27

This month I celebrated my 27th birthday. The day was great and filled with all the things a great birthday should be…donuts, yoga, pasta, sushi, wine, a facial, new fancy perfume and some big self-reflection.

I always find myself reflecting as my birthday gets near. This year I did a lot of my reflection through journaling (you can read all about why I love journaling here). I typically reflect on where I’ve traveled, milestones I’ve reached, what relationships I’ve nurtured, and the ways I’ve grown over the past year. I also start thinking about the tone I want to set for my next trip around the sun.

I have to be honest with you though…

I wasn’t entirely sold on turning 27.

I realized through journaling, that this was my first birthday I wasn’t excited about. Why? Because it was the first birthday that I really equated with getting “older.” I mean, it’s three years away from 30, and everyone knows you’re supposed to dread turning 30!

Society tells us aging is bad

My youth suddenly felt very temporary to me and with society telling us in a million different ways how aging is bad, it can be hard to embrace the idea of getting older. We’re filled with insecurities that as we “get older” we’ll lose so much… our good looks, our fertility, our time, our energy, our husband’s attention… and the list goes on.

Its been so ingrained in me to fear getting old, that I felt like it was my womanly duty to resist, deny and hate turning 27.

But you know what? F*** that!

Because I’m not hating getting older, I’m actually loving it.

I’m not gonna hate turning 27 because I feel like I’m supposed to. Because if I’m being totally honest, I’m enjoying my late twenties even more than I did my early twenties.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my early twenties. I met my husband, made life-long friends, drank too much wine and skinny-dipped in apartment pools at 1am with my girlfriends. That was a fun time, but looking back I was still trying on a bunch of hats and figuring out who I was. Now, in my late twenties, I know who I am and it’s all about growing and flourishing into that self and sharing that true self with others.

Seriously, getting older, I’m feeling it.

Beliefs that aren’t yours

So why did I freak out before my birthday? Because I let an idea (that getting older is a bad), that I don’t even fundamentally believe in, run my life.

Why do we do this?

Habit

We hear things over and over again and we just start to accept them as truth. We don’t even stop to think about if they resonate true for us or if they actually fit into the construct of our belief systems. And this doesn’t apply just to aging, it can be about anything.

Here’s another example…about boobs

I’ve come to accept and embrace the fact that I’ve got small boobs, but for the longest time, I kept trying to make mine appear bigger than they were!

I’d buy the bras with the thickest pads and the most pushup, because everything said only big breasts are attractive. I personally didn’t see anything wrong with small boobs, but I still felt the pressure for them to be larger.

I also felt like if the topics of boobs came up amongst girlfriends, I had to talk about how much I hated mine and wished they were bigger, just like I felt obligated to talk about how much I was dreading turning 27.

But here’s another thing I love about getting older…

I care so much less about what other people think. I no longer mind having an unpopular opinion, especially if its one that feels good in my soul. And guess what? I hear that this only becomes more true the older you get! Yay!

So, think about the things you believe, especially the things that make you feel insecure, self-conscience, and negative and decide if they are really your beliefs or just the beliefs you feel obligated to have because its the popular belief of society, your family or your friend circle.

If you realize they aren’t really your beliefs, then its time to…

stop shaming

start reframing

and claim those true beliefs of yours!

I promise, if you do, you’ll feel true to yourself and so good!

But what about all those things we hear that we’ll lose when we get older?

Yes, some things will inevitably be lost, like our fertility, it just can’t last forever (would you want it to??), but so many of these things are within our power to hold onto. It just requires conscious choices.

I believe we all intrinsically know what we need to do to keep ourselves and our relationships happy and healthy, but it does require being honest and purposeful.

And some things are simply going to change as we get older. Like, I’m not going to look like a 27 year old forever, but that’s ok. I think women in there 30s, 40s, 50s and on are SO beautiful. Also, little 80+ year old women, they’ve got an adorableness to them that seriously only comes with being that old. I love them.

Embracing it all

But to sum it all up, I don’t know why I was freaking out about turning 27, because I genuinely don’t think getting older is bad. I truly believe that there is beauty in every single season of life. It’s so easy to get caught up in the popular opinion, even when its not actually our own! And it’s a process to become aware that we do this, one that I’m still working on myself. I do feel like I’m getting better at it though, but I didn’t get here overnight, it took about 27 years 😉

So, I’m going forward with the intention of embracing my time on this pretty planet now, tomorrow, and forever, regardless of my age.

Do you have any beliefs that aren’t really yours, that you need to kiss goodbye to live your best life? I’d love to know.

Cheers to 27 years on this earth, all the years to come and to finding the beauty in it all,