267. Does body image keep you from dating freely and enjoying the experience?

If you’re just beginning to date again – or even if you’ve dated awhile now in your mature years - a major concern for you might be what you look like now that you’re older. You’ve got wrinkles and some sagging skin now. You don’t have the youthful look you did when you were dating earlier in life. You may have also gained some weight. People often have the feeling that they just wish they looked younger again, and they do everything possible to appear young.

That’s a stressful way to live, and if your concern with looks is always in the back of your mind when you’re with a date you’re probably not nearly as fluid and authentic as you’d be without those fears and beliefs.

There’s a simple way to dispel that worry; take a look at it and see what’s really true. If the story you’re telling yourself sounds like this: “I wish I looked younger.” Or “No one will be interested in me now that I’m older,” you can question those beliefs. Even the belief I’ve heard often, “Men only want younger women,” can be examined a bit. Is it true that men only want younger women? Is it true you’d be better off if you looked younger? Can you really, totally know that?

Reality is that everyone looks older as they get older. That’s the way the world works. And unless you have a fixed idea of what beauty or good looks is you can also see beauty and attractiveness in older people. Another reality is that it’s true, some men do want younger women. But do you know there are also women who want younger men? So what? Sometimes the sun shines and sometimes it’s cloudy too. That’s just the way of it, as a friend of mine says. Another reality is that every day seniors and mature daters strike up wonderful romantic relationships.

Remember, when we examine life closely we realize we don’t really know what’s best for us and we’re not running this show. If you’re supposed to be with a partner that’ll happen. If not it won’t, and your fears and thoughts about the why of it won’t make any difference, as they never have in the past.

Believing our self-doubting and inhibiting thoughts can make dating in these later years a stressful event. But without those false beliefs senior dating can also be a fascinating, unfolding mystery and a discovery of whole new worlds of love and caring.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

259. You can’t lose when you see dating as it is, a delightful adventure

This morning I read a comment written by a 70-year-old woman who was saying that being older is not as good as being younger. As you read that do you notice that this is a woman who’s adding a slight stress to her life by arguing with reality? If you question whether something that subtle is stressful put yourself in her shoes a minute and ask yourself two questions:

1. How do you feel emotionally when you think the thought that life isn’t as good as it once was? Just feel that for a moment.

2. How would you feel if you paid no attention to that thought and just let it disappear into wherever it came from? Feel that one.

Even hypothetically, doesn’t question #2 feel better? Living happens, aging happens, spouses die or leave, we find ourselves alone in life. If you think it shouldn’t be this way isn’t that a bit like thinking if you drop a plate in mid-air it shouldn’t hit the floor? You just make yourself miserable.

The articles in this blog don’t say you can find a partner and here’s how to do it. What these articles say is that whatever happens in your dating you can enjoy life with a sense of well-being and contentment when you go with life as it is. Thoughts come and go by themselves. You can only have one thought at a time so any time there’s a new thought, which is every second or more, you’ve also lost the last thought.

If we buy into certain thoughts and nurse them and feed them and pay attention to them because we think they mean something we just create a lot of suffering for ourselves. I’m not even really talking about acceptance here, because to have acceptance you also must have non-acceptance and rejection. I’m only talking about being, before thoughts, before judgments, before attachments. Just see life as it is and you’ll have no pain. Then mature dating is a wonderful adventure and you can’t possibly lose.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

237. Do you feel bad because your neck tells the truth about your age?

One of the reasons some people are leery about dating in these mature or senior years is the very fact that they are mature; they’re older. It turns out, according to the experts, that age has as much or more to do with attitude as it does with years. That’s probably not news to you. I’ve met a number of people 55 and beyond who seem to “think” old. They joke about senior moments and say they can’t do this or that any more “at my age.”

I read this morning about a popular book by Nora Ephron titled, I Feel Bad About My Neck. She writes humorously, “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn't have to if it had a neck.” She’s right; our necks seem to indicate our age often more than our faces do.

But carrying “old age” ideas into life and mature dating probably isn’t going to make your dating very much fun or successful. Instead of being excited about all the things you could do with a date or partner you may be thinking of all your limitations. You even approach your first meeting with this new guy or gal thinking about your aging body and telling yourself you have to try to be perky. But one expert says, "Don't get bogged down in all the hype about aging. Once you start thinking about it, it can drive you mad. There's nothing you can do; the clock is going to tick away."

It’s also important to get over your stereotypes or mental images about aging. You may have picked up ideas that aging means life loses its happiness. But are those stories you’ve told yourself true? When you start believing stressful thoughts you’ll feel the discomfort and suffering. You know then that it’s time to question those beliefs. If you’re suffering from worry, sadness or desperation those self-created hurts can be undone by simply investigating what’s true.

The article I read this morning reported on a couple – he’s 79 and she’s 80 – who took a week-long backpacking trip alone in the wilderness last year. He had taken up mountain climbing after he retired and has climbed Mount Whitney, Kilimanjaro and hiked to the Mount Everest base camp. Does that fit your stereotype of older folks?

Living happily and peacefully, I’ve realized, is always living in reality, not our stories about reality. Reality is the way things are. Change will happen. That’s life. It’s not bad unless we think it’s bad. Yet why worry about something that may never happen, like being debilitated? When we simply live in the moment we can trust that as changes in our bodies take place we can deal with them sanely and without stress when the time comes. We simply see and enjoy life as it is, however that is. How do you know you’re not supposed to be as vigorous and vibrant as you once were? You’re not. Nothing to fight or resist. You’re left to just do what you do and be happy without a story. Everything you need to deal with any event will be there when you need it.

The clear message is to question your beliefs and see what’s true. Is it true you shouldn’t be slowing down or getting a neck that shows your age if that’s what’s happening? Obviously not. Would you start a war with reality by fighting a battle reality will always win because it’s just what is?

As you put yourself out there in dating you can be sure you’ll be a much more attractive date and potential partner if you’re happily seeing the beauty of life as it really is instead of falling prey to your beliefs about how it should be or terrifying yourself about how it might be in the future.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

206. You’re getting older… does it really pay to fight it trying to attract a mate?

It’s interesting to me that the way – the only way – we end up suffering emotionally is through belief in our thoughts. I know, that’s a radical-sounding statement. So stay with me for a few minutes and let’s see if I can show you what I mean. Then you can judge the validity of the statement yourself.

Last night I had a conversation with a long-time friend of mine, Anita, who was feeling sad about the fact that she’s getting older. The conversation clearly showed me she was creating her own pain just by her thoughts. None of us have to do that if we can simply see life a little more clearly.

“I’ve seen more doctors in the last few years than I ever have in my life,” she said. “It just makes me sad.” Anita is widowed and in her late 60’s, and she’d love to be in a relationship. So every time she thinks of getting older she also thinks no one will want her.

Where Anita is creating her own suffering, it’s so clear, is in an area I talk about a lot. She’s trying to fight reality, and in the process she not only loses but also makes herself miserable. What is reality, in this case? Well, it’s clear that in real life we all age and we all begin to lose some of our youthful physical abilities and we’re all eventually going to die. You can’t argue with that. Yet – and here’s the strange part – we try.

We think it shouldn’t be this way. We think it’s awful. We mourn the fact that we don’t have the energy we used to have, or that our knees hurt when we stand up, or that we have wrinkles and sagging skin we never had before. “Yes,” you might be saying, “but who wants to get old and wrinkly and have sagging skin? It’s hard enough to find a partner without having to also go out in the world without the youthful good looks I once had.”

But let’s look at the actuality of life for a moment. Whatever you look like when you look in the mirror, and whatever you feel like when you’re active physically, that’s just what life has dealt you isn’t it? You’re not being singled out as the only 50 or 60 or 70 or 80-something who’s getting older. That’s just the way life is.

Now, we can fight it and bemoan it and suffer it or we can just accept life as it is. We seem to have those two choices. Meantime, aging doesn’t stop. It doesn’t care what we think. It’s going to be what it is, just like life is what it is every day. Every spring the trees put on new leaves and every fall they lose them. Every minute or so the tide comes in. And every minute or so it goes out again. There’s summer, spring and fall. Nature has its ways and it acts through everything, including all animal forms, which includes humans.

Reality always wins. It always rules. But let’s look for a moment at what happens to us when we try to argue with it. How do you feel inside if you’re sad and miserable because you’re aging? You might actually take a moment to let yourself know what that really feels like inside your body. And how does that feeling affect your happiness, your joy, your spontaneity? Do you think what registers inside you might also register on the outside to the men or women you’d like to date or have a relationship with?

While we’re in the mood of being sad and disheartened about aging how do you think we come across to any potential partner or date? We’d have to reflect that wouldn’t we? So as far as I can see when we argue with what is we lose in at least two ways: We don’t feel happy, which is the biggest way, and we also lessen our chances of finding joy in our dating and of attracting someone to us. Who wants to be around a sour puss who’s inwardly miserable about getting old?

And the main point is this: For what? For what reason are we believing our thought that it’s terrible that we’re getting older? Is it terrible or is it just life? It’s only terrible if we say so. It’s all a myth. We’re creating a nightmare and living in it as though it were real – self-created misery. Seems to me it’s a lot easier to see life just as it is without throwing up arguments that change nothing and make us suffer. Without our made-up story life is just fine. No judgment, no suffering. You prove that to yourself every night when you sleep.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer