All About Aging

Co-hosts Rachel Strella and Vixen Divine (LE, LMT, LNHB, CLDT) welcome guests Laney Goff and Anna Dobbert in this special episode! The four ladies discuss aging with perspectives from different age groups: 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s!

 In this episode, explore:

• personal (and hilarious) stories of aging 
• the relationship we have with our bodies over time
• maintaining a positive mindset while aging
• the perception of death as we age as well the the value we place on our health, in that process
• what the different generations think of other
• TikTok trends including age filters 
• why the younger generations are so knowledgeable about skincare

Have some laughs and learn a few things with us! 

Real women, Real talk!

Transcript

[Rachel Strella]: 0:00

Welcome to episode five of the Light Her Project podcast, Real Women.

[Vixen Divine]: 0:04

Real talk.

[Rachel Strella]: 0:05

I'm Rachel Strella.

[Vixen Divine]: 0:07

and I'm Vixen Divine.

[Rachel Strella]: 0:08

Thank you for tuning in today. Today's topic is all about aging. And we are so excited to have guests with us to represent different age groups. So please welcome Anna Dobbert, who is our 20s group. And welcome Laney Goff, who is our 30s group. I'll represent the fabulous 40s, and Vixen will represent the fantastic 50s.

[Vixen Divine]: 0:34

With the huge headsets on like we used to wear all the time. Yes.

[Laney Goff]: 0:37

Those are still in, okay?

[Rachel Strella]: 0:42

Well, let's dive right in. Okay. So we usually start by talking about our personal experiences. Um, you know, so this past Friday, I was out to lunch with a friend. Um, we were at the Olive Garden and we ordered a cocktail with lunch. And I, I was with the gal who's with me. She's in her later thirties and she got carded. She was surprised. I didn't get carded. And he said, don't, don't be offended that, you know, I carded you. We're supposed to card anybody who looks like they're under 40. And I said, so I look like I'm over 40. And he's like, Oh, well, no. Well, he says that you look about 41. That's my age. And I said, okay. Yeah. Well, I'm 42. You saved yourself. But if I was 35, I would have been insulted. So I didn’t think a whole lot about aging until these rare moments come up.

[Vixen Divine]: 1:39

Well, I will tell you, so my mom was still getting carted at 65. Okay, so it's a whole different dynamic. 65 not here to talk about themselves, but I will say at 65, you get here in Pennsylvania, you get a free bus pass. And so you have to be of a certain age to get on this bus for free. So literally. She didn't have, she walked straight, no walker. I guess that's how you're supposed to look at 65, but my mom was carded at 65. So that's a whole nother thing right there.

[Rachel Strella]: 2:18

That's great. Well, we're gonna jump into some questions and now that we have a whole group here, I'm really excited to hear how everybody feels about this topic. So I'm gonna start with, how has your relationship with your body changed as you age?

[Vixen Divine]: 2:38

For me, my... So I used to be a skinny mini, meaning like you could see my clavicle really well, like the things that I look like a coat hanger, and that was just the way it was. But I had that Coca-Cola bottle shaped coat hanger, and no matter how much I gained weight, like I gained the Coke bottle shape or the smaller Coke bottle. However, when the pandemic, so I was okay with that, all of that. Like I knew I was skinny, you know, skinny jokes, et cetera, et cetera. But when COVID hit, and all honestly, in all my years, when COVID hit, for the first time, I have a belly. Okay, so how did my relationship change about that? There was some serious acceptance happening right then. Now, I know I have all everything I need to do to change that if I want to. However, I'm more accepting of it, but not perturbed by it. So not enough to do anything about it, it just annoys me. So this is me being accepting. That's my level of acceptance. And that's how my relationship has changed. It's like a, like type of thing, but not enough to seriously bother me.

[Rachel Strella]: 3:58

Mm-hmm. For me, I'm listening more. I can't do the things that I did in my 20s, like stay up all night or get two hours of sleep and think I can function the next day. Doesn't happen anymore. I can't just sit in an uncomfortable position for hours and not have back pain the whole next day. So for me, it's just listening more to what my body's feeling, because I just can't do the things that I could do 10 or 20 years ago.

[Laney Goff]: 4:27

Yeah, that's actually like really relatable because you know, back in November I went skiing and we go every year, but this year for whatever reason I tweaked my knee and I couldn't walk for like three weeks. And I just kept thinking to myself like, how did I get to this point that, that like my body is shutting down after one ski trip? So that's definitely relatable. But in addition to that, I think it also, you know, for me, my relationship with my body has changed as it's gotten more positive. But I don't know if that's so much of age as it is with what's trending because my body type, you know, I have a large caboose. And so whenever I was younger, it was all about being rail thin and that's what men were into and you aspire to be that as a woman. But then once I got older and then I separated from my ex-husband and I get back into the dating scene in my 30s, that's not the case anymore. You know, and so it brings a little bit of comfort to know that, you know, the perception from men has changed and also perception of women and what they think of other women, it's just change as far as their body types.

[Anna Dobbert]: 5:40

I get that a lot, Laney, like seeing how time, like over time, what people are interested in, how that impacts you. Because I also have been really, really skinny from a young age and noticed how frequently like people would make that a talking point about me, like family members, friends. A really casual talking point was about the way my body looked. And it wasn't until I turned like 20 where I was like, that's really weird. Maybe you shouldn't casually make comments about how people's body looks while you're all like sitting around a dinner table. I don't personally think that that's normal conversation. Like that's kind of hard. And it's then also fascinating. I don't know if you guys experienced this in your early twenties, but I feel like for women, there's like a second puberty you have to go through where it's like you did the puberty part as a teenager and then you had to do the like actually becoming a woman part. And that's been a crazy shift, especially because I recently went off hormonal birth control that I had been on for the past, like three, four years. And so you have to learn everything again. You have to learn all of it all over and you feel like you're 13 and scared in the school bathroom. And it's crazy.

[Vixen Divine]: 6:53

I will say this. Having had a couple for body, the way I see myself and the way I accept myself, having already had a couple of children who are grown now and been married. And so all of that, then you see yourself in a different perspective when you have, when you're pregnant, you know, when you're big. And so I wasn't counting that part but you are big, okay? And people say, oh, you look good. Oh, you're carrying it well. You're like, I am big. Okay, so that is a whole nother type of, but that's a temporary thing, you know, hopefully. That's a temporary thing. And I was able to go back from that. So that was a part when, if you have that experience, like if you are big right now, If you just know that that's temporary and you can control that, then you're okay with that. So that was not the big that I was talking about, but yes, we experienced that, but that's, that's a temporary situation. So if you have a temporary, if you're on steroids, something that, you know, making you look big and it's a temporary situation, I just understand that's going to go away. That's not what we mean here.

[Rachel Strella]: 8:14

Let's go on to another question. So how do you maintain a positive mindset as you face aging? And I'm gonna start with the younger folks on this one.

[Anna Dobbert]: 8:26

It's very interesting, because I have a baby face. I will get carded for, I turned 23 in like two weeks. I could probably walk past a high school and they'd be like, get back in there, kid. I can really pass for younger, but I know that it's coming down the line, that eventually I am gonna wake up and be like, okay, age is here. And it was very interesting. At the end of my senior year of high school to the end of my freshman year in college, I had done and been through so many things. I had the most aging period of my life was like the year being 18. And I freaked out. I was like, oh my God, it's here. Like I am gonna, every single year after this, it's just gonna grow expeditiously. And I then now as I like can adapt healthy lifestyle habits, no longer 18 in college, realized like, oh! Your environment is a huge part of that. And I actually do get to control it. And it's not just something that's gonna like knock on my door one day, like welcome to being 70. It's gonna be a bigger process than that.

[Laney Goff]: 9:34

Yeah, it's definitely tough being that age and that transition from college into your early 20s. I mean, You're right though. I think your environment does have a lot to do with it. Um, and for me In addition to that my family is really big when it comes to my positivity and I think it just comes from everybody or at least every woman in my family is a pretty confident person. And you know, we make a lot of jokes, but I only think about growing up how every woman in my family has always said, like, I look better as I get older. And the more I heard that, the more I felt like that was going to be me now. Is that the case? I don't know. But I've trained my brain to believe that. And I think that, you know, it comes down to who are you surrounding yourself with? If you're hearing that positive talk, that's going to translate into your own life. And so I'm just grateful that I had that growing up.

[Rachel Strella]: 10:32

Hmm. I can see that totally. I, um, I never really thought about aging or how I felt about it until, you know, there's these things that always bothered me about myself, but it wasn't necessarily limited to age. But the one thing I can say is, I feel like I look good for 40 something, you know, and I mean, there are people that could look a lot worse. And that’s my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Laney Goff]: 11:01

It's true!

[Vixen Divine]: 11:03

That's where you go on. You're gonna stay right there, Rachel. Okay, we understand. Yes, and look at her. She is, she's confident. You see that?

[Anna Dobbert]: 11:12

Like I said, that's my story and I'm sticking to it as if it's like so far out of reality because it is the reality of it. I just, I like that phrasing of it a lot. Don't ask any more questions, that's it.

[Vixen Divine]: 11:26

Okay, and I will not ask any more questions Rachel. I'm gonna move on to us in the 50s here for me is Aging has been something that never really bothered me because I combated it. I would combat aging from like Anna's age from like the 20s. Because I was always conscious of it because I was a pageant girl. I was a pageant girl. I was a model I signed, I was on billboards, I was in commercials, all of that. So I was always concerned with how I looked, because I had to be, because that paid me. So I learned early on, besides even schooling, I learned how to earn money. How to earn money is your face look good. If you had a pimple, have to take care of it. How so aging never really was a thing for me because I always knew how to take care of it. And I would always spread that around to my friends, to my family. My mom still calls me, she's 80. She still calls me for stuff about different things. So it was never a big concern for me. And I know that that's out of the norm, but that has always been my experience with that. So I was always confident. I was always, and if something happened, I knew how to take care of it right away.

[Rachel Strella]: 12:48

Mm hmm. Well, now time for the fun questions. You know, as you age, you know, does your perception of death change? And I know Vixen said, let's include something about does the value of your health change?

[Vixen Divine]: 13:06

I think, see, I really do believe that, that your perception, just like kind of what Laney said, as you got older, like that little tinge that happened to you, that you're like, why is this taking so long? You know, you looked at that differently than you would have, because that wouldn't have happened to you when you were younger. So now you're like, oh, hmm. You're taking a value, that value is higher now. Things move, things change. That value goes higher on the list, because you know what? That hurt.[Laney Goff]: It did. It did, girl. That hurt. And we don't like that. We do not like hurting. So when we hurt ourselves more easily as we get older, because not that we're more fragile, but our body, it hits us in reality. Our body, like Rachel said earlier, can't do everything that it used to do. Although in our minds, remember that? We see this, right? We don't look much older than we did before, right? But our bodies are not saying that to us. So that's why I think that we do. We prioritize, we're invincible. When we're Anna's age, we are invincible. Anna, how much are you thinking about aging? Not really, right? Not really about getting hurt, right? Not really. But me, I'm like, I got my death plan together. I'm just like. When can I get my massage? You know, all those things. Anything is not going to make me hurt. That is high. That is high up on the list. So I think it's imperative for someone like me or older to think about that. It's really, really high on the list, a lot higher than it was as in those stages. just because we hurt.

[Rachel Strella]: 15:00

I think as far as death goes, it becomes more real, you know, as people around you pass, like my father-in-law passed recently. And then you start to realize that there is a finality to your life. And that is what makes me feel like I need to be more conscious of what I'm doing. I'm going back to listening to my body more because I want it to be around for a while.

[Laney Goff]: 15:24

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that also translates a lot to motherhood. If I think back to my childhood, my fear of death came with the fear of losing my mom. What if something happened and my mom died? That's what that fear was for me when I was younger. But now that I'm a mom, my fear is I can't die because what will my children do? Who will take care of them, you know? And I'm sure there are many capable people, but like, are they capable? I don't know, you know? And so for me, it's one of those things where I am constantly just like Vixen was saying, like, is my health insurance gonna cover this? You know, like if something did happen, like am I prepared for this? You know, so it's something that, you know, the view of it has changed as far as not so much worried about the people around me dying, but me dying in regards to my children. It's a little bit less of a fear, I think, because they're getting older. So I'm sure that will diminish a little bit over time, but it's definitely, Oh, okay, nevermind. Nevermind, Vixen. Hahaha.

[Vixen Divine]: 16:33

No, no!

[Laney Goff]: 16:34

You were supposed to reassure me to say yes!

[Vixen Divine]: 16:39

Just saying, just letting you know...No!

[Laney Goff]: 16:45

Oh no.

[Anna Dobbert]: 16:48

I like what you said, Rachel, about the like, how the more experience you have with it, the more real it becomes. And I think that you can also say that about your relationship with health as well. As you start to get older, you start to know more people who get sick, you start to know more people who get injured, and you like see all these crazy things that could happen. And like I remember, I think my friend group right now is just starting to have that twinge of like, I think we're getting old. even though we're all 23, but it's just a little bit different than being, we were all 19 together too, so it was, we can kind of track it on that time and my friend had a fall and like seriously messed up his knee and we all were like, oh, that's right. These are breakable things that we're walking around in. And I think the more you live, the more you have those experiences, people around you get sick, people around you get hurt and you're like, it's... it settles into you being like, oh, okay, I need to have these things on the mind and I need to be prepared.

[Rachel Strella]: 17:46

You're absolutely right.

[Vixen Divine]: 17:48

Can I ask Anna a question here? So from what you said, at your age though, how long does that stick with you? Because when you have your friend falls or hurts themselves or, you know, and I picture this as a 20 something in about, I don't know, a month, you're back to yourself. Like you're back,[Anna Dobbert]: Mm-hmm. you know, you're not staying in that what if type of mentality because you're 20 something. Is that the case with you?

[Anna Dobbert]: 18:22

I think it depends. So like in that specific situation, like I definitely felt a sort of shift while he was actively injured and it's starting to fade now. But like last year, my mom got cancer and went through chemotherapy. And that has now really stuck with me of being like, there are things out here that can like get you sick. Cause hers wasn't a genetic one, it was something external. And so that has super, super stuck with me to be very like aware of like what are all these things I'm putting in my body. I have now all different shampoo, all different conditioner, I'm eating all different food. Like those experiences definitely like turned a 180 on that.

[Rachel Strella]: 19:05

Hmm. Wow, that awareness is huge. I know as my parents get sick, I keep thinking, well, what can I do to prevent this for myself? You know? Well, okay, one more question here. So what does the generations think about the other generations and start with the younger folks again on this one?

[Anna Dobbert]: 19:26

I think that Gen Z mostly just feels really misunderstood. I'm kind of at the cusp of it. Like I know I'm friends with a lot of people who are millennials. I'm not so much as friends with like a younger Gen Z, like I don't have any teenage friends, but at least from my perspective, I think a lot of us just feel very frustrated with the state of the world and feel like maybe the other generations aren't at that same level of frustration with us all the time. And therefore you feel very like, I don't know. When people say comments about Gen Z, because I feel like people have a lot of things to say about Gen Z, it gets hard to be like, I feel like we're working with a different set of tools and we're all working with a different set of tools. But I feel like older generations think they know what our tools are, just because we don't know what theirs are. But it might actually be the reverse, if that makes sense.

[Vixen Divine]: 20:20

We don't know what your tools are.

[Laney Goff]: 20:21

Hahaha[Vixen Divine]: Nope, we don't.

[Vixen Divine]: 20:23

We don't, we only pretend that we do. Nope, nope, we don't even have tools, honey. drank from the spigot because we weren't allowed inside the house, okay? We can do anything, okay, without tools. Okay, sorry, just wanted to let you know.

[Anna Dobbert]: 20:40

Hehehehe

[Laney Goff]: 20:43

It's so true though. And I mean, like, honestly, when I think about it as a millennial, I feel like I'm kind of like, you know, squeezing it. I've got a little bit of both to me, you know? And I just, something about Gen Z, they do get a lot of hate, I feel like. But I think it's because, honestly, over time, things have changed generation to generation, obviously. But now that we're at Gen z we’re seeing them take things on a whole different level. They're way more, you know, just locked in on, okay, what's the purpose behind this? What's the meaning behind this? Whereas like millennials and older, I feel like we were, this is how it is, don't ask questions, just do it. And so to have that generation come in and to ask questions and to, you know, raise flags and really like have a voice that maybe the generations, millennials and above didn't actually use. It's a little jarring maybe for some of the older generations because they're like, why aren't they just sitting back and being quiet? So it's interesting. I kind of, I like it because it's entertaining. And I think that there's definitely perspectives where I can see where Gen Z is coming from, but then I still got that old school kind of mentality and me too, it's like, what are we complaining about? You know, so. It's, Gen Z gets a bad rep sometimes.

[Rachel Strella]: 22:13

Mm hmm. I agree with you. I mean, there are days where I think about the 20 somethings and I'm like, what is the world coming to? Then there are other days when I'm like, I actually have a lot of hope that there will be change in the world. So it's it depends on how often and who you know, you interact with, you know, and we regularly interact with Gen Z's in our business. as we get into the 30s, you know, I think those are like the glory years, you know, and I valued being in my 30s so much. It's like the first time you feel like you're a real woman, you know, and you have that independence. And that generation, you know, I'm early 40s. So I'm like right on that line of like, millennial gen X, where I had that old school thing, you know, where this is what you did, and you didn't ask questions, you know, so for anybody over you know, 40, I have mad respect, you know, and I think that I'll rock being older. I think I'll be cool. But we'll see how that goes. So let's talk about what we're seeing. So one of the things that we've been hearing about our age filters. So you have teenage filters, where you look younger, you have age filters, you look older. What do you guys think about these age filters?

[Vixen Divine]: 23:36

Age filters, oh yes, I've been seeing them how they change you on what you would look like or could look like. Well, I just like that they make your skin look awesome. Has anybody--

[Laney Goff]: 23:50

Well, except for the old one.

[Vixen Divine]: 23:56

I feel like okay they do start okay you start from where you are when they take these you start from where you are so if you do look older than you should you're gonna look that much older in this in this filter okay so if you're not you're not gonna do yourself any favors if you use this filter and you already oh this will make me look better no so I think it's actually a bunch of crap Um, in all honesty, I think it's a bunch of crap because you can't make yourself look better, you know, older or younger. It's not predicted. It's not the truth. It's not, and you could really get a bad look thinking that you might look this way and you might actually panic from when it's not true at all. It's not true.

[Anna Dobbert]: 24:49

Filters scare me. They're so scary. And like, especially with the old ones, I'm like, are you guys not carbon copy of your parents? Can you not just look at the photos? There's my age filter. Like I know what I'm gonna look like.

[Laney Goff]: 25:02

That's exactly what I was going to say that anytime I've ever done the aging filter, I look just like my grandmother and I cringe every time. I don't know why people get so much entertainment out of it because it's like, that's got to be worse than like what I thought in my head, right? I don't know.

[Rachel Strella]: 25:19

Oh, I think about I love the show Sex in the City. And that has been around for a long time. And they recently started the reboot, you know, and now we're talking about these people who are having you talking about sex in their 20s and in the 50s. And you know, someone like Sarah Jessica Parker, she looks so good, you know, for her age and I just think, you know, when I look at some of the really, really younger, like the much older, uh, Sex in the City episodes, you know, and you compare it to how she looks now. I mean, that to me is the age filter right there. And I still think, damn, she looks good, you know? So I mean, I feel like why not just own it?

[Vixen Divine]: 25:59

And I think she does. She talked recently about how she doesn't do like procedures.

[Rachel Strella]: 26:06

Yes,[Vixen Divine]: Did you yeah.[Vixen Divine]: see that? Yeah.

[Vixen Divine]: 26:11

right. She doesn't do, so she's a good facial. She's good with it. And that's all she wants.

[Rachel Strella]: 26:19

I mean, she's a really great example of aging well. I think we're all gonna age. I wanna look like her 20 years from now. So all right. So while we're talking about this, we're hearing a lot more about the younger generation knowing more about skincare. This is not my area of expertise, but I wanna hear from the younger generations. I think Laney has a good handle on this. What you know about this topic?

[Laney Goff]: 26:47

Well, I think you're right. I think that millennials are kind of in there as far as taking care of their skin, but it's really been Gen Z that has opened the door for that because I saw a TikTok the other day that really resonated with me and it was a millennial woman talking about how Gen Z is all about skin prep and getting unready and having a nighttime skin routine. And when we were growing up, we were told to get in the tanning bed. It's like, if you have a pimple in a tanning know, a little bit of a hip pain, get in the tanning bed, it's gonna heal it. And so we were never told to wear sunscreen. We were never told to use snail mucin on your face, you know, so it's been a learning curve and actually something that, you know, I used to sleep in my makeup. Like I would just, or if anything, I would take a makeup wipe. It hasn't even been until this past year actually had a skincare routine to take care of my skin. And now it's 15,000 different products. You know, you've got hyaluronic acid and moisturizer and the snail mucin and eye cream. I mean, like it's a little wild. It's a little, it's a little, it's a little much, but I also appreciate it because we weren't taught that. We just weren't.

[Rachel Strella]: 28:07

Yeah.

[Anna Dobbert]: 28:09

I appreciate it as well, but I feel like Vixen can attest to it is that sometimes it gets, it's the big information that we hear about it like on TikTok isn't like it's a big net and it's only going to catch a few fish. Like for me, got super into the skincare thing. I was like, I'm going to dive into it. And then I learned my face doesn't want to be washed. It doesn't want me to rub face wash on it. It will have a reaction to that every single time. No matter the face wash, no matter how gentle my face wants it like to be left alone and to be moisturized. And I'll have these other steps in it, but it took not listening to these voices of being like, and I need to do this and I need to do that. As we like, it can be me and my hyaluronic acid and my sunscreen, and that's all we need.

[Laney Goff]: 28:51

Mm-hmm.[Anna Dobbert]: We don't even need to wash it.

[Vixen Divine]: 28:53

So, Anna, if you live closer, honey, we will talk about that whole washing thing. But aside from that, aside from that, I do agree with you in the respect where it is a lot. The internet, or I call it Dr. Google. Dr. Google will tell you so much, do this, do that, but I find the younger people are just actually doing too much. And you're getting things because you're doing too much. If you... Honestly, you see this, you see that, you see this, and you wanna try it all. And God, those boxes that come to your house every month or every three months, just stop it. Stop it. What's in there is not for everyone. By all means, to make this simple, honestly, if you never do it more than once, go to your skincare professional once a year at least. So they can evaluate your skin, get you on the right product, something that will work and be effective for you. And then you don't have to go through all of that, I swear. Just when you go see your dermatologist for your skin check once a year, at least schedule an appointment with your skincare specialist.

[Anna Dobbert]: 30:11

I want you to look at my skin, Vixen. I want you to see everything that's going on. I feel like you could read my soul through it.

[Laney Goff]: 30:18

She probably could![Vixen Divine]: I love it.

[Rachel Strella]: 30:19

You offer virtual skincare services there, Vixen?

[Vixen Divine]: 30:26

Video skincare services coming to you soon.

[Rachel Strella]: 30:31

I love it. Well, we're running close on time here at the end of the podcast. So, Vixen, is there anything else that you'd like to add about this topic? I have a feeling you may.

[Vixen Divine]: 30:43

Me? No, ever, no. Okay, well maybe one thing. So honestly, with all of this, with everything that we've been talking about for aging, outside aging is optional. If you know that and you understand that, inside aging, you can age slower and what you eat makes you age internally. What you do makes you age internally. Externally, What you do to yourself, i.e. the washing, can make you age or not age slowly or quickly. So with that in mind, be mindful of what you're doing. You are what you eat. That is the truth. It is fresh vegetables, all those good things. It does make you age slower. So the perception of yourself will be more positive the more positive you see yourself in the mirror. So be an advocate for yourself. Do that.

[Rachel Strella]: 31:44

I love that. And you know, I'm just glad I go to Vixen for the skincare because I had no skincare regimen. And all these shoes kept popping up. I'm like, why are these wrinkles here all of a sudden? What's up with this spot? Why is this pimple not coming to the surface? So I'm on this whole regimen, you know, and it's great. I'm like, why didn't I do this before? Well... I thought I knew what I was doing, right? So definitely follow Vixen's advice and meet up with your skincare professional and get that down. All right well

[Vixen Divine]: 32:15

Saves you money, saves you money.

[Rachel Strella]: 32:18

I'm so grateful for having you guys here today. It was great talking with you and thanks you for everybody who has been tuning into our podcast this is our fifth episode. You can follow the conversation online with our hashtag. So in the meantime, keep it real, real women.

[Vixen Divine]: 32:34

Real talk.