Episode 59

Kat Miller - The Portal of Aging

Download Subscribe Transcript
00:00:00
/
00:57:20
RSS Feed Transcript Download (28 MB) Link with Timestamp

January 27th, 2021

57 mins 20 secs

Transcript

Link with Timestamp

Download MP3 (28 MB)

Your Host
Tags
ageism ted talks ashton applewhite botox facelifts societal norms linda freedman impermanence sagging skin beauty industry wrinkles death and dying fear of aging dementia the sixth extinction generational healing generations grandparents tv sitcoms stereotype elder abuse covid-19 value elders aging age society individualism nursing homes indigenous people wisdom keepers discrimination u curve of happiness gangaji

About this Episode

As we age, we understand what age discrimination (also known as ageism) is all about.

People face ageism and other intersecting forms of discrimination in many ways in our society. Women, by and large, are disproportionately impacted by ageism. From a young age, we are conditioned to believe that our value is tied to our youthful appearance and “marketability." As a result, the beauty and fashion industry perpetuate a narrative that keeps women in “the trance” of unworthiness.

Policies and services must be adapted to reflect our changing population structures to ensure that everyone, young and old, has equitable access to services and entitlements. Yet, this is only part of the tragedy of the ageism story.

Meet Kat Miller. Kat has an MA in spiritual psychology. For the past 35 years, she’s been counseling, teaching, and consulting. Her passion is using aging as a catalyst to breaking free from cultural conditioning and discovering truth and wisdom through our own direct experience. Kat also uses the medium of photography to express the inherent beauty of aging and impermanence.

Show Notes:

  • Aging is a positive, natural, and beautiful process, but we’ve been enculturated to think otherwise.
  • Ageism happens when people face stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination based on their age.
  • Because of ageism, older people are excluded from jobs and social services.
  • It also increasingly underpins human rights violations such as elder abuse and financial exploitation. In many ways, ageism is the last socially accepted form of discrimination.
  • People that are aging are generally slowing down, and in our society, that is almost taboo. In terms of enjoyment of life, however, it’s actually a very positive thing.
  • As we get older, physiologically and emotionally, we are slowing down because and not quite so involved with performance anxiety that we've had throughout our younger years, which is very liberating.
  • There’s no such thing as good or bad when it comes to aging. We tend to hold others to a measurement based on whether they are “aging well” because they can still do yoga at age 102, and then we idolize that as somehow ideal or a “good” version of aging.
  • “Wow, you look amazing for your age" is an excellent example of ageism.
  • Ageism is like the last frontier of social change that’s truly got to shift if we want to change how we live our lives and love ourselves well.
  • Men are often considered “handsome” and sexually desirable well into their 50s, 60s, and 70s and are still considered for lead roles in movies. This is not so for women.
  • The U curve of happiness is a metric of how we start our lives happy and carefree, and in our 20s, 30s, and 40s, we become less so, but then into our 50’s and up the curve trends upward again.
Support The Revelation Project

Episode Links