging (Part 4): Express Yourself

Transcripts are auto-generated.

0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now. As she breaks down the fairy tale health story, you have been chasing all of your life, indispensable action steps and lasting change.

0:28
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast. This is your host, Courtney Townley. As always, I’m delighted that you decided to tune into this show. And today we are going to finish our series on powerful aging. So this will be the fourth in a four part series that we’ve done on this.

0:43
So back in Episode 356, we started with an episode all about shifting your mindset we call the embracing change, because let’s face it, there is a way of going into the aging process that will make you feel depleted and like giving up. And there is a way of going into the aging process that can definitely light you up and make the most of the time that you have left. And of course, I encourage the latter. So that first episode kind of set us up for this powerful aging conversation.

1:10
And then in the second episode, we talked about shifting your approach that you are using to honor self care, because as we shift into the second half of our life, or the third chapter of our life, a lot of the strategies and methodologies that we were using earlier in our life are no longer proving to work for us. And there’s a lot of reasons for that which I go into in that episode.

1:33
And then in the third part of the series, which was our last episode, I invited my friend Laney gray to the show. And we did a deep dive into the conversation of supporting biochemistry, as we age and how to do that in a way that promotes power, and resiliency, and all the things that we want as we age. So we touched on the cornerstones of the practices, the lifestyle practices that really helped to maintain powerful chemistry as we age.

2:06
And today we are going to talk all about self expression. In fact, I titled this episode express yourself, because self expression is a really crucial piece, I believe of the powerful aging equation.

2:19
But before we go there today, I want to remind you that later this month, I am hosting a free class called Women’s Health Reimagined. And this class is really designed to help show women how to get out of the space of overwhelm. Because so many women that I counseled so many women that I work with, are spinning out in the space of information overload, there’s so much coming at them about what they could be or should be doing to improve their health and happiness, that they literally feel paralyzed to take action or they’re trying to do everything at one time. And of course that doesn’t end well.

2:57
So Women’s Health Reimagined is a class to help women remove themselves from the space of overwhelm, and really access the knowing that they already have. And most importantly, show them a very different pathway for improving their health and well being than what is traditionally sold to us by the diet and fitness industries.

3:18
So if you are looking for a different pathway, if you resonate with the messaging that you hear on the show, I definitely encourage you to register for this class. Again, it’s totally free. And I’m even offering it on three different dates to ensure that I am giving accessibility to a lot of different schedules. So you could find out more details about the class and get yourself registered by heading on over to graceandgrit.com/reimagine. Once again, that’s graceandgrit.com/reimagine.

3:50
Okay, let’s talk about self expression, and how it connects to our ability to age in a powerful way. I will tell you that in nearly every coaching conversation I have ever had, there is a link a direct link to the rumble a client is having and a lack of self expression somewhere in their life. And that lack of self expression can look like so many different things. It can look like her not having conversations that she really is feeling compelled to have. She may not be setting boundaries in places and spaces where she feels she needs them. She might not be creating the things taking the risk to go after the things that she feels called to create. She may not be allowing herself to be seen for who she truly is.

4:44
So she is operating her life more from a space of people pleasing, then she is from a space of authentic self expression. She may not be allowing herself to express emotion for fear of how other people will respond and And on and on it goes, there’s 1000 ways that we can limit our self expression. And sadly, the cost of being an unexpressed human, or suppressing our expression, suppressing rather than expressing is really a caged life. So life doesn’t grow in cages, life doesn’t expand in cages, it shrinks, it contracts, it stagnates, it dies. And health doesn’t flourish in cages, it becomes dis eased. So if you really want to make the most of this precious life, if you want to make the most out of the time you have left in your life, learning to express yourself is a must. And it is one of the highest levels of self care that you could administer to yourself. I think every time we deny ourselves authentic expression, we die a little, we unintentionally harm ourselves. And we’ve got to stop doing that because it isn’t leading to anything good.

6:10
So for a moment, I would love to challenge you to consider where you are struggling to fully show up in an authentic way. Are you not sharing ideas at work? Are you not asking for what you need in order to thrive in your household? In your career in your relationships? Are you avoiding the things that you really are feeling inspired to create? Because you are afraid of failure? You’re afraid of judgment? Are there difficult conversations that you’re avoiding? Are there ways that you want to change the way you’ve been moving through the world, maybe you want to decorate your house differently, maybe you want to dress differently, maybe you want to start speaking up in certain areas in ways that you have never spoken up before. Where for you is there a lack of self expression.

7:15
And, you know, I think there’s a lack of self expression for all of us, in some way, shape or form, we might be really good at expressing ourselves in one area, but not so great in another area. But I always say that awareness is always the the starting place, it’s the gateway to change. Because we can’t change what we don’t see. We can’t edit what we don’t actually have awareness of. So take some time to get clear on where you feel that you’re lacking self expression. And then I think it’s also really important to get clear on what it is costing you to not express yourself in those areas. Because what I find time and time again, is what the lack of self expression is costing us is actually some really big ticket items, things like confidence and joy, and meaningful relationships and time and self respect, and ultimately, personal power.

8:17
So what is expression really? Like? How do we like conceptualize that? Well, of course, I always like to go to the dictionary to see like what the definition of particular words are. And in this case, Oxford Dictionary tells me that express means to show, manifest or reveal. And I love this, we show and reveal to ourselves and to others, our emotions, our desires, our thoughts, our opinions, our imagination. So what does expression have to do with powerful aging? Well, I think everything because number one expression is a willingness to be fully seen for what is your truth. It is putting your truth on full display. And there is a level of peace that comes with that, that we can’t get any other way. So you can show aside, you can you can mold yourself into something that’s not true. Lots of people do. And then there’s a level of internal friction that they will live with for a really long time possibly forever. And that internal friction breaks us down. Right when we suppress what is true for us. It has physiological and psychological consequences. It is a level of stress that accelerates the aging process.

9:46
I think I’ve mentioned this before on the Podcast, but I was listening to an interview once by Gabor Matej, who is a physician that specializes in trauma. And he was talking about autoimmunity and how he really is and all that surprised that most auto immune disorders are diagnosed in women. In fact, I think the rate is like 80% of 80%, more women than men are diagnosed with autoimmune disorders. And he went on to say that this doesn’t surprise him because of how much suppressing women have done throughout history. And even Of course, still today. And that suppression of emotion, that suppression of expression has a cost. And ultimately, that cost is our well being, quite literally cell to soul.

10:38
I was also recently listening to I think it was a 2020 episode as I was driving in my car. And it was a fairly recent episode, I don’t remember the name of it. But it was about a woman who had given birth to three different children at three different times. And she abandon all three of them within like one square mile of each other, at when they were just born. So each time she gave birth to a child, she would abandon it somewhere in her neighborhood. And she typically picked places where she knew the baby would be found. And then, you know, put up for adoption. And it was really interesting, because this episode was created, what like 35 years after this had actually happened, and all three siblings had found each other. And when they actually identified who their mother was, she was basically suffering from massive heart problems. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think the things that we suppress and deny ourselves and lie to ourselves about the things that we cover up and we don’t share with the world, it definitely takes a toll on our physiology.

11:48
So there are really kind of two categories of expression, I think, are important to highlight here, there is a level of expression that is kind of known as adaptive expression or conditioned expression. And these are ways of expressing yourself in order to elicit a certain response from other people or to make other people comfortable. And I would say this is the type of expression a lot of people are stuck in, they are stuck in the space of either suppressing or conditioned expression, which isn’t actually authentic expression. And then combine that with suppression, and it doesn’t bode well for a powerful life.

12:33
So conditioned expression, is really the result of behaviors that are often incongruent with your inner truth. And which are instead geared towards maintaining peace, and comfort and connection, to avoid relationship disruption. It’s expressing yourself in authentically, in order to preserve a relationship. And man, I see this everywhere. And it is something that I’m coaching on constantly with my clients.

13:13
Two examples of this that you may be able to identify with are number one come as no surprise people pleasing. people pleasing is when we manipulate our own behavior. In an attempt to avoid relationship Fallout, we are trying to please other people not ruffle anyone’s feathers. Maybe that takes the form of getting good grades all through school, because you were so afraid of your parents being upset with you. You were taught not to rock the boat. As you grew up, you were taught maybe to be seen and not heard. All of these are examples of conditioned expression. So you don’t you learn not to use your voice, you learn not to be authentic and true to who you are. And people pleasing, I think when we first start practicing it, usually we’re pretty young. When we do that, it we’re doing it for good reason we’re doing it because we need to feel loved and taken care of. And so manipulating our own behavior to try to control those around us. So we’re still safe and taken care of becomes a pattern throughout our lifetime. But now that we’re grown adults taking care of ourselves, it’s actually killing us, not helping us.

14:36
So patterns that start out with good intention, even if they’re unconscious, which many of these often are. They’re not developed consciously. They’re just things that we do to try to get what we need when we’re young. They start from a good place, but they end up costing us a lot if we don’t address them later in life. Another example of conditioned expression is borrowed beliefs. So We often are borrowing beliefs from other people about us. So maybe somewhere along your lifeline, someone told you that you’re not coordinated. Or that you should choose a real profession, that you’re not cut out for what you do, that you’re never going to be athletic, that you’re not smart enough to pursue something.

15:19
And a borrowed belief is when you take that belief from somebody else, and you basically put it in your own brain and put it on repeat till it becomes the way that you think about yourself. But it was never your belief to begin with. And what conditioned expression does ultimately, is it results in hiding habits, we start living a life that is mainly hiding from who we truly are, rather than expressing who we truly are, we’re avoiding our truth, we aren’t presenting our truth. And that just sucks. It creates so much integrity pain.

16:04
So what’s the alternative? Well, the alternative is authentic expression. It’s engaging with ourselves, and the people around us from a place of self respect, and self trust, self honesty, and self compassion. It’s taking the risk of allowing others to see who we truly are. And the byproduct of that is maybe not everyone will choose to stay in your life. And that is perfectly okay. Because it makes room for the people who really belong there.

16:42
So, I for the rest of this episode, what I’d like to do is actually talk about some of the barriers to authentic expression, because let’s be honest, there’s a lot of them, and I can’t cover all of them. But I thought I’d touch on some of the most common ones. And also introduce some solutions to these barriers, with the hopes that you’ll be able to take something here and start developing a practice of becoming more authentic and more fully expressed in your own life. Because I truly think it’s one of the most potent nutrients out there for powerful aging.

17:22
So barrier number one, I think this is always a really good place to start is nervous system capacity. So previous previous experiences in your life, of being judged, being rejected, experiencing some kind of trauma or abuse can absolutely create emotional barriers to self expression. Because we were, we learned that there was a consequence, a negative consequence to expressing ourselves. And so there is genuine fear. And in a wet in a sense, a lack of capacity to express ourselves, because we carry emotional wounds from the past. And we start kind of cultivating a life that is overly cautious and guarded with ourselves. Because we don’t want to experience that pain.

18:18
Again, that is very real. And so I think one of the thing that’s things it’s really important to recognize in moving through that barrier is making sure that you are practicing expression. in small doses, self expression, especially if you don’t have a practice of it at all. Like it’s something that you have avoided for big periods of time, or maybe your whole life. I think it’s really important that you, you start in small doses, and you also practice in environments that are safe. So practicing, expressing yourself with people that you trust in spaces where you that you trust, I think that is 101 Safety is always one on one.

19:13
And our nervous system really needs safety, to do really any of the things that we talk about on this show. So entering the waters, kind of in a in a well thought out dose, like not over committing and over freaking out your nervous system might look like speaking up in spaces where there’s not a lot at risk. So when they get your order wrong at a restaurant, maybe you speak up and say something about that. Maybe when you’re in a group of friends that you trust and know they love you. You express an opinion about something that you care about or you just to agree with maybe you wear something you love, without asking anybody their opinion of it. I mean, there’s all seem like really small things. But those small things compound over time into really robust practices. And our practices shape us environments of safety, just to, again, make this clear, are spaces where we feel like people are actively listening spaces that are non judgmental spaces that are confidential where there are clear boundaries.

20:46
And some space in places if you if you don’t have those spaces already in your life, I certainly hope you do. But if you don’t, you aren’t alone. And this is where like, branching out into your community can be helpful. So looking for classes, because to me classes on things that I want to improve, it doesn’t have to be a class on self expression necessarily. But let’s just say you want to take a dance class or an art class, a class is an arena of practice. And when we are in classes of self expression, there is often there are tenants that govern that class that usually in a safe space are set up at the start of the class. So maybe it is taking an art class and being willing to show your work to the class participants. Right? Maybe it is taking a class of foreign language class and being willing to practice with friends who speak that language in public. Right? Again, these are small things, but they can help us with ultimate self expression. Right? It all adds up.

22:08
Okay, second barrier I wanted to mention is the fear of judgment. This is so real, right? This is largely why we don’t express ourselves is we’re just afraid of what other people are gonna say and think. And certainly there is no shortage of people who are willing to tell us what they think. So I think we can’t, we aren’t ever going to be willing to be fully self expressed unless we’re willing to be judged. And I always say, This is what I say to myself. Every time I am contemplating putting myself out there in a new way, I’m going to be judged either way. I’m going to be judged if I don’t do something, I’m going to be judged if I do do something. So at the end of my life, looking back, what’s the choice that I want to make here? Do I want to hide and not actually lean into the risk? Or do I want to actually do the thing that I really feel compelled to do? And just realize that this isn’t gonna be for everybody, this Podcast is not for everybody. And that’s perfectly okay.

23:11
So absolutely, the fear of being judged criticized rejected by others, is a significant barrier to authentic self expression. And we often feel apprehensive about expressing our true thoughts, emotions and beliefs, because of these potential negative reactions and social repercussions.

23:32
So what is the solution to this? Well, I like to consider not only or remind myself, not only am I gonna be judged either way, but I also like to consider what’s the worst that can happen. So I’ll tell you even to this day, I’ve been coaching now for what, over 20 years, well over 20 years. And when I have a new client, I still get butterflies. And I still get a little anxiety before I get on the phone, because I you know, I want to do the best at my job. And self doubt sometimes starts to creep in and all the things. And the thing that I always remind myself in those moments is what is the worst that can happen here? Well, the worst that can happen is that we just don’t click that we aren’t a good match for each other. And in that case, they simply won’t become a client. Or if they are a client and they’re not satisfied. They’re going to just ask for a refund. By the way, that never happens. But it still is, for some reason, a very real fear of mine. And so I have to parent my brain by going to worst case scenario.

24:34
What is the worst thing about producing a Podcast? Like what’s the worst case scenario of producing a Podcast? Well, I can not have any listeners. People could give me bad reviews. Right? I could eventually have to shut the Podcast down. Like that’s worst case scenario. And worst case scenario going there in your mind is actually quite comforting. Because it reminds you that you’re not going to Be a broken mess, you might have some disappointment, there might be some small consequences to pay. But all in all going to worst case scenario is going to show you, that you, you will still have an answer on what to do next, or you will be able to deal with whatever that worst case is.

25:18
So those are two ways that I have learned to kind of deal with my own fear. And I often use the both of those strategies in my coaching practice.

25:28
Another barrier to self expression is we have a lot of internalized beliefs and self imposed limitations. And this leads to a whole lot of self censorship and suppression of our true selves. And again, this can be a byproduct of that that conditioned expression that I was talking about earlier, or those borrowed beliefs or that cycle or that habit of people pleasing.

25:53
So how do we start reshaping our beliefs, so we are more likely to express ourselves in the ways that feel honest and true? Well, we have to choose intentionally, to believe new things. And I think before we can even believe new things, we’ve got to expose our current beliefs. Right. The reason you aren’t expressing yourself truly, is because you probably have some pretty fierce beliefs about what’s going to happen or what it means to express yourself in certain ways. Expose that, write it down, get clear on it. Because once it’s exposed, you can see how useful it is. And you can decide consciously, to pivot into a new way of thinking. And some people hear pivoting into a new way of thinking is, well just think positive. And just think happy thoughts all the time. And that’s not what I’m saying. But I do think you want to all of us, it benefits all of us to think in a way that is useful to us.

27:03
So I like to remind myself and my clients that beliefs are recycled thoughts, that’s all they are. A belief is a thought that you have had so many times that now you just believe it to be true. And what you believe to be true, you will find a lot of evidence for. So if you believe that I’m just I’m just not somebody who would ever wear something so audacious or I am not somebody who would ever speak up in a situation like that? Well, if you believe that about yourself, you’re absolutely going to prove That’s true. That’s how you’re going to show up in your life.

27:41
But if you start doing the work of reshaping your beliefs, which is again, largely the work that I do with my clients, and we start thinking things like, you know, it might be possible that I could be a woman who dresses a particular way, or speaks up in these types of environments, or who does take dance classes, or who does put her art out for the world to see, it is possible. I might be wrong that I’m not a woman who, whatever the thought is, right? So we don’t want to lie to ourselves, we just want to shift our thinking into to a pattern that is far more useful for us to show up and the way that we want to show up. At again, new practices.

28:34
We also want to build new practices to help validate new beliefs. So it works both ways, right? There’s like the chicken a chicken and egg a conundrum which came first the chicken or the egg? Well, a lot of clients will ask me well, do I change my beliefs? Or do I change my behavior? And my answer is always both. We want to change our beliefs to make it more likely that we will engage in certain behaviors. And we also want to start showing up more consistently with new behaviors to reinforce new beliefs about ourselves. So if I want to believe something like I’m a woman who expresses herself in difficult conversations, well, I’ve got to start practicing that. And the more I practice showing up that way, the more I reinforce that belief about myself. I’m a woman who wears things that bring her joy. Great if you want to reinforce that belief. You have to start developing a practice of wearing things that bring you joy, regardless of what other people think about it. I’m a woman who makes time for her art. Awesome.

29:50
As soon as you start building a practice of that, you will start reinforcing that belief. So I love reminding my students that Jeff That phrase, I am a woman who is a great entry point for new beliefs. What is the type of woman you want to be in the second half of your life? When you think of the concept of powerful aging, what does that mean in terms of how you need to show up in your life, and just write out a bunch of I am a woman who statements, powerful aging at the very top, and then write out like 25 to 50. I am a woman who, what, what is powerful aging mean to you. And those phrases will not only give you new thoughts to think new identities to work towards, they’ll also give you new practices to help you reinforce the beliefs you want to have about yourself. I hope that makes sense. But it goes both ways.

30:53
Another barrier, of course, is kind of what I alluded to earlier, that conditioned expression, there’s a lot of social norms and expectations that can definitely get in the way of self expression. So we feel compelled to conform to social standards, right, and cultural norms and gender roles, and all of that can suppress our true identities and limit our ability to express to express ourselves in authentic ways. So a lot of times you can identify this type of conditioning, when you use phrases like I should, I should is very rarely authentic. It’s not authentic expression, I should implies someone else thinks I should. Right. And we, we often chase the shoulds because we don’t want to make other people uncomfortable. And we are rule followers.

31:46
I know I was this was like, honestly, I was such a good rule follower in the first half of my life, which I largely blame on my brother, because he was such a rule breaker. And the fear of like watching him get in trouble and watching all of the chaos he created in his life made me almost go to the extreme of the other end. And so I had to learn how to like, like my work, my curriculum later in my life has been to be less rule following. Like, I don’t break laws. But I also I’m the one who creates the rules for my life now nobody else. And that has been one of the most freeing practices that I have developed in the space of my life.

32:34
So are you living by your own standards? Or are you living by someone else’s standards? And again, questioning where those should statements I should, whereas that showing up for you, that’s usually a pretty good indicator that you’re living under someone else’s standards in that area.

32:53
So the solution to this to getting out of being so tightly shaped to societal norms and expectations is question your reasons for why you show up the way that you do? Why do you wear what you wear? Why do you spend your time doing what you do? Why do you eat the food you eat? Why do you believe the things you believe about yourself or about life? And do you like your answers to those questions? Question your reasons? Why do I do these things? Because someone told me to? Because I watched someone else do it. And that’s the only way I know how to do it. Because it’s what everybody else does. Do you like those answers? My hope is your answers would largely be because I decided I decided to show up this way. And that is often not how we’re running our lives, by the way.

33:51
So when I’m working with women who are really rumbling with things, it’s usually because they are struggling to decide they haven’t decided how they want to show up. And so they are letting their life be governed by all these other expectations and people and norms. And that doesn’t really do well for fulfillment and happiness.

34:14
We also shop a lot of opinions about things like if you’re someone who has to ask 500 people their opinion before you make a decision. That is usually an indicator that you probably lack some self trust and self authentic self expression. Because when we asked a lot of people their opinions before we decide we’re using their opinions as a filter. Use your own opinion as a filter. What color do you like? What do you think should be done here? What food makes you feel the best? What kind of exercise do you enjoy? I call this insourcing rather than outsourcing in source for authentic self expression, don’t outsource. And comparison is another way of outsourcing. We compare parts of our life to everyone around us, which creates that conditioned expression, not authentic expression.

35:18
So a few things I want to say in closing of this Podcast today, just really basic steps to help you with your own self expression. Number one, you have to have ways of revealing yourself to yourself. Again, you have to have ways of revealing yourself to yourself, which means you have to have a practice of awareness. I call this radical honesty. If you’ve ever done a workshop with me, it’s where I start almost everything. And this is essentially taking the time developing some kind of practice to reflect on your thoughts, your feelings, your intentions, your choices. So you can really start to understand your own motivations for self expression, what’s driving your expression? Is it fear? Or is it possibility? Is it your own standards? Or is it someone else’s standards?

36:12
Because ultimately, we want to ensure that our expression aligns with our values, the well being of ourselves and the well beings of others, okay? But when I say well, being of others, I don’t mean that you have to be a people pleaser, you don’t have the power to make everybody happy. What you can do is practice self expression in authentic and kind ways, and how other people choose to respond to that is their work, not yours.

36:48
So a few key elements, I think, to a practice of awareness and revealing yourself to yourself are things like creating white space in your life time to just reflect and not be doing so much all the time. Taking time to be alone with yourself, which freaks a lot of people out because they don’t know what the heck they would do with themselves alone for a day. But what like we’ve got to date ourselves, we’ve got to reveal ourselves to ourselves, in order to express ourselves authentically, we’ve got to know ourselves to express ourselves authentically. And I think this is where coaching can really be helpful. Because I think a good coach will ask pointed questions to help you reveal yourself to yourself. And once you have started a practice of that, you got to respect what you find.

37:42
And here’s the honest to God truth at midlife. What we liked 10-20 years ago has changed. What we need has changed what we desire has changed. We aren’t the same people we were in our 20s and 30s. And yet I see so many women, rumbling with that fact denying that to the point of suppressing what is true for them at this age and stage of their life. And that is such a dangerous thing.

38:13
So when you start to learn more about yourself, don’t censor yourself, don’t judge yourself, feel what you feel. And as you get more familiar with who you are at this age and stage, and as you start getting more intel about what might light you up, follow those breadcrumbs. But if you ignore if you ignore the breadcrumbs, right, you’re just gonna keep forcing yourself into a box that you have long ago outgrown, and maybe you never even fit into. And no one wants to live there. Again, it’s that cage.

38:56
So number one, we reveal ourselves to ourselves. Number two, we respect what we find. Number three, we start practicing sharing what we find. We let people know who we really are. How we really feel about things, what we like and what we don’t like what will tolerate and what we won’t tolerate. Let people know you for who you truly are. You get to change, you get to evolve, you get to reinvent yourself, you get to change your mind. And when you express that, what is true for you now you are quite literally giving people the opportunity to know you and love you more deeply. And will some relationships potentially evaporate and dissolve and end Absolutely.

39:53
And the way that I reconcile that in my own head is that there are relationships in my life that will just complete themselves. For my lifeline, and that’s okay. Nothing wrong with that. Not every relationship is meant to be a lifelong relationship. People come in and out of your life. But to mold yourself into something that you don’t even recognize, in order to try to keep everyone in your life is the Fast, fast path, in my opinion, to self destruction. So reveal yourself to yourself, respect what you find, start sharing what you find. And then the last thing is, notice what emerges, because some really beautiful things are going to start to emerge.

40:43
And it’s really important that you recognize those things. Because it will give you incentive to keep expressing yourself. So you might notice things like the quality of your relationships is improving. Because you’re being honest and vulnerable and true, you might notice that you have more inner peace, that you’re sleeping better at night, that you just don’t feel like you have so much integrity, pain, as you move through your life, you might notice that they’re starting, there’s new possibility in your life starting to emerge. Because possibility has a really hard time finding its way into your life when you’re hiding from your life. And then we rinse and repeat, we just keep recycling mess for the rest of our lives.

41:35
And I always say I say this in every class, almost every coaching call, certainly a lot on this Podcast, that all of this is a practice, self expression is a practice and if it is something that you have really struggled with. That’s okay. You can start a practice now in a very small way. It’s very small ways, like we talked about earlier, very safe ways. And you can work your way into bigger self expression over time, but you owe it to yourself to start that practice. You owe it to yourself to deepen that practice.

42:10
Alright, my friends, that’s all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed this powerful aging series because I sure as heck did. It is such a topic near and dear to my heart. And I’m sure we’ll circle back to it at some point, talking about some different things. But I hope you got a lot out of it. And if you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with other women who would benefit from the message.

42:31
And then just a reminder, if you would like to participate in the free masterclass later this month called Women’s Health reimagined. All you have to do is head on over to graceandgrit.com/reimagine. And you’ll see the three different dates to choose from you enter your name and email and then you’ll get all the registration details in terms of the Zoom link and all the things so yeah, I hope I’ll see you there.

42:57

Thanks for being here today. And I am cheering you on all the way to your own powerful aging journey.

43:04
Alright, my friends, take care and I’ll see you again soon.

43:12
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit Podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story. And it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort and with a little grace and grit anything is possible.