If you are a middle-aged woman (or past middle-age like me) and suspect that you may be starting to show signs of aging a little--cheeks starting to slide down and hang from your jaw, crow's-feet running into your hairline, saggy upper arms covering your elbows, and clothes' size expanding--don't get depressed.Any woman having problems with weight gain, self-esteem, and the whole aging thing may discover midlife and beyond offers opportunities to get physically in shape again and to use the wisdom and experiences we've gained to shape a new and perhaps happier vision of who we are and where we want to go.Since I have a thirty-six-year-old daughter, I know that even women younger than mid-life often have body-image and self-esteem problems.I also know that my own daughter, like most, has had at some point issues with taking advice from her mother.Now, I have found that these very basic female problems of body-image and loss of youth can help build a better relationship with your daughters and let you finally actually help them with some very personal problems.Simply by using my own aging as an opportunity to renew, set achievable weight and exercise goals and redefine who I am, I am able to give, through example, advice to my own daughter.I have also been able to open serious discussions with her on coping with the physical and mental changes that are a normal process of aging, societal ideas of what is desirable, and spiritual teachings that help women embrace and cultivate their strengths.I read quite a few books to come to this state, including Change Your Mind, Change Your Body. Feeling Good About Your Body and Self After 40, written by clinical psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke with Florence Isaacs.This book offers a step-by-step plan to work on your body image which is easy and interesting to read and the strategies are actually doable.While the book Younger Next Year . A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond by Henry Lodge and Chris Crowley is specifically written to be a how-to for men on turning back their biological clocks, I, as a woman, found it to be not only entertaining, but useful for a woman also.Both of these books and many others on self-help can be found at [http.//www.Booksisters.Com].Going into my sixth decade here, I'm more physically fit than I have been in a long time.I do what I can about wrinkles and sagging, but I'm not stressing about it.Even women need to show signs of "character" as they age.Not only does my happiness with aging improve my relationship with my daughter and give her positive thoughts about her own aging, it has also decreased some of her worry about what could happen with an aging parent.She now can assume I won't become a burden at some point.I intend on dropping dead while dancing at 110!
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