Secrets of Positive Aging
Do you want to know the secrets of positive aging? How can we embrace our changing physical appearance over time? In this episode of Your Superpowered Mind, host Kristin Maxwell and guest Stephanie Raffelock talk about the importance of embracing the power and strength of your story and reflecting upon the things that have happened in your life. Kristin and Stephanie also share the balance of mourning for what is lost and celebrating everything that remains. Tune in and discover the essential practices to age gracefully and to maintain vitality.Â
Kristin Maxwell:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Your Superpowered Mind. I’m your host Kristin Maxwell and in this show, we explore the process of transformation and give you tools and strategies that you can use to transform your own life. Today I am excited to be talking to Stephanie Raffelock about the secret to positive aging. Stephanie Raffelock an author and speaker with a passion for aging, women and feminist history.
She’s the author of the award-winning book A Delightful Little Book On Aging and the soon to be released author of Creatrix Rising: Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women. Stephanie, welcome to Your Superpowered Mind.
Stephanie Raffelock:
Thank you for having me.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yes, I’m excited. As somebody in my 50s, I’m aging and I’m a woman. So I’m very curious to talk to you.
Stephanie Raffelock:
Good deal.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yes. Good. So my first question is always what superpower did you uncover as the result of mastering your mind?
Stephanie Raffelock:
Well, I’m not sure that I’ve mastered my mind, but the process of striving for excellence has certainly unfolded a lot in my life. And it’s interesting that you talk about superpowers because this was kind of a superpower week for me. I was describing to a friend of mine what my superpower was. I occasionally teach, but not in the more polite classrooms that you might find. I’ve always taught women that are a little bit on the margins. So I’ve worked with incarcerated women. I’ve worked with women in halfway houses.
And this week I got to teach a class for a group of women that are in a second chance place in their life. And that is the Dress for Success organization. And it was the most amazing group of women. So here’s my superpower. I pull writing and storytelling out of people that wouldn’t normally think of themselves as writers and storytellers. And it’s a wonderful process because I believe that collectively, women have an amazing, amazing story to tell. And then individually, each one of us has a unique story that follows the pattern of classical storytelling, where an event happens and you go on a quest and you’re met with obstacles and challenges, and then you get to act three which is a part of life that we are in.
And the transformation, the big finish happens in act three. And I love the transformative force. So my superpower this week was in play. When I got to teach this class for Dress for Success. And we talked about the transformative force in their lives and their vision for the future. And it warms my heart, like nothing else. It’s my favorite, favorite group of women to work with.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yes. Giving them a different way I suspect of looking at themselves up until then and asking them to think about the story that they’re writing going forward rather than just letting life happen.
Stephanie Raffelock:
Well, yeah. And one of the big emphasis is on we can’t go back and change the facts of our life, but we can go back and change what the facts mean. And there’s a great deal of liberation in that.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yes, exactly. And I’m just writing that down. Can you give an example of that? Because that right there is such a powerful, powerful idea is understanding that the meaning we give to something dictates whether it was a happy event, a sad event, disempowering, or empowering. So, what would be an example?
Stephanie Raffelock:
Well, I’ll give you an example from my personal life. I was a high school dropout and I went back to school much later in life. In my 30s, I went back and earned a high school diploma and a college degree. And so for a long time, I felt bad about myself that I was kind of a screw-up as a kid. And I had blown this education, and just kind of made a mess of things. The new way of holding it was, look at the courage. Look at the courage that it took to admit a mistake that you wanted to correct and actually go back and do that.
And look at all the wisdom that you got from the grit. Wisdom isn’t like in the polite and positive places that we think, it lingers. Wisdom is in the grit that we get from life. I like the analogy of the oyster and the pearl. And it’s like the pearl is made from the grit and the pressure. The tension is what gives us the pearl and that’s what gives us the wisdom. So the way I hold that part of my life now was to look at the courage that it took and those years were just those years. But the gift of those years was some real wisdom walking through the tough times.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yeah. And a different perspective.
Stephanie Raffelock:
Yeah. I mean, perspective Is everything, isn’t it?
Kristin Maxwell:
It is.
Stephanie Raffelock:
How we perceive the world. I think it was Einstein who said, “There’s only one question and that is, is it a friendly universe or not?”
Kristin Maxwell:
Yeah. That is such a great question to think about and to realize that, “Ooh.” For a lot of us now it’s, “Oh, the world is a scary place and so how do we make meaning of that??” and I want to go, and actually I’m sorry to cut off right there. We do have to take a break. Can you let people know because you’ve written a couple of great books and you have a lot of writings, where can they find you?
Stephanie Raffelock:
Well, they can find me at byline-stephanie.com and you can find my blog and my books and everything else. Or you can go to amazon.com and look up my name if you can remember my name. You’re probably better off going to my website.
Kristin Maxwell:
Great, good. And I will put a link in the show notes so that makes it easier to find. Hang on, everybody. When we come back, I’m going to actually delve a little deeper on how we can ourselves reform our stories or claim our stories for positive aging. Hang on.
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