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Originally posted at: Ariana Madix’s Blue Embellished Shirt Dress

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I’m putting it out there. I am having issues with growing old. They say there are certain age bands when you feel the process of aging. Right now, at age 61, I am currently in one of those bands.

I recently had dinner with a former colleague turned friend. We have known each other for 34 years (gasp). Of course, we spoke about our time at our former employer and what it was like to embark on a professional career as a single woman in our 20s. I can’t help but wish I could return to that energetic, ambitious woman from the 1980s and bottle up just a little bit of the excitement, energy, and outlook my younger self had in abundance.

How did I get this old so fast? That is a question I constantly ask myself. I have no rational answer. All I can say is that age creeps up on you and you have very little control. Being a control freak, I have a problem with this. I try to regulate everything, but there are just some things you can’t, and aging is at the top of that list.

Aging Is a Privilege, But…

Yes, I know growing older is a privilege. Trust me, I know. My mother died in her early 60s, and I am trying really hard to outlive her age. I keep my mind and body active, but what is truly frustrating to me is my mind and body don’t want to be as active as I would like them to be. That’s the hard truth about aging.

I do a variety of exercise: dance, strength train, stretch, run. Most disheartening for me is that what I was capable of accomplishing just a couple of years ago, is not what I am able to accomplish now. My pace has slowed, my stamina has decreased, certain dance steps don’t come to me as easily as they used to, and let’s not even discuss remembering things, or lack thereof. I know I have to accept these changes and listen to my body when it is telling me to stop. But, boy, do I hate that feeling.

There are so many people on social media discussing how to age gracefully, and how 60 is the new 30. (This includes pieces I have written myself.) But today, I call bull shit and I thought it was about time I penned a piece to dig a little deeper into the psyche of aging. Underneath taking all the vitamins, walking the correct number of steps, and doing all the things a middle-aged woman is supposed to do; there is a person who longs to feel better. That’s what I want to talk about here.

The Truth About Aging

I admit that I found my 50th birthday very liberating. It was as though a switch went on that gave me confidence and I started to really focus on what makes ME tick. Along with this newfound freedom, there was also a side of me that began to struggle with physical activity. I became slower, less limber, etc., particularly toward my late 50s, early 60s. I grew tired more easily and couldn’t quite keep pace with the activities I had been enjoying. This was the first time when I realized, “Ah… this is what aging must feel like.”

Yes, indeed, this is what aging feels like. While it’s not all doom and gloom, it can be a real challenge and it’s time we started talking about it. So, here goes…

Let’s Talk About It

Walking into a room and forgetting why you are there is common, as is weight gain, vaginal dryness, dwindling energy, thinning hair, and crepey skin. And, that’s just the start. Insomnia, hot flashes, a decrease in bone density, are a few more lovely qualities in a long list of physical signs. Trust me, growing old as a female is not for the faint of heart.

For some reason, this harsh change in physicality somehow gets buried under all the beautiful images of women in their 60s enjoying their “autumn years”; a tag line that makes it feel like you are easily transitioning from one season to the other, the leaves are pretty, and all is tranquil with the world.

I am a half-glass-full kind of gal, and there are some things about growing older that is pretty nifty: no more monthly periods, a sense of liberation, senior discounts, a focus on YOUR needs, and a general sense of not caring what others think. However, there is a sense of loss of your younger self, and it is okay to mourn for that young lady.

What I have found intriguing is that while one is focusing more on themselves in these later years, when asked “how are you,” we aging women tend to talk about the accomplishments of our children and grandchildren. When did WE stop achieving things on our own?

We Don’t Become Invisible

As women, we have a tendency to put others’ needs ahead of our own and, while it is true that as we have gotten older, we are focusing more on ourselves than we used to, it is still in the context that others take priority. We often hear about the “sandwich” generation – caught between raising children and taking care of our parents. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for us! This has to change and the picture of aging needs to change as well.

Admittedly, I didn’t realize there were going to be all these fluctuations and complications when I entered my golden years. None of the advertisements and lifestyle magazines mentioned this, nor did my high school health teacher. It was this rude awakening that made me realize more discussion must take place amongst women, for women.

Our physical and emotional changes shouldn’t be a mystery. In truth, maybe if I was better informed, I wouldn’t have such an issue with growing older; and the title of this essay would be something completely different. I hope this can be a start of a conversation so women in the future will view aging as just another part of the journey for which you prepare. Just as our teenage selves prepared for puberty, we should be aware of all the transformations that we will be experiencing as we enter our menopausal years. I’m advocating for less mystery and more knowledge. After all, knowledge is power.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Were you prepared for menopausal changes? How do you generally feel about aging? How can we better educate young women about what is ahead?

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Many women over 60 tell us something similar. Nothing dramatic happened, yet life feels different. Days feel quieter. Routines have shifted. The roles that once filled the calendar now take up less space.

This kind of change is easy to overlook. However, it can still feel deeply personal. If you sense this quiet shift, you are not alone.

Why Quiet Life Changes After 60 Can Feel Unsettling

After decades of raising families, supporting others, and building full lives, many women expect later years to feel settled.

Instead, life can feel oddly unstructured.

Children become independent. Careers slow or end. Friendships change as people relocate or face health challenges.

These changes often arrive without clear markers. Because of that, they can be hard to name. Many women ask the same question: “Why do I feel unsettled when everything seems fine?”

You Have Permission to Acknowledge This Shift

Feeling unsettled does not mean something is wrong. It does not mean you lack gratitude or purpose. It means you are adjusting to a new season.

Women over 60 are often expected to be content and adaptable. That expectation leaves little room to acknowledge inner change.

You are allowed to pause. You are allowed to reassess what matters now. You are allowed to move gently rather than decisively.

Quiet transitions are still real transitions.

What Many Women Over 60 Are Noticing

In conversations with women across different places and backgrounds, similar patterns appear:

• A sense of drifting rather than choosing
• Less structure in daily life
• Feeling less visible than before
• A desire for meaning without pressure

These experiences are common. They are not signs of decline. They often reflect a natural shift from external roles toward a more inward sense of alignment.

Responding to Quiet Change Without Pressure

You do not need a big plan. You do not need to reinvent yourself. Small steps often create the most clarity.

Begin by noticing what restores your energy. Pay attention to what quietly drains it. Try small experiments. New routines. New interests. New connections. Many women find that clarity comes not from action, but from attention.

Moving Forward with Compassion and Choice

Life after 60 is not about closing doors. It is about choosing which ones still matter. When you stop forcing yourself to show up in ways that no longer fit, space opens.

Not loudly. Not all at once. But steadily.

This stage of life often asks quieter questions: Who am I now? What feels meaningful at this pace?

Many women find it helpful to explore how these quiet transitions show up in daily life, especially as routines and roles continue to evolve.

If you sense this quiet change, trust it. It is not asking you to become someone new. It is inviting you to live with greater honesty.

Author Note

This article grew out of listening to women over 60 reflect on subtle life changes that are rarely discussed.

These observations are not meant to guide or instruct.

They are offered as recognition of a shared experience and as reassurance that quiet transitions can carry depth, dignity, and possibility.

Let’s Talk:

Which of the quiet changes after 60 caught you unawares? How are you dealing with those changes? How have they affected your life?

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I’ve been in the fitness industry long enough to see trends rise, peak, and quietly disappear. High-intensity boot camps. CrossFit. Workouts designed for a younger audience but marketed to women of all ages. I’ve watched each one arrive with enormous promise and leave behind a trail of sore joints, discouragement, and women who quietly concluded that maybe exercise just wasn’t for them.

That conclusion, more than any workout, is what I’ve spent my career working against.

What the Industry Kept Getting Wrong

For years, the narrative in fitness was simple: work harder, burn more, push through. Workouts were built around calorie output and intensity metrics, with little attention paid to how a body actually moves – or to the long-term cost of moving it badly.

What this approach missed was joint health, movement quality, and the reality that chronic stress on an aging body doesn’t build it up – it wears it down. The ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality, poor alignment, repetitive strain – women feel these consequences every day, in their knees, their hips, their lower backs. They’re the reasons so many women hit their 50s and 60s feeling like exercise is something their bodies can’t cope with.

The fitness industry wasn’t designing programs for these women. It was designing programs for younger bodies and hoping the marketing would do the rest.

What I Actually Saw Work

Over time, a different pattern emerged – and it had nothing to do with intensity.

The women who stayed strong, mobile, and pain-free into their 60s and 70s weren’t the ones who pushed hardest. They were the ones who stopped trying to. They found movement they could sustain, showed up consistently, and built strength slowly enough that it actually held.

I’ll be honest: this challenged some of my own assumptions. Early in my career (like most women) I believed effort was the variable that mattered most. What I kept observing was that quality of movement was the difference that mattered most. Alignment. Control. Awareness of how the body was actually working, rather than just how hard it was working. This is Pilates.

What Pilates Actually Is (Because It’s Not What Most People Think)

Let me address the misconception directly, because I hear it often: Pilates is NOT stretching. It’s not just ‘a core workout’. It is not gentle in the sense of being easy. And it is absolutely not just for dancers or the young and flexible.

Pilates done well is strength training – it just happens to be joint-friendly and precise enough to retrain how your body actually moves. It builds the deep stabilizing muscles that protect the spine and hips. It corrects the compensation patterns that develop over decades of desk work, stress, and movement habits we never questioned. It is retraining our muscles as much as it is fitness.

What makes it uniquely suited to women over 60 is that it meets the body where it actually is, rather than demanding it perform or “push through” just to keep up.

If you’ve never tried Pilates, this short practice is a good place to start – no equipment and beginner friendly.

The Women Who Changed My Mind Completely

Nothing has shaped my thinking more than watching the women in my own online studio.

Some of my most consistent, most capable members are women in their late 50s and 60s who would tell you, without hesitation, that they were never “exercisers.” They didn’t have a fitness background. They hadn’t done sport or gym routines for most of their adult lives. They found Pilates – sometimes by accident, sometimes out of desperation after an injury – and something shifted.

Several of these women have now been practising Pilates two to three times a week for more than five years. Not because anyone pushed them. Not because they set aggressive goals. But because for the first time, movement felt like something their bodies could do rather than something being done to them.

That, I’ve come to believe, is the only metric that actually predicts long-term success: does this feel sustainable? Does it feel like something you look forward to doing?

What I’d Tell Any Woman Starting Now

Stop chasing the workout that promises the most. Start looking for the one you’ll still be doing in five years.

Consistency outlasts intensity every time. A practice you return to twice a week for years will do more for your strength, your balance, your bone density, and your confidence than any program you burn out on in six weeks.

You don’t need to earn the right to move well. You don’t need to have been athletic your whole life. And you don’t need to suffer through exercise that doesn’t suit your body to prove that you’re taking your health seriously.

The women I’ve watched thrive aren’t the ones who worked hardest. They’re the ones who finally found movement that felt good – and kept showing up.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What do you imagine when you hear the word Pilates? Have you tried it? What other practices have you tried and did any of the stick?

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Originally posted at: Dorit Kemsley’s Black Belted Trench Coat

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For most of your adult life, the answer to that question was simple.

Your money came from a paycheck.

You showed up. You worked. You were paid. Taxes were taken out. Benefits were deducted. And what was left landed in your bank account like clockwork. There was a rhythm to it.

In retirement, that rhythm changes.

The money doesn’t disappear. But it no longer arrives in the same way. And even when you’re financially prepared, that shift can feel surprisingly unsettling.

Retirement Income Doesn’t Vanish – It Changes Shape

One of the biggest misconceptions about retirement is that income somehow stops when work ends.

In reality, it usually becomes layered.

For example, someone might receive:

• $2,400 per month from Social Security
• $1,200 per month from a pension
• $2,000 per month from IRA withdrawals

That’s about $5,600 per month, or roughly $67,000 per year.

It may not look like a traditional salary anymore, but it’s still income. It’s just coming from different places.

Instead of one employer providing it, several sources now work together. Understanding that structure often brings more calm than people expect.

Some Income Is Steady, Some Requires You to Decide

In retirement, income typically falls into two categories.

There’s steady income – like Social Security or a pension – that shows up each month once you claim it.

And then there’s income that depends on you making decisions.

If someone needs $60,000 per year to live comfortably and steady sources provide $42,000, the remaining $18,000 must come from investments.

That gap isn’t a problem. It’s simply part of the design.

But it does require intention.

You’re no longer just receiving income. You’re directing it.

That shift alone can make retirement feel heavier than expected.

What Happens When You Start Withdrawing?

Many people worry that once withdrawals begin, their portfolio will steadily shrink until it’s gone.

That’s usually not how it works.

A common starting guideline is withdrawing around 4% in the first year. If someone has $750,000 invested, 4% would be about $30,000.

The rest of the portfolio stays invested. It continues to grow or fluctuate, depending on how it is invested, and support future income.

The goal isn’t to spend everything down quickly. It’s to create income that can last 25 or even 30 years.

Of course, 4% isn’t a rule carved in stone. Some people withdraw less. Some withdraw more. It depends on lifestyle, health, age, and comfort with risk.

But having a framework can make the process feel less mysterious.

A Simpler Way to Picture It: The Bucket Approach

For some retirees, it helps to stop thinking of their portfolio as one large number and instead imagine it in “buckets.”

Each bucket serves a different time horizon.

Bucket 1: Short-Term Needs

This bucket contains one to three years of living expenses held in cash or conservative investments.

If annual spending is $60,000, that might mean setting aside $60,000 to $180,000 for stability. This money isn’t meant to grow aggressively. It’s there so market swings don’t affect next year’s income.

Bucket 2: Intermediate Needs

Here you place funds intended for the next three to five years. Often invested more conservatively – perhaps in bonds or bond funds – this bucket gradually refills the first one.

Bucket 3: Long-Term Growth

Money not needed for five years or more. This portion may remain invested in equities to help support growth and offset inflation.

Dividing assets this way doesn’t increase the total amount you have. But it can change how retirement feels.

When markets fluctuate, you know your immediate income isn’t tied to those daily headlines.

That kind of clarity can be powerful and liberating.

Taxes Still Matter in Retirement

Retirement doesn’t mean taxes disappear. In fact, taxes often become more layered in retirement, especially once required withdrawals begin.

Different income sources are taxed differently.

Social Security may be partially taxable depending on overall income. Traditional IRA and 401(k) withdrawals are generally taxed as ordinary income. Roth withdrawals, if qualified, are usually tax-free. Brokerage accounts may create capital gains in addition to income tax.

Two people withdrawing the same $60,000 per year could owe very different amounts in taxes depending on where that money comes from.

So “Where does your money come from?” isn’t just philosophical. It affects efficiency, too.

The Bigger Shift Is Psychological

During your working years, income was external. An employer generated it.

In retirement, income becomes internal. It comes from assets you built over decades.

That can feel empowering. It can also feel heavy.

But when you step back and see the full picture – steady income, flexible withdrawals, time-based buckets, tax layers – it often feels steadier than it first appears.

The money is still coming in.

It’s just coming from different places.

A Few Questions to Reflect On:

Do you feel clear about where your money comes from now? Does one source feel more secure than the others? Have you ever taken the time to map it all out in one place? And perhaps the most important question – does your income structure give you peace of mind?

I’d truly love to hear how this feels for you. Retirement looks different for everyone, and the more we talk about it, the less mysterious it becomes.

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