I have wrinkles and that’s okay

When I first started noticing wrinkles on my face, I had many of those same horrified feelings I remember having when I looked in the mirror on a Friday night in high school.  Fear of someone mentioning the acne, thinking less of myself — no one wants a girl with acne, or how do I hide or get rid of these pimples?

Do you remember your first reaction when you noticed wrinkles on your face?

We’ve been taught, by TV, magazines, social media, and advertisers, that a wrinkled face is unattractive.  For awhile I felt less attractive with my wrinkles.  I tried to get rid of them in several ways — stopping short of the full facelift option — more facials, more creams, more serums, all the stuff you might also have tried.

Take a moment and write down all your thoughts about wrinkles – all the wrinkles you see. The wrinkles in your mirror, your friends wrinkles, the wrinkles your offspring or siblings have or don’t have.

How do you feel about the fact that we all get more wrinkles as we age? You know those lines and creases that become more prevalent as we age.

Do you think women with wrinkles are old? Look old? Look unattractive?  What do those wrinkles showing up in ever increasing numbers mean about you?

Are the thoughts you’ve written down true?

I think our thoughts about wrinkles are a lot like the acne of our adolescence. Looking back, it seems I gave my pimples too much power over how I felt about myself.  Too much power over whether I went out or stayed at home.

I vividly remember one high school cheerleader who ignored her acne and didn’t let it diminish her or take any of her power.

Anyway back to our wrinkles.

I know some women who don’t seem to be bothered by their wrinkles. Women who seem to attract as much or more positive attention in spite of their wrinkles. Do you know women who you think look really attractive in spite of the wrinkles on their face?

My guess is these women don’t think about wrinkles as unattractive or in any negative light. They may not even think about their wrinkles at all.

Its been scientifically proven our thoughts create our feelings.  We all get wrinkles as we age, and the thoughts and feelings we have about those wrinkles are totally up to us.

Beliefs about wrinkles are formed at a young age.

Our feelings about a fact, a circumstance, in our life are the result of a thought we have about that fact. In the case of wrinkles, we were taught from a very young age that wrinkles are unattractive.   People with wrinkles are old and old people don’t have much value.

Much of the training came in the form of the absence of wrinkles in our daily life . . . there weren’t any people with wrinkles on TV and there still aren’t many.  Most of us didn’t grow up with grandparents or any older people close by. To some degree we have a learned fear .

Our primal motivations to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy are activated by modern marketing and society telling us our wrinkles are something to be afraid of, something to hide from.

Much as we changed our thought patterns as a society regarding the beauty of a pregnant woman – remember we used to try and hide our baby bump under tents? We can change how we feel about our wrinkles by changing our thoughts about wrinkles.

The next time you look at yourself in the mirror and notice your wrinkles, smile back at yourself and think “I have wrinkles and that’s okay.” No groaning, no shoulder slumping.

You might add a bit of gratitude and tell yourself “I’m grateful to be old enough to have wrinkles. Not everyone makes it you know.”

Think a new kinder thought about your wrinkles as often as you think the old thoughts and see what happens.