If You Didn't Know How Old You Are...

I once saw this on a birthday card: "If you didn't know how old you were, how old do you think you would be?". Interesting question, as I know that as I approach turning 50 next year (yikes!), I often feel like I'm a young kid. How is it that my internal age doesn't quite match up with my external self?

It's a process to look in the mirror and work on accepting and loving my wrinkles. I have to work on it because, we live in a culture that wants to live long lives, yet avoid the part where we look like we've lived a long life.

I recently asked my oldest client, 97-years old, the above quote. He sat there puzzling over an answer to which he replied, "it depends on my mood". This got me thinking more about the idea that our age truly is a state of mind.

If we feel vital, enjoy good health, are connected to our purpose in life and happily socialize with friends and family, we can feel younger than our calendar age. Think about a time when you attended a reunion with people from your childhood and how some of the patterns of interaction were reminiscent of when you were younger...and for a little while there you lose the connection to your actual age.

I understand why we want to look and feel young. The primal need to be attractive to others, the energy that youthfulness brings to the work place or city in which you live and the feeling that we are still vital and needed. Plus, we don't live in a culture that highly honors our elders and the wisdom that's been gathered throughout the years. So, how can my yoga practice support me in aging gracefully?

As Mark Twain famously said: "There are two certainties in life-death and taxes". It iterates a basic truth that everything is in transition and that nothing is permanent. Yoga offers up the idea that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. That our vehicle (this body) is how we sense all that is happening on the physical plane...taste, touch, sight, sound, scent. If we keep ourselves in optimal physical condition, we reduce the hurdles that get in the way of us going into a deeper spiritual realm. If we focus simply on the physical, we lose out on touching the seat of the soul.

We honor the temple (our bodies) so that we may journey into the place where we form thoughts, experience emotions and ultimately deepen our own awareness. This takes us through different energetic layers of our being and is thought to place us on the abyss of bliss.

Think of those times where you were completely at ease, floating in a moment of utter bliss. These moments, often fleeting, are an experience of being completely present...IN THE NOW of life. If I focus my attention on shining light into the present moment, guess what? I don't even know that I have wrinkles.

In fact, what I have noticed in the most beautiful elders that I've come across is not the smoothness of their skin, but the radiance of their being. It can't help but expand out emitting the most deeply held beauty of all...a peaceful and loving heart.