It's 10am, and I've already been targeted with B-vitamins for dementia, collagen for my joints, mushroom gummies for better energy, and magnesium for better sleep.
Apparently, (according to Facebook) being 49 means I'm hurtling toward a cliff! The sign on it reads, "mental and physical decline this way, madam!"
Surely, embracing ageing as a woman shouldn't feel like swimming upstream against a tide of products designed to make us afraid of ourselves.
So, what's really going on here? Ageing women have become a marketing goldmine, wrapped up in fear and sold back to us as self-care.
Never mind that we've already spent 40 years grappling with our "inadequacies". That pervasive feeling of never quite being enough following us everywhere we go.
Thin enough, funny enough, smart enough, strong enough, rich enough. We've all felt it, and we've all bought something because of it.
Now midlife arrives and the billboards simply shift their messages to keep us hooked. Suddenly we're not young, smooth, tight or shiny enough, and conveniently, there's a ton of products that can fix that too.
Why "Solutions" Feel So Sinister
Here's the thing about these solutions: their relentless positivity hides something far darker underneath the surface. They quietly suggest that everything you've lived through and learned along the way is worthless. The lessons you've learned, the wisdom you've gathered, and the bullshit you've uncovered simply don't matter. Neither do the lines etched by love, laughter and grief, or the stretchmarks left behind by babies.
Because we live in a white supremicist, capitalist, patriarchy that prizes naivety over experience, beauty over wisdom, and perfection over character.
Midlife Is a Threat to the System
Personally, I think this timing is no accident, because midlife is precisely when women start stepping into their power.
The veil of naivety lifts, and we finally begin to see the fuckery around us with total clarity. We start caring less about what other people think, and external validation loses its grip on how we live.
Instead, we find our voices and start standing up against injustice, loudly and unapologetically.
This shift is powerful, and it's dangerous - in the very best possible way. Because, it threatens the control that white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy has always relied on to keep us small.
The Backlash Against Powerful Women
So, what happens when a woman starts to feel more powerful?
The system works hard to distract her and disconnect her from her own body and instincts.
It floods her with images of what a "successful" midlife woman should apparently look like. Which, unsurprisingly, means looking and acting twenty-five forever.
Meanwhile, she gets labelled rude, awkward, sexually frustrated, or simply irrelevant. All so she stays locked in a race, forever chasing girlhood instead of embracing who she's become.
Reclaiming Midlife as Power, Not Decline
Or, here's a better idea altogether! We stick two fingers up at white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy and refuse to play along any longer.
We stop calling midlife a decline, and retire that ridiculous cliff metaphor for good.
Instead, we call it what it is - a portal to power, potency, and a life that finally feels exciting and alive with possibility.
We restore the wisdom we've earned over the years, and commit to speaking our truth without apology. Reclaim the scars and lines on our body as proof of rich lives fully lived. Talk about our age as a privilege rather than an embarrassment, and step into the courage that comes from years spent learning to love yourself exactly as you are.
I'm not saying don't take the products, but if you do, let those B-vitamins help you remember your own power. Let the collagen supplements help you run toward justice, and let the mushrooms remind you that there's still pleasure and joy to be found in midlife and far beyond!
If you're done improving yourself and instead desire to know yourself better, you're invited to explore my 1-2-1 coaching programme Body of Truth. An invitation to reclaim your sense of self so that you can make aligned decisions, brave choices and find more humane ways of living, loving and relating.
