The Liz Moody Podcast - I Want To Enter My Crone Era, But Society Won't Let Me

Starting point is 00:00:00 I have been glued to the Practical Magic 2 Press tour. You have Sandra Bullock. You have Nicole Kidman. They're doing all these fun interview segments. And the overall conversation online is very much about, one, how cute their chemistry is, because it is adorable. They are so charming together. But two, their age.

Starting point is 00:00:16 Sandra Bullock is 62 years old. Nicole Kidman is 59 years old. Both of them look like they are maybe in their early 40s. They look significantly younger than their ages. They have almost no visible wrinkles. They have zero visible gray hairs. Their bodies are incredibly fit and toned. And on one hand, you have people in the comment section who are like, yes, tell me what they're doing, what's their secret?

Starting point is 00:00:40 They look incredible. I'll have what they're having. But there's another type of comment that I've noticed in these comment sections, which is, why are we not allowing women to age? I'm tired. I would have thought that by my 60s, I would not still be having to perform beauty in this way. I saw one comment that said, I'm ready to enter my crone era. When am I allowed to enter my crone era?

Starting point is 00:01:08 So that is what we're going to be talking about today. Welcome to the Liz Moody podcast where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing. And we help you figure out how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. When the first practical magic movie came out, the witchy ants were played by Stockard Channing and Diane Weist. Stockard Channing was 54 years old in that movie, and Diane Weist was 50 years old in that movie, and they both look like witchy aunts. They look significantly older than Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock look on this press tour.

Starting point is 00:01:45 Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock are 10 years older than Stockard Channing and Diane Weist were when the first movie was filmed, and they probably look 10 years younger. In the first movie, the aunts had graying hair. had visible wrinkles. Even the way they were styled, they were wearing like these flowing clothes, they were wearing cardigans, they were in their witchy power. And that was celebrated as a good thing. This was not viewed as a bad thing at all. This was just typically how women of that age looked at that time. And also like leaning into the witchiness of it all, which was really, really fun. And I just turned 40 and I feel that exhausted commenter so deeply, I am tired already of having to perform

Starting point is 00:02:36 beauty to be given opportunities to be taken seriously by society and picturing myself doing this in 20 more years feels exhausting. When I was growing up, I thought that there was going to be an opportunity to feel free from that stuff. And it really does not seem like there is now. And look, beauty has always had real societal advantages. I've looked into this a lot because I keep wanting to do an episode that's like, pretty privilege isn't real or we don't need to be always performing beauty or chasing beauty, et cetera. We're better off without it. And unfortunately, the research is pretty clear, with one big, big, big exception that we're going to get into in a little bit. But unfortunately,

Starting point is 00:03:21 performing beauty does come with some very real benefits. People who are attractive report higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness. And that's thought to be largely because the hotter that you are, the easier life gets. You get more money, you get better jobs, you attract higher earning partners, so you just have more financial stability. People are nicer to you if you are attractive. In general, the more attractive that you are, the less friction that you feel in your everyday life. Things just go more easily for you. Although there are two caveats to that. One, really hot people actually have higher divorce rates and shorter marriages because they have other options and they know that they have other options.

Starting point is 00:04:05 So when they hit a rough patch, they're like, well, I could just go find somebody else and they often do. They are much less likely to stick something out. And then two, extremely beautiful people. And I have experienced this with actors, I know, with models I know, with people are sort of paid in a way for how beautiful they are. They often feel both more afraid of aging and more out of control in their lives in general. They realize that their success comes from something that they did not put work into, something that they were just sort of granted this genetic blessing of.

Starting point is 00:04:44 and this makes them feel like they don't have control over the direction that their life goes. Everything great in their life feels like it's coming from this thing that was not due to their conscious skill development or effort, which makes it feel much scarier. It makes it feel like they don't have the power to change their life, which makes it really scary as you age and that thing shifts in terms of how society views it. But I am very sorry to have to report for the most part. If you are prettier, you are happier because life goes. more smoothly for you. But here's where it gets interesting. There's research that shows that for men,

Starting point is 00:05:21 being born naturally attractive, boosts your income. But for women, natural beauty did not matter as much compared to grooming. Spending a lot of time and money on your hair and your makeup and looking put together was the thing that translated into more success, more money. And this is where the big problem comes in because 20 or 30 years ago, our options for grooming for the vast majority of people, unless you wanted pretty obvious-looking plastic surgery, it was to dye your hair and put on some makeup. But now we can take GLP-1s. We can get lasers that remove sun damage. We can botox away our wrinkles. We can get hair extensions. We can get undetectable plastic surgery. And so, as the possibilities for beauty have shifted, the expectations of performing that beauty have shifted. And here's that big exception

Starting point is 00:06:17 around the idea that being beautiful makes you happier that I mentioned, I would say, earlier. There's this idea of a hedonic treadmill, right? We adjust quickly to the pleasures of our life. We move into our dream house, and very quickly that house just becomes the place where we eat dinner and watch TV and we want another better house. This happens in all facets of our life. It is a very well-established psychological phenomenon. And if we are purchasing beauty, it can happen very quickly there. The beauty makes you happier, except it puts you on the hedonic treadmill where you feel like you need more and more and more of it to be happy.

Starting point is 00:06:56 And in this world where you can buy youth and you can buy beauty, it's also become a class signifier because it's really expensive to buy all this stuff. If you look your age, society just assumes that you cannot. afford to look younger. On top of all of this, we used to value this idea of the village elder, of the wisdom accumulated with age in a way that we've really lost. Now we have access to so much information, so many stories, and wisdom has become something that we look to the collective for. Like, oh, this has 10,000 five-star reviews. Not one person with a whole lot of life experience says that this is the best thing. We never had access to 10,000 five-star reviews before,

Starting point is 00:07:43 and so we would look to the person who had the most experience in that thing to say, okay, stamp of approval, or this is what I've learned over time. As we've had more and more of that collective access, we've decreased the value of the individual perspective of the wisdom accumulated over time. We've literally decreased the value of being the village elder, of being the crone, like the inherent goodness of the crone, we have decreased the value of. And if we strip older women of their intellectual value, of their earned wisdom through the years, that puts more importance on retaining social value by clinging to physical youth and beauty. And nobody is immune to this.

Starting point is 00:08:27 20-year-olds are getting Botox, 30-somethings, or getting facelifts. One of my life mottos that I say all of the time on this show is your body is for living, not looking. But when your opportunities and your options are dictated by the way that you look, you literally get access to more living by performing looking a certain way. Did you know that the average half life of caffeine is five hours? Meaning if you drink a coffee or matcha at 3 p.m., you still have half of that caffeine in your system five hours later when you try to go to bed, which delays your melaton. and release and it makes it harder to fall asleep and get deep sleep. But I also get slumpy in the afternoon, which is why it's a perfect time to reach for AG1. When I drink it, I feel instantly more awake, with no jitters and no impact on my sleep later. Ag1 is a foundational nutrition drink designed to support

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Starting point is 00:10:21 OCD is so misunderstood and it is nothing like the stereotypes about being organized or really any of the portrayals that you see in mass media. It's a condition where unwanted, distressing thoughts called intrusive thoughts get stuck on repeat, often about the people or things that you care about the most. And then you feel driven to do mental or physical behaviors like seeking reassurance or avoiding situations just to get some relief. While I love traditional therapy,

Starting point is 00:10:42 it's not actually what works best for OCD, which can leave a lot of people feeling stuck, and then that can lead to depression, and I say that very much from personal experience. The good news, though, is that OCD is highly treatable with the right specialized care. What works is ERP therapy, which stands for exposure and response prevention.

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Starting point is 00:11:42 I've been drinking element every single day for literally years. I usually use one packet a day, but I break it up and I kind of spike my water throughout the day. So it makes my water taste amazing and it helps me stay consistently hydrated, which for me means more energy, fewer headaches, and way clearer thinking. That's like probably the biggest difference I notice is my brain just works so much better. Research actually shows that you hydrate better when you sip throughout the day instead of chugging all at once. An element makes that so much easier because plain water is honestly so boring and I just will not drink enough of it otherwise. I even use a glass straw because research also shows that you will drink more water if you drink it through a straw.

Starting point is 00:12:20 Right now I'm obsessed with the lemonade salt flavor. It's my favorite hands down. Zach and I fight over who gets the last package that we have. left. Although I also love watermelon, but like lemonade, oh, it's so good. I also love muddling a few raspberries in a glass and then I'll add the lemonade element and then I'll sip it all afternoon or I'll use it as like a fun little moktail. Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix with no fillers, no dodgy ingredients and it delivers a powerful dose of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support real hydration. Electrolite imbalance can cause headaches, fatigue, cramps, and brain fog,

Starting point is 00:12:52 things that so many of us deal with daily. You can get a free eight-count sample pack with any order at drink element.com slash Liz. It is totally risk-free. If you do not love it, they offer no questions-ask refunds. You truly have nothing to lose. Go to drinklm-n-t.com slash Liz. I also want to say that none of us are innocent here. We are all contributing to this way more than we might even be consciously aware of. All of the positive aging accounts on social media are people who look stunning for their age. They're people who are wearing really cool outfits. That dichotomy between their age and how they look is what is grabbing our algorithmic attention and what we are celebrating. We're saying we want to celebrate older people,

Starting point is 00:13:40 but in the same breath, we're saying, but they need to look a certain way for us to celebrate them. I want to talk about the flip side of this for a second, which is that they made a movie with four female stars, and one of them is in her 50s, and one of them is in her 60s. However you slice it, that's literally a win in Hollywood. We are also saying that there's not a time that your ability to feel sexy or hot or dress the way that you want to dress ends. We have hormone replacement therapy. We're saying, yes, you can have amazing sex as you get older. We're saying you don't need to dress a certain way. You don't need to do your hair in a certain way. We're not saying, oh my gosh, you're 65. You shouldn't wear that outfit. Suddenly, that outfit is available to you

Starting point is 00:14:22 in a different way than it used to be. And that's a good thing. We also just know more. We know that heavy lifting is incredibly important for women as they get older and that being strong is an incredibly important part of the longevity conversation. And our bodies reflect that new sense of prioritization. And that is also a really good thing. There's also something to be said for the ability to have your insides match your outsides. It can be disconcerting when you think of yourself and your mental image.

Starting point is 00:14:55 in your head in one way, I think for a lot of us, it's sort of frozen in our 20s and 30s, and then you look in the mirror and what you see doesn't match that. My dad says that he always thinks of himself as a 13-year-old boy, and then he's shocked when he looks in the mirror and he's a 75-year-old man. I think that incongruence between the self that we feel that we are and the self that we see can be disconcerting and it can be disheartening. And the more that we're able to bridge that gap, often that can lead to us feeling better. There's research from Yale University that says that we live 7.5 years longer if we have positive aging beliefs.

Starting point is 00:15:35 That's 7.5 literal years added to our lives. The example that the researcher for the study Dr. Beck Levy gave when I was interviewing her for the podcast was that if you're back hurt and you attribute it to like, oh my gosh, I'm getting older, my back is just going to hurt forever. It's all over for me. you're going to have a very different outcome than if you're like, oh, my back hurts because I did that hard workout or I did that yard work the other day. Of course my back hurts. For some people, having their outsides more accurately reflect how they see themselves and their insides is probably going to help with having those positive aging beliefs that's going to help them literally live 7.5 years longer. So I think there is a real argument to be made that looking younger actually makes you live longer

Starting point is 00:16:19 if, if, if, if, you are a person for whom that congruence of the inside and the outside matters. So we are left with this incredibly uncomfortable, really shitty paradox. When you look at the data, the search for beauty for youth, it's not vanity. It's a very rational, economic, and psychologically sound choice. If Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are going to be able to continue to find success in their industry, by performing beauty in this way. It makes complete sense to do it. If I am going to be listened to more on this podcast

Starting point is 00:16:56 by looking a certain way, I'm probably going to do that. We all have this very deep, very human desire to be seen, to be heard, to be valued. And if the performance of beauty is going to help with that, I'm not going to tell you not to do that. That is crazy. And what is completely rational on an individual level

Starting point is 00:17:19 is creating this collective problem because the more of us that buy into these new beauty standards, the more of the baseline of what is considered normal aging shifts. If now Sandra Bullock is what it looks like to be 62, what does it look like to be 45, to be 35? As a result of that, you have these 22-year-olds getting baby Botox and the witchy aunts from the original practical magic are seen as these older women of a different era as these women who just gave up. I would be lying if I said there was some sort of simple mindset shift that we could use to escape from this very real systemic reality. There is not. It's not that easy. But I do think that we can talk about it. And I do think it's really helpful to say what is happening to bring this conversation out into the light.

Starting point is 00:18:15 I'm not going to tell you to stop getting Botox. I'm not going to tell you to let your graze. grow in, I don't fault people for playing the game of aesthetics and I don't fault people who want their outsides to reflect how their insides feel. I do think it is important to look out for and recognize those moments when we are on the hedonic treadmill and when we're playing a game where there is no winning. Look out for when playing the aesthetic game allows for living more in your body, having more opportunities, feeling more freedom, having more experiences versus detracting from it. Are you spending so much time, so much energy, so much money fixating on this thing that you are living less, or are you doing it to the extent that it's letting you live more? I think that's a

Starting point is 00:19:01 really good way to think about it. That's been very helpful for me. One action step that we can all take immediately is to stop telling women that they do not look their age. When we tell a woman that she does not look her age. We're all implicitly agreeing that looking her age would have been a bad outcome. Oh my gosh, you look so much younger than 62, Sandra Bullock. I said that. I said that in this episode. When in reality, Sandra Bullock is one version of what 62 looks like. And the women that I know who are in their 60s and they've let their gray hair completely grow out and they've never gotten Botox one time in their life, that's also what 62 looks like. We need to make. We need to make room for all of the versions of 62, for all of the versions of all of the ages.

Starting point is 00:19:49 And this includes telling Gen Z that they are aging like milk. We also need to stop doing that. The other thing that I cannot stress enough is that we need to listen to older women. We need to give them spaces to have their voices heard. I'm personally so guilty of this. I'll get advice from older women or they'll want to weigh in on my life. And I'll say, at least in my head, like you don't know what life is like these days. Back in your day, you could buy a house for $5 and AI wasn't coming for your job, et cetera, et cetera. But these women have stories. They have life experience. While the collective wisdom is important, so is the accumulated wisdom over time. We need to platform that so that all women as we age can feel like our voices

Starting point is 00:20:35 matter and like we matter regardless of how we look. At the end of the day, if we want to enter our crone era, we have to realize that nobody is just going to come and give us permission to do it. We live in capitalism. It's just not going to happen. Too many people are making too much money. Although if you want to know how to lean into your authentic beauty, I have a whole episode about the ugly girl era that I can link for you. But that permission ultimately needs to come from you. You need to decide what you value, what your priorities are, and how you want to act free of what you're told that you should be doing. I am so curious what you guys think of this conversation. So let me know in the comments. Do you dye your hair? Do you perform beauty?

Starting point is 00:21:22 What's your line? Like Botox, laser, a facelift? How do you view the role of all of this in your life? And also, are you going to go see practical magic too? Because I am very excited about it. If you haven't yet subscribed to the show, it is free. Please do it on whatever channel you listen or watch on. I am always, always here to help you live your happiest life and to dismantle and analyze the hidden forces that are preventing you from doing that. Subscribing is hands down the best way to support the show and I really appreciate it. Also, if you could send this episode to one woman in your life, maybe somebody that you want to have this conversation with, I think, again, one of our greatest powers here is just bringing these forces from the background dictators of our lives level.

Starting point is 00:22:09 out to the forefront and talking about them with other people in your life is the single best way to do that. And I hope this episode can serve as a really good conversation starter. I love you. I love getting to have these conversations. And I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

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The Liz Moody Podcast - I Want To Enter My Crone Era, But Society Won't Let Me

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