Inspired Living for Women: Conversations With Women Over 40

Aging Without Apology: Finding Connection in Your Own Reflection

• Lauri Wakefield • Episode 15

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In this episode of the Inspired Living for Women podcast, guest Alina Wilson offers a refreshing and deeply honest take on beauty and aging—one that goes far beyond creams, procedures, or surface-level fixes. A veteran of the beauty industry, medical spa owner, and women’s retreat facilitator, Alina shares her personal journey through single motherhood, financial awakening, and reclaiming self-worth. She introduces her empowering philosophy of “thoughtful aging,” challenging the anti-aging narrative and revealing how the industry profits from women feeling broken. Instead, Alina encourages a more intentional, self-affirming approach rooted in five key principles: curiosity, growth, mindfulness, self-acceptance, and responsibility. This conversation is a powerful reminder that aging is not a problem to solve—but a process to meet with awareness, love, and authenticity.

Key Topics Discussed:

  • Redefining Aging and Beauty 
  • The Psychology Behind Cosmetic Procedures 
  • The 5  Principles of Thoughtful Aging 
  • The Power of Self-Love and Connection

    Key Takeaways:
  • The beauty industry often sells the idea that aging is something to combat, but true beauty comes from self-acceptance and intentional choices.
  • Aging gracefully is the result of cultivating a growth mindset, practicing self-compassion, and taking responsibility for one’s aging process.
  • Prioritizing self-care, joy, and meaningful relationships enhances both inner and outer beauty.
  • There is no "right" or "wrong" way to approach beauty; it’s about what feels authentic and empowering for each person.

    Noteworthy Quotes:

    "Aging gracefully is a product of thoughtful aging. Thoughtful aging requires intention—graceful aging is a state of being."
    "If I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take you to name yourself?"

    Alina's Bio: Alina Wilson is the author of Thoughtful Aging: Restoring Honor to the Aging Process and founder of Bridgeport Laser and Wellness Center. A mother, grandmother, entrepreneur, and women’s advocate, she helps women redefine beauty, embrace aging, and live with intention. Through her work in medical aesthetics, mentorship, and philanthropy, Alina champions self-acceptance, aligned self-care, and meaningful growth. She also serves on the board of Gather:Make:Shelter and is dedicated to helping women reconnect with their worth, wisdom, and resilience—at every age.

More About Alina:

Book: Thoughtful Aging: Restoring Hono

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Lauri Wakefield [00:00:41]:
Hi. Welcome to the Inspired Living for Women podcast. Thanks for joining me today. I'm your host, Lauri Wakefield, and I have Barb Jacques joining me today as a cohost. You wanna say hi, Barb?

Barb Jacques [00:00:51]:
Hi, everyone.

Lauri Wakefield [00:00:52]:
So Barb was a guest on one of the podcasts recently. It was episode 11 if you'd like to if you'd like to listen to it. And our guest today is Alina Wilson. Alina is an entrepreneur, coach, philanthropist, mentor, advocate, author, and beauty champion. You wanna say hi, Alina?

Alina Wilson [00:01:10]:
Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me.

Lauri Wakefield [00:01:12]:
Thank you for joining us. Let's start with- let's go back a little bit. But when did you actually get into- we'll get into the spa that you own right now. But when did you actually get into the beauty industry?

Alina Wilson [00:01:26]:
Formally, when my former husband and I opened a medical aesthetics clinic in 02/2007. He was a board certified primary care physician and recognized that the healthcare system was broken, and he wasn't able to practice medicine the way that he thought he would be able to. And he came home one day and just said, hey. I wanna do something different. We talked about it, and I said, okay. I can make that happen. And my father had owned his own business growing up. And so for me, owning your own business was just something people did. Yeah. It just, it started professionally there. I've always been interested in beauty and the impact that it makes on women in their lives from a very young age. But I, I became fascinated with the aging process as the years went on, and I was able to meet so many women who were coming into the clinic seeking a fix for things when there wasn't anything broken. And so the psychology of that really fascinated me.

Lauri Wakefield [00:02:35]:
I think, especially as women get older, it's hard to accept sometimes. Like, you look in the mirror and you see a wrinkle. And then as you get even older, you look at sagging skin. And I think, it's like you're looking at something, and then you finally get to the point where you can accept it. Then you see something else, and it's, oh my gosh. There's another one. So anyway, I was listening to another podcast that you were a guest on, and you brought up the fact that you had been married to someone who had a substance abuse problem. So do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Alina Wilson [00:03:12]:
Sure. When we're younger, we think that aging or development is linear. Like, you make a plan, you go from a to b to c, and it just all works out. That is definitely not the case for me or anybody else that I've ever met. I was married at a very young age, and my husband and the father of my children ended up choosing drugs and alcohol over family. And so I found myself, I think it was age 24, 25, a single mother to three children. And he just walked into substance abuse and didn't come back for years and years until their teenage years. And so that presented challenges for me, obviously, in many ways, but it also allowed me to look at where I was and how I had gotten to that point in life and relationship. What did I not know? And that began my journey of really intense internal self discovery because now I had three little people that I was responsible for keeping alive and developing and growing, but yet I had ended up in a situation that I never thought I would be in. And I really wanted to understand that, so I didn't end up in that situation again.

Lauri Wakefield [00:04:30]:
So how many years after that, did and you get married again? 

Alina Wilson [00:04:32]:
Five years later, I committed to- I didn't date. I just committed to being available for my children, working two and three jobs to to make sure they had everything they needed. And then after that five year period was up of that self commitment, I started dating again. We didn't have the words then that we have now, like love bombing and narcissism. And I, granted that word is so overused right now, but I thought I knew more than I really did know. 
Alina Wilson [00:05:02]
And I ended up in a relationship again with somebody who had substance abuse issues, alcohol, and was still tied to the religious ideals that say marriage is forever, commitment is priority. But so many times as women, we fail to recognize the difference between commitment and connection. And there are people who have been married for thirty, forty, fifty years because of a commitment. And while that's highly admirable, if the connection isn't there and isn't being developed along the way, then in the end, all they have is a commitment without connection. Life happens within connection. It's the commitment that carries you through when the connection waxes and wanes.

Lauri Wakefield [00:05:49]:
Barb, do you have any questions you wanna ask her about some of the things that she's talked about already?

Barb Jacques [00:05:54]:
I'm just I find it so commendable how you were so young, and you were able to recognize that you had to step up for your children. You had to step up for yourself, and you were doing everything you could to provide for them where I've seen a lot of women go in a completely different direction.

Alina Wilson [00:06:11]:
Yeah. And Thank you. I appreciate that.

Barb Jacques [00:06:13]:
Amazing. Yes. It's wonderful.

Lauri Wakefield [00:06:15]:
Okay. So your second husband, was he the one who you'd open the business with, the medical spa?

Alina Wilson [00:06:23]:
Yes. And he and I worked together, and we lived together, of course. And so that presented its own challenges. We had a blended family. There were challenges there. He was a phenomenal doctor, one on one in a treatment room with a patient. Very intuitive, just a really good doctor. There were just things that in our marriage and our relationship that hindsight is 20/20. Had I known when I met him the things that I know now,  I would not have entered that marriage with him. It wasn't really- and I left within the marriage years of, the span of nineteen years. I did leave twice. 
Alina Wilson [00:06:53]:
The first time I left was after 11 years, and I realized I didn't have an exit strategy, meaning that everything that we had built together was under his name. The house was in his name. The cars were in his name. The business was in his name. And so when I left, there was a very traumatic incident that happened and I didn't feel safe. I went to a hotel and I called my daughter who was a teenager at the time and asked her to bring me my purse, bring me my wallet. All of the things that I needed to stabilize, change of clothes, all those things. And when after three days, when I started trying to figure out, okay, I can't go home. What do I wanna do? I realized, okay. I have no credit. I have no income because I hadn't been paying myself an income when everything was just running through him. Of course, I had access to the checking account so I could take care of my immediate needs, but I realized I, there was no, 
Alina Wilson [00:08:00]:
I couldn't even rent an apartment by myself. Somehow, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but somehow, everything had been run through again. And I had nothing to my name to really move forward. And so I did make a wacky plan and was able to stay out on my own for about six months. And during that time, he joined AA. He went to financial counseling. There were very specific things that I knew that I needed to have happen before I would feel safe moving back home, and he did those things. And so that any woman in a tumultuous relationship knows that it just takes a little bit of hope to keep you in it. Just a little bit of change to make you think that, okay, everything's gonna be better now. And so you go back and that works for a little while, and then you wake up one day and you think, oh my gosh, I'm right back where I was. How did this happen?
Alina Wilson [00:09:02]:
You know the universe has a way of of of getting those lessons over and over again until you hear them.

Lauri Wakefield [00:09:06]:
So the first time you left him, you were, had been married 11 years and then you didn't finally end up ending the relationship until after seventeen years?

Alina Wilson [00:09:15]:
I stayed in it eight years longer. Nine years to nineteen years total.

Lauri Wakefield [00:09:18]:
Yeah. And, Barb, do you have anything that you wanted to ask her about that?

Barb Jacques [00:09:22]:
Is he the one that you identified as the narcissist?

Alina Wilson [00:09:26]:
Yes. Yeah. By the way, and I really, internally, every time I do that in my head or verbally, I just really push back against that because that word has been, so diluted and overused nowadays. I think that people have personality traits and that's really what it comes down to. It's just simply a definable set of personality traits. It didn't work for me. It may work for someone else. And if there's, and it's not that there's anything wrong with that person. It's just doesn't work sometimes.

Lauri Wakefield [00:10:00]:
I think you have to be, like, submissive and subservient and probably just want someone else to be in control to be able to adapt to a relationship like that. Do you know what I mean?

Alina Wilson [00:10:12]:
I think so. He told me at one point when our marriage was ending that he always imagined himself single living in a high rise condo with a wife who met him at the door with slippers and a cocktail after work every day, a dinner ready at a specific time of like of night where it was just a very idealized set control 1950s era lifestyle. And I said to him, good time, but you married the wrong person. That's not me. I had kids when we met. You took them on as their father was absent. You actively and willingly became their father. You created a life for yourself. That is nothing like the life that you're saying you always wanted.

Lauri Wakefield [00:10:54]:
So he he was the one. It was because of his expectations that he, it wasn't because you weren't the person he married. Yeah. Okay. So you had the business together. How did that work after you got divorced? Did you take over the business and he exited? Or-

Alina Wilson [00:11:08]:
Yes. So in the beginning, we agreed to, work separate days. He would work on certain days. I would work on certain days. He did, obviously, medical treatments. I did business management. And so I could do what I did remotely, and that was fine. I felt a really strong responsibility for the staff that we had that had been with us for so long because I knew that if I left, the whole thing would fall apart and end up closing, and I felt a responsibility to our patients that we had. And I really, it was my job. It was, I had started after the first time that I left. When I went back, I started giving myself a paycheck. And so by this time, I had credit. I had income. 
Alina Wilson [00:11:53]:
I had all the things I needed to be comfortable and safe on my own. But he just spiraled when our marriage, when I left our marriage. I did, I woke up one day, and I just decided I don't have to do this anymore. And so I left the marriage. He spiraled and then stepped away. About nine months after I left our marriage, he stepped away. He actually packed a bag and left the state, and I didn't know he was even gone for three months. He went on sabbatical, and so we didn't have any contact and he was gone. And then at that point, I realized, okay. I have a decision to make. Do I wanna take all this on and do it on my own, or do I wanna let the whole thing fold and just walk away? And I decided, again, because of that responsibility that I felt to the patients and to the staff that I could do it on my own. And I did.

Lauri Wakefield [00:12:38]:
Okay. So he's no longer, obviously, part of the business. He doesn't have ownership in the business at all anymore?

Alina Wilson [00:12:43]:
No. No. No.

Lauri Wakefield [00:12:45]:
Yeah. One thing that you had in in one of the bios that I read is that you consider yourself an employee development coach and a mentor to women. So do you, are you talking about to your staff, that you're a mentor to them, to your clients, or to both?

Alina Wilson [00:12:57]:
To both. I have had the honor and privilege of having thousands of conversations with women over the years and being able to really invite them into a space of curiosity about why they're there, the aging process, how they view themselves as women, as mothers, as daughters, as sisters. And those conversations have been very deep and very personal. And then, of course, the staff that I've had over the years, being able to actively challenge them in their thinking as far as who they are professionally, who they are personally, and what that means to them. 
Alina Wilson [00:13:40]:
Nothing that we do happens by accident. It's just a series of decisions that we make and we end up in a place. We forget that we have autonomy and choice and that we can direct our own path when we get so caught up in outsourcing validation and looking at ourselves with through the lens of problems to fix, pursuing procedures and treatments from a place of need rather than a place of want. And my goal is to really shift that narrative for women. Right. First of all, recognize that antiaging is unattainable, that there's a different way to do it. We've been sold a lie. And secondly, right and wrong has no conversation or no place in the conversation of beauty.

Lauri Wakefield [00:14:15]:
Because what's right for one is not right for somebody else. Yeah. You're powerful, but you're quietly powerful. And you care, and I can tell that you genuinely care and that people pick up on that, the genuineness, the authenticity, and just the caring when you probably ask a lot of questions. And that that makes people feel like they're making the decisions that they make to have whatever treatments they have for the reason that you mentioned, not because they want to make themselves look like twenty to thirty years younger, but because it will make whatever they gain from it. You know what I'm saying?

Alina Wilson [00:14:49]:
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Lauri Wakefield [00:14:50]:
You're welcome.

Alina Wilson [00:14:51]:
And if they do wanna look twenty or thirty years younger, that's okay too. But my question will always be why.

Lauri Wakefield [00:14:56]:
Right.

Alina Wilson [00:14:56]:
What's your motivation? What is the driving force behind this?

Lauri Wakefield [00:15:00]:
Do you think that's attainable, though, looking that much younger without having a face lift?

Alina Wilson [00:15:04]:
I think that's a very difficult question to answer because our view of ourselves is based on how we feel as much as how we look. So can I take someone who's 50 and make their appearance match a photo of their twenties? No. But can I create enough change in them so that they feel like they look closer to what they did in their twenties and thirties because of how they feel on the inside? If we can't learn to see beyond our reflection and the superficiality of the society that we live in, then we'll always be searching for something that we cannot get. So where at what point do we become content with aligning how we look and how we feel in a way that is meaningful to us, not anybody else around us?

Lauri Wakefield [00:16:00]:
So this is probably a good time, Barb, to ask some of the questions that you wanted to ask her.

Barb Jacques [00:16:05]:
She's answered actually a lot of them, but I do have a question. What I love is that you said that women are not broken. And I think it's so important that we break free of that narrative of what commercials and everybody are trying to sell us that we're broken and we need to be fixed. So that's so beautiful. I don't think I've ever walked into a spa where I would I can imagine what I would feel like walking into yours where I would feel supported rather than just another person coming in for a procedure. So do you offer, like, any kind of a formal coaching with in addition to these services, or is it just your support in the of the staff of how they interact with the clients?

Alina Wilson [00:16:46]:
It's just my support of the staff. I love public speaking. I love talking about this topic. I do private retreats, women's retreats. I have a little place in wine country out here in Oregon where I do very intimate private overnight retreats for women who really are pursuing intentional healing and direction, and I absolutely love that. That's to me having the ability to, again, hold these women's stories with such care and with such love, and to be able to reflect back to them the most beautiful things about themselves is such an honor and a privilege.

Barb Jacques [00:17:23]:
Amazing.

Lauri Wakefield [00:17:24]:
Yeah. Barb, do you mind if I but in for a second? Yeah. Okay. I was just gonna ask you. Okay. So the retreats that you do, are they, how many women do you have on the retreats?

Alina Wilson [00:17:34]:
Six to 10, sometimes 12.

Lauri Wakefield [00:17:36]:
And where do you advertise those? On the spa website, or do you have another area that you place -

Alina Wilson [00:17:43]:
It's, there's information in the book about it, at the back of the book, but it's word-of-mouth, really. Yeah. Women who tell women.

Lauri Wakefield [00:17:50]:
So how often do you do them?

Alina Wilson [00:17:51]:
I do them once a quarter.

Lauri Wakefield [00:17:53]:
Okay. So, Barb, did you have, another question that you wanted to ask?

Barb Jacques [00:17:57]:
Yeah. I was just reading part, the information on your book, and it says about how redefining what it means to be beautiful. And I really think you have answered that. But if I had to nail it down to one thing, what advice do you have for women who are struggling to see their beauty?

Alina Wilson [00:18:13]:
I could offer them hope, and I could say that it is possible to love who you see just as you are. That is attainable. There is a way to do it, which I go through steps for that in the book as well. And if we can begin to monitor our thoughts, What are we saying to ourselves about ourselves? Oftentimes, we are kinder to our friends and family than we are to ourselves. And so one of the questions that I ask readers in the book is this. If I asked you to name all of the things that you love, how long would it take you to name yourself? Raving question. And so powerful because it really puts a stop in the thought process of giving ourselves away to everyone else around us without replenishing ourselves in a way that allows us to be more available and more connected by choice rather than by responsibility.

Barb Jacques [00:19:10]:
Amazing answer. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So you could give one message to your younger self about aging. What would it be?

Alina Wilson [00:19:17]:
It would be that beauty never fades when you recognize the true source of beauty, that there is a way to age gracefully, a true meaning of gracefully, that as soon as you recognize that makeup, fashion, external appearance is simply a social currency, a way to navigate a superficial society, then you can redirect all of that energy that you're expending on external validation and harness that or internal growth in a way that will allow you to leave a footprint on this world that is unique to you and only you, because everybody has a story to tell and every story is important. Every story has meaning.

Barb Jacques [00:20:08]:
Your retreats must be absolutely mind blowing. And this is fact that women are receiving.

Alina Wilson [00:20:14]:
I love them. I love them.

Lauri Wakefield [00:20:16]:
You're very thoughtful with what you say. I can tell that you yeah. It's like stuff that you already think, but in the way that you bring it out, you're very thoughtful with how you speak. So you do speaking engagements?

Alina Wilson [00:20:28]:
I do. I love public speaking. I, at some point in this year, will be starting a podcast because I just can't. I thrive in my the heartbeat of my soul is connection. I didn't have that growing up. It's important to know that I learned this as an adult, the transparency and the vulnerability that it takes to really connect with others. You can't go deeper in relationship with someone that you've been with yourself. And oftentimes in relationship, and I've learned this over and over the hard way, we want people to meet our needs. We expect people to meet our needs, but how can we have those needs met when we really don't know what those needs are? It just feels like a vacancy and it becomes amplified as we age because then we start feeling less relevant. We begin feeling like we're invisible or we're disappearing within society. And it's at that point where most people realize, oh my gosh, 
Alina Wilson [00:21:20]:
I've lived with this vacancy my whole life. Nothing that I've done has met this need. What do I do? Why? And for those who are inspired by the aging process in a way that allows them to grow, they then began turning internally and looking for answers internally. And that's where the magic happens. So the five principles of thoughtful aging are to cultivate a growth mindset. That's critical. From there, if you can embrace curiosity, then you can start asking yourself the questions that you're asking of others. That can bring up a lot of guilt, shame, regret. From that point, learning self acceptance, practicing self acceptance and compassion is critical to then becoming mindful and grounded. Once you've got that step, practicing that step, being mindful and grounded, then you can become proactive and responsible, not just for your own internal state of being, but for your own aging process and really become empowered to take control of the aging process, both internally and externally.

Lauri Wakefield [00:22:33]:
So when you have women come in and you talk to them about what they're trying to achieve and the reasons why they're trying to achieve it, do you have women who actually changed their minds about what they were gonna have done?

Alina Wilson [00:22:44]:
On occasion. Yes. It's a very relationship based process. And I don't want it to seem like, oh, you come into the clinic and then I ask you a whole bunch of personal questions. That's not really how it is. That's not how my providers are too. We meet people where they are. And it's for many people, a baby steps process. But just like you, Lauri and you, Barb, you meet people sometimes where you just immediately connect and, oh, I get you. I know you. We're on the same frequency. Let's just dive right in. And those are really fun conversations as well. But really, it's about whether it's in the clinic, outside the clinic, at the grocery store, at church or whatever, you meet people where they are. You don't invite them to take on more than they're able to handle at any given time.

Lauri Wakefield [00:23:30]:
Barb, you were gonna ask about the medical some of the medical enhancements. 

Barb Jacques [00:23:35]:
Yeah. So it and I think that she's answered everything so, beautifully in the background. But, yeah, my question was, how do you approach the balance between the natural aging and the medical enhancements? And then what should women really consider before making these choices? Because I think at my age, I've met plenty of women who are really just settling into who they are. They've never gotten to explore that. They were mothers, caregivers. There were so many things. They weren't there for themselves until now, where we're empty nesters a lot of times. I have a lot of friends going through divorces whose husbands are off with 20 and 30 years old, 30 year old. So that impacts all of their self worth. So I think how, what happens when a woman comes in for a medical enhancement, but she just cannot be satisfied through that? What how can you help her with the natural aging process and helping her understand that and how to consider making these choices beforehand? Because some medical enhancements are a long term recovery process.

Alina Wilson [00:24:38]:
I love that you use the word enhancement, Barb. I just, I love that because that's really what we're doing. We're not fixing. Nothing's broken. We're just simply enhancing. We lose 1% of collagen per year beginning at the age of 25. And so when you end up at age 40 or 50 or 55 or 60 and sagging and laxity, we oftentimes want to think that it's because we've done something wrong or we compare ourselves to our mothers, but it's just simply the aging process. And so then we get to define for ourselves what that aging process is to us. So aging naturally. My mother would never have anything done. She looks at herself. She sees the wrinkles and the sagging, and she thinks she's beautiful, and she is beautiful. 
Alina Wilson [00:25:30]:
That's how she views herself. My sisters are the same way. They wouldn't have anything done. However, there are other people, and myself included, where if I see a wrinkle or I see something that I don't like, I think about it. I look at it and I take readers through this process in the book as well. What if that new wrinkle isn't bad? What if it's a sign that you laugh too much? Not too much, but you spend your days laughing. What if it's a sign that you've just spent a really difficult year going through a divorce or helping a child through a divorce? What does that wrinkle mean? And once you can view it as part of the beautiful process of aging, then you can decide from a place of choice and autonomy, whether or not you want to live with it or change it or enhance it or restore it. Because all we're talking about when we're talking about these medical procedures is restoring lost volume or restoring skin health. 
Alina Wilson [00:26:30]:
If we can educate our young children and grandchildren and 20 year olds and 30 year olds about skin health and aging, then I think that we can make huge strides in the process of redefining aging as healthy and natural. Nobody told me about sunscreen when I was laying on the sun with Crisco all over my body at age 18. So, yeah, I had skin cancer removed last year. Nobody told me about that. We know so much more now than we did even fifteen, twenty years ago. It's science is amazing. It's incredible. What can we do to reexamine how we view the aging process and why, and then teach those following behind us how to do it just a little bit better.

Lauri Wakefield [00:27:13]:
Do you think, do you have men who come into your clinic?

Alina Wilson [00:27:15]:
Yes.

Lauri Wakefield [00:27:16]:
Do you think that men look at aging in a different way, like, for from a physical appearance standpoint? Do you think they view themselves differently than women or women harsher with themselves than men are?

Alina Wilson [00:27:28]:
I think women are more vocal about it. I think men talk about it, but they talk about it in private groups and smaller groups. The whole antiaging industry is built around the idea that youthfulness equates to beauty and it does not. It just doesn't. But that's, that's the messaging that we're given. Men are not immune to that either. It's just that they're not as vocal about it.

Lauri Wakefield [00:27:50]:
And I think too, like, you were talking about Barb, some of your friends who are getting divorced and their exes are with women who are in their twenties and thirties. And I think that's something that really can be hard for women because I think that we're valued a lot of times by our physical appearance. Even if we're younger and we're overweight or as we get older and we start the skin starts sagging and the wrinkles, it just, people look at you differently. And that's where it has to be, where you have to be content within and accept yourself. You know who I was thinking of? Oh, gosh. I can't even think of what her name is. She's an actress. She lives out, lot of them live out in California, but she just she doesn't care. She doesn't care about her, and she has a lot of wrinkles on her face, all over her face, probably from sun damage, but she doesn't care.

Barb Jacques [00:28:35]:
Yeah. My Pamela Anderson just came out.

Lauri Wakefield [00:28:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really so empowering because they're not trying to be younger than they are. I think that can that can be hard when somebody's trying to be so much younger because they're not. Even if physically they can make themselves look younger, they're not younger. They're not gonna be, I don't know. It's sad when it gets to that point. Women have to feel bad about themselves because they're aging or they don't look as good as they did when they were in their thirties. Or-

Alina Wilson [00:29:05]:
So then the question becomes what narratives are they saying to themselves in their mind? And how do we stop those automatic negative thoughts? And that's something else we talk about in the book is really defining where those automatic negative thoughts are coming from so that we can get to the source of the problem. And I really do believe that it's a problem. Those automatic negative thoughts are the one that are keeping us suppressed and keeping us from really being in touch with our true source of beauty. We have to examine then judgment. You can't you can't feel judgment from another person unless you've judged yourself. And how do we clear that space within ourselves so that we can view those women who choose to not age or the women who choose to age naturally from a place of acceptance and compassion rather than a place of judgment?

Lauri Wakefield [00:29:56]:
Yeah. And there's something really beautiful about someone who has accepted their, the aging process and they're content with themselves or content with life. There's something very beautiful about that. Yeah. So, Barb, did you have anything else that she wanted to ask her about?

Barb Jacques [00:30:10]:
I think the one question I did have, and you did answer it. When you say thoughtfully aging, you've explained that, I think, beautifully. We're very mindful of the process of it being natural and all that. I was gonna ask you how it was different from aging gracefully. Is there a distinction between the two?

Alina Wilson [00:30:28]:
Thoughtful aging. I think aging gracefully is a product of thoughtful aging. So thoughtful aging requires intention. Aging gracefully is a state of being. 

Lauri Wakefield [00:30:38]:
Yeah. Very well put. Did you have anything else that you wanted to add, Alina?

Alina Wilson [00:30:45]:
I don't think so. I'm not, I am so excited to reveal to women how much power that they have over the aging process that maybe they don't understand that they hold, but we all hold the ability to do, and I don't mean big things, big clinic things. There's so many little things that you can do on a day to day basis on your own to take care of yourself. How often do we even stop to take time to put body lotion all over our body after a shower? We just don't. We're in too much of a hurry. But creating those moments of joy that we can experience with ourselves will then allow us to more easily express that with others. And that's where beauty happens. And really beauty, the true source of beauty is love. And when we can create those moments of connection with others and with ourselves, then we're really experiencing the full immensity of beauty.

Lauri Wakefield [00:31:40]:
And able to enjoy life.

Alina Wilson [00:31:41]:
Yeah. 

Barb Jacques [00:31:42]:
Definitely hearing the, self care on the micro, the lotions, and things like that. That's the macro, the mindset, the perspective shifts.

Lauri Wakefield [00:31:52]:
Yeah. So that's gonna wrap things up for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us today. If you'd like more information about Alina's book, Thoughtful Aging: Restoring Honor to the Aging Process, I'll include a link to it in the show notes. If you'd like to see the show notes for today's podcast, you can find them on my website at inspiredlivingforwomen.com. The show notes will be listed under podcast show notes. If you'd like to join me as I continue my conversations with other guests exploring topics for women 40, please be sure to subscribe to the Inspired Living for Women podcast. Thanks again, and have a great day. Would you like to say good-bye?

Alina Wilson [00:32:26]:
Thank you. Thank you, everyone.