The Best Aging Advice I Have [Poolside Confessions]

Hello, friends. Welcome to Poolside Confessions, which is my summer podcast series where we are gathering around my pool, and in today’s case in my pool, and I am sharing things I’ve been thinking about, things that I want to talk about, and advice. And today I’m giving you some advice on how to age well. Now, this is my personal take. You can take it or leave it, but I’ve been asked this question a lot. People will look at me and say, “You don’t look your age. You don’t seem like you’re a 50-year-old.” And I’ve been thinking about what is it? Why do I think I am aging well? And I’m going to share it with you.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where our motto is simple, elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger, she lives bigger. Let’s dive in.

Now, I want to preface this with saying that I know that this topic is not underserved. There are millions of opinions on what it means to age well, and I’ve been thinking about what I could possibly add to the conversation. And so, I decide just to disregard all of that and just share from my heart what I believe it takes to age well.

The Real Secret to Aging Well

Now, for me, the first part is not about the physical, it’s about the emotional part. And I think that really is my truest secret. Because I don’t care what you look like. I don’t care how young you may appear. If you are at battle with yourself, if you don’t love yourself, you’re not going to enjoy aging, period. If you haven’t made friends with the woman in the mirror, who cares if you are a certain size or you have ripped abs or your face is flawless. Who cares? Because at the end of the day, you have a relationship with you. You came in with you, you’re going to leave with you. If that relationship is not solid, no amount of peptides or macros or weights in a gym is going to give you the feeling that you are after.

Self-Love Becomes More Important With Age

Aging well requires that you have a love affair with yourself. One of my favorite quotes is by Oscar Wilde where he says, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” And when we get older, that relationship becomes more and more important, because the world is telling us what we should look like, what we should want, who we should be. So we have to have such a solid relationship with ourselves that we become unbothered by what’s going on out here. You need to know yourself. You need to know what you value. You need to know what you love and live that out loud, unapologetically. And when you do, there is going to be a certain zest in your step. There’s going to be a certain, as the French would call it, je ne sais quoi, that I don’t know what it is, but she’s got something. And what they may not know you have is this deep sense of self-love. So that’s the first thing.

Never Develop Arrival Energy

The second thing is, it is so important that you have things that you are looking forward to. I was at dinner recently with a group of women of a certain age and I was honestly surprised at how a few of them had what I call arrival energy. It’s as if they were at the end. They had no goals. They were in this place of contentment. Now, don’t get me wrong, contentment is a beautiful thing, but contentment paired with ongoing curiosity and discovery and exploration, to me, that’s what makes for a well-lived life and aging well. Personally, I don’t want to have a life where I wake up and don’t have some bigger purpose. And that purpose could be learning something new, following a curiosity, creating a new experience, or exploring different parts of myself. But having goals is important. It keeps us engaged with our lives. It keeps us constantly growing and learning. Arrival energy means that you’re at the end. And as long as I have breath in my body, I want to know there is always more of life to experience and to live and to enjoy. So have goals for yourself.

Escaping the Optimization Trap

The third thing that I will say on aging well, and excuse me if I’m squinting, because the sun is bright and I decided not to wear sunglasses for this. But anyway, the third thing that I’ll say is one of the things that I’ve noticed is that we have become a society of optimization and productivity and hacking everything. It has become this rigid checklist, that for most people it feels impossible to live up to.

And it reminds me of something my mentor, Martha Beck, taught me between the wild child and the dictator. So many people are approaching their aging from this dictator energy. It’s like I’ve got to get so many hours of sleep at night. I need so many grams of protein. I need to have so many grams of fiber. I need to take this peptide. I need to do this thing. And that can become so extremely exhausting. But then on the other hand, we have the wild child that says, “F— it. I’m tired of all of this. I’m just going to go overindulge, eat whatever I want. I’m going to stay up all night, just allow myself to do whatever pleases me in the moment.” And that can come at a big cost as well.

Finding Balance Between the Dictator and the Wild Child

Aging well for me is about finding that part of myself. We can call it the higher self, we can call her the enlightened self, but it’s that self that can see this game that the dictator and the wild child are playing and be like, “Listen, I know you both are just scared. One is scared of being deprived. The other one is scared of going off the rails. And I’m here to let you know there’s nothing to be afraid of, because I’m in charge now. I’m going to lead us through this process of life. We are going to take care of ourselves. We’re going to drink water. We’re going to make sure that we’re sleeping well. We’re going to make sure that we eat some protein and we’re moving our bodies, but we’re also going to enjoy our lives.”

I don’t want to have such a strict life that I cannot go out and have a glass of wine with my dinner. I want to be able to savor a beautiful piece of chocolate and not feel guilty about it. And this is what I call true pleasure. It’s that kind of pleasure that just keeps giving long after the moment. And for me, a beautiful dinner with a glass of wine with friends is a moment that I will treasure. But if I overeat and I have several glasses of wine, now I’m back into pain, it’s no longer pleasurable. And so, aging well requires that we know ourselves and that we find our balance between the dictator and the wild child so that we can enjoy our lives immensely and also know that we are taking care of ourselves in a way that serves us.

Don’t Overlook Mobility and Movement

Now, the final thing that I’ll say on this topic is about the physical, and I can thank my man for this. He came into my life at a time where I was very focused on lifting weights and being in the gym and getting stronger, and I had neglected one part of my physical that I didn’t even realize at the moment, and that is mobility, stretching. When you look at someone who has youthful energy, if you pay attention, what you’re going to notice is how they move, how they walk. There’s a certain gait that they have. And I will admit, when I met my man, he accused me of limping. I don’t think I was limping, but I was very rigid and very stiff. And had I not started stretching on a daily basis, I know that my back pain would’ve gotten even worse and it would be evident in the way that I move. My posture won’t be as good.

So it’s important that we pay attention to this part of the physical. And it’s one that often can get overlooked, but making sure you are moving and stretching and keeping those muscles elongated, whether that be through Pilates or yoga or just doing what I do. I come out here in my yard almost every evening and I stretch. I stretch throughout the day. I’ll get up and just do 10 minutes of moving my body in ways that keep things elongated and fluid. And I’ve noticed that the way I walk has changed. In fact, I was looking at a video the other day of probably five or six years ago. I am walking more vibrantly than I was then and it’s all because I added this back into my routine. And so, I just wanted to throw that out there in case any of you are like, “Give me something physical to do.” Definitely make sure you are stretching on a regular basis.

All right, my friends, this is all I have for today, my advice on aging well. And if you are enjoying these conversations, make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s. And I would love to hear from you in the comments below. What does it mean to you to age well and how are you doing it? Have a beautiful week. I’ll see you in the next one. Cheers.