We Were All Programmed to Feel Old — And It's Making Us Shrink

Season 6 Finale - Confession Time: I'm Still Ageist

An eight-year-old boy at a skate park asked me a question recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

He wasn't being rude. He was just curious. And what came out of his mouth was such a perfect, innocent illustration of what we've all been taught about aging that I almost skated right into a bench.

I'm going to make you listen to find out what he said. But I'll tell you this: it's the best possible setup for everything this episode is about.

Because that kid is eight years old and the programming is already running. And if it's running in him, it's running in all of us. Including me. Especially me, apparently — after six years of hosting a podcast about ageism, writing a book about aging playfully, and interviewing hundreds of people about what's possible as we get older. I still catch myself thinking ageist thoughts. About myself.

I said it out loud during my recent conversation with Larry Robertson and it's been rattling around ever since. So in this final episode of Season 6, I decided to really go there. Because here's what I know: when we don't question the beliefs we absorbed about aging — and we all absorbed them, long before we were old enough to push back — they work on us quietly. We start to shrink. Not all at once. Just a little at a time. A thing we don't try. A door we don't open. A version of ourselves we quietly decide is no longer available.

It doesn't have to go that way. In this episode I talk about what it actually takes to interrupt the programming, and why the first step is simply knowing it's there.

I also share something that's been nagging at me all season. A question about older women, what we have right now that we didn't have at 35, and what we might be uniquely positioned to do with it. I'm not ready to fully answer it yet. But I couldn't sit on it any longer. 

This episode started with a writing prompt from my friend Diana Place, who runs the 333 Collective. She's been working on a card deck called AHA Stories — a guide to remembering, reflecting, and sharing — and the prompt she handed me cracked this whole episode open. The deck isn't on her website yet but you can contact her directly if you want one. Link below.

Season 6 is a wrap. I'll be back with Season 7 on September 2nd. Shortie episodes may appear over the summer, weekly emails keep going, and YouTube is where you'll find me when the podcast is quiet.

See you in September. 🌸 Bloom like you mean it.

Links mentioned:

• Diana Place / AHA Stories card deck — https://www.thirdactquest.com/contact 
• Larry Robertson episode
• PLAYshop on demand: latebloomerliving.com/play
• Live PLAYshop in September: latebloomerliving.com/liveplay
• Late Bloomer Living on YouTube
• My Book In Full Bloom is available on Amazon