S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission

Episode 49: Shining Through The Cellulite (& other unwanted life events)

December 05, 2021 Bernice McDonald Episode 49
S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission
Episode 49: Shining Through The Cellulite (& other unwanted life events)
Show Notes Transcript

Are you Brave Enough to embrace the cellulite? Did you know that women start worrying about aging in their 30's? If you live into your 90's, that's a LONG TIME to deal with the signs of a body naturally doing its thing.

But you can become one of the Brave ones. A member of the Secret Inner Hero Society who stand tall and wear a sparkly crown because YOU areI

Growing older is not for faint of heart - but transforming yourself from being "faint" to being bold and beautiful is not a difficult process either.

In this podcast, I show you how ONE WORD can be the light that leads you through any darkness and how finding that word and growing into it in 3 ways will totally change how you see yourself.

These few minutes will give you an entirely new way to live the next 25 or so year focusing on the adventure, the laughter and the LOVE that will give you the joy of living the rest of your life.

Follow me on Instagram for kinds of support to this podcast.

Visit www.braveenoughforlove.com for my blog AND to discover more about The Secret Inner Hero Society.

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Bernice McDonald is a Mindset Coach who  helps women beyond 50 seeing their dreams disappearing off into the distance as they age. She supports them as they step into their purpose, find the courage to make bold decisions and grow to fully love this next phase.

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Are you in the struggle of navigating midlife with grace and power? I hear ya!

How about a daily injection of "Beautiful Warrior wisdom" injected into your day?

"The Way of the Beautiful Warrior." Our brief daily emails provide insights and inspiration, turning the challenge of midlife into an empowering adventure.

Click this link and embrace your journey as a Beautiful Warrior today.

 (01:31):

Did you know that in the UK, they did a survey a few years ago, a health and wellness company of several thousand women of all ages. And they asked them, at what age do you start worrying about getting older? Do you know what they found out? They found out that it's in our thirties where we start to worry about that. Now I think this is very true because do you remember when you got to be in your thirties and maybe you had had a baby or two and you were starting to, you know, get that mature woman body look to you and you discovered the cellulite. Do you remember the feeling that you had about the cellulite? It was like, oh no, I'm no longer a young girl. I am now moving toward being an older woman. Now that happens in our mid to late thirties in our forties.

 (02:38):

Now I may have mentioned this before, but it's a true observation that I have made in our forties. We not only worry about cellulite, we start to worry and watch for all the other signs of aging. You know, the sagging chin, the jowls coming down the chin hair, which we talked about last podcast, the wrinkles in the skin, the saggy baggies, all those things that start to happen to our bodies. And we equate that with aging. Well, now that's not the only thing that happens in your forties. What also happens in your forties is that a lot of women have come to the conclusion that this is the way their life is going to be. It's not the way it was supposed to turn out but it's the way it's going to be. They settle into being who they are in that decade because they believe that they've kind of, you know, it's set in stone, set in cement.

 (03:45):

Their footprints are all ready set in that stone. I want to remind you that you are a person inside a body. You are on a path. When you were born, you enter that path. When you die, you will leave that path. In between. You are not a body walking that path -you have a body - but you are not that body. You are a heart inside that body. Now lots of stuff happens. Bombs drop on you out of the blue, right? Not in your control. It just catches you off guard. Boulders, flatten you - things that surprise you in your day to day life that are very difficult to get out from under sometimes. Other people on their paths throw rocks at you. For some reason, the words that they throw hurt you, or they feel that they have to put expectations on you to make them happy or all of those kinds of things. Much of this, all of it - the bombs, the boulders, the rocks, they're not really in our control.

(05:00):

We don't have any control over that. My sister Coleen is an example of that. Just two years ago, her husband suddenly died from a massive heart attack doing what he loved. He was working but he just died. Immediately felt no pain. The doctor said he didn't even know what hit him before he hit the ground. He was gone, but he left my sister behind. My sister and he had been married for well over 40 years. And he was her rock. It was very difficult for her. She's been adjusting and adapting but as we've talked about what the experience that she's going through, right from the beginning, it was like, yeah, it was his time to go. And for some reason she's still here. And those are the key words. That was a bomb on my sister's life. She's still here to live with that, to decide, to make the decision about how she's going to handle it.

 (06:11):

Now she could have curled up and just died inside and then coasted along until it was her time to go, right? She could have done that. She could have just given up. But instead her philosophy is that "I have a reason to still be here -. Now she writes and is learning to write better. She encourages women through her teaching to know their God, to hold his hand through all of this stuff - the bombs, the boulders, the rocks that get thrown at them. She helps them to understand that pain is difficult, but they have hope in the middle of that pain. Now I know another woman who had a totally opposite reaction to that. Her husband died many years ago and she has not yet recovered from that. She hasn't healed. She did - a part of her, a large, large part of her - did just curl up and die with him. Now, the way that she has faced her life is by saying I'm missing the best part of my life. He's gone. So my life is over. I just can't live fully without him here. I feel sad for her.

 (07:41):

There is such a danger when we allow that to happen on our path. It's not just looking at our bodies and seeing all the saggy baggies and the cellulite and the wrinkles and the, you know, the big circles under our eyes, the gray in our hair. It's not just about getting discouraged about that though, that does happen. And we have to be careful that that doesn't become our main focus because when we focus on aging, we will age. When we focus on other things,...I'm going to tell you about how we get past that. So we're on our path. Something happens. We conclude from that thing that happens, that what we can do - is that we think that our life is over. We can't go on. We think that who I am has been decided. Now, that's because our brain is always looking for the things that we focus on.

 (08:47):

Just like I said, we are always asking ourselves questions. The question here is not, "How do I get through the rest of my life without my spouse? Or how do I get through the rest of my life now that I'm getting old?" But the question should be, because let me first tell you, when you ask your brain a question, your brain is absolutely amazing. It will go looking for the answer to that question. And it will come back with something, whether that it's a correct answer or not. That's Reticular Activation system kicking in. Yeah, I know that sounds pretty scientific and pretty out there, but that's how our brain works. When you are, when you look around a room, Tony Robbins does this with his people and I've been through his seminar several times. And he does this every time. When you are in a room and you are looking for something, you pick out all the things that are blue. Blue, blue, blue, and then you close your eyes.

 (09:56):

And then he says, now tell me about all the things that are red. You're not thinking about red things. You're thinking about blue things, because you told your brain to look for the blue. Now that's a really simple explanation, but that's how it works in life, too. When you are saying, "How am I going to get through the rest of my life? When all of this has happened to me and all this is wrong with me?", your brain is going to say, "Yeah, your life really sucks. It's a terrible place to live. How are you going to do it? Okay. Tell you what... let's pull back. Let's keep ourselves safe." Now, let me tell you the question that will change all of that. You should be asking. We should, all of us, be asking the question, "What am I here to do?" "What am I here to do?

 (10:54):

What is a left here for me to do?" And I'm sure this isn't new to you, but we forget about it. When we get into our forties on them, we move into our fifties and our sixties, and we focus on aging. And we think that the cellulite defines us as just wearing out and getting old and useless and maybe getting to the place where we don't have any relevance anymore, where nobody wants to listen to us and maybe we're feeling invisible. When all of that happens, we should be saying, "Whoa, here. I am not my body. I am the person that lives inside my body. So what am I here to do?" Let me tell you something that is a secret to all of this. You need to find your 'word' because each of us has a 'word', a word that sums up what we're meant to do.

 (11:52):

It's necessarily that great glorious purpose like rescuing the world or stopping world hunger or bringing world peace. But we can do our part by living in our 'word'. Our word gives us the permission to love, to bring joy, to help others in some way.To encourage. Our word sums that up. My word is to 'inspire', which means to light others on fire, to light them up from the inside. That's my 'word'. And I can use that word in anything I do. I can be that person. Now, the thing for you is to find your 'word' and live it with all of your heart until the day you die. Three ways that you can find your 'word'. First of all, one of the most key things is to develop a strong identit;, to learn about and know who you are, what you stand for, what you love, what you're passionate about, what you hate, what really burns you up.

(13:13):

All of those things help you to create a powerful identity. The second thing is to find the courage to love in the face of fear, the courage to LIVE that identity, to BE that person and make that more important. Then what scares you make it more important to live out who you are then to be afraid then to be then, to think about what others think of you. That brings you to the third thing. Because when you find your word, then you can create your future. You come up with a plan and a plan, my ladies, is essential. It creates that future for you to be able to say, this is what I want to accomplish by the time I'm 70. This is who I want to be when I'm 70. This is my dream. I am going to take these steps to make it happen.

 (14:23):

So you have your word that you are seeking to discover. Your word, like shine, like love, like glow, like inspire, like comfort, like... whatever it is, you'll be able to apply your actions to that word. And it will lead you to your dream. You'll be able to take what's in your heart and apply that word and make that happen out into the world. This is why - because helping women to create a powerful identity, to find the courage to live in that identity and come up with a plan, a compelling future, a way that they want to live until the day they die full of life and loving their life - That's why I have created this whole, or came up with this PLAN for finding a thousand women to join and be a part of this Secret Inner Hero Society. That's where that came from.

 (15:35):

It's part of who I am and what I'm meant to do in the world. To light people up. To light You up. Remember the Superheroes like Batman and Superman and Spiderman? They aren't like the Marvel heroes today. You know, the, the Avengers who everybody knew who they were. They're not - they don't hide like Batman and Superman and Supergirl and all of those,, They had masks, right? And nobody knew who they were. That was their secret identity. And I think in a way it was easier for them to be a superhero in that way because they didn't have to sign autographs, for one thing like the Avengers do, and people don't point to them on the street but they could just put on their mask and go out there and do good and then go back to their life in a way. That's why I make the secret inner hero society secret because you can just be a part of it - inside.

 (16:32):

Nobody even has to know that you are growing yourself in that way. Nobody even has to know that you have this goal to be this particular woman when you're 70, when you're 75, when you're 80. Nobody has to know that those are your goals except the people that you choose to share that with. What they see is this woman just becoming the person that she's meant to be - the best her inside. That's your Secret Inner Hero, the best you. Without fear, without expectations put on you without living up to somebody else's idea of who you should be. It's YOU, the heart walking on the path, that's YOU. living as your secret inner hero.

 (17:29):

So how do you face the cellulite, the saggy baggies, the age spots on your hands, the tiredness and the aching bones as your body ages? How you face it is you find your 'word'. Your word that talks about your heart inside and who you are. It's not this body we live in. You could end up a paraplegic - and that's one of the biggest fears that all of us have - but, even as a paraplegic, you could still live your "word'. You still could be that person inside. You still could be heroic because you are who you're meant to be. All right, enough on this for now. If you want to know more about The Secret Inner Hero Society, check out my website, www.braveenoughforlove.com. That's where it's all going to be happening. That's where you can join. I really want you to think about this, about your word, about creating 1. That strong identity. 2. Finding the courage through your inner hero, to live as that person and 3. To dream up that plan, to know, to have a direction, to be moving forward in a way that's going to take all the way to the day you die. Enough for now.

(19:00):

And I thank you so much for joining me. And I will talk to you in the next podcast.