I’ve watched it happen many times. The woman I’m coaching looks brighter, more radiant, and more alive than she did when we started our conversation.  Often she looks younger. Always her beauty shines.

She’s had a “face lift” – without the pain, recovery time, or expense of surgery.

And that’s not even the best part! 

She’s getting a “life lift” as well, finding her path to more joy, fun, passion, and purpose.

What is this magic? The woman is connecting with what lights her up.

What’s That?

What lights you up is what energizes and enlivens you. It is a physiological response that can be seen, heard, felt, and sensed in your eyes, face, voice, and body.

When you’re “lit up” you have a twinkle in your eye, lilt in your voice, and spring in your step. There is a visible aliveness, radiance, and vitality about you. You feel energized and enlivened. 

Your Internal GPS

What lights you up is a powerful inner GPS, a navigation system to guide you to more passion, aliveness, joy, and vitality in your life. And who doesn’t want more of that!?!

When you notice what lights you up and give yourself permission to do more of that, you can change your face as well as your life, like the “instant face lift” women I’ve seen.

Focus on what lights you up and add more of this to your life; your true beauty will shine and so will you!

Thoughts about this? Click Comments below and write away.

I love finding role models for living well after 60.

Give yourself a quick treat by watching this shining example: Janey Cutler, 80 years old and singing  No Regrets on Britain’s Got Talent.  She’ll move and inspire you.

If Janey can do this at 80, what can you do now and in the coming years?

She’s 51 and works in an industry that worships youth. She doesn’t want anyone at work to know her age because they’ll think she’s old, finished, and irrelevant.

As I listened to this woman at a party Saturday night, I felt torn.

Part of me wanted her to encourage her to stop hiding her age. If those of us who are 50, 60 and beyond don’t let the world know this is what “older” can be, how is our culture ever going to stop our ageism?!?!

Part of me understood and supported the choice she was making in the face of ageism. She wasn’t making this up! She was just doing her best to deal with her situation.

Thanks to years of being a coach, I quickly realized it was her choice to make, let go of my opinions, and just listened.

Our conversation lingers with me though. How sad any of us ever feels the need to be in the closet about our age.

Have you ever felt you needed to hide your age? How did you handle the situation? Click on Comments and write away.

“What am I going to do with my life?” she asked herself.

And then she knew!

At 71 Dorothy Dale Kloss joined the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, a three hour, song and dance extravaganza.

Fourteen years later — at 85! — she’s still performing 10 times weekly in the Follies. Guinness World Records lists her as the “Oldest Still Performing Showgirl in the World.”

Dorothy says “My dancing is a little slower. I say that to you now but I don’t say that to myself. When I hit the stage I feel like I’m 20 again.”

Dorothy is a great role model for making the most of life. She’s not letting age get in her way.  Dorothy is doing something she loves and it shows.  Following her passion keeps her vital, sparkling, and thoroughly enjoying herself.

Watch this 5 minute video to be amazed and inspired by  Dorothy Dale.

What about you? What are you passionate about? What brings you joy? How can you bring more of this into each day? Click on Comments and write away.

Turning 60? You’re likely to be happier than you were at 18.

A June 2 column in Canada’s Globe and Mail, described a 2008 survey of 340,000 Americans, ages 18 to 85. The results may surprise you.

People at 18 feel pretty good about themselves. It’s downhill from there, apparently, until 50. After 50, there is a sharp reversal with people getting happier as they age.

Stress is at its lowest point at 85.

Worry drops off sharply after 50.

Enjoyment and happiness rise steadily between 50 and 75, declining very slightly after that. But never as low as in the early 50s.

Researchers aren’t sure why;  it could be environmental, biological, or psychological changes.

While scientists are figuring out why, we can bask in the knowledge that after 60 we have many years of enjoyment and happiness to look forward to. These may, indeed, be the best years of our lives.

What do you think of this? Click on Comments below and write away.

Turning 60, lessons learned. That’s what I’ve been writing about for the past week or so. Here are the links in case you’ve missed any of these:

Turning 60 Lessons: The Bark is Worse Than Its Bite

Turning 60 Lessons: You Don’t Have to Turn 60 On Your Own

Turning 60 Lessons: It’s Different for Everyone

Turning 60 Lessons: You Are Who You’ve Been

Turning 60 Lessons: Your Tools Still Work

What about you? I’d love to hear what you’ve learned so far about turning 60. Click on Comments below and write away.

Also, if you’d like some help navigating the turbulent turning 60 waters, send me an email. My private coaching program may be just what you need to help you make peace with 60 and create a life you love at 60 and beyond.

 Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned continues with:

Your tools still work.

Turning 60 definitely had me stumped for a while. 

I told myself I’d never been in this situation before so I didn’t know how to help myself. Then I realized I hadn’t encountered this particular situation before but I had a lot of experience with my own process of struggle. (For more on this see  Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned, #4.)

And I had many life tools that had helped me in the past. Why wouldn’t they help me now?

Following my energy. Doing more of what lights me up. Shifting my attention away from that Monkey Mind chatter. Writing morning pages. Journaling. Meditating. EFT.  Focusing more on the present moment and the good and less on the future and the negative. Turning my attention toward what I wanted.

Guess what? Once I started using the life tools that had helped me in the past, they still worked. In fact, they worked very well!

Each of us has our own best tools we’ve learned that help us with life. What are yours?

If you’re not already doing so, pull out those tools now and start using them!

You can read the last post in this series at  Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned — And You?

Thoughts? Click on Comments below and write away.

 Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned continues with:

You are who you’ve been.

Some women are naturally positive, upbeat, optimistic, feisty, undaunted by life, and relish a challenge.

Others struggle more. They’ve got anxiety, worry, fear, overwhelm, etc.

Those in the first group tend to be the ones who sail through 60.

Those in the second group tend to struggle more with it.

Unfortunately for me, I’ve got some of the second group’s characteristics.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a tendency to worry. And so I was worrying about being 60. Just like usual.

Once I realized I was approaching 60 in a familiar (but not effective!) way, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Now I understood what to do. More on that in the next post.

Is this true for you, too? Are you “doing” turning 60 like you’ve done other things in your life?

Read the next post in this series at  Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned #5  

Thoughts? Click on Comments below and write away.

Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned continues with:

You don’t have to turn 60 on your own.

When I first realized I was worried about turning 60, I looked around to see who I could talk to. I didn’t want to admit what I was experiencing but I needed help.

My closest friends were in the 40 range. Wonderful as they are, they couldn’t truly relate.

Countless life coaches focus on “mid-life” women. Sixty is not midlife!

I wanted to talk with women who were having or had had an experience similar to mine. (None of those “Age is just a number” kind of women. Bless them and they did not make me feel better!)

The more I was willing to acknowledge I was turning 60 and bothered by it, the more I found women like me. That made a huge difference in my ability to navigate this transition.

As the baby boomers age, there will be no shortage of women turning 60. There’s bound to be plenty of them who are like you. Give yourself the gift of finding and connecting with them.

(One place to start is here, on Savoring Your Sixties. Another is the  Savoring Your Sixties page on Facebook.)

Watch for Wednesday’s post in this series,  Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned #3,  It’s Different for Everyone.

Thoughts? Click on Comments below and write away.

I am now 60 and ½! I’m not a toddler so I have no idea why I even noticed the ½ year point.

A friend asked me what I’d learned in the last year about turning 60. That inspired me to write a few of my lessons learned,  from the vantage point of 60½.

The bark of 60 is worse than its bite.

I confess I’m a worrier. Countless times in my life I’ve anticipated a future event with high anxiety. And countless times the event wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. In fact, it was often good, fine,  or even wonderful.

From all this experience, you’d think I’d have learned to mistrust my worrying. But no, not really.

Case in point: approaching 60. I worried about, feared, and dreaded turning 60. Once I got through the knothole of my birthday, most of my worry, fear, and dread melted away. Once again, my anticipation was worse than my reality.

What about you? Maybe being 60 won’t be as bad as you think. It could  just be  fine!

The next post in this series is here, Turning 60: 5 Lessons Learned, #2 You Don’t Have to turn 60 On Your Own.

Thoughts? Click on Comments below and write away.