§ We came to this world to LIVE OUT LOUD!

Today I Turn 50!

Dec 8, 2020
Today, I am half-a-century old! And I’m excited about it!
As you read this, I’m celebrating my birthday with close friends (in a socially distanced, responsible way outdoors) at a beautiful retreat center in Colombia. I’ve just been honored at a wisdom circle by a group of wise, generous, loving women.

We sat in circle on a gorgeous deck overlooking the Andes Mountains and shared with each other our joys and sorrows. We wrote down the sorrows and burned then. We wrote out our joys and kept them to always be reminded of all of the abundance in our lives.

I feel so grateful for my health, my loving family, my consciousness-seeking marriage, my three daughters, my parents who are still alive, my dear friends who are spread out over five continents, my life’s work which allows me to be of service to over 20,000 women around the globe, the adventures that have taken me all over the world and to you, for being a part of my tribe!

I feel grateful for nature, for abundance, for moments of laughter and for the tears – all the parts of this beautiful and sometimes heart breaking life!

At 50, I feel beautiful, powerful and strong. My body is healthy (with some minor aches and pains) and my spirit is joyful and excited for the next 50 years!

Sure, I see my wrinkles and the few extra inches around the middle but I just smile and say to myself, “Signs of a life well lived! Hopefully another half-a-century to go.”

I have come a long way! 

I have had an issue with getting older from the time I was nine years old.

My pragmatic Soviet engineer mom, who didn’t usually show much emotion, was very sad about me not being a little girl anymore and she made comments about it all the time. I remember trying to act younger than I was and ask her questions I already knew the answers to just so I could still be her baby.

I was eleven years old when my mother turned thirty-two and I still remember her scrutinizing her face in the mirror, lamenting the new wrinkles that were appearing.

And don’t even get me started on when she turned forty. She laid in bed “depressed” all day despite the big party that had been planned for her that evening.

Add to that a huge number of serious health issues in my family which led to comments like….

“It’s all downhill after 40. Just wait until you turn 50, everything is going to go. Once you hit 60, just forget it. You will be an old woman.”

My role models for aging weren’t great.
I cried when I turned twenty because I wasn’t a teenager any more. (My college roommates still laugh about it!)
Thirty was tough. I was married and contemplating having kids. I noticed a few gray hairs and pretty much freaked out.
By forty, I had done about two decades of personal growth work and I felt pretty darn good in my own skin. Age was just a number. Plus, I had just given birth to my youngest daughter and I was way too sleep deprived to care about my age.
And now I’m fifty and I love it!

The wisdom I’ve gained and the inner peace I feel are worth the wrinkles and gray hair, which society tells me makes me unattractive.

I feel pretty darn attractive… and I’m lucky enough to have a husband who reminds me of that often.

I wouldn’t want to live my 20’s or 30’s again. My 20’s were very painful as I struggled to heal from a traumatic childhood and uncover my own voice.

My 30’s were full of insecurity (as I embraced motherhood not having had the role model that I needed), the desire to please others and caring way too much what other people though. Although I appeared calm and like I had it all together, on the inside I was often riddled with anxiety.

My 40’s is when I really came into myself. Sure, there have been struggles and some ailments, not to mention those pesky perimenopausal symptoms until I learned how to balance my hormones. But the wisdom gained, the sense of feeling good in my skin, the gratitude I have for my life are all priceless.
As far as I’m concerned, LIFE JUST GETS BETTER WITH AGE.
And what I’ve learned from interviewing nearly a hundred women over the past couple of years for my Extraordinary Life After 40 Summits is that as long as we take care of our bodies, minds and spirits, life just gets better and better.

We women just get better with age.

I so believe this and am so passionate about it that I’ve decided to devote my next decade to being an advocate for being an Ageless Woman.

What I mean is that I’m tired of male-dominated society defining what’s young and what’s old. What’s relevant and what’s irrelevant. What’s beautiful and what’s not.
What I’m interested in is how can we all, regardless of our biological age, be healthy, happy and fully alive?
How can we find joy in the everyday and feel fully comfortable in our own skin?
How can we make the contribution we want to make to the world? To live our passions and our purpose fully?
How can we live with an open heart, allowing the magnificence and the sorrows of life to make us more kind and compassionate?
How can we cultivate wisdom and inner peace so that we face every moment with gratitude for the lessons we are receiving?
It’s been said that we teach what we need to learn and I’m really excited about that too!
I know that as I delve deeper into the questions I just posed, I too will live the answers more fully.

And I invite you to ask yourself these questions and to live the answers with me. Let’s support and inspire each other and all the women we know in being ageless!

You know I love to hear from you so feel free to leave a comment below or get in touch.

Happy Tuesday!

 xoxo,

Natalie

 

P.S. What if 2021 could be the best year of your life?

You’ve wanted to live a passionate life for years. You’ve wanted to find your purpose. You’ve wanted to create an extraordinary life.

Yet you’ve watched the years go by with nothing really changing.

And now there’s a pandemic going on.

So here’s how I see it – you can sit around worrying about your present circumstances or an uncertain future or you can take charge of your life and make 2021 the year that you finally start living the life you’ve always dreamed of (Yes! Even in these challenging times!)

To help you do that and as a thank you for being in my tribe, I want to give you a special gift – an invitation to my absolutely FREE Masterclass: Live Your Passion & Purpose (regardless of circumstances) in 2021!

You can attend it live on:

Thursday, December 10th at 8:30 pm Eastern time (NYC)

OR

Friday, December 11th at 1:30 pm Eastern time (NYC)

In this masterclass, you’ll:
• Learn my simple yet effective 7- step process to uncover your passion & purpose and the 5 key habits to create an extraordinary life
• Gain clarity on your passions, purpose and life vision
• Uncover what would make your life a “10” in every area
• Identify what’s getting in the way of creating what you want in your life so you can stop the self-sabotage
• Learn the #1 way to become easily inspired and motivated to take consistent action throughout the year
• Walk away with a concrete plan to start living your passion & purpose

If you join us for the live class, you will be able to ask me questions and get answers or mini-coaching right then and there.

But even if you can’t join the class live, you will still get the link to the video recording and benefit from my tools and strategies to live your passion & purpose in 2021!

Sign up for the masterclass here!

Let’s make this the year that you start creating your extraordinary life!

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10 Comments

  1. Maha
    Maha on December 9, 2020 at 05:46

    Happy Birthday Natalie! My best wishes to you and your family for this upcoming year. You don’t look 50 AT ALL! I guess this is because your heart is so young, for it’s always looking for the next inspiration and the next contribution.

    Reply
    • Natalie Matushenko
      Natalie Matushenko on December 9, 2020 at 15:05

      Thanks Maha for your heartfelt wishes! I try to stay young-at-heart by following my passions and living life on my own terms.

      Reply
  2. Evelyn
    Evelyn on December 8, 2020 at 21:24

    Hi Natalie,
    You have no idea how much this honest post resonated with me. You and I shared similar childhood experience and fears. I dreaded my 20th birthday. (Yeah, I laugh now, too.). I admire your bravery and recovery.

    You are beautiful.

    Happy Birthday!

    Reply
    • Natalie Matushenko
      Natalie Matushenko on December 9, 2020 at 15:07

      Hi Evelyn! Thanks so much for reaching out. Good to know I’m not the only one who mourned “no longer being a teenager”. It feels great to feel better at 50 than at 20. How’s your recovery coming along?

      Reply
    • Kath
      Kath on December 15, 2020 at 12:18

      Happy 50th Birthday Natalie!
      Better late than never 🙂
      How amazing you look!
      You might not have had a good role model, but you are definitely one for the ageless woman. That’s worth celebrating. Hope you marked this milestone inspite of the circumstances. I’m 50 next May and am embracing an ageless lifestyle and am also looking forward to another 50 years. You are an inspiration.

      Reply
  3. Amanda
    Amanda on December 8, 2020 at 19:33

    Power on Natalie!
    I’m feeling inspired after reading that!

    Reply
  4. Dimitra
    Dimitra on December 8, 2020 at 17:18

    I loved this text, Natalie, love to be in your tribe, sharing the journey to become an ageless wise woman 🙂
    Lots of hugs and love, Dimitra

    Reply

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