This edition of Mindbodies Decolonised is coming out later than usual, thank you for your patience.

Last Thursday was my 39th birthday. Birthdays bring up a lot of stuff for me. I realised quite a few years ago that getting away somewhere helps. Being somewhere new, with a tiny number of my favourite people, ideally near (and in!) water.

My big brother died at 23, and this year in June was 23 years since he was taken from us. The funeral was the day before my 16th birthday. Somehow, I had a party a few days later. I don’t know why it still went ahead. Some strange ‘life goes on’ sentiment, maybe. All I remember is drinking. Drinking until I passed out. Oddly enough, I have only recently connected this to why I struggle with my birthday, maybe because it has been ‘normal’ for me to struggle with it for such a long time. The anniversary of my birth will never be separated from his death. Every year that I age I will be reminded of how little of his life he got to live, and how lucky I am to still be here. Heartbreak and gratitude, hand in hand.

This year was my first birthday as a Maee (माई), a Mama, a guide and guardian to a little soul. My journey to parenthood, much of which was documented in this newsletter, was not straightforward or quick. After my miscarriage I remember speaking to a friend who had had five miscarriages before the births of her two children. She said that as painful and awful as those experiences had been, if it had gone any other way she wouldn’t know the children she has now - and she couldn’t imagine not knowing those children. That stayed with me. As I sat breastfeeding my sweet babe on the morning of my 39th birthday, I was very aware of how glad I am to know her, and to be her parent. I don’t think that ‘everything happens for a reason’. But I do think that perspective, framing and gratitude can support us to find peace.

We are told so many lies about ageing. That it is something to be feared, that it is ugly, that it is unattractive, that it is to be fought off with every penny you can spare. I believed these lies for a long time. I remember feeling bad about myself on my 29th birthday, because I suddenly felt so close to 30. I remember ‘feeling old’. I was panicking about the things I didn’t have, the things I hadn’t done. I was in Rio, we had a surfing lesson in the morning, spent the day on the beach, went out for dinner with new friends to a Rodízio, and then went dancing in Copacabana. It was a truly magnificent day. It makes me so sad that I felt anything but joy and gratitude. I was so young! And I still am. 39 is young. It is YOUNG. I have to say it to myself, over and over, inside and out loud, to battle the cacophony of anti-ageing messaging all around me.

Premature ageing - now that is something to be concerned about. Ageing faster than our years, experiencing illness and Disability brought on through our mindbodies being forced to navigate circumstances and environments that attack their cells. One of the main drivers of chronic-stress-related biological aging is racism. Other forms of discrimination as well as poverty and trauma also cause our cells to age faster than their biological age. I remember when I was growing up I would hear ‘men are allowed to age, women aren’t’. It is only with a wider understanding of the world that I can see that this was a particularly colonial take on ageing. Wealthy white men are allowed to age. They can accumulate more wealth and power and be idolised and deified. Black boys are being killed before they even reach manhood. Black and brown children are being targeted in multiple genocides. Of those Black and brown boys that do reach adulthood, many die young due to racism related cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancers. Whiteness and patriarchy tell white women they are unattractive and irrelevant as they age. Anti-ageing surgeries and treatments are largely marketed to and utilised by white women, while they are simultaneously shamed for not ‘ageing gracefully’. Whiteness conditions women to tie their self-worth to youth and colonial beauty ideals.

In India, historically, age has been respected, elders listened to and learned from, matriarchs honoured for their wisdom and experience. But this too has been corrupted by systems of harm and the ever-present colonial history. The normalisation of skin-whitening creams aimed at girls and women is driven by colonial beauty ideals which favour light skin as well as youth. Elders are ignored and sometimes abandoned by their grown children who are focused on winning at capitalism and acceptance by whiteness. Here we must also account for intergenerational trauma that leads to fractured parent-child relationships, but much of this trauma is also rooted in the violence of colonial ideals forced on a people who have been fighting or ceding to the coloniser within ever since. I was raised in this framework of colonial youth and beauty ideals, both the English and Indian versions, and for a long time I leaned into whiteness, patriarchy, capitalism and all the self-loathing that comes with those systems. Proactively seeking to divest from them has allowed me to begin detaching my self-worth from their ideals, and to change my relationship with both beauty and ageing.

I have wrinkles. I have grey hairs. My skin sags in places. I have scars. My eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be. My neck folds and I have permanent lines on it. I have aches and pains I didn’t used to have. My right knee is deteriorating. I don’t have that glow of youth anymore, the one I can see beaming out of photographs taken in my teens and twenties. I also have patience. I have perspective. I have an understanding of what peace feels like for me. I have been able to reclaim much of who I am, and I have love for that person. I have the confidence to stand up for myself. I have the courage to stand up for others. I have the wisdom to know that protecting my spirit is more important than earning money. I have the self-worth to give and expect respect, dignity and honesty in my relationships. I am capable of accessing the vairagya (inner detachment) needed to seek joy in life rather than fear death. I understand the alignment I need to keep coming back to my purpose despite the relentlessness of oppressive systems. And if I’m lucky, I have many more gifts to receive from my future self.

Ageing isn’t just a privilege. It is an opportunity to parent the child we were. It is a love letter to the parts of us we learned to hide and change. It is a chance to break cycles of generational trauma. It is a path to liberation if we choose to take it.

And I do.

— AJ

Today’s Neuro-Embodiment Prompts:

Suggestions and questions to help you engage with mindbody decolonisation: