Advice for Women: Ways to Maintain a Healthy Self Image

There's a secret fear many women embrace: they will never be good enough. No matter how hard they try, to stay fit, lose weight, lose the gray, and anything else the world sees as vital to happiness, it's tough to keep up. The psyche suffers. Or does it?

Imagine a world where women 40, 50, and 60 love who they are? Well, imagine no more. Here are a few ways you can drink from the fountain of real happiness. Advice for women who want to maintain a healthy self-image.

Seek Women Mentors With Healthy Bodies
Whether you find women you know or those out in the world, seek to learn from women with healthy bodies. Forget what she weighs and the size of her jeans. How healthy is she? What does she eat to give her skin a glow? Why do her eyes shine? What super foods make her feel super? Let go of the "Dress size equals happiness," mantra. "Health equals happiness." When your body feels good, you'll feel good.

Seek Women Who Welcome the Beauty of Gray
I love to see women "Loving their gray!" It inspires hope! Courage! Timeless beauty! As Jamie Lee Curtis shares, "What am I hiding?" Helen Mirren looks fabulous and we have plenty more mentors embracing the beauty of gray. What does it mean to you? Old and approaching death? Or experience, beauty, and still going strong? I'm loving the latter. When you're tempted to obsess over your roots, call a friend who welcomes the beauty of her gray.

Seek Women With Healthy Minds
Women with healthy minds have a magic ingredient: they know their real value. They understand their world contributions are more important than their physical attributes. Women with healthy minds are solution minded: always searching for ways to enhance the world. Not diet minded. You are more than your hips, hair, and thighs. Make up doesn't make you. Find a woman with a healthy mind and you'll find a woman who's working for a higher good. Connect with women who share interests and causes similar to your own. Gravitate toward women who love discussing solutions and ideas, rather than surface topics or other people. Move your conversations to authentic, real, heartfelt topics. "How can I offer solutions in my community?" Think deeper. Think richer. Spend time with women who have lived and loved a while. They'll have stories, solutions, and smiles to share. Try it. Your life will never be the same.

Whether you are 40, 50, or 60, you can maintain a healthy self-image by realizing your beauty lies in how you feel. When your body feels good, you'll feel good. And, with the support of a mentor, personal, or out in the world, you'll do wonders. You are the only gift of your kind, in this world. The next time your inner voice wonders "Am I good enough?" Don't wonder. Just say, "That's like asking, does the sun really shine?" Of course it does. And, yes, you certainly are.

Copyright 2011. Asia Sharif-Clark. All rights reserved.