Do you feel SIGHT is truly a gift?  And if you believe love is blind then how do we start blindly loving ourselves?  Most of us have not been taught how to blindly love ourselves.  We are conditioned to do this to others…but what about you?  What about me?  Do you love yourself as yourself?  

Lately I have abused this gift. I know you feel me…
Looking in the mirror, finding all the flaws…
At times I even catch myself comparing pictures of my present-day-self to my decade-younger-self.
I can write a long list of things that I don’t identify with regarding my physical appearance – to sum it all up:

It’s ODD to see myself aging and I don’t like it.

But deeper than this negative thought is what I am associating it with…getting old = unattractive, undervalued. All used up.

Have you ever thought this way?

It makes me think…I have cursed my eyes and abused this sense. If I could not see I would never grow old.  I could focus on more significant aspects of my life without my distracting eyeballs.

Is “old” really a mentality?

Most recently I took a dance workshop where I was chronologically the oldest person in the room.  Now, I don’t think I danced “old” and I don’t think I necessarily looked out of place, but I felt my energy shift almost instantly when I walked in the room. Like, “Aubrey, wtf are you doing?! You be too OLD to be up in this piece!”

I put myself in this particular situation for a reason. I had to go to this workshop so that I knew what it felt like to experience a generation gap. It was truly a weird feeling for me as I haven’t felt this insecure in quite a while.

After about 20 minutes my energy shifted back to feeling confident about being in this environment. But it also enabled me to pause and reflect on how others must feel in situations when they enter my fitness studio doors. It’s a foreign land to them. Deep down inside they really do want to be at my studio experiencing something that brings them joy and YOUTHFULNESS!  To cross over the bridge and step through the doors of the unknown…it’s a big step most people will never take.

However taking this step is like bathing in the fountain of youth, friends.  Yes it is!  It can force you to let go of the association that old is not good enough/strong enough/sexy enough, etc.  Even if you can experience this fountain-of-youth-feeling just for a day.  Those anxious feelings that are all balled-up inside your gut, use the anxious energy as momentum…allow it to push you – to propel you towards loving yourself unconditionally. 

Otherwise, you will become mentally old and all used up.

Now, I am not trying to act or be 20-something.  Even though if you would look at my beauty cupboard (let’s call it that) it appears as if I own every lotion and potion and tool to try to make me look 20-something!  I’ve probably spent enough money to put a down payment on a facelift for God’s sake!

I’m not sure yet how to handle this getting older situation. A good friend of mine always tells me, “Aubrey, you must embrace getting older as the alternative is death.”

I suppose acknowledging feelings of discontentment and bringing it to the surface will hopefully lead me down a path of self-acceptance giving me the ability to come full circle…we shall see.

Equally ironic and in the same weekend I debuted a meditative-style-workout on the Pittsburgh Today Live Morning Show that I titled, “Love Your Body, Love Your Life.” The premise of this workout was to practice daily, audible, self-love affirmations.  This is something I do work on every day. I do look in the mirror and say, “Good Morning, Aubrey!  I love you!”   I am not kidding.  And it took me an entire year to do this without crying.

The struggle is real, friends.

For one moment we can feel as if we could live forever and are emanating beauty with every cell of our being and then the next moment we rip this feeling right out of our chest and replace it with ones that poison our souls.

The gift of sight…it’s good, right?

“I’m so scared of getting older, I’m only good at being young.”

~ John Mayer, Stop this Train.