Middle aged spread - the good part

I rang my little brother for his 39^th birthday the other day. We both agreed that 39 is a great age and we also agreed that we’d not want to be ‘young’ again. Many of us were told when we were in primary school that these years were the best years of our life. We see billboards of young, shiny people barely out of their teens and they look in their prime. They haven’t hit middle age spread yet (or it hasn’t hit them), they are probably going to work like hell to make sure nothing spreads. But there is something we need to know, to remember and this is that along with the middle age spread of the body comes middle age spread of the mind and the heart also. Simply put, the older we get the more we spread, life actually becomes easier and here is why.

I had my daughter when I was 40, 18 months later my body is still not back to its original toned shape. I’m not sure how long ago my mind started to spread, it was a while ago and it also is not back to its original toned shape and I can honestly say the same for my heart. It’s all spreading, relaxing, loosening up… I’ve expanded in a good way.

When we look at our middle aged spread, of the body, it often likely triggers some unpleasant feelings in us and I think that has to do with some sort of fear of aging, but it doesn’t have to. What we can do is to see the middle aged spread in our lives and instead of seeing it as a sign of our aging and our lives moving past the middle mark… look beyond that to the middle aged spread of the mind and heart too. This is what I do.

Life becomes easier once the middle aged spread hits us because we have a much, much better sense of who we are and we more deeply identify with the inner reality rather than the outer. That is what causes us stress, when we are younger. The constant looking without to validate what we feel within. As we age, as we spread we no longer do this. Life becomes easier and we spread, we loosen a little more each day and each year that goes by.

When you feel stressed, when you feel overwhelmed by life connect to the gentle expansion of your body, heart and mind. Why grieve the changes of your body when in fact they are a reflection of a wiser, suppler mind and heart. Salute your middle aged spread, and exhale.

Theresa Daley is a Mindfulness Mentor and Spiritual Counsellor 

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