This is 40: the true riches and inner wealth.
This past May, I turned 40. It definitely sparked some reflections: am I old? What have I built? What is most important in life? Should I be more successful?
Today I’m sharing what came out of my reflections with you in the hope to start a conversation around the true riches in life: how nurturing a calm mind and cultivating positive thoughts bring more enjoyment, which leads to a more abundant state of mind.
Am I old?
In my work as a coach, I help people slow down aging, so they can add more to their lives: more quality, more years, more energy, more fulfillment.
But I am not an anti-ager. I find joy in getting old: my ability to enjoy life is growing and I am definitely wiser than I once was. I am also more positive every year and love being in a phase of life that is about building (a family, a business, a legacy!).
I am what you might call a “late bloomer”. I only woke up to life and started living intentionally a few years ago. Hence my personal interest in longevity: I want to be around for a long time to see what I am sowing come to fruition. Perhaps you can relate.
This year, I have been particularly age-conscious: Do I have to say goodbye to youth… at least a number? Am I old at 40?
According to the United Nations, Youth ends at 20. So it is long gone for me! However, according to the dictionary, youth can be defined as "the appearance, freshness, vigor, spirit, etc., characteristic of one who is young".
To take it one step further, Dan Siegel, PhD, author of “Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain” describes the “essence” of youth as:
- loving and enjoying life,
- creating strong relationships,
- taking on new ventures and bringing solutions to the world’s problem.
Isn’t youth more of an attitude towards life?
Perhaps this is just me rationalizing. Because if I’m being completely honest, I am not ready to say good-bye to the vigor of youth!
But really, age is just a number. Your chronological age is at least.
I am not feeling all that different than I was at 35. In fact, my epigenetic age is 35.7, as revealed by the test I recently took. So functionally, I am almost 5 years younger than my chronological age.
With my health choices, and by being intentional, I can FEEL 4 or 5 years younger than what I am… I called my newsletter “Ageless” because age really just becomes a number when you slow down aging with your actions and health choices (sign up below for my tips).
Unlike a number of scientists in the field, I don’t personally think aging is a disease. But I do want to nurture the spirit of youth. For me, it’s not about feeling young forever, it’s really more about expanding time and making more of it.
In fact, I am thinking of changing the name of my newsletter to “Timeless”.
So, if at any point of your life, you wonder: “Am I old?”, I think the answer is in the way you feel and your attitude towards life. I would love to hear about your perspective on this.
What is youth at a biological level?
With my background in cellular biology, I often go back to the “hallmarks of aging”: 9 biological processes that are characteristic of aging cells (presented in figure 1). This deserves it’s own blog post.
At the cellular level, youth is characterized by an ability to repair and renew, smooth cellular functions and energy.
For examples, levels of NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) decrease by 50% every 20 years. This molecule responsible for energy production and repair mechanisms in our cells, contributes to our vitality, mental capacity and strength. There is a lot of excitement in the pharmaceutical industry around boosting NAD with supplements to maintain cellular youthfulness.
As far as we understand it now, aging is characterized by depletion, cellular dysfunction, accumulation of errors, damage and junk.
However, there is a lot we can do to limit the damage, clean up the junk, support our cells with nutrients to function properly and replenish.
Empowered with this knowledge, it becomes possible to slow down the rate of aging. This is what I love about the science of longevity.
We can, with our actions, habits and mindsets, influence cellular processes to age slower.
Figure 1: the hallmarks of aging.
The #1 predictor of a longer and happier life
As I'm growing older, I care about birthdays less and less. I haven’t done anything special for a birthday in a while and this year there was no celebration, no party, no surprise and very few wishes.
Because of that - I have to say - I felt a little lonely.
I told my daughter, Marygold, in the morning that it was mommy's birthday. She immediately sang for me: “Happy to… mommy, happy to… mommy” - an adorable 2-year old girl's version of the happy birthday song that she has been learning since the beginning of the year. That filled my heart.
Now that is worth all the birthday parties I’ve had in life, combined!
I was reminded in that moment that I am not lonely. I was reminded to appreciate that I have a wonderful little girl and a hero of a man in my life. Tending to these relationships is what matters most for me at this point.
As we go about our lives, driven by a desire to create financial security for our family, working hard running a business that creates freedom, it’s easy to take our relationships for granted. Heck I’m having a hard time caring for myself since I became a mother. So even the relationship to ourselves can take the back seat.
Yet, the quality of our personal relationships is the #1 predictor of living a longer and happier life.
I think it often starts with our mindset around relationships. For me, re-framing and zooming out of the situation always provide peace and joy.
Parenting can seem like a series of challenges and things we don’t always want to do (like driving the kids around, sitting at practice, appointments, etc). As a mom, I definitely have had to let go of some agency and I have often felt like my baby was the boss. I have come to love to surrender and go with the flow.
But in the moment, the sleepless nights are tough, the tantrums seem to last forever, the teenager’s reactions are really puzzling. It can feel daunting and lonely. We don’t always know how to show up.
It’s only when we step back that we can appreciate that we get to build a lifelong relationship with someone else. That our attitude impacts not only our children, but society at large.
Being able to provide our children with positive experiences has deep ramifications in their lives and our health. For example, the CDC estimates that we could prevent 44% of depressions (the world leading cause of disability) by preventing childhood neglect and abuse.
So for me, being close to Marygold and making sure she grows up in a loving, fun and peaceful environment, are goals that are much bigger than me, my feelings or even her lifetime. It impacts her role and place in the world.
Similarly, being in a committed relationship takes a lot of work. Interestingly, evidence suggests that this type of relationship has a lot to do with the complexity of our brains.
When I fell in love with Ryan, it felt like time opened up in a whole different dimension. This was an important catalyst for me in taking ownership of my health and well-being.
But as time goes on, it’s easy to lose sight of excitement in the relationship with our spouse because of the mundane day-to-day tasks. Without intentionally nurturing joy, adventure and intimacy, we can lose connection.
In “Lessons from the Blue zones” (parts of the world where people live older), the summary about social connections states:
“Centenarians spend a lot of time and effort working on their relationships with their spouses and children.”
A great reminder that relationships are an investment and need attention, but also that it is one of the key actions and intentions of those who live longer.
On my birthday, I felt incredibly grateful for having these people in my life. Reflecting on all of that, I felt much better about putting my family first:
- on the days I choose to spend time with Marygold instead of spending time my business
- about the times in which I manage to let go of my desire to set the pace at which my little girl should grow,
- when I am able to leverage spacious awareness and choose peace with my spouse.
With my past as a workaholic, it can be hard for me to let go of the drive to work and be productive. For someone like me, who want to be doing, who really feel alive working, it has been challenging to learn to let go of work.
I have learned to simply BE more. Investing in relationships rather spend time working can feel like a sacrifice. Fortunately, letting go is a skill that grows with getting older.
Letting go is a privilege of age.
I am also seeing now that having positive relationships with those I spend most of my time with, is one of those true riches in life. And I am able to achieve that because my mindfulness practice helps me create space when I would be otherwise reactive. This is why mindfulness is the first step in my 12-week program: Building inner wealth. Because mindfulness fosters smoother interactions with others.
Because I let go, I am timeless.
I am free to play with and to raise my child. I have peace and confidence. I have the birds in the sky and the wind to renew my mind.
Because I know how to just be, I am ageless.
The true riches
Later on my birthday I asked myself while I was watering my garden in the morning: “what do you have to show for after 40 years on this earth?”. Maybe you are, like me, driven by a sense of accomplishment and the desire to contribute. If so, you’re familiar with this humbling question.
Being in touch with a sense of purpose also adds years to our lives (You can read more about this here: www.drjihanefarrell.com/blog-posts/sense-of-purpose-to-live-a-longer-life)
Parenting and nurturing a marriage are big accomplishments (often under rated) . Especially for someone like me who comes from a somewhat dysfunctional family. This is an area in which I still have to learn and grow.
But as I was looking further back, I felt like I “wasted” many years.
In fact, I see my past as a time when I wasn’t fully alive. I spent so many precious hours worrying and ruminating. I would replay the day with anger and frustration before going to sleep. It achieved nothing but contribute to my feeling miserable. In a way, I did this to myself.
I also see a lot of time wasted valuing the wrong people and the wrong things for me. So much time wasted waiting for approval. So much time wasted not loving myself and not valuing my life. I was stuck in life-depleting patterns: drinking excessively, smoking, being anxious and depressed. I had a warped perception of reality.
Now that I’m so much happier and have left behind all these life-depleting habits, I look at it as the things I was meant to overcome to become who I am supposed to be. Overcoming this period of my life also put me on a path to more purpose. Today I wish to help others avoid life-depleting patterns. Maybe, as you read this, you find elements of what you are currently going through. If so, please reach out.
My workaholic attitude, inability to foster relationships and lack of self-care all led me to a burnout.
Through it, I lost everything I had worked for until that point: eight years of post-secondary education to a PhD, five years of post-doctoral training and the project of a career in academia. Gone.
But in a way, I was lucky that I did. Because I lost the things that were depleting me at the same time. After taking ownership for the ways I was feeling, I was able to rebuild and reinvent myself.
I could have kept wasting my life on the illusion of an important career, spending most of my time alone or with people who saw me as a tool. I could have kept drinking myself into oblivion. I could have stayed prisoner of my negative thoughts.
Instead, my burn out was a wake up call. I came back to life. Taking responsibility for my attitude, my health and my whole life saved me.
I invested in building a mindfulness practice, which has led me to cultivate more positive thoughts and happiness. I cleaned up my diet, which has set me free from anxiety and depression. And by reconnecting with my personal values, I found a new sense of purpose and took actions to build an intentional way to live.
By the end of my 40th birthday, I realized that, although I don't check all the boxes of what culture considers as the hallmarks of success, I have something far more valuable. My wealth is built from inside first.
My wealth is made of the relationships I am investing in.
My wealth is made of my life-giving habits and mindsets.
My wealth is made of my time, that I have learned to slow down at will.
My wealth is made of the vibrant energy that I am enjoying.
My wealth is made of the meaningful years I have added to my life.
My wealth is made of the control I have over my attention and the quality of my thoughts.
My wealth is made of the wisdom I have gained.
What I have built is an ability to be content no matter what is going on around me. No life circumstance, no amount of money in the bank, not even incertitude can rock me.
Our mind is all we have as we go through life. Being able to quiet it, is what I fall back on all the time, all day long.
This is inner wealth.
With more self-awareness and with courage, I live a life of purpose. It may not look like success, but I have more riches than it looks. What I have inside of me is so much bigger than success. I have the ability to enjoy what I have, no matter how much. I have a calm and spacious mind. I have a high energy through the day. I am able to let go of work to really be. I have an unshakeable faith in the future and a profound appreciation for life.
In the past years I have boldly lived according to my values. I have taken risks again and again, even put it all on the line, because I dare. Because there is more to life than a career. I no longer find my value in the work that I do.
I am on the path to freedom from myself.
The more I surrender, the deeper my soul grows and the wider my smile goes.
This is worth all the treasures.
This is 40.
