Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being (48 page)

I’ve provided many ideas in this book to help you answer that question for yourself, but I’ve also created a 14-day program or checklist to keep it simple and make it easy for you to begin living agelessly. The program is tied in to the chapters in this book and incorporates two days that are to be devoted to affirming new thoughts. There’s plenty of room for personalization in this program. You have to tailor these formulas to your own life and listen to your body’s wisdom about what’s right for you. Pay attention to your instincts and your body’s signals as you work the program for two weeks. When you get to Day 3 or Day 4, you’ll find that your energy, mood, and well-being are better than they were before. After you’ve completed the program, notice how revitalized you feel.

As you start the Ageless Goddess Program, you may find yourself releasing physical and emotional toxins from deep within your tissues, fascia, and cells. Because toxins of all types leave the body the same way they went in, you’re likely to feel a little more achy, tired, or irritable than usual, so be prepared. Change can be difficult. If it were easy to live joyfully and agelessly, everyone would be doing it! In part, it’s difficult to change because we often get more support from our family or friends for being stuck than for doing what it takes to truly flourish. Notice whether that has been true for you.

The activities for each day of the program won’t take more than a few minutes—after all, you can look into your eyes in your bathroom mirror and say, “I love you. I really love you!” out loud, and create a genuine feeling of love, in about 15 seconds. If you can’t do all the suggested activities in one day, do as many as you can. And if on a given day you decide you can do no more than affirm that you love yourself, that affirmation is powerful, because you’ve rejected perfectionism, self-criticism, and self-neglect and replaced them with nourishing love for yourself. Tomorrow is another day, so don’t stress yourself out when you can reconnect with Divine Love and replenish yourself.

As part of the program, keep an Ageless Goddess journal in which you chronicle your activities and thoughts. This will help enormously in the future, because you’ll be able to joyfully look
back and see how far you’ve come. Before going to sleep at night, reflect back on your day and savor all the delicious moments that were part of it. Notice what part of the program really spoke to you, what nourished you and filled you up, and what stressed you out. Can you do an activity differently so that instead of being a chore that drains you, it’s something you don’t mind, or something you actually look forward to?

As you reflect on the activities you did and the thoughts associated with them, you’ll learn what deeply nourishes you and what doesn’t. As you look at the activities you skipped, reflect on why you didn’t do them. Why didn’t you make the time for self-nourishment? We’re always changing around our calendars and agendas to fit in everyone else’s needs, but we feel guilty blocking out time for our own pleasure and well-being. But making yourself a priority is absolutely vital for ageless living! And if you skipped an activity because you were afraid it would make you feel uncomfortable, consider the payoff of holding on to old emotions and avoiding discomfort compared to the payoff of ageless living. If you were reluctant to do the grieving and raging exercises, remember that your feelings don’t have to overwhelm you. Prepare for the exercises with a Divine Beloved prayer affirming that you are always connected to Divine Love and support, and set the intention to do something pleasurable after you’ve done the hard work of opening up to your grief and rage so they can be released.

Because it’s easier to tack a new habit onto an old one than to completely change the way you operate, plan to do the activities in the Ageless Goddess Program at times of the day when you’re most likely to remember to do them and be uninterrupted. If you’re not a morning person and you’re usually rushing to get out of the house after you wake up, don’t add more items to your already overstuffed morning routine and create more stress for yourself because of some old belief about early birds catching the worms. If you are most productive later in the day, when things are calmer, take a look at your afternoon or evening habits. Maybe that’s when you can add on journaling, or getting in touch with your body’s need for pleasure—whatever habit you’d like to add to your life so that you can be an ageless goddess.

If you usually collapse onto the couch with a glass of wine and a remote control or your phone after work, try doing a couple
of affirmations before you pour that wine. Or simply close your eyes and just remain fully present with yourself, being aware of the sensations in your body and what emotions come up for you, for five minutes. You might find you don’t really want or need the alcohol after all! And you’ll soon realize that you really aren’t replenished by calling your old friend who always has a sob story or a cynical attitude that change is impossible. Soon, you’ll find yourself eager to replace the old after-work routine with some stretches that revitalize you, plus a Divine Beloved prayer or two.

THE 14-DAY AGELESS GODDESS PROGRAM

Every day:

Follow a low-glycemic diet that keeps blood sugar stable.
Many volumes have been written on this topic, but it’s still new information for some. As I’ve said, it takes a long time to replace old ideas with new ones. Low-fat diets are outdated and obsolete; remember, we almost always make up for the lack of fat by eating more sugar when we should be eating plenty of
healthy
fats to keep our brains, skin, and organs healthy. Be sure to enjoy cheese, eggs, avocados, butter, healthy oils, grass-fed meats, and fish. If you’re a vegan, make sure you’re not eating too many high-glycemic carbs. As I explained in detail in
Chapter 8
, it’s not fat or cholesterol that’s the culprit. It’s sugar in all its many forms, including alcohol.

But don’t overthink this or stress out about what you should and shouldn’t eat. Healthy centenarians sure don’t. Remember that eating should be a pleasurable ritual, not some kind of fundamentalist activity. Eat lots of greens, healthy fats, and protein. Cut out or at least cut down on sugars and grains. Avoid processed foods. Get in those cruciferous vegetables! And enjoy eating with others.

Take supplements that support health and wellness.
The most important ones, and recommended dosages, are in the list that follows. The list can be used as a guideline. With any supplement, look on the label for “GMP,” which stands for “good manufacturing practice,” and the term “guaranteed potency” to ensure it’s a high-quality supplement. You won’t be able to get everything you
need in just one tablet, but start with a good multivitamin, check the amounts of various vitamins and minerals in it, and use the chart below to fill in with nutrients that will support agelessness.

Table 1 Recommended Daily Supplementation

*
Use 70 to 100 mg coenzyme Q10 if you’re at high risk for breast cancer. If you take a statin drug to lower your cholesterol, be sure to get your coenzyme Q10, because statin drugs reduce the levels of this important nutrient that’s rare in our diets anyway (unless we eat a lot of organ meats).

Trace minerals from marine sources

For hormonal support in perimenopause or menopause to alleviate symptoms such as hot flashes and vaginal dryness, you can take
Pueraria mirifica
80 to 100 mg twice per day. Make sure that the source is reputable and that the active ingredient, Puresterol, is on the label. (See my website,
www.a-ma-ta.com
, for
Pueraria mirifica
products.) Alternately, you can use maca, black cohosh, or ground flaxseed. If you have vaginal dryness, you can use any number of lubricants on the market, including those that contain
Pueraria mirifica,
which has been found to have a very beneficial effect on vaginal tissue. You can also ask your health care provider for a prescription for estriol vaginal cream, which is available through formulary pharmacies. Vaginal dryness is very, very easy to reverse.

Connect with the Divine.
Say Divine Beloved prayers, do affirmations, or simply surrender your life to the Divine. I’ve provided examples throughout the book, and I’ll suggest some
specific ones for each day, but you can make up your own. It’s important to allow emotions to come up naturally when you say prayers or affirmations. If you find yourself resisting them, know that beneath your resistance is the actual treasure—insight! Maybe you have to alter the wording you use, or substitute a prayer for an affirmation or vice versa. So if you’re uncomfortable saying, “I am a beautiful, sexy goddess,” word it differently to get past your mind’s tendency toward negativity or doubt. Try this: “Divine Beloved, please change me into someone who feels and enjoys her divine beauty, sensuality, and sexual attractiveness. Help me experience my own lushness.”

If affirmations or Divine Beloved prayers make you feel uncomfortable, it’s probably because, generally speaking, our minds don’t have a clue how to do any of this stuff. No one teaches us to say, “I’m wonderful!” And you may have bad memories about prayer. Honor that experience—I’m not asking you to deny its power. But recognize the power inherent in asking for the help of a loving, Divine force in feeling your worth. It’s infinitely helpful to simply pray for assistance in changing your beliefs, but you have to ask! As the Bible says, “Ask and it is given. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you.” It’s true. Believe me, a Divine Beloved Change Me prayer can work wonders in your life. Don’t let any initial discomfort or old baggage about God, religion, or prayer keep you from empowering, replenishing, and revitalizing yourself with these remarkable tools. You deserve to feel deeply beloved.

ACTIVITIES FOR DAYS 1 THROUGH 14

Day 1: Close cultural portals!

Affirmation:
“I am eternally youthful and vibrant.”

Prayer:
“Please change me into someone who is completely free of the cage of age!”

The focus of Day 1 is closing cultural portals and replacing old perceptions that prevent you from being ageless. Take some time on Day 1 of the program to think about these ideas and make some decisions and commitments that will nourish agelessness.

Don’t act your age!
In fact, don’t even think about it. Do something that might be considered “too young” for someone of “your age.” You could dress or style your hair differently, or go to a party or event where everyone’s younger than you are. The idea is to stop assigning meaning to numbers and thinking that a certain age is “old” or that you should or shouldn’t do something when you are in your 50s, your 70s, or your 90s because it’s “inappropriate.”

Be aware of your self-talk and make sure it supports agelessness.
Delete the sentence “I’m having a senior moment” from your vocabulary for good. Remove the phrase “at my age” as a preface for anything you’re about to say. If you forget something, it’s probably because you’re overtaxing your brain by multitasking, or you’re skipping sleep or eating poorly. Over time, yes, your brain will pay the price for chronically ignoring your body’s needs and stressing yourself out, but if you forgot where you put your phone, don’t reinforce the idea that you’re aging and becoming senile. Stop, breathe, and ask yourself, “What do I need to do for myself right now?” Maybe misplacing your phone is the universe’s way of telling you to stop checking in with your boss or clients to make sure they’re not disappointed in you.

Choose how you will respond to questions about your age.
You might say, “I’m in my ageless years,” or “I was born in the twentieth century.” Here’s my personal favorite: “My biological age is thirty-five and my mental/emotional age is three hundred.”

Reject the senior discount.
Cultural beliefs about age are far more potent than your genes. Taking the “senior discount” lands you in the category we culturally associate with deterioration and decline. Now, if you’re taking the discount mindfully so you can get a break on seeing the midnight sci-fi movie with the crowd of
teenagers, or attending a concert featuring a hot new band, that’s another story. Trust your gut on this one.