May 31, 2024 • 24 mins
Welcome to the latest episode of the Halo 42 Beauty Podcast! Join hosts Mark and Tim Quinn as they delve into the universal experience of aging. From the celebrated milestones of youth to the challenges of midlife and beyond, this episode explores the evolving perceptions and realities of getting older.
Mark and Tim discuss the societal pressures and personal fears associated with aging, the importance of redefining oneself at various life stages, and the role of spirituality and mental health in navigating these changes. They share personal anecdotes and practical tips for maintaining joy, health, and a positive mindset throughout the aging process.
Tune in for an insightful and uplifting conversation that encourages you to embrace every phase of life with grace, creativity, and a youthful spirit. Discover how to find beauty and gratitude in each moment, regardless of age. Don't miss out on this enlightening discussion!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
Everybody, we are so happy to be here today. I am Mark.
I'm Tim Quinn. And we are your hosts for the Halo 42 Beauty Podcast.
Y'all, we've got some interesting stuff to be talking about,
because it's something that we all go through. Aging.
We do, if we're lucky.
When do we start to age? We start to age right when we're born.
(00:30):
Absolutely. Nobody gets out of it. it and it's funny
because that word takes on such a different meaning
as you move through that process of aging yeah
at first it's celebrated right and it's like look forward to you can't wait
to turn 13 15 18 get your driver's license get your first drink and then why
does that shift really happen do you think i don't i don't honestly know i think
(00:54):
you know it comes up so So often you see that,
you know, all these marketing tools are like,
oh, 40 is the new 30, 50 is the new 20, whatever it might be.
The fear of being relevant or maybe it's, you know, your better years are behind
you or the midlife crisis, whatever that might actually be.
Because if you actually think about what the midlife crisis is,
(01:16):
you're probably already in it.
You know, it's like most people think they're my age when they're in their midlife
crisis, but nobody really lives to 120 that much. Yeah, you were speaking about
the midlife crisis the other day.
Somebody was mentioning menopause for women, and then you said,
I'm in it for men right now.
What does that feel like?
Like, I mean, it doesn't bother me. It's just, it's another phase of like,
(01:39):
and I think that, you know, maybe I'm a little different because I spend more
time in this space because of my trajectory or whatever it might be, right?
I mean, I actually had that conversation last night with a group of guys and
somebody said to me, well, how do you identify?
Which I thought was so funny because especially in this group of predominantly
gay gentlemen I was with, they were talking about the different tags,
(02:01):
right? I don't even know what some of them were, to be quite honest.
They looked at me and they said, would you identify as a daddy?
And I'm like, no. I don't think that way.
But I think that a lot of people do get trapped or identified by the age defining
them when it's less and less about that.
Because in our mind, the body ages in a way, although there's all these amazing ways to combat that now.
(02:28):
You know, I hate that term anti-aging, but it's kind of true, right?
You know, to come up with identities and tags to put on to ourselves,
that's, you know, that's one of the things that I've spoken a lot about how
I really did not enjoy, you know, the gay community because of that, because of those tags.
But what's interesting about some of those tags, right, is you can't be a daddy
(02:50):
until you reach a certain actual age, right?
And you can't be really a bear until you reach an actual age.
Before that, you're what they call an otter. I learned that last night,
actually. I didn't know what that was.
And so, you know, the tags and the identities that we have, I mean,
we can really boil it back down to, it's a comparison of what we see out there.
(03:12):
We're comparing ourselves to actual bears in nature.
We're comparing ourselves to what it seems like, looks like a bear in another
human being or a daddy in another human being.
And then we're, we're making this identity.
We're making these, like these, these, these, these constructs in our head that
(03:33):
allow us to confirm who we're supposed to be.
And as we start to age and we go through a phase of life.
So I just, I went through my twenties and I went through, you know,
most of my thirties now, and both of those
sections of my life i had a different identity
that i was trying to always match up to true
(03:53):
i mean i think that that's so much about what our our journeys are at times
right i mean we all know that one person who seems to at birth have defined
themselves and they just seem to go through life on this path with no bumps
and no changes and no everything seems to be perfect but but that's never really the reality.
But it's kind of fun. I think part of change in life is that you get to kind
(04:18):
of redefine yourself as we go through the process and mature in age, right?
You don't have to just stay that one thing forever.
I, I know, I, I know I can't stay that one thing forever.
I know there's, there, there may be some people I don't know.
I mean, no one can stay the same forever, right?
(04:38):
Changes, changes, changes going to come.
And well, the way that we portray ourselves on the outside may,
may, may stay the same forever.
But I can guarantee the inner dialogue that Cher has with herself is not the
same that she had when she was 28 running around with Sonny.
(04:59):
No, because I think that for anyone with age and experience and traumas and
joys, those tend to color your perception of how things move forward,
if you're actually honest about it.
And that's part of the joy of living, I think.
You know the struggles actually you
(05:20):
know i just had this conversation 10 minutes ago with a young lady who
called me you know she unloaded on me very quickly
this trauma she's been through in the last year which is really quite a
lot but she decided like so
many people do in that shift that that's not going
to define her and we heard brooke talk about that the other night you
hear cancer survivors talk about that all the time that instead of
(05:41):
thinking i am the sickness i am sick instead of
saying that right i am fighting sickness i'm fighting
it yeah i mean i i mean i know well like when
i was going through my cancer whatever you want
to call it attack i didn't like being defined by that so i
chose not to it's like any any quality i think sometimes you know if you allow
(06:03):
the the circumstance to define you and what happens if that circumstance has
changed and it could be a great circumstance that might be defining you and
then all of a sudden that's take it away. So then what?
Well, then we have to shift. And so, you know, I think that,
I think that that comes along with age, whether you like it or not, right.
(06:23):
You're going to have to shift. I had, I had to shift. I had to shift this year
because I've been starting to age, right?
Like my, I, there was, there was a time where my, my heart was,
was not working correctly.
I was near passing out during the workday, you know, halfway through the workday.
And it's because Because the same exercise that I had been doing for the past
(06:43):
six, seven years started to take its toll on me because of aging.
Sure. I mean, that comes down to listening to your body, right?
Yeah. But accepting it, it could have driven me to a place of great depression
that I actually see in the wellness community a lot as it pertains to aging,
because I recognized that I was going to have to make some changes.
(07:06):
That means changes to my routine. That means changes to my inner dialogue.
That means changes to my own identity.
And for those of you guys who don't know, you know, my identity was really firmly
rooted in being an Ironman triathlete, right?
Because that was the only identity that I had had for the past 15 years that
(07:27):
didn't involve heavy, heavy addiction.
Yeah. So what, what did you tap into then when you recognize that,
okay, this is not going to be my identity right now?
Well, there's an acceptance and there's a letting go. And I, I find it thrilling.
I find it exciting. I find that, you know, I, there, there was a little bit
(07:50):
of a crisis that did happen.
I was, I was going through these kind of like visions where I would,
where I would see myself and feel myself as a very, very old man.
And I, I, it would be like when I was going to the bathroom in the middle of
the night, I would be leaning up against my wall, going to the bathroom,
(08:13):
and then I would get the feeling that my face was drawn out,
that I was old, and that I was really old.
And that feeling, it was coming up because I was actually being confronted with
an age-related topic for kind of the first time in my life, really.
I was finally being confronted with that, and thus my subconscious was showing
(08:37):
that I actually had a fear of aging too. That's what I believe was going on.
And so when I started to recognize that fear, I started to go,
okay, if there's a fear, then that means I can always shift my perspective into
either allowing myself to become depressed by this fear as that's where I'm headed, right? Right.
Or I can become excited. I could find the things of gratitude, right?
(09:01):
I could find the other things that are going to help propel me into this next phase.
And, you know, I work with a mental health counselor that helps me a lot, right?
And she was able to help me to look at this as a new phase of life that's exciting
and it's not something to run away from.
And it may very well be. It's a lot like chasing our dreams or our goals.
(09:24):
We oftentimes, we say, I've got this dream, I've got this goal,
and then we give it to God, and then we pray about it, and we keep going into
it, and we go into it, and we push, and we push, and we push,
and then all of a sudden, God makes that dream or that goal much better than we ever expected.
But that's only if we're going after it without any fear, right?
If we're going into aging with fear, then
(09:46):
we're going to be missing how much better that god
is actually planning on making this whole experience
for you than the previous phase of life well it's
like every season right i mean when you're saying that
i'm thinking if you follow like especially up north maybe not so much in the
south but as the season changes there's different beauty in each month you know
(10:08):
it's looking at a tree as as it blossoms as it flowers as the leaves fall as
so if you can kind of look at your life that way it makes it a little easier.
I mean, it's, you know, obviously it's a little harder when things start to
sag and drop and all that, but.
There's different things going on in your life that aren't all egocentric about
(10:29):
how you look either, if you are aware of the other changes happening.
I think some of the practical stuff has also been really rather fun and educational, right?
Because I get to look at different diets.
I get to look at different nutrition. I get to change my life,
(10:50):
actually, every aspect of it, from what I wear to what time I'm going to sleep at night.
Everything has been able to shift a little bit.
And for me, the hardest has been routine.
And I think, you know, a lot of people in who do go through aging,
especially as we go into geriatric type aging, the, the lack of routine that
(11:14):
we're able to continue on has got, I mean, for me, that's going to be probably the hardest one.
I mean, I got to go from, from Ironman into weightlifting, right?
That's not a big difference really. And I get to, I get to keep pushing myself.
I get to keep challenging myself, but to go from Ironman to sitting on a couch,
right. right? Or being in a nursing home is a big difference.
(11:36):
But I mean, I was at so many of your Ironman competitions that there are people
who continue doing that in a different way.
Yeah. Yeah. Well into their 60s, 70s and beyond.
And that's another thing is you can continue to adapt and stay in,
you know, whatever, basically whatever you want to do.
Sometimes you just got to get creative to do it. But here's the thing is it's
really hard to get creative and it's really hard to see the possibility if you're walking in fear.
(11:59):
Well, and that's, you know, it's funny as we're talking about that i go back
to that article that i pulled from forbes about.
What's missing in the mental health crisis maybe it's this this combination of spirituality,
as a tool and i when you're saying that i'm thinking it's so
true because if if you live in fear then
you're you're almost like that's almost like the absence of spirituality right
(12:19):
you're not you're not believing in this higher well i believe fear is that is
the opposite of faith and if we're going to say that faith is the same as spirituality
then then potentially I think that that word spirituality needs redefining almost at this point.
I think it's become, as I was reading through this article, it's interesting
because they do point it out, is because there is this...
(12:42):
Faith-based thing that kind of triggers people in some ways but in what i was
reading through and i was thinking about it with health care it's so true the
only time that it's really,
fully embraced in the health care world or
you know is when someone's at end of stage life right so
they that's interesting there's this hospice that comes into play yeah and all
of a sudden everything shifts and you know our traditional medicine you know
(13:06):
actually firmly believes that that there is that balance of whatever the patient
is going through and how you support them and what their spirituality and their faith might be.
So why would that be different in end-stage life? It should be our storyline throughout our life.
Whatever you face, if you're believing in that power, that higher power,
(13:27):
all that other stuff, you find a way to keep smiling.
I'm thinking of my dad, as I say that, who I still have to introduce you to.
I was talking to him this morning. here's a man you know who's
a college star football basketball had
a whole big life and then you know in the latter years in
the last five years particularly you know 30 years ago hit with ms and just
(13:47):
kept living on through his faith lost last year had a leg removed you know i'm
talking to him this morning he's like i love it i go you know wheeling around
i've met new people we have conversations you know i'm like you know that's
pretty cool yeah like you find a different way to
keep bringing your joy,
he still thinks he's, believes firmly he's going to walk again.
(14:08):
And who am I to say you're not? And I think that so many people,
when you're talking about menopause, women listening to Brooke the other night talk about that.
It's a whole process that happens in your body that you cannot control.
And it shifts a whole lot of, even when you were talking about how your body
(14:29):
reacts to exercise food, it's all such an integral part of everything because
for every single person, it's a little different.
I remember her saying that she went into weight training and was so happy to give up the cardio.
There's a woman sitting next to me who was like, oh my God, I can't live without cardio.
Yeah. Well, we all have to be way more careful about those types of comments, especially as we age.
(14:53):
Those are what you what you go back to the identity
whenever we say something along the
lines of oh i i'm just i
have to have my cardio yeah i am miss cardio i am i am miss i am miss what whatever
it might even be this is this is my skincare product this is i am this this
(15:14):
is what i am well your skin honey is starting to change and you're not still
that and you never actually were that.
So defining ourselves correctly is fundamental to this.
And that's ultimately what happens in the end stage of life is redefining that
self as a spirit to allow that person to then pass on peacefully and gracefully.
(15:39):
And ultimately, if we can do that throughout our regular life,
which it sounds like what you're saying, if we can do that throughout each phase,
It's just another form of death evolving.
And that also, if we go through, you know, our seven different phases throughout
our life and we continue to get better and better and stronger and stronger
at accepting that change,
(16:00):
then when it comes to end stage of life, it's probably a fairly easy passing
as long as we haven't been rigid and stuck in our ways and been like, no, this is my identity.
This is the way I want it. This is the way I see my life. I don't I don't see
my life with with eyes that look like that Let it go let it go and take a deep
breath and here. You know what's interesting I.
(16:22):
Is when, when somebody really feels it inside, right?
When somebody really feels it and I see it time and time again,
somebody has that smile in their eyes.
They have not only a smile, but there's like an excitement towards life and
towards gratitude and towards, towards just being a human being.
And you see that no matter what age and all of a sudden it pokes out.
(16:44):
Sometimes it lasts for five minutes. Sometimes some people carry it on for,
for hours and I don't understand how they can do it.
But it doesn't matter the age, the same beauty is still there.
It's just as beautiful every single time that I see it and I just want to stay involved with it.
Well, it's like when you see that, I often see this in people.
(17:06):
I can look at them, I see the child there. Yeah.
For some reason, I see it more with men than women. I don't know why,
but with men, sometimes I look at them, I could literally picture them as a little boy.
I'm like, the whole way they behaved and where that little empty part of them,
you know, I love seeing that, for lack of a better word, the imp in people,
because when you're young and you're playful and you're not burdened by all
(17:30):
that other expectation,
unfortunately, not everyone gets to be young and playful, right?
So some of those people have a different challenge, but when you do see that in someone, it's.
At whatever age. I always think of that movie Cocoon, when all those people
were elderly together, and then somehow the aliens shrunk them back to as kids or something.
But that's really how I look at people. And I think, how fun is that if you
(17:51):
can live your life just always in joy as a child? Yeah.
I mean, to find that state of bliss, to find that state of flow,
because you're not walking in fear, right?
I mean, you're right. There are definitely cases where there is an element of fear.
And then it's the trauma that ultimately brings us back around to making it
(18:13):
difficult to go through these phases.
So as it pertains to aging, I think one of the mindset shifts that we can really
have is that I always notice that if I look at things like a fear, right?
Like I remember thinking, oh, I just have anxiety.
(18:33):
I was on like four milligrams of Xanax a day, right?
I was eating like double of what a very anxious person eats,
right? And I was needing that stuff to even progress through my day because
I believed I was an anxious person.
And then I changed my idea and started to think about it as fear.
(18:54):
I'm not an anxious person. You're also not an aging person.
You're actually not a person. You're a spirit and you were a child and you will
be a dead person one day and you You will leave this beautiful,
long legacy that your looks will not have lasted and depended on anyway.
(19:15):
Now, if we don't walk in fear of it, then it's going to be more gracefully,
much like if I look at anxiety like a fear,
all of a sudden it just loses its grip on me. It doesn't stay inside of me.
It passes, just like every other fear does. It's not part of me.
(19:36):
Hopefully because i think you can do that with and there's so many
tools i mean so many tools you've taught me about you know or introduced me
to to help with that you know whether it's breath work whether it's you
know the exercise it's just getting out in nature it's
getting out of your head if it's you know getting more rest
movement but it's also to remember in the gym we used to
let loose you let loose smile kind of
(19:56):
like that richard simmons staying young right staying young
and keeping that joy and that levity in
life that is really the essence of i mean
finding youth in any sort of way that you
can even if it's when you're sitting in the mirror and you're looking
at yourself just give yourself a funny face
like put on put on that zinc sulfur mask right
(20:17):
put on that face mask and then and then go boot
to yourself right just do something that's
goofy something that's fun do a little dance during your
skincare routine do something that you would
only do if you were a child make a reel and throw water
at your friend you know like whatever it might be yeah it's true though but
(20:37):
i feel like you know sometimes you need to give yourself permission again to
be playful and i think skincare is a good place to be playful as well in the
shower right yeah you don't have to be so serious the ritualistic part of it.
If it if you make it joyful it actually becomes something that you love you
know as part of you With the health,
(21:01):
the wellness part, part of your lesson to me was finding the thing,
and I know I sometimes get a little stuck in it, but I love swimming.
I loved swimming since I was a kid.
You brought it back into my life, and it actually shifted so much for me because
when I'm swimming, I can picture my parents in the bleachers.
I swim as a kid, and for me, that's more joyful than virtually everything else I do.
(21:26):
Yeah that's awesome getting giving yourself a moment
in the day to embrace and
be with that kid yeah it's kind of fun it's like uh you
go you can go to your happy place and i think that that's you can make a happy
place anywhere right you can sit in a storm and be happy if you have that ability
and we all have it it's just kind of remembering to tap into it yes sir well
(21:52):
i think I think it's been a wonderful, wonderful chat.
I think it's about time to get off the air, y'all. We have discussed everything
from aging spiritually to aging physically, mentally, emotionally. We got it all.
I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed it very much too. And so here's to a happy
aging for everybody today.
(22:12):
Go through it. It's just today, you know, you're, we're, we're really not aging that fast, right?
It's actually a fairly slow process. It's just always moving, you know?
So be grateful for who you are today in your skin today.
And remember that you're so much more than who you are, right?
(22:32):
You're so much more than the tags that you're putting on yourself,
than the identities that you're telling yourself.
You're so much more. And you can find that every single day while doing your
skincare routine and looking into your body, looking into your face and seeing
the true sparkle inside of you.
(22:53):
And just looking out and being kind because that does.
And it resonates in ways that you never remember. Yeah.
And then you start seeing more smiles outside of you and we start seeing more
smiles outside of you. It helps you to feel younger. Honestly, it really does.
Yeah. It puts a little kick in your step. Yeah. If you're walking around in
arguments all day and getting in arguments and flicking people off on the highway,
(23:16):
you're going to be aging quicker than I am. It's very true. It's very true.
And Tim now. Tim used to be driving like that, but now he doesn't.
We talked about that on the first podcast.
Very true he was fast forward into a geezer hood uh-huh it wasn't gonna be long
(23:37):
yeah snip that in the butt thank you yeah now he's a swimming tiger again timmy
timmy the tiger all right timmy the tiger let's do it y'all have a wonderful day everybody.
Music.
Music.
(00:07):
Everybody, we are so happy to be here today. I am Mark.
I'm Tim Quinn. And we are your hosts for the Halo 42 Beauty Podcast.
Y'all, we've got some interesting stuff to be talking about,
because it's something that we all go through. Aging.
We do, if we're lucky.
When do we start to age? We start to age right when we're born.
(00:30):
Absolutely. Nobody gets out of it. it and it's funny
because that word takes on such a different meaning
as you move through that process of aging yeah
at first it's celebrated right and it's like look forward to you can't wait
to turn 13 15 18 get your driver's license get your first drink and then why
does that shift really happen do you think i don't i don't honestly know i think
(00:54):
you know it comes up so So often you see that,
you know, all these marketing tools are like,
oh, 40 is the new 30, 50 is the new 20, whatever it might be.
The fear of being relevant or maybe it's, you know, your better years are behind
you or the midlife crisis, whatever that might actually be.
Because if you actually think about what the midlife crisis is,
(01:16):
you're probably already in it.
You know, it's like most people think they're my age when they're in their midlife
crisis, but nobody really lives to 120 that much. Yeah, you were speaking about
the midlife crisis the other day.
Somebody was mentioning menopause for women, and then you said,
I'm in it for men right now.
What does that feel like?
Like, I mean, it doesn't bother me. It's just, it's another phase of like,
(01:39):
and I think that, you know, maybe I'm a little different because I spend more
time in this space because of my trajectory or whatever it might be, right?
I mean, I actually had that conversation last night with a group of guys and
somebody said to me, well, how do you identify?
Which I thought was so funny because especially in this group of predominantly
gay gentlemen I was with, they were talking about the different tags,
(02:01):
right? I don't even know what some of them were, to be quite honest.
They looked at me and they said, would you identify as a daddy?
And I'm like, no. I don't think that way.
But I think that a lot of people do get trapped or identified by the age defining
them when it's less and less about that.
Because in our mind, the body ages in a way, although there's all these amazing ways to combat that now.
(02:28):
You know, I hate that term anti-aging, but it's kind of true, right?
You know, to come up with identities and tags to put on to ourselves,
that's, you know, that's one of the things that I've spoken a lot about how
I really did not enjoy, you know, the gay community because of that, because of those tags.
But what's interesting about some of those tags, right, is you can't be a daddy
(02:50):
until you reach a certain actual age, right?
And you can't be really a bear until you reach an actual age.
Before that, you're what they call an otter. I learned that last night,
actually. I didn't know what that was.
And so, you know, the tags and the identities that we have, I mean,
we can really boil it back down to, it's a comparison of what we see out there.
(03:12):
We're comparing ourselves to actual bears in nature.
We're comparing ourselves to what it seems like, looks like a bear in another
human being or a daddy in another human being.
And then we're, we're making this identity.
We're making these, like these, these, these, these constructs in our head that
(03:33):
allow us to confirm who we're supposed to be.
And as we start to age and we go through a phase of life.
So I just, I went through my twenties and I went through, you know,
most of my thirties now, and both of those
sections of my life i had a different identity
that i was trying to always match up to true
(03:53):
i mean i think that that's so much about what our our journeys are at times
right i mean we all know that one person who seems to at birth have defined
themselves and they just seem to go through life on this path with no bumps
and no changes and no everything seems to be perfect but but that's never really the reality.
But it's kind of fun. I think part of change in life is that you get to kind
(04:18):
of redefine yourself as we go through the process and mature in age, right?
You don't have to just stay that one thing forever.
I, I know, I, I know I can't stay that one thing forever.
I know there's, there, there may be some people I don't know.
I mean, no one can stay the same forever, right?
(04:38):
Changes, changes, changes going to come.
And well, the way that we portray ourselves on the outside may,
may, may stay the same forever.
But I can guarantee the inner dialogue that Cher has with herself is not the
same that she had when she was 28 running around with Sonny.
(04:59):
No, because I think that for anyone with age and experience and traumas and
joys, those tend to color your perception of how things move forward,
if you're actually honest about it.
And that's part of the joy of living, I think.
You know the struggles actually you
(05:20):
know i just had this conversation 10 minutes ago with a young lady who
called me you know she unloaded on me very quickly
this trauma she's been through in the last year which is really quite a
lot but she decided like so
many people do in that shift that that's not going
to define her and we heard brooke talk about that the other night you
hear cancer survivors talk about that all the time that instead of
(05:41):
thinking i am the sickness i am sick instead of
saying that right i am fighting sickness i'm fighting
it yeah i mean i i mean i know well like when
i was going through my cancer whatever you want
to call it attack i didn't like being defined by that so i
chose not to it's like any any quality i think sometimes you know if you allow
(06:03):
the the circumstance to define you and what happens if that circumstance has
changed and it could be a great circumstance that might be defining you and
then all of a sudden that's take it away. So then what?
Well, then we have to shift. And so, you know, I think that,
I think that that comes along with age, whether you like it or not, right.
(06:23):
You're going to have to shift. I had, I had to shift. I had to shift this year
because I've been starting to age, right?
Like my, I, there was, there was a time where my, my heart was,
was not working correctly.
I was near passing out during the workday, you know, halfway through the workday.
And it's because Because the same exercise that I had been doing for the past
(06:43):
six, seven years started to take its toll on me because of aging.
Sure. I mean, that comes down to listening to your body, right?
Yeah. But accepting it, it could have driven me to a place of great depression
that I actually see in the wellness community a lot as it pertains to aging,
because I recognized that I was going to have to make some changes.
(07:06):
That means changes to my routine. That means changes to my inner dialogue.
That means changes to my own identity.
And for those of you guys who don't know, you know, my identity was really firmly
rooted in being an Ironman triathlete, right?
Because that was the only identity that I had had for the past 15 years that
(07:27):
didn't involve heavy, heavy addiction.
Yeah. So what, what did you tap into then when you recognize that,
okay, this is not going to be my identity right now?
Well, there's an acceptance and there's a letting go. And I, I find it thrilling.
I find it exciting. I find that, you know, I, there, there was a little bit
(07:50):
of a crisis that did happen.
I was, I was going through these kind of like visions where I would,
where I would see myself and feel myself as a very, very old man.
And I, I, it would be like when I was going to the bathroom in the middle of
the night, I would be leaning up against my wall, going to the bathroom,
(08:13):
and then I would get the feeling that my face was drawn out,
that I was old, and that I was really old.
And that feeling, it was coming up because I was actually being confronted with
an age-related topic for kind of the first time in my life, really.
I was finally being confronted with that, and thus my subconscious was showing
(08:37):
that I actually had a fear of aging too. That's what I believe was going on.
And so when I started to recognize that fear, I started to go,
okay, if there's a fear, then that means I can always shift my perspective into
either allowing myself to become depressed by this fear as that's where I'm headed, right? Right.
Or I can become excited. I could find the things of gratitude, right?
(09:01):
I could find the other things that are going to help propel me into this next phase.
And, you know, I work with a mental health counselor that helps me a lot, right?
And she was able to help me to look at this as a new phase of life that's exciting
and it's not something to run away from.
And it may very well be. It's a lot like chasing our dreams or our goals.
(09:24):
We oftentimes, we say, I've got this dream, I've got this goal,
and then we give it to God, and then we pray about it, and we keep going into
it, and we go into it, and we push, and we push, and we push,
and then all of a sudden, God makes that dream or that goal much better than we ever expected.
But that's only if we're going after it without any fear, right?
If we're going into aging with fear, then
(09:46):
we're going to be missing how much better that god
is actually planning on making this whole experience
for you than the previous phase of life well it's
like every season right i mean when you're saying that
i'm thinking if you follow like especially up north maybe not so much in the
south but as the season changes there's different beauty in each month you know
(10:08):
it's looking at a tree as as it blossoms as it flowers as the leaves fall as
so if you can kind of look at your life that way it makes it a little easier.
I mean, it's, you know, obviously it's a little harder when things start to
sag and drop and all that, but.
There's different things going on in your life that aren't all egocentric about
(10:29):
how you look either, if you are aware of the other changes happening.
I think some of the practical stuff has also been really rather fun and educational, right?
Because I get to look at different diets.
I get to look at different nutrition. I get to change my life,
(10:50):
actually, every aspect of it, from what I wear to what time I'm going to sleep at night.
Everything has been able to shift a little bit.
And for me, the hardest has been routine.
And I think, you know, a lot of people in who do go through aging,
especially as we go into geriatric type aging, the, the lack of routine that
(11:14):
we're able to continue on has got, I mean, for me, that's going to be probably the hardest one.
I mean, I got to go from, from Ironman into weightlifting, right?
That's not a big difference really. And I get to, I get to keep pushing myself.
I get to keep challenging myself, but to go from Ironman to sitting on a couch,
right. right? Or being in a nursing home is a big difference.
(11:36):
But I mean, I was at so many of your Ironman competitions that there are people
who continue doing that in a different way.
Yeah. Yeah. Well into their 60s, 70s and beyond.
And that's another thing is you can continue to adapt and stay in,
you know, whatever, basically whatever you want to do.
Sometimes you just got to get creative to do it. But here's the thing is it's
really hard to get creative and it's really hard to see the possibility if you're walking in fear.
(11:59):
Well, and that's, you know, it's funny as we're talking about that i go back
to that article that i pulled from forbes about.
What's missing in the mental health crisis maybe it's this this combination of spirituality,
as a tool and i when you're saying that i'm thinking it's so
true because if if you live in fear then
you're you're almost like that's almost like the absence of spirituality right
(12:19):
you're not you're not believing in this higher well i believe fear is that is
the opposite of faith and if we're going to say that faith is the same as spirituality
then then potentially I think that that word spirituality needs redefining almost at this point.
I think it's become, as I was reading through this article, it's interesting
because they do point it out, is because there is this...
(12:42):
Faith-based thing that kind of triggers people in some ways but in what i was
reading through and i was thinking about it with health care it's so true the
only time that it's really,
fully embraced in the health care world or
you know is when someone's at end of stage life right so
they that's interesting there's this hospice that comes into play yeah and all
of a sudden everything shifts and you know our traditional medicine you know
(13:06):
actually firmly believes that that there is that balance of whatever the patient
is going through and how you support them and what their spirituality and their faith might be.
So why would that be different in end-stage life? It should be our storyline throughout our life.
Whatever you face, if you're believing in that power, that higher power,
(13:27):
all that other stuff, you find a way to keep smiling.
I'm thinking of my dad, as I say that, who I still have to introduce you to.
I was talking to him this morning. here's a man you know who's
a college star football basketball had
a whole big life and then you know in the latter years in
the last five years particularly you know 30 years ago hit with ms and just
(13:47):
kept living on through his faith lost last year had a leg removed you know i'm
talking to him this morning he's like i love it i go you know wheeling around
i've met new people we have conversations you know i'm like you know that's
pretty cool yeah like you find a different way to
keep bringing your joy,
he still thinks he's, believes firmly he's going to walk again.
(14:08):
And who am I to say you're not? And I think that so many people,
when you're talking about menopause, women listening to Brooke the other night talk about that.
It's a whole process that happens in your body that you cannot control.
And it shifts a whole lot of, even when you were talking about how your body
(14:29):
reacts to exercise food, it's all such an integral part of everything because
for every single person, it's a little different.
I remember her saying that she went into weight training and was so happy to give up the cardio.
There's a woman sitting next to me who was like, oh my God, I can't live without cardio.
Yeah. Well, we all have to be way more careful about those types of comments, especially as we age.
(14:53):
Those are what you what you go back to the identity
whenever we say something along the
lines of oh i i'm just i
have to have my cardio yeah i am miss cardio i am i am miss i am miss what whatever
it might even be this is this is my skincare product this is i am this this
(15:14):
is what i am well your skin honey is starting to change and you're not still
that and you never actually were that.
So defining ourselves correctly is fundamental to this.
And that's ultimately what happens in the end stage of life is redefining that
self as a spirit to allow that person to then pass on peacefully and gracefully.
(15:39):
And ultimately, if we can do that throughout our regular life,
which it sounds like what you're saying, if we can do that throughout each phase,
It's just another form of death evolving.
And that also, if we go through, you know, our seven different phases throughout
our life and we continue to get better and better and stronger and stronger
at accepting that change,
(16:00):
then when it comes to end stage of life, it's probably a fairly easy passing
as long as we haven't been rigid and stuck in our ways and been like, no, this is my identity.
This is the way I want it. This is the way I see my life. I don't I don't see
my life with with eyes that look like that Let it go let it go and take a deep
breath and here. You know what's interesting I.
(16:22):
Is when, when somebody really feels it inside, right?
When somebody really feels it and I see it time and time again,
somebody has that smile in their eyes.
They have not only a smile, but there's like an excitement towards life and
towards gratitude and towards, towards just being a human being.
And you see that no matter what age and all of a sudden it pokes out.
(16:44):
Sometimes it lasts for five minutes. Sometimes some people carry it on for,
for hours and I don't understand how they can do it.
But it doesn't matter the age, the same beauty is still there.
It's just as beautiful every single time that I see it and I just want to stay involved with it.
Well, it's like when you see that, I often see this in people.
(17:06):
I can look at them, I see the child there. Yeah.
For some reason, I see it more with men than women. I don't know why,
but with men, sometimes I look at them, I could literally picture them as a little boy.
I'm like, the whole way they behaved and where that little empty part of them,
you know, I love seeing that, for lack of a better word, the imp in people,
because when you're young and you're playful and you're not burdened by all
(17:30):
that other expectation,
unfortunately, not everyone gets to be young and playful, right?
So some of those people have a different challenge, but when you do see that in someone, it's.
At whatever age. I always think of that movie Cocoon, when all those people
were elderly together, and then somehow the aliens shrunk them back to as kids or something.
But that's really how I look at people. And I think, how fun is that if you
(17:51):
can live your life just always in joy as a child? Yeah.
I mean, to find that state of bliss, to find that state of flow,
because you're not walking in fear, right?
I mean, you're right. There are definitely cases where there is an element of fear.
And then it's the trauma that ultimately brings us back around to making it
(18:13):
difficult to go through these phases.
So as it pertains to aging, I think one of the mindset shifts that we can really
have is that I always notice that if I look at things like a fear, right?
Like I remember thinking, oh, I just have anxiety.
(18:33):
I was on like four milligrams of Xanax a day, right?
I was eating like double of what a very anxious person eats,
right? And I was needing that stuff to even progress through my day because
I believed I was an anxious person.
And then I changed my idea and started to think about it as fear.
(18:54):
I'm not an anxious person. You're also not an aging person.
You're actually not a person. You're a spirit and you were a child and you will
be a dead person one day and you You will leave this beautiful,
long legacy that your looks will not have lasted and depended on anyway.
(19:15):
Now, if we don't walk in fear of it, then it's going to be more gracefully,
much like if I look at anxiety like a fear,
all of a sudden it just loses its grip on me. It doesn't stay inside of me.
It passes, just like every other fear does. It's not part of me.
(19:36):
Hopefully because i think you can do that with and there's so many
tools i mean so many tools you've taught me about you know or introduced me
to to help with that you know whether it's breath work whether it's you
know the exercise it's just getting out in nature it's
getting out of your head if it's you know getting more rest
movement but it's also to remember in the gym we used to
let loose you let loose smile kind of
(19:56):
like that richard simmons staying young right staying young
and keeping that joy and that levity in
life that is really the essence of i mean
finding youth in any sort of way that you
can even if it's when you're sitting in the mirror and you're looking
at yourself just give yourself a funny face
like put on put on that zinc sulfur mask right
(20:17):
put on that face mask and then and then go boot
to yourself right just do something that's
goofy something that's fun do a little dance during your
skincare routine do something that you would
only do if you were a child make a reel and throw water
at your friend you know like whatever it might be yeah it's true though but
(20:37):
i feel like you know sometimes you need to give yourself permission again to
be playful and i think skincare is a good place to be playful as well in the
shower right yeah you don't have to be so serious the ritualistic part of it.
If it if you make it joyful it actually becomes something that you love you
know as part of you With the health,
(21:01):
the wellness part, part of your lesson to me was finding the thing,
and I know I sometimes get a little stuck in it, but I love swimming.
I loved swimming since I was a kid.
You brought it back into my life, and it actually shifted so much for me because
when I'm swimming, I can picture my parents in the bleachers.
I swim as a kid, and for me, that's more joyful than virtually everything else I do.
(21:26):
Yeah that's awesome getting giving yourself a moment
in the day to embrace and
be with that kid yeah it's kind of fun it's like uh you
go you can go to your happy place and i think that that's you can make a happy
place anywhere right you can sit in a storm and be happy if you have that ability
and we all have it it's just kind of remembering to tap into it yes sir well
(21:52):
i think I think it's been a wonderful, wonderful chat.
I think it's about time to get off the air, y'all. We have discussed everything
from aging spiritually to aging physically, mentally, emotionally. We got it all.
I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed it very much too. And so here's to a happy
aging for everybody today.
(22:12):
Go through it. It's just today, you know, you're, we're, we're really not aging that fast, right?
It's actually a fairly slow process. It's just always moving, you know?
So be grateful for who you are today in your skin today.
And remember that you're so much more than who you are, right?
(22:32):
You're so much more than the tags that you're putting on yourself,
than the identities that you're telling yourself.
You're so much more. And you can find that every single day while doing your
skincare routine and looking into your body, looking into your face and seeing
the true sparkle inside of you.
(22:53):
And just looking out and being kind because that does.
And it resonates in ways that you never remember. Yeah.
And then you start seeing more smiles outside of you and we start seeing more
smiles outside of you. It helps you to feel younger. Honestly, it really does.
Yeah. It puts a little kick in your step. Yeah. If you're walking around in
arguments all day and getting in arguments and flicking people off on the highway,
(23:16):
you're going to be aging quicker than I am. It's very true. It's very true.
And Tim now. Tim used to be driving like that, but now he doesn't.
We talked about that on the first podcast.
Very true he was fast forward into a geezer hood uh-huh it wasn't gonna be long
(23:37):
yeah snip that in the butt thank you yeah now he's a swimming tiger again timmy
timmy the tiger all right timmy the tiger let's do it y'all have a wonderful day everybody.
Music.
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