Episode 27 - Skylar Liberty Rose - aging in a patriarchal society

Hi everyone, welcome to Menopause Chats. I am your host, Erin Druska. Today uh we are talking with Skylar Liberty Rose. So thank you so much for being here. And tell us a little bit about yourself and uh and how you help women.

Thank you, Erin. It's such a pleasure to connect with you today. So I am a midlife guide and a pro-aging advocate, and I help women get clear about who they are now and how they want to live. And I do that through customized ceremonies because we have so many transitions and thresholds that we go through in midlife that really don't get acknowledged or honored. And I also do that through personalized meditations, which are called touchstones. So they're designed as daily anchors that help women to stay connected to what's true for them now and what it is they want to focus on rather than all the noise that's out there, which we know is plentiful.

Yes, a lot of noise, which brings me to, I was introduced to your work through the book Midlife Private Parts, where you had an essay. So for those who don't know, it was a book um uh curated by who the ladies call themselves the Dinas. And great book, all of essays written by and for uh women in the sort of perimenopause, menopause plus um era of their lives, and you had an essay in that. So uh that is where I initially was introduced to you. And I love your messaging around pro-aging. I would really love to talk about there's a lot of noise out there.

There really is, and it's relentless, and once you kind of realize, like tune into it in that way, you notice that it's just everywhere. So um, yeah, part of my mission is as a pro-aging advocate is to get women to explore where some of their beliefs around aging, especially visibly aging, come from, and just to get curious about, you know, who stands to benefit from our shame at visibly aging or what our bodies look like as they're changing as we go through perimenopause and menopause or at any point in our lives. And yeah, it's it's quite illuminating once you start to connect the dots, and it's also quite liberating though.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like every time I open up Instagram or Facebook, I'm being marketed either weight, something for weight loss or something for my neck, or you know, although yesterday I just posted because I I'm still getting pimples. And I was like, pick a lane skin. It's either wrinkles or pimples. Like I should not be getting both at the same time. Like just pick one and I'll stick with it. But like literally does not seem uh right that I should have to deal with both at the same time.

But I do this hormonal upheaval in midlife is wild. It's just wild because yeah, it's like, wait a minute, you you know you're not a teenager anymore, but yet you're having some of those kind of like moments of, yeah, like you say, it's like, wait, am I back in puberty? Is this what this is? So it's it can be quite destabilizing to see.

And my favorite random cheek hair. Like I'm just what we're literally not there, and then the next day it's there.

Yeah, yeah. Welcome to midlife.

I know, I know. And I think what I I'm liking now, because I am seeing this as well, and and you're certainly talking about this in your social media channels, around the lies we were fed growing up as Gen X women, uh, around the ideal body type, what you should be doing. And you know, I honestly was I think I started my first diet at 12. Right, you know, and a constant sort of struggle from there. But now starting to as in my midlife, like unpacking that and being like, well, wait a second. And then also being a little bit upset with myself for having wasted so many years trying to be a shape I am not meant to be.

Right.

That is what I was shown is like, this is the ideal, this is what's attractive, this is what, you know, this is where your value is, right?

Absolutely, right. Because as young girls, we're taught that beauty is a currency and that's what's most important. And so many of us, really from gosh, such a tender age, like around puberty, we start to become objectified. Not that we realize that's what's happening at the time, because we're so focused on seeking acceptance, seeking approval, that that's really where our energy goes.

We were trying to think about it.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I mean, that's just a natural human trait to want to get that, you know, approval and acceptance. So I think I think it's really important when we have these illuminations later in life and we do start to connect the dots about where our beliefs came from and who benefits from us believing certain things. I think it's really important that we do it through a lens of compassion, of self-compassion, because I mean, I I think so many of us can look back and think, my goodness, you know, did I really need to be, you know, dieting all those years? Did I need to be tearing my reflection to pieces? Did I need to be uh centering uh the male gaze in everything I did? And uh what could I have done? What might who might I have been if I had invested my energy in different ways? But it's really hard when the dominant narrative and the popular culture is telling you this is what matters, this is who you need to be be, this is how you need to look, to separate yourself from that, which is to separate yourself really from the herd, which as we know is you know, that feels really daunting. That's not what we're wired to do. So I think if we can be as kind and compassionate towards ourselves as possible, that really helps because now if we know better, we can do better. But you know, we we weren't at fault for not knowing before, you know, we we were too young.

Yeah. And now I I really I don't have really any young women in my life, but I do worry about what they're seeing now where things aren't even literally are not even real. So now you're now you're comparing yourself to, you know, when when we were coming up, it was the comparing yourself to yes, things were photoshopped and edited and things like that, but which we didn't always know. I think you know that was coming out a little bit in the like mid to late 90s. But now seeing it's like these aren't even real human images, these aren't even real humans that now people are comparing theirs themselves to. And I I yeah, my heart breaks a little bit around that.

Yeah, and I think every generation has their their kind of struggle in that regard. I mean, for us, it was the magazines, right? You know, I remember so clearly I grew up in London, I didn't move to the US at all, I turned 40, but I imagine that it wasn't too different here. And the magazines used to, I kiss you not, like, circle in red things like cellulite or you know, tummy like pooches or whatever derogatory names they'd give to the body parts. And yeah, highlight it. So that there'll be a picture of a celebrity on a beach, but then they wouldn't just post the like unflattering image, they would circle it and zoom in on it, and then you know, that would be splashed all over the page. So as a young person, you're seeing this and you're absorbing it and thinking, well, that's bad. Obviously, I can't look like that. And yeah, that was our struggle. And now, as you say, it's like, well, is this computer generated? Is this an artificial? Is this a person? Like, you know, and you don't know. So I think I I worry for, and I like to be somebody who stays in the space of hope, not in the space of doom and gloom. But I do worry for future, well, for the generation that is most sort of exposed to this now, like the young, our young people, what does it look like for them in 20, 30 years when they're processing their childhoods, you know, and we can't know that yet. So I think, again, lots of compassion, lots of vigilance, and pushing back on these narratives. It's I think it's important for us as midlife women and for the women who will come after us. And I'm not a parent, I don't have children of my own, but I still feel that each of us gets to contribute to the legacy that we leave. And so I'm I'm always mindful of and you know how I can do that.

Yeah, and that's uh I'm saying I don't have children either, and that's why I was like, I don't really have a lot of young people in my life, but I do kind of like I said, I get kind of um concerned of like what are they seeing and how is that impacting their mental health? And you know, so so yeah, there has to be a better way out there for people. And it's like unfortunate that it's not until you're 40 plus that you start to go, oh, wait a second, was this stuff that I saw real?

I know, right? I know. I also have the the wisdom, the knowledge, the experience that I have now at like 52 back when I really needed it in my 20s, but we still have time, right? We none of us know exactly how much time we have ahead. But I I'm like, well, the the illumination comes when it comes. And then as I say, we we know better, we do better, and we get to shape the culture that we're living in now. And again, yeah, for for those who are coming up after us.

Yeah, and it's always this for me, you know, it is a struggle of like, you know, the I always hold the two perspectives, right? It's like, oh, I know this isn't real. And then I there's it's it's deeply ingrained from you know, from like say childhood, but you know, adolescence at least, you know, sure. I uh you know, it's like dieting at 12 and then uh on and off diets almost my entire life, um, even through into my 40s, and even now my weight's up a little bit, and I'm like struggling of like, do I just accept that like maybe this is the size my body's supposed to be that I've been fighting for so long all of my life, you know. I um I've never, you know, I I joke that I came out of the womb a size 10, a US size 10. And, you know, and then having never had a thigh gap, don't, you know, definitely spent some time with the Thigh Masters from Suzanne Summers when I was younger. And, you know, without any real, you know, sort of result or trying to get flat abs because again, did not, it's not my body type. And I did a good trainer at 20, like in my 20s, I'm not at 20, but like in my 20s, who said, you know, well, let's look at it. Like, tell me about your mom and grandmother's bodies, like tell me, you know, uh about your body growing up and what it looked like. And so she was like, Listen, I'm not gonna tell you you can't have flat abs, but to do that, you're gonna have to essentially eat a very strict diet and you're gonna need to work out a lot. Two things I was not willing to do.

So good for you though.

Yeah, trying to make, you know, I guess amends with my body and being like, all right, this is the body that I have. I named it. I named my little stomach Shirley, no offense to anyone named Shirley. Um, but that was what I I chose and was like, this is, you know, I'm just gonna embrace this because it's it's literally, I joke, like, is always been there for me. Thick and thin, been there. It's like it never doesn't matter how much smaller I am or larger I am, it's it has not, it will not be a flat stomach, probably without a surgical intervention, which again, I'm not willing to do. And right, if there are people who are willing to do that and want to do that, I don't judge. That's that's your own personal decision, but that's not for me.

Yeah, I mean, I always like to say that I challenge the culture rather than criticize the individual. I do think that I think we've kind of walked ourselves back to a point though at the moment where we're so afraid to say anything that might be construed as criticism that sometimes we're just not saying anything at all. And I think, you know, we're seeing some really scary stuff out there in the celebrity world. And I know sometimes people like celebrities are not real life, but they're still people, they're still real humans. Exactly. And they're uh a kind of reference point that so many of us can like universally like point to and just, you know, like there's a shared understanding. And I think with the rising popularity of GLP ones, and again, like you, I'm not interested in shaming people who make choices to use them. It's a conversation between you and your doctor. But I think it's also okay to just look more broadly about this current like resurgence of not that it's ever really gone away, but diet culture obsession, um, which I think unsurprisingly really intersects with anti-aging culture. And it's all about control of our bodies, about having us focus on our appearance in a way that doesn't feel energizing or uplifting to most of us. It's not about embodying or feeling grounded and anchored in our lives, it's really about going back to that, those early values that we soaked up about beauty being a currency. And when you're objectified from puberty onwards, from adolescence onwards, we don't always separate our sense of self-worth from our appearance. And that can, I mean, I I had comments on a recent social media post from somebody who was saying, um, I think it was their mother who was, I don't know if she was in her 80s or something, and still struggling with the idea that her body was too big. And I just thought, oh my goodness, where does this end? You know, because you think you outgrow these um like body hang-ups and self-criticism. And I unless you really approach it intentionally and try to redirect that negative self-talk when it comes up, you could end up being your whole life just feeling like you're not good enough or you don't measure up in the way that you're supposed to. And I I want more for us than that. You know, we deserve more.

Yeah, that's uh I I feel that, right? It's like, oh, I don't want to be that 80-year-old who's still, you know, complaining about Shirley. And, you know, so I'm trying to redirect my own fitness and in lifestyle around, okay, moderate everything in moderation, working out not for a calorie deficit, so I can eat more, because I spent a lot of time doing that. I remember uh when I met my husband, I was I used to run. And I remember a friend of him saying, Oh, you're a big runner, you love running. I was like, No, I like to eat. Like it wasn't that I loved running, I just liked a good burger and fries. Um but the idea too of like now I want to, I want to age in a way that I can be independent, you know, that I can still lift things for myself, that I still have the balance to, you know, uh walk on a cobblestone street if I come across one without falling over. Um, so now for me it's more about that functional fitness, not the aesthetic body look, but like I want to be stronger so that I can go do the things I want as I get older.

Yeah. Which is completely different. And yeah, you're not chasing an ideal, you're thinking about how you want to live and what your quality of life looks like. And I think that you know, that's that's absolutely fine. I mean, it's not that we can't be invested in our health, it's just we we might want to divest from the cultures that are telling us we're not good enough, which is a very different lens to look through.

Yeah. And I see a lot, you know, at least in my social media around the idea of like who who runs the culture, right? Like who's who's controlling the narrative out there? And, you know, if you are distracting women in particular, but also it happens with men, if you're distracting people with focusing on their bodies and how they look and trying to be other things, they're not focusing on all the other stuff.

Right.

So then their energy is, you know, focused on essentially being controlled by a narrative versus maybe fighting that narrative.

Yeah. You know, exactly. And I think because of the way, you know, we live in a capitalist world. And so, although I don't think money is inherently bad, the the machine needs to keep going, right? And so there's, I mean, the beauty industry is billions of dollars, like the um diet culture industry, like same. So there's good reasons why we have this narrative reinforced by repetition, because if we buy into it, like literally buy into it, we we keep these industries afloat. And so, again, I mean, I'm not immune to it. I grew up with the same conditioning as everybody else or most other people, especially women. And I have to, it's like a daily commitment, an ongoing commitment for me to not spiral in self-doubt or low self-esteem as I did for so many years. Um, and choose to redirect and reframe and get curious about, you know, huh, where does that belief come from? That's interesting that I am looking in the mirror right now and being really critical because I have sagging skin here under my chin or like pretty much everywhere else. And I yeah, I just kind of start to get curious about is this belief mine? Do I do I really believe what I'm telling myself in this moment? Or is this just something that I've heard on repeat and seen on repeat over the years? Yeah, yeah.

And and I think that's sort of the work I explore with myself as well. Like, oh, what is this?

You know?

Um, or like, oh, I should have put more sunblock on my chest when I was younger.

Yeah.

I did a really good job on my face, not so much on my hands.

But the thing is, I mean, I don't know if it was the same for you, but again, I'm 52 now. So, you know, 80, well, not so much in the 80s, but in the 90s and early 2000s, I was worshipping the sun and I didn't even tan particularly well, but I'll I would try and I would go to the um tanning salons and use the sun pits. And so of course, and so I see like I have like you know the um evidence of that all over my body, really, and especially this area. So I do sometimes have those thoughts like, oh God, if only I'd known.

Like, because you know, I used to live in California and we lived on a street that had a lot of children, and so there were some young girls and she really liked her dog, so she would stop and talk. And she was probably like a 10 or 11 years old, and they were very fair skinned, like I am. And uh I said to little girls, I'm like, make sure you wear your sunblock. She was complaining, like her mom told her to put sunblock on and was like, trust me, I was like, but I was like, she's probably thinking, okay, lady. And I was like, I hope someday she looks back on this and be like, you know, I had a neighbor once who told me to wear a sunblock. But I was just like, You never know. Things that I would have known when I was younger. Um, but yeah, it's such a it's it is a daily, you as you were saying, it's like a daily conversation you have, you know, at least I have with myself around like, do I want to believe in this? Do I want, you know, and it's in there are days where I might be a little harder on myself about it than others. Yeah, there's some days where I'm like, you know, if this, and then other days where I'm just like, like and I do something about cream, yeah.

I mean, I definitely let, you know, when you have those little daydreams, and I'm like, well, if I knew if I had a fund for this, because you know, some people do, they literally have uh like a plastic surgery fund or a you know, like tweakment fund or whatever. Um, if I had that, and if I had the absolute certainty that nothing could go wrong and you know, I wasn't gonna like not come around from anesthesia or something, would I do it? If I could click my fingers and just change this, would I? And I I kind of like explore that like that fantasy world with myself. And yes, of course it's tempting, but I I always like to believe that I would come back to, but who would it be for? Whose benefit would it be for? And why have we been convinced that the literal act of staying alive is something we should be ashamed of, you know? And I I mean, there is there's so many layers to it, so many intersections, but I think most of us, if not all of us, have lost somebody we love and who has passed before their time or you know, at their time even, and who we'd give anything to have back in our lives. We're so privileged to still be here. And if part of the trade-off of that is that my skin doesn't look like a 20-year-old, because guess what? That was three decades ago, and I'm not supposed to look like that anymore. If part of the trade off is that I have sunspots or cellulite or my skin is sagging and I have these jars and all the things, then I want to find a way to, if not embrace it, at least accept it or not fight it. Because I don't know if I've got another year, five years, like hopefully. Hopefully longer than that, you know, hopefully many more years. But I know I don't want to ever be at a point where I'm looking back and thinking, damn, I wish I just liberated myself from all these ridiculous expectations that don't serve any of us. I wish that I just embraced, you know, my life and seized as many moments as I could. And so that's what really governs me and that that sovereignty feeling like I want to step into my sovereignty. I don't I may have wasted years or spent years absorbing beliefs that weren't kind or compassionate, but I don't have to do that going forward. I can choose to believe different things and I can choose to celebrate myself in a way that I didn't. And when I do that, my 20-year-old something, my teen something gets that wave of healing because they're still in us, right? You know, we still carry those versions of ourselves around with us. And so I think what a beautiful gift to give that past version or those past versions of myself that I couldn't do this for you now, but I can I couldn't do this for you then, but I can do it for you now. So yeah.

And I love that idea too of like sort of that, you know, healing yourself, you know, from from the pat, you know, from your past, right? Like I've, you know, I I have I do journeying and things like that. And so one of the things that in in that I had one where I was like literally talking to the younger version of myself. And in that too, is just like, hey, listen, and you probably can relate having curly hair, you know, growing up with curly hair, not popular, not popular choice. And so many, you know, it was the thing that I one of the things that I got made fun of the most as, you know, growing up as a child, because again, I mean, maybe not as a young child, because I think as a kid, like as a little girl, it's like the Shirley Temple, like people like, oh, it's cute. But then as a teenager, it's like everybody had the straight hair, and that is not I I don't have the and never have had the um patience to straighten my hair and like the upkeep for that. So I've always kept it curly, and now it's the thing that I get complimented on the most, right? So, you know, it's like saying, like, hey, it gets better, right? Like, so I remember in that journey saying, like, you know, like the thing that you were made fun of at this age, like is the thing you get complimented on now the most as an adult.

Yes.

And it's so funny how that just sort of swings around where you're like, where are you people 30, 30 years ago?

But it just shows you as well, I think, I went how it's also transient, like this popular culture that we're aware of now, like, I mean, it shifts. And so if you look back, like before we were born, like different body types were celebrated. And so it's this is just what we're like, you know, focusing on at the moment, and it can change. And so it's even more reason just to lovingly accept ourselves because none of it is real, like none of what's just happens to be a trend. I mean, it's just a passing thing, it's not, it's certainly not um, you know, a marker of how much we're worth or how lovable we are or anything like that.

Well, yeah, and you bring up a good point if you look at art, right? Like so Renaissance art, like in women back then, it's like, oh, it was celebrated to be, you know, bigger and to have fat rolls and bellies because it meant you were prospering, that you had money, you had the ability to eat. Exactly, you know, and then swings around again. And now it's this whole um almost prepubescent culture, you know, that like body type that we're seeing out there, which you know was around in the 90s as well, with that like heroin chic back then. So, you know, a little bit different. And uh, you know, I I remember, gosh, I met like, you know, in even talking about um grooming standards, right? And you know, the Brazilian wax is a popular thing. And I remember when I met my husband, he was like, Oh, like don't ever do that, which is fine because I was never planning on it. Um, but he's like, don't ever do that. He's like, it's a little weird to me because it seems like, and that was the first time that I ever thought about the fact that it was like, Oh, yeah, that's like very, it's very prepubescent. Like it just never occurred to me.

Right.

I just didn't want to go through the pain, quite frankly. Same, same, yeah. Yeah, you know, I just was like, oh, I like it, just never I just never put two and two together. So I I credit him for for his, you know, saying, like, yeah, that's not, I'm not into that.

So Right. And yeah, I mean, I I don't even remember when I first kind of had that awakening that actually shaving the hair under our arms and on our legs and anywhere else is actually like like is it a little bit weird? Like, where does that come from? And so yeah, it it's quite it's quite something to start to connect those dots and realise what we bought into all of these years and what we might choose to opt out of now. And again, I don't I don't think shame is a useful tool for any of us. So if I mean I stopped colouring my hair a year ago and it's it's been a difficult journey because I'm like, it's so dark, I want the grey to come through, but it's not coming through enough yet, and I haven't been this dark in like 20, 30 years, even. So it's uncomfortable for me. I still wear makeup and not as much as I used to, but I still do. I'm still not completely divorced from the beauty standards that I absorbed for so many years. And so I still shave my legs, I still shave under my arms. So it's like, oh, am I a bad feminist because I'm buying into some of this? But if nothing else, I'm having a lot more honest conversations with myself about why I'm doing these things, what's prompting them? As is this action stemming from a space of shame or something else? And so there's this commentary in my head, like most of the time, where you know, sometimes I have to be like, okay, you just switch off from it a little bit now. But I think it's good. It feels good to just to probe and explore. Again, I keep saying curiosity and compassion, but I think it's so important because we didn't do anything wrong just by absorbing the the narrative at the time. You know, it's it's what we just sort of get sucked into, I think. And so um, yeah, it's it's fine to just have these questions now and sit with them in a way that feels a little a little less like criticism and a little more like, ah, that's something that I can get curious about. That's interesting, and yeah, just to see what comes up in that space.

Yeah, and I was just having a uh conversation with a girlfriend about that of like, do we let our hair go or not? You know, and she's she's like, I'm embracing it, I'm doing it. And I'm like, I'm not there yet. I was like, I um I mean I've been coloring my hair for 30 years, so I'm like, I'm not a natural redhead, it just works with my coloring, and I'm just like, yeah, I'm not ready yet. So it's yeah. I was like, and I remember I had an I had an aunt that like dyed her hair until the day she died, you know. So yeah. But it's like I like this color and I still like it. And I'm like, I feel like the gray might do the same thing to my skin that my natural color did. And so it's like, you know what? I'm just gonna for now, this is this is what works.

Exactly. And yeah, and I think I do very much believe in individual choice. And like I say, I really try to challenge the culture. So as long as we're not constantly engaged in behaviors that we are only doing from a space of shame, then you know, like we we do get to have fun and enjoy, you know, life and clothes and makeup. It's it's not that I, you know, I hope nobody ever feels like they have to step away from these things that might bring them pleasure or joy or help them feel good, but you know, just again, getting curious about like, why does that make me feel good? Why do I think this is a flattering angle or this is a good light, or all the other things that we kind of maybe just don't even like, you know, take time to ponder. I think it's yeah, again, it's just we all have our own awakenings and you know, in our own ways. So that's fine.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for uh the conversation today. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you're like, oh, I wanted to I wanted to say this.

Well, no, I just want to keep talking because it's really enjoyable. I feel like I'm just meeting a friend for a good old NASA, as we say it in bed. Um, but no, I yeah, this has just been it's just felt really validating. And I I love the way that your it feels to me, Erin, that your style is definitely one that's non-judgmental, but you do have that curiosity. And I think that um, yeah, it's just I find it really nourishing to have these kinds of conversations. So thank you for having me.

Yeah, well, thank you for being here. And if people wanted to learn more about your ceremonies and meditations, how can they get in touch with you?

Through my website, which is my name, SkylarlibertyRose.com. And I'm also I took a break from Instagram, but I'm back there again, um, just you know, a couple of times a week. Um, and again, that's my name, Skylar Liberty Rose on Instagram.

Awesome. And I'll put that in the show notes too. So if people just want to click on it, they can. So anyway, we will see so much. Yeah, thank you, and thanks for listening. So please like, subscribe, help spread the word about menopause chats, and until next time.