Category Archives: Aging well

Health & Wellness, Knowledge & Learning, Wealth & Abundance, Fame & Recognition, Relationships, Past, Future, Community, Career

Starting off using myself as a model for reverse aging using natural self-care techniques

Last year an aging celebrity had plastic surgery and when she came out into the mainstream she received harsh backlash that was based on people’s opinions, beliefs and perspectives. This does not normally trigger me to respond however I experienced people I knew in my community who objectified her with their criticisms based upon diagnosing and assessing a person they did not know personally. They had no grasp of that person’s process and need to make the decisions they did. Rather they focused on comparing themselves to that celebrity. The only problem is that they did not have a comparable life experience. They were speaking to their limited belief system and life experience.

I had been considering delving into aging as a topic and resource for teaching using career experience that encompasses behaviour from early childhood through aging into the dying process, and my aging process. The surprise of this trigger was the incentive to act on it and begin to engage with it through the energy of learning and education. This first-hand experience is partnered with decades of providing educational programs in local community centers with ranges in the age of participants, yet dominantly focused on seniors.

While engaging in these community centers I eventually began to recognize the learning opportunities it provided in the exact process I am interested in exploring. I would not have labeled this interest as aging yet it appears so.

In the criticism of the celebrity I opened this post with what I observed based upon my life exploration of somatic movement, appearance, process and response is a lack of full understanding of themselves. ​They were misinformed in drawing their conclusions.  Let me share what this means for me​ starting by writing that my intention is for educational purposes only. Also, I am older than those who criticized this celebrity and look ten years younger than them. I believe it is in the lifestyle choices I have made as​ if I hadn’t made the choices I did I would look differently due to a difficult life beyond the normal range of experience. It is a personal choice and free will. I have not altered my appearance in any way other than using a range of self-care techniques.   ​What I have learned from empathy coaching and teaching is that care is a step that is not taken by many. Admittedly it’s zero for zero of those seeking support from me in all age ranges​ over the experience of the past 24 years.  It’s a missing critical step in mental and emotional health and well-being not just the physical.

As people age their inner process is reflected in their appearance, thought processes, abilities and belief systems. Aging in this explanation begins in early childhood, yet evidence of it in later years cannot be disguised like it can in younger years. It is observable in physical appearance and recognizable to a trained eye, however, it also shows up in the patterns of speech through the selection of words that mimic the belief systems of self and others. The word choices one hears someone say outs them. It exposes their true nature and intention. They are indicators of how people perceive the world such as status and where they place themselves and others on it in terms of having value. Generational conditioning may have left them with a belief system mirroring that scale of importance and categorized value assessment that compares self with others which is isolating and a separation from reality. 

If not generational conditioning, another source of influence is current societal trends such as in reality TV.​  If one researches the first reality TV shows it demonstrates the creation of false reality and the resulting corruption such as in ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8’. Many years later stories of abuse are surfacing and the corruption that was taking place behind the scenes. I never watched any reality TV or games due to being a dominant somatic and empathetic experiencer in the world, I need realism. Realism defined by qualities of authenticity and integrity, neither of which can be identifiable in these reality and game shows. 

​Another example of objectification that goes beyond a shift in appearance into devaluation of humanity in men, women, and children of all colours having a current global impact is that of the imprisonment of Sean Combs. The false illusion of status he projected is being unveiled which has shone a light on other people who have assumed positions of grandeur, power, and control.   It is the same position of authority as those had over the celebrity who changed their appearance.  It’s the same origins of the assumption of having authority.  One is through individual comparisons, and recent facts emerging of Sean Combs and how he used people’s bodies, minds and creative material for personal gain.  Each scenario is for personal gain to feel better about themselves.  

When the celebrity came out after surgery that altered their appearance those who spoke out against her character did so without a complete circle of understanding themselves and the person they were morally judging. These criticisms came from comparing themselves to that person and they spoke from that one-sided position​ of authority. 

What makes a common person an authority I wonder.  It demonstrated their limited worldview and yet these people would normally consider themselves fair-minded, non-judgemental, non-racist, ​and societal leaders in the community through their careers and interests. These outbursts on someone else’s character due to the comparisons destroyed the self-image they were portraying in their communities.

This is an experience ​I have in real-time with real interactions in a state of being conscious of it while it is actively being enacted out. I can choose to disengage fully and pull energy back or engage on some level of connection between the​s​e ​stages in states of aloofness or full-on engagement. As a healer, teacher, coach and mentor I have learned to become selective in whom I engage with and the effort I put in. It has become an inner sensing of whether the interactive experience will be life-enriching or life-draining.  My objective is to cultivate awareness and learning opportunities I usually choose to move away from life-draining conditions when there is no opening for change. When there is an openness for change the effort is stimulating and enhances life, however when there’s a lack of openness based upon corrupt and hidden views and actions the effort carries a struggle that creates diseased thinking, emotions, bodies and spirituality (cults).

Sean Comb’s community put themselves into false categories of power underneath him and over him. If you look at those with presumptive backgrounds​ of power you will learn they have no discernable status going back one or two generations. It’s one family member’s good luck or hard work building using their character and skills that is nontransferable yet has conditioned future generations into false beliefs of themselves.

Anyone who attacks another person through words and actions, in the light or the dark, lacks self-esteem, self-confidence, skill sets, maturity and finesse. Their life may be a pursuit of trying to fill the void of loneliness, love and self-love, connection and self-connection, beauty and inner beauty, peace and inner peace, confidence from within that is courageous and outwardly to take right action and more. This imbalance that creates a void has the potential pattern for acquiring things, people, status and lustful deceit to manipulate. It lacks the inner sense of abundance. I witness a lack of connection to the value and quality they place in their acquisitions in these circumstances. There is a disconnect and this is the point that corruption can enter.

Imagine perceiving people and community groups with the ability to sense the scale of self-connection they have to inherent characteristics that have been beaten out of them by social conditioning that they have never acknowledged or pursued to change through their own volition. Rather they continue to make others enemies​ and blame and shame them instead of taking accountability for their lack of action or reactions.  ​I connect to that level of perception in people, places and things.  Then I am faced with choosing to assimilate into it or pull back.  Learning this skill of pulling back opened me to a deeper skill set in observing the long-term effects of behaviour that defines or describes one’s aging process.  

This is the clarity that I have committed to focus attention on for demystifying the aging process and cutting through the spiritual materialisms of the ego-minded and unprofessional analysis of other people’s choices.

I have been testing this out on my personal Facebook page, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok. You can subscribe to my website or these other social media sites to follow along on the aging journey that will focus on health and well-being for aging. It is a subcategory of Health and Wellness. It influences all life areas in one’s interactive lifestyle.

Follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, X or Pinterest

Hit like if you enjoyed the content

Copyright 2014 – 2024 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP

Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®