Why Aging Is Not Something to Fix - with Alina Wilson

Alina has spent nearly two decades in the wellness and aesthetics world, but she isn't interested in the "anti-aging" noise we’ve been fed forever. 

She’s actually pioneering this beautiful concept called "thoughtful aging." It’s all about moving away from making choices because we feel "not enough" and instead choosing things because we actually want them. 

She’s a grandmother, a CEO, and a total powerhouse who believes that our 60s are actually meant to be our happiest years.

We really got into the thick of it - the reality of feeling invisible in society sometimes, the "ageism" we face at work or even in our personal lives, and how to navigate all of that without losing our spark. 

Alina shared her five principles for reclaiming your identity, and my favorite part was her take on curiosity. It’s such a gentle way to look at why we feel certain ways about our bodies or our worth without the heavy weight of judgment.

She even gave some super practical advice on how to talk to doctors so they actually partner with us instead of just brushing us off with a "well, you’re just getting older" comment. It’s such an empowering shift from being a victim of a system to being the boss of your own journey.

We talked about:

• Moving from "fixing" ourselves to honoring who we are becoming
• The 10% rule for self-care that actually sticks
• Why beauty is actually a "calling" back to your true self
• How to trust that gut intuition we’ve been told to ignore for too long
• Building a "longevity team" that actually supports your goals

If you’ve ever looked in the mirror and felt a little disconnected, or if you’re tired of the "anti-aging" battle, this episode is a giant permission slip to just be. I left this one feeling so much lighter, and I think you will too.

I can't wait for you to hear it.

Connect with Alina here:

Website: bpwcenter.com, thoughtfulagingbook.com 

Social Media: @bridgeportlaserandwellness 

Thank you for spending time with me today on the Thrive After 45™ podcast! If this episode spoke to you, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss one.

And if you loved it, I’d be so grateful if you left a review - it helps more amazing women like you find this show!

Your journey doesn’t stop here - let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with me at denisedrinkwalter.com, and follow @thethriveafter45podcast for daily insp, tips, and support.

Remember, midlife isn’t the end - it’s just the beginning of a new, exciting chapter! Keep thriving, keep shining, and I’ll see you next time!

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Thrive after 45. I'm Denise Drink, heart whisperer, midlife mirror and mentor. Every week I am honored to share energy and space with inspiring guests whose stories reflect so many possibilities of thriving beyond 45. Together we'll uncover the whispers of the heart. The power of midlife transformation and the wisdom that fuels expansion. What if aging wasn't something to fix or resist, but a chapter that's meant to be honored? It is an absolute privilege and an honor to welcome Alina Wilson to the show today. Alina is a mother, grandmother, entrepreneur, author, and humanitarian whose life's work centers on restoring dignity, choice, and self-worth. To the aging process. She is the founder and CEO of Bridgeport Laser and Wellness Center, which she founded in 2007 and has a grown. Trusted aesthetic and wellness leader serving over 6,000 clients and earning more than 5,005 star reviews beyond her business leaderships. Alina is deeply committed to community impact. She serves as chair of the board for Gather, make shelter. A nonprofit bridging poverty and purpose through creativity and connection. And in 2024, she released her book, thoughtful Aging, restoring Honor To The Aging Process, sparking incredible important conversations about beauty, acceptance and becoming. This is a conversation about aging with intention, choosing change from desire. Not from deficiency and honoring who we are becoming. I cannot wait to have this conversation with you today. Alina, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here. Oh my goodness. We have to jump right in. To everything that has come to Le lead you to this point and the, and the book that you put together and, and published in 2024. Give us some idea about how that got to where you are today. Sure. You know, working in aesthetics, a lot of people have opinions about. Um, what, what does that mean? And there are a lot of questions about what does that mean? And I've spent my career over the last 18 years fielding those questions from people inside and outside of the clinic who really want to understand how we can take control of our aging process in a way that feels genuine and authentic to us. And so, in my industry and commercially, anti-aging is a huge term. It's what drives this industry. Um, the foundation of this industry was built on this idea that we can stop aging or turn back time, or that we should even want to do that. Mm-hmm. And I really never resonated with that in all the years I've been doing that, this, I've never used those terms in my clinic and my marketing and my conversations. And I realized one day that what we do here, and my philosophy here is so much different. It's about what I coined thoughtful aging to be, which is really restoring honor to the aging process through a radical self-acceptance through, um, as you just said, doing, um, making decisions from a place of desire rather than deficiency. I love how you said that. Mm-hmm. Because that's really what the aging process is about. Allowing ourselves the freedom and autonomy to make those decisions from the guilt-free space that is absolutely empowering. Beyond words, you, you have taken what so many people are working on right now, in my opinion, around ageism. And as soon as you hit a certain age, you're out the door. And aesthetics is, like you say, a huge component of people being sold the goods that you need to be anti-aging.'cause aging isn't good. It's not okay to age like you need. You need to stay young and like why in the world? Does this have to be such a, an epiphany when it just makes perfect sense, at least to you and I and many, many women globally around the world and we're fighting this whole, uh. Beast of aging and women aging in the workplace, in in life in general. We're pushing. We have to push away so that we can do exactly what you see so vividly that it is. An opportunity for us to live our truths in whatever honors us as an individual and it's taking the process and embracing it because we get to how. How do we ever start to change this script? I mean, you are doing, it is challenging to be out there doing this work, or how does it come across for you? The contradiction is. Is evident in that we have a society, like you just mentioned, the ages and at work, you know, being married for 30 years and having your spouse leave you for a younger person. Yeah. Um, that's a reality that a lot of women face. I know. Um, feeling left out, the feeling of no longer relevant. When you walk into a restaurant, you know, the waiter doesn't jump to seat you like they used to. So we have a society built around ageism. And that's, that's actually really happening. But then we have all of the statistics that tell us women are the happiest in their sixties. So how do we reconcile that when we're living in a society that doesn't support our happiness? But yet we have matured and developed and grown as women so much that the things that used to matter don't. And we are actually living our best lives in a society that doesn't support that. And so once we can start to really unpack that truth and realize that instead of fighting against this societal issue. How do we learn to navigate it from a place of flow? How do we flow through it? How do we create a language that doesn't exist yet that allows us to communicate with our doctors and our medical providers, um, to get them on board with our process rather than being victim of a broken system that tells us, well, that's just aging. Well guess it's time for your hysterectomy. Well, yes, you're just in menopause Now. Get used to it. We have so many options now, more so than we ever have before because of science and because of awareness and because of emotional language and because of the internet and because of self-education, let's use all those tools to shift this paradigm from anti-aging to thoughtful aging because we can love that. In your book, do you provide, um. Ideas foundations for women to be able to do just that, stand within their own truth and know that. We are the happiest people on earth despite all of that in our sixties. And let's see if we can move that needle down to every age as a woman. But reality being, I love that you're sharing that.'cause I didn't know that, so thank you for that share. Mm-hmm. But the book, what, what is in there that would absolutely give us some nuggets to help us understand this work even deeper. I. So my promise to readers in the book is that by the end of the book, you will love who you see in the mirror. Just as you are. Just as you are, because that's a very beautiful person to get to that point. I take readers through just in the beginning of the book. It's a basic understanding of how we got here, how did we get here through consumerism and commercialism and um, genetic history. You know, that tells us. Women should behave a certain way or only belong in certain parts of society in certain roles. And so we really break that down. Um, the Greek root word of the word beauty is kaylon or kaylene. And that word actually means calling. And so in a sense, when we start exploring this path of beauty, it's more of a calling back to ourselves. And so. Through the book. Um, there are some very practical tips and exercises that I lead readers through that allow them to release any. Unhelpful or un unbeneficial ideas that they've been holding onto about themselves or about others. Um, how to move into a place of guilt-free living, um, not judging yourself, not judging others. And then in this, I've also created, there are five principles to thoughtful aging that you can really stand on to rebuild or reform your identity in a new space that allows you to live freely. Um, and it starts with embracing curiosity. Mm. So we can't really engage in change until we become curious about why we are where we are or where we want to be. Um, mm-hmm. Once we embrace curiosity, it really opens the door to some deep thoughts that might leave us feeling a little bit unsteady. Right. And so the second principle is, um, practicing self-acceptance and compassion. Love it. Right? Yeah. And from that space, um, we can then learn to stay mindful and grounded. Mm-hmm. Because that's really what it takes that to rewrite those narratives. And really that's what we're talking about, is letting go of what no longer serves us. And then staying proactive and responsible for our own healthcare. So when you go into the doctor's office mm-hmm. Um, and he tells you, well, that's just aging. How do you invite him into a conversation that allows him to partner with you and keeps you in charge of your own aging process? Mm-hmm. Because to be honest. That doesn't exist yet. Yeah, that really does. That language doesn't exist, but we have the ability to create that language. And so, um, the whole last part of the book is how to recognize red flags in your providers. Mm-hmm. How, what that conversation looks like, how to invite them into a conversation to support you. And then also how to build a team of longevity providers that can support your aging goals. And what does that look like to even set goals for yourself? Sure. Yeah. I, I, that's the thing that was coming into as you were speaking. I'm smiling ear to ear for those who aren't on the YouTube channel watching our conversation. But if you're in the podcast land, I'm smiling ear to ear because everything you're speaking about resonates so deeply and you are marrying of. Capacity building for individuals through a foundational piece that you've just shared. The principles that you've just shared are doable and actionable, and I love how you've come at it from an angle of curiosity. That's exactly. A lens that allows us to open up our thought process and not shut ourselves out from past experiences. So thank you for that. I love it. And I absolutely love what you are sharing as well, about inviting the caregivers, inviting the practitioners, inviting those who are, um, we are seeking support from, but. We still get to decide what is going to happen in that journey of our healthcare, right? We as women have such strong intuition. Mm. And oftentimes we're not relying on our own intuition because we haven't developed it. We haven't developed a relationship with that. We don't know how to trust it. We don't know if we should trust it. We're so used to. Um, outsourcing validation to others, letting others tell us when we're okay, if we're okay, that we're pretty, um, you know, right. Yeah. That we belong, that we have relevance if and when we can, um, become our own source of validation. Mm. Then it opens up a way for us to connect with others, to connect with other women that. And then we can create moments of joy. Mm-hmm. With each other. We can, when you're standing at the barista counter, you have the awareness that it only takes a moment to look at her and say, I love your smile. Yeah. I hope you have a great day. The more of those types of interactions that we can sprinkle throughout our day, the more confident we become in our own position as women. Mm-hmm. And our own authority and our own power as women. To be able to affect real change in this world beyond what we see, because it really is about going deeper and beyond the surface and beyond what we see to create this character and this integrity that we can stand in, um, in the midst of chaos, because chaos isn't going anywhere. Yeah. But learning how to stay present and grounded. Yeah. In the midst of chaos is where we really find peace. Mm-hmm. And do you find just generally, that's a very hard thing for women, maybe not to do, but to recognize they're doing it, staying calm in the chaos? Yeah. Yes. We live in a world of distractions. Yeah. Everything wants our attention. Yeah. And if we're not setting aside intentional time to stay present and grounded mm-hmm. Then it does feel a little bit shaky. Things can throw us off balance easily. Um, and it happens and it will happen. Learning how to pick up the pieces and move on is probably the best thing we, the best gift we can give ourselves is that gift of acceptance and forgiveness and. Proactivity. Mm. Where do we go? Not so much what happened in those moments or in those life experiences or in those chapters. And we all have trauma, big tea, little take, call it what you want, right? We all carry that with us. Mm-hmm. How do we integrate that? Take the good, leave the bad, and move on. Mm-hmm. And what do we do with that? Now that's what matters, right? Because the past is the past. Right. And in the world of aesthetics, and it's really interesting because a lot of people wanna apply the word vanity to this. Vanity has no place here, right and wrong has no place in the conversation of beauty. There's no right or wrong here. If a woman comes in and they have, you know, this little thing that that's bothering them, or a wrinkle or a sunspot from laying in the sun with baby oil'cause nobody told us any better. Yeah. Like there are things that we have that we notice about ourselves that take our attention. In this world of aesthetics, when you can offer a woman the opportunity to see beyond that by just correcting it or lessening it. Or, um, I won't even use the word fixing because there's nothing broken here. In this world of aesthetics, there's no right or wrong. There's nothing broken. There's just opportunity to see things differently once you give a woman an opportunity to see things differently mm-hmm. That has a cascading effect in their lives. It's. It doesn't stop there, I promise you it doesn't stop there because they look in the mirror and all of a sudden they're not seeing that thing that had their attention. They like what they see, they feel better about themselves. They bring more to their relationships, to their friendships, to their partnerships, to their parenting. It opens up a whole new possibility for them to feel better, even if it's just for that moment. Right, right. And and the ripple effect. Is huge, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Without us. Yeah. As women lifting a finger to make it happen. And we talk about this all the time on our show because we talk about doing for you by you because of you. And when you put yourself first, and you mentioned earlier, it isn't about judgment. It isn't about all of those things that, oh, you can't do that because you're being egocentric. Absolutely. Not you can do that. And we get to, and we, without saying should we want you, we encourage our listeners to put themselves first. Because when you do that, everybody else in your sphere of influence is impacted in a positive way because you fill your own cup first and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And you will. Start to feel the benefits of it very quickly when we start to give back to ourselves, not in obsession of doing it for everybody else and while we're last on the list and we'll get to it and we never do. Right. Yeah. And I guarantee you that hearing you say that, there's gonna be a whole subsection of your listeners who are pushing back against that right now. Who have this kind of, this frozen little part of themselves that seizes up when they hear you say, put yourself first. Mm-hmm. Whether it's because of, uh, religious training, whether it's because of not having the type of care that you needed as a child and you were always doing for others in order to get attention and validation. Um, there's, we are not. In addition to view that as acceptable. And I feel it, you know, right here, I feel it in my chest. When you say put yourself first, there's this whole part of me that wants to go, uh, that's so wrong. You know? We wanna make that not okay. Yeah. It's not black and white. It's not either or, you sure can't take care of yourself while you're taking care of others. Mm-hmm. And it's okay to do that. Yeah. Because. There's no right or wrong here. So when you feel that frozen little reaction to someone saying, put yourself first. Mm-hmm. I'm, I'm gonna to stop for a minute here and I'll encourage readers to do what I have to do. When I hear that and feel that you take a deep breath, you breathe into it. Mm-hmm. You accept it and allow it. And then you go back to embracing curiosity. Mm-hmm. Why am I feeling this? What is my body trying to tell me in this? Where is the fear behind this? What am I afraid of losing or gaining if I do this? Because that's really what it's about. It's about a fear of losing or gaining something that you either feel like you can't live without or afraid to lose or don't feel you deserve. If you can breathe into that space and breathe out and relax and ask yourself that question, you've begun your journey to deeper integration, right? What I worry about, and I thank you for sharing all of that because. There's a perfect example live where it resonated in your body as like, ah, I struggle with that. We're real here. So the thing that I think is really important is to, um, move from what you are saying, which is absolutely a great strategy to get curious as to why those feelings in the body are coming up as we talk about giving back to yourself. What I encourage people to do is not just stay stuck in that cycle Hmm, but to try a little something. And I make it so simple by saying, sit and have a cup of tea by yourself, for you, by you because of you without any external stimuli, wherever, however, that can happen for you. Um, and just for one minute. It doesn't have to be, I got a, I have to sign up for a gym and go and work out for an hour or once a week. It's nothing like that. It can be super, super simple, taking some deep breaths, doing what you just shared. You're doing that for you by you because of you, you are actually starting to take tiny, tiny steps from my perspective, the reality being a consistent approach of whatever it is, and it can change and morph as you. Play with this because it should be ideally over time, something you look forward to, something fun for you, right? Otherwise it's gonna be work and you're gonna drop it. You, you brought up the example of a gym and, and if we just kind of play on that for a minute. Mm-hmm. When you go to the gym, if you're lifting weights and you always lift the same amount, say you're lifting a hundred pounds. Sure. So you always, you go every day and you're lifting a hundred pounds every day, day after day, you're not going to grow, you're not going to build more muscle. If we take that same concept and apply it to self-care mm-hmm. If we push ourselves just 10% beyond our comfort zone mm-hmm. We are inevitably going to grow. So what that might look like in someone's life with respect to self-care is what you just said. If your day is so busy that you don't ever have time to sit down or make time for yourself, don't try and do a whole spa day where you cut everybody out and just go take care of yourself. That's not what it's about. 10% more than what you're doing right now is all it takes to really start stepping back into that space of balanced living. Mm. 10% might be that cup of tea. Mm-hmm. 10% more for someone else might be just sitting in their chair and breathing for two minutes during the middle of the day. Yeah. Or going outside for a walk instead of staying inside and working. Mm-hmm. 10% more than what you're doing is all it takes. Yeah. Love that. Perfect. It doesn't have to be a huge ordeal. And it, it's, I I believe my experience has also shown me that the smaller the steps, the better it sticks. So instead of jumping into the deep end of the pool when you're just learning how to swim, just go in the waiting with your up to your ankles and be comfortable and come back out. That kind of concept, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Um. As we prepare to close off for today, I'm wondering if there's a golden nugget, anything that you would absolutely love to share with our lis, our listeners, specifically around what we've talked about or something that we haven't touched on yet that you would love to leave our audience with as a thought to ponder. My favorite quote of mine is from Kurt Thompson. Um, he's a theologian. He was a practicing physician for a while, and he has said, we're all born into the world looking for someone, looking for us, and we remain in that mode of searching for the rest of our lives. Can we grow to the point? That was his quote. These are my words, and this is what it brings up for me is can we grow to the point where we not only give to others, but we give to ourselves in a way that allows us to stop searching for someone else? Because we are all that we need. We have all that we need, and we have the capacity to grow into a balanced life where we honor others by honoring ourselves. Hmm. Beautiful. Melina, thank you so, so much for your time, your brilliance, your experience, your wisdom today. I know that our listeners are gonna be not anxiously awaiting, excitedly awaiting the drop for this episode because as everybody knows. In our show notes, we have, um, the ways to find you, your book, access the Information, and continue this journey for you by you because of you. So thank you so much for being here with us today and sharing so brilliantly everything that you. Know, feel, do, recognize, and the work that you do that is so valuable and so deeply needed. So thank you for that. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed every minute of it. My pleasure. And as we close, I do really want to honor this conversation and this moment. Ignite the inner uprising is emerging for women who are no longer waiting for permission only resonance. So if today something stirred inside within you, trust that knowing it knows the way.