This Post Went Viral – What It Says About Women Over Fifty

No one was more surprised than I when I looked at Facebook stats of the Aging Abundantly Facebook page, which I do now and and again, and saw that something I posted had gone viral. I thought I was seeing things!

Historically, 10 new followers on average start following the page each week. Last month when I checked it there were 7,199 followers, all gathered like a rolling stone gathers moss. I do not advertise. One month later, that number doubled.  A single post brought 8,000 new followers in a matter of days. Astounding and completely by accident! (Not that I wasn’t happy! I was!)

I was immediately keen to figure out why this particular post had attracted so much attention. It is a post not unlike everything else I post, a meme I think people will relate to, and I related to. But in this time something was different! Why are people drawn to it?  What are they reacting to, specifically? And, what did it say about the people who follow Aging Abundantly and women over fifty?  There was no question the post hit a nerve. But, what was the nerve?

Here is the post: Be sure to like it! 🙂 PLEASE COME BACK and let me know why you think the post went viral. 

WHY DO POSTS GO VIRAL?

As of this moment, the post has reached 8,362,751 people, shared 124,542 times, and received 13 K “Likes”. I read every comment. With only a few exceptions the sentiments were as follows:

• “What mirror, I avoid mirrors”
• “Every day.”
• “I hate mirrors.”
• “How awful, I look just like my mother… or father…or great Aunt Betty”.

Some laughed, more expressed sadness, despair or regret. The bottom line?  It seems women view their aging bodies as deficient, and  themselves as less potent, less valuable, less important. Why?

MIRROR AS SYMBOL

Mirrors often appear in ancient stories, tales, and fables. They are a symbol – an archetype. The story of Snow White and the wicked witch obsessed with the magic mirror comes to mind.  “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all”?  In fairy tales and such, the mirror often reveals to the character, or the reader,  something they did not know about themselves or were not paying attention to.  In Jungian terms, a mirror reflects our shadow selves, that part of us that remains out of the light of our awareness.

This meme is archetypal, and it went viral because it reveals our shadow as women. We are struggling with what we value about ourselves. We are struggling to see our value through any other lens than the mirror – or more specifically, our physical attractiveness. We are struggling to see the beauty in the aging body or our value and worth beyond a connection to physical beauty. We either have to deny our body, ignore it, or lash out at it.

Hidden outside of our awareness, but revealed through the shadow of our reflection we can heal the wound that keeps us stuck in this miserable place.  We are not integrated, body, mind and spirit, but we are yearning in that direction.

WHAT’S HOLDING US BACK?

We are a generation of women stuck between a rock and a hard place. Lip service is paid to the cultural obsession with youthful beauty, but we have not individually done the work we need to do. As a result our behavior is that of a victim.  The first thing we must do is fully accept and understand deeply the nature of our abuse. It’s so much a part of us it’s difficult to see. Each and every one of us has been abused by the over-culture. Day after day it has been pounded in our head that we must look and act a certain way to not only to be attractive, but to be valuable. Beauty = value. The over-culture, which includes everything from advertising to movies has been gas-lighting us since we were children.

We are left dazed and confused, and no longer able to see what is really of value, and carry distorted perceptions of ourselves and what is expected of us. This translates into self-loathing and shame. We are deeply shameful of our aging bodies and hate ourselves because of it.

THE ONGOING CONVERSATION

Many of us have been talking about this for a decade or more. There is clearly much more work still to be done. I’d like to imagine that one day we all could see the aging body as beautiful – perhaps a symbol of a fully lived life – a body richly decorated with the beauty of life itself and the love and courage it took to create. I would like to look into the eyes of an old woman and see strength and character, not fear and self-loathing. I would like to be that old woman, so full of wisdom, love and compassion as to be a powerful presence in the world.

I saw an article on Huffington Post – 11 Middle-Aged Women Strip Down to Reclaim Sexy On Their Own Terms. that I found intriguing and yet it bothered me. I admire the women in the article who participated, as they are actively trying to make sense of it all and willing to put themselves out there to further the conversation. However, it was apparent to me that unresolved issues around sexuality were very much present. The very context and approach taken in the article, as well as the photos were in my mind very much still ego-based. Nothing about any of it spoke to the deeper, more valuable beauty of the aging woman.  It’s as if they were mixing apples and oranges.

WHY DOES SEXY MATTER?

Sexy seems to carry a disproportionate amount of the weight in the conversation. Why does sexy matter so much? Why do we talk about it endlessly? Why are we obsessed with sex at every age? Sex, like aging, is a natural part of life. But, just a part! Beauty is just a part, and in the overall scheme of things not a very important part. We keep talking about this, because we are still being drawn back to the reflection provided by our culture. We are still living as victims.

I don’t think our obsession with mirrors and our self-loathing has anything at all to do with our appearance. What it has to do with is what’s behind the eyes that are looking in the mirror – what we see when we look in the mirror tells us how we really feel about ourselves, our life, our value as human beings. And how are we measuring this?

Where is our value? Why do we cling to external beauty as a defining factor in our self-perception? Why do we still feel shame when we look in the mirror? How can we heal this wound so that we can embrace all that we are in love and acceptance?

Like everyone else, there are days when I look in the mirror and like what I see, and there are days when I don’t. It has happened within a span of 24 hours. Nothing has really changed on the outside. What’s changed is my outlook on myself and my life, my level of self-esteem,  and whether or not I feel comfortable in my own skin. The mirror reflects our shadow, that part of us that needs to come into the light and be seen, understood and accepted.

The fact that this post  went viral tells me that, ladies, we have work to do! We have masks to be removed, hurts to be healed, and self-love to be practiced. We are all beautiful, something that is easier to see when we aren’t relying on an external source to define beauty and value, when we are able to look inside ourselves and another and see and appreciate all of them.