How to Embrace Your Age: Advice from a Psychologist

Accepting yourself and your age, objectively evaluating your strengths and weaknesses, recognizing your virtues, and acknowledging your mistakes are essential parts of a conscious attitude toward yourself. This, in turn, directly affects your inner state and overall mental well-being.

Psychologist Natalia Vovk, director of the Center for Tomalogy – a center for self-discovery and development – spoke exclusively with VITAGURU about how to embrace your age and why this issue resonates so deeply with many of us.

“A lot is connected to the body — its beauty and age. On one hand, we may take our body and appearance for granted, as it has been with us since birth and will always be. On the other hand, the body allows us to take action; its attractiveness can help us stand out, find a suitable partner, have children, and so on.

That’s why we have the same expectations and fears toward our body, its appeal, and aging as we do toward our intellect, personality, and abilities,” the psychologist explains.

Everything a person deems important is constantly monitored by their mind. Periodically, the mind “checks” whether their achievements align with their life plan.

“It’s great when reality matches expectations. But if it doesn’t, we can start to push ourselves harder, striving for some imagined perfection — because there’s still so much to do, and time is running out,” the expert continues.

Our attitude toward age changes over time.

In childhood, a child doesn’t care about age — they just want to grow up. In adolescence, people in their 30s or 40s may seem ancient. Between the ages of 25 and 35, people often don’t think much about aging and try to make the most of their energy and potential. But the “first signs” of age-related concern start to appear, along with questions about life partners, parenthood, self-realization, health, and aging.

“Closer to 40, people go through a midlife crisis — and that’s completely normal. During this time, deep values are re-evaluated and replaced, and a person needs to change accordingly. However, this period of rethinking can drag on because we often resist the inevitable — age, and the changes it brings to every area of life.

A person may enter a phase of feeling like ‘everything has already happened, and nothing more will come.’ This can be frightening and lead to avoidance behaviors that harm both physical and mental health,” Natalia Vovk explains.

These crises don’t only happen at 40 — they occur at other times too, though perhaps less dramatically. But the core issue remains: a need to change our approach to ourselves and to life.

“We may continue trying to improve our bodies, become overly concerned with preserving youth, and even develop an obsession with our appearance — because we associate it with getting what we want from life,” the psychologist adds.

You can choose to accept your life, your age, and your body right now. And this is where your energy should go.

“To avoid mental traps and painful experiences related to age, we need to start learning how to interact with ourselves properly: to distinguish between projections and reality; to process events by synthesizing experience; to avoid projecting past failures onto the future; to develop a more holistic perception of reality; and to ‘clean up’ our goals so that they are realistic and achievable, rather than just hanging as abstract expectations,” the expert advises.

The most important thing — don’t postpone life!

“Each moment in life is unique. And it’s a shame if we miss it — not because we weren’t physically there, but because we were lost in thoughts, projections, or desires. Something is always happening around us and within us. We must be conscious and present in our own lives in order to fully receive the gifts of every season of life,” the psychologist emphasizes.