Aging Under Pressure: Beauty Standards, Botox, and Self-Acceptance

In this solo mini-episode, Lauren Bernick explores aging under pressure and the impact of beauty standards on women’s self-image. She shares her personal experience with Botox and fillers, not to promote or criticize cosmetic procedures, but to examine how cultural pressure to look young influences our choices.

Lauren reflects on changing her mind and on questioning whether decisions about appearance stem from self-care or societal expectations. She addresses judgment, of ourselves and others, and how comparison fuels insecurity around aging.

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Transcript

Lauren Bernick (00:01.208)
Hi friends. Okay. This is another mini-sode, another little mini-episode in between episodes so that we can just stay in touch. I can just kind of talk about some things that are on my mind. And this has sort of been front and center of my mind, especially doing a podcast called Age Like a Badass Mother. You know, to Botox or not Botox, to fill or not fill, to plastic surgery or not plastic surgery. It comes up a lot.

not on the podcast and that's kind of on purpose, but in my real life, know, I'm a 57 year old woman and if you think that it's doesn't come up or if it's not on my mind, I kind of want to give you my background with this, my experience of it, of what I've done. Like right now, as of right now, I think, I don't think I have anything in, well, I know I don't really have anything in my face. I have not done.

I've done Botox a couple of times, haven't done it in, I did it once several years ago, then didn't do it again for several years. And I always was really on the fence about it because it's a neurotoxin. I don't really want to inject that into my body when I do so much to take care of my body. But then of course, at some point, you know, I was like, all right, let me try it. Did it once or twice and then didn't do it for years. And then

my neighbor who is a dermatological physician's assistant was like, I'll give you some free Botox. And she Botoxed up my head and nothing happened after two weeks. I was like, nothing's happening. I can still, you know, raise my eyebrows and all that. And so she put more in and as she was putting it in, I'm like, I'm really not comfortable with this because you know, they have to start in between your eyebrows with your, it's called your glabella, but

your glabella is your third eye chakra and they're shooting poison into it. And as she was doing that, I was like, man, I really don't think this is for me. And luckily it didn't take and I was like, perfect. This is an out, this is the universe telling me, you don't need to be shooting your head up with toxins. So for me, I'm not judging anybody who does it. I'm just saying for me, I don't think it's a great thing. I did do fillers for a number of years because you know, this is where my, I don't have a ton of wrinkles but,

Lauren Bernick (02:24.907)
you know, my face is a little, I don't want to say anything bad about it, but it's a little saggy. And so for probably five, six, seven years, I did fillers regularly. It's not only putting something in your face that's a foreign substance, but it's expensive. I think I was paying like $1,800 to get it filled. It's supposed to last a year and a half, but I'm going to tell you the truth.

think I have a high metabolism and it never lasted, it maybe last like nine months. And then I'd probably go another nine months without filling it because I was like, that's just too much money. So probably, I would say maybe during the pandemic, I stopped filling my face and I got Sculptra. Sculptra is also an injectable and it but it's just helps your body build

more of the collagen that's already in there. So I thought maybe it was a little more natural. So I got Sculptra, I got that a couple of times, couple years in a row, also expensive. And then about two years ago, I was like, that's it, I'm not gonna, I don't think I'm gonna do this anymore. Again, just so expensive, introducing things into my body that I don't know what they are, even though it was supposed to be a more natural thing. And I'm like, this just kind of goes against everything.

that I think about in the rest of my life, like what is this gonna do to my body? And here I am just feeling so much pressure to put these things in my body to look young, to stay young. I was like, I feel like I'm finished. Now, with that, let me say, I reserve the right to be unfinished. Like if I feel in a couple of years from now, like, all right, something's really bothering me. Just like I support everybody else, I hope you will support me.

As of right now, this is my stance. Like I said, I'm 57 years old. I kind of want the world to know this is what a 57 year old face looks like. I want to kind of be the person who says it's okay to age. That's where I'm feeling more comfortable right now. That's, you know, I want to do everything that I can. Like I'm doing the face yoga. had the face yoga lady on from me go a few months ago.

Lauren Bernick (04:48.327)
I love her so much. I wanna try, I've been doing my face yoga, I think it's helping. But I feel like that's something, that's exercise, exercise for my face. That I wanna feel good about myself, but I also want to say it's okay to age in public. It's okay to age. I just feel like there's so many messages coming at us that it's not okay to be our own age and that we have to try to cling on to youth and look younger.

And I mean, it starts, we can't help but feel it. The commentary on our looks starts from the time we're little, right? I remember in fifth grade, I told a boy I liked him and he told me I was so fat, I needed to wear a hefty bag. If you think that didn't stay with me here, I'm still talking about it, you know, 45 years later. My parents were always commenting on my looks, not in a mean way. They really, I know they weren't trying to, but like,

My parents were divorced and so I didn't see my dad very often. And when I would see him, you know, it had been a year or two since I'd seen him and he'd always say like either, you look like you lost weight or he wouldn't say anything. And then I knew. And so that my mother, I talked last time about, you know, the, the memoir I'm writing about, lessons I've learned from the age, like a badass mother podcast, interwoven with my

life and with my lessons. so one of the things that I'm putting in the book, one of the chapters is called, it's not that you're fat, it's that you're not tall enough. And that's what my mother told me when she took my beautiful neighbor who was the same age as me, we were both like 11, 12 at the time. And she took my neighbor to a modeling agent that she knew. And she told me, I'm not taking you not because you're not

not because you're fat, but you're not tall enough. And Stephanie is tall, you know, she's very tall. She was tall and thin and beautiful. And if you think that that escaped me, well, you're wrong. Cause again, here I am talking about it 40 years later, 45 years later, know, other things. mean, the commentary is constant. I remember in sixth grade, I tried out for Liesl Von Trapp in, you know, Sound of Music and my

Lauren Bernick (07:11.373)
teacher, I don't think she was much older than us. She said, Oh, your singing voice is very nice, but honey, you're not an ingenue. You're, you're like the girlfriend, you know, the friend of the star or the maid or the mother. And I was like, until that moment, it had never occurred to me that I wasn't good enough or pretty enough to be the star that I had to be the sidekick or the maid. I mean,

These are the things that stick with a person. I remember in college, okay, you're not gonna believe this. Well, if you're anywhere around my age, you will believe this. I was a communications major in college. My major was RTV, and I thought that I wanted to work in the news until I worked at the news for an internship, and then, my God, okay, but in my college class, I think it was like news.

casting or news anchoring, was some kind of class like that. Part of the class was the professor had us stand up in front of the class and he would critique our looks because you know, back then you had to have a certain look, know, they always joked about the helmet hair for the news anchor. So he was gonna tell us his professional advice on our looks.

Now we just came to class any old way. We didn't know we were being evaluated that day, but I remember he told this girl in front of the whole class, girl, you need to get a better bra. Your tits are like too far down. You're never going to get on TV that way. He told me I was too fat to be on TV. You guys, okay. It sounds like I was like 400 pounds my whole life. My whole life I was probably 10 to 20 pounds overweight, but that's not allowed.

That's not allowed if you're a woman to being 10 or 20 pounds overweight and the world will let you know. So that was just always in the back of my head. know, and then another, so when I was talking about going to get an internship at the, worked at the, I don't know if I should say this. Anyway, I worked at a news station in Houston. I was interning there and there was, there were a lot of lecherous men.

Lauren Bernick (09:36.289)
Let me say the man who was not lecherous, the man that I loved, Don Nelson from Good Morning Houston, salt of the earth. He was such a great guy. I loved him and Lisa Trippani. If you guys grew up in Houston, know, Don Nelson and Lisa Trippani, I interned at Good Morning Houston.

So those were not the bad people, those were the great people, but there was a guy who worked at the TV station. He was obviously much older than me, I was like 22 at the time. And this man, I am not joking, I guess he did not think I was too fat. I think I had lost a little weight at this point, but he used to chase me around his desk, like cartoon style, chase me around his desk saying like, let me just feel you a little, let me just kiss you a little, let me just touch you a little.

And then, you know, there was just a slew of that kind of nonsense going on. I remember being at work one time, just talking, and a man just started kissing me. Like literally I'm talking and he just stuck his tongue in my mouth. So it's just one end or the other, you know, it's you're not good enough or you're so cute I can't keep my tongue out of your mouth. And this is like all the commentary and all the things that are in our heads. And then when we get to this point, we're supposed to just

feel good about ourselves. But here's the thing, I do actually feel good about myself. I feel better at this age, maybe than I ever have. And yes, I know my face is falling a little and my, you know, everything is taking effect. I have a lot of cellulite. That's just a hereditary thing. I don't love putting on a bathing suit. But you know what? I'll be damned if I'm not gonna enjoy the freaking summer.

with my friends at my pool in my backyard, I'm gonna put on my damn bathing suit and I'm gonna feel like a million bucks because guess what? I am alive, I get to hang out with my friends in the sunshine. I would be killing for a little sunshine right now in the dead of winter, but you know, that's the thing. I'm not gonna give that. And then, you know, I talked about that with my friends. I'm like, we are not going to.

Lauren Bernick (11:51.714)
Think about our bodies. We're not going to give it that attention because they all said the same thing. it's so hard to put on a bathing suit. I'm like, bullshit. It's not hard to put on a bathing suit. Put it on, get your ass outside and we're gonna have fun. We're gonna have some drinks in the pool. We're gonna play some music. We're gonna laugh. We're gonna enjoy our damn lives. But I do feel good at this point in my life. And I think no man would ever chase me around a desk at this point in my life and not because

Well, I mean, it would be really ridiculous at this age, but it's not because I think I'm some ugly hag. I think it's because I am a strong, confident, beautiful woman. And I'm gonna say I'm beautiful because I wanna give you permission to say you're beautiful and to think you're beautiful. And sometimes I think, you you're like, you can't say you're beautiful. Fuck that.

I'm gonna give you permission to say it. I'm gonna say it. I feel good. I want you to feel good. And if you need to get Botox or fillers or whatever you have to do to feel that way, okay, fine. That's great. I want you to feel good. We all deserve to feel good. You guys, I'm gonna do a podcast about this with three other people. We're gonna do a little panel. It's gonna be in March. It's gonna be live from...

Austin during South by Southwest and it's called vanity. Is it frivolous or self preservation? And I'm doing it with Sally, who is again, the dermatology dermatologist, physician's assistant. was just talking about she's 37 and she's going to give us a unique perspective about this. Think the pressure on her to look good. She works in Botox and fillers. mean, also skin cancer and things like that. I mean, she's gone to medical school.

She's a very smart person. And if you think the pressure about not aging is hard on the regular person, think about the person who works in the dermatologist's office. She's gonna give us that perspective. My friend Pickle, that's not her real name. Her name is Laura. I've called her Pickle since we were 16 years old. Her last name was Pickle, and the teachers would always call her Laura Pickle on the first day of school. So that's...

Lauren Bernick (14:14.783)
stuck with her, but Pickle is gonna talk to us about her perspective. She's the same age as me. She's actually the exact same age as me. We met in 10th grade in geometry class when I was trying to cheat off of her. I think some of my math skills have been on display. My first words were to her, girl, move your arm, I can't see your paper. And then I taught her to smoke and just we've.

I don't know why she's friends with me. But anyway, we've been friends since we were 16. She's the exact same age. We were born on the same day, same year, two hours apart. We got our driver's license together. We could have our first legal drinks together, all the milestones of life. So here we are at this milestone and she's gonna give her perspective on aging. And then my friend Maggie, who's been on the podcast before, she talked about getting her, I still can't say it, blasphemy.

her eyelid plastic surgery where they cut the slit in your eyelid and I guess pull your eyelids up, I don't know. So she's gonna give us the perspective of somebody who's done some plastic surgery and I think she's been real damn happy with it. there's that. So it's gonna be an interesting panel. you know, again, comment on any of my social media, you know, to message me, DM me if you have comments about this, if there's things that.

you want to talk about. You know, I'm thinking about like, what was the first time Botox even came into my mind? And I remember I was like 40 years old. Trust me when I tell you I did not need Botox. I was beautiful. And again, I'm saying it, I'm beautiful. I was beautiful. You're beautiful. But I was 40 and I really, I looked good. I was probably, you know.

I don't want say at my peak because I would infer that I'm not at my peak now. But I looked good. And this other lady, she was probably a little bit younger than me. We were at a birthday party. She came up to me. I did not know this lady, but she came up to me with such overdone face. I mean, huge lips, really over-botoxed and overfilled. Like somebody should have said, okay, that's enough for you. In the, the.

Lauren Bernick (16:37.427)
office when she went to go get some more stuff done to her face. And she came up to me out of nowhere and she said, you would be so pretty if you got some Botox. My jaw was on the floor. I was trying not to think bad things about her. And here she was telling me, I was like, no, I don't think I need any Botox, but thank you. And so that's just coming from another woman. Can you even imagine this? So

Again, I'm just, I don't want to say I'm trying to be brave because I'm not trying to be brave. This is just my stance. I just want people to know like, this is what a woman of this age when nothing in her face looks like. And I want to know your thoughts. I want to know what you think. You know, on the one hand, I was really even hesitant to do this because I'm like, do we have to talk about our looks one more time? I'm so sick of it. But honestly, isn't it just it's so

part of our, if you're this age, we grew up with it. We grew up with so much commentary. And so I want it to be okay that we embrace our aging, that we feel good about it, that we feel empowered not to do anything if we don't want to do anything. And I think that that's really important. And so I want to be that voice. I want to be that example right now. Again.

I reserve the right to change my mind. But yeah, like you could see, mean, I got all the things. I was just pulling my forehead up and I said, you could see, I just realized a lot of people are only listening to this. So I just pulling my forehead up so you could see, you know, my wrinkles on my forehead when I pull my eyebrows up. But, you know, I just want that to be OK. I want that to be a thing. Last night we were out at this really nice.

having some drinks, my husband and I, before we went to go see some music. And there was a table of like two, there were six people, three men, three women. I don't know if they were couples, but these women, I will give it to them. They looked beautiful. Talk about, you you could tell that they were doing stuff to their face, but it was done the right way. And they had, you know, full lips and their cheeks were full and there were no wrinkles and they looked really good. And I,

Lauren Bernick (19:01.197)
I had to go up to the, I had to go to the bathroom and so I got up and I walked past the table. They all were looking at me and I threw my shoulders back and I was thinking, damn, I look good. You know, they were probably like, that girl needs some Botox, lady needs some Botox. But you know what? When I feel like people are judging me, and I don't feel like that often, but I kind of maybe did feel that a little and maybe that was in my own head. I just throw my shoulders back and I just strut.

And maybe they're like, who the hell does she think she is? But it just makes me feel good. It makes me feel good to stand up straight, throw my shoulders back and think, I look good. And so try that. Now here's the other thing I want everybody to try. I feel like we did all grow up in a time where we judged each other's looks. And that's one reason we're having this conversation right now. But there was a time when there was no mirrors. Can you imagine that?

Can you even imagine the freedom? And you didn't know what you look like unless maybe you walked by a puddle. judging each other is kind of a new thing and I want it to stop. And I wanna tell you, this is my best advice. When you stop judging the way other people look, you feel less judged yourself. This is the best advice I have. I've really started implementing this.

you know, it's kind of started at my pool, like I said, with my friends where we said, we're not even looking at each other. Nobody's even worried about what the other person looks like, because they're so worried about themselves. And I realized that I'm like, well, we're worried about being judged. But if we stop judging each other, maybe that will get into, you know, the atmosphere and we'll feel that. So anytime I catch myself,

thinking a thought about these people. Like last night I was thinking about those ladies like, they look good, but you know, I know they get a lot of stuff done to their face. And I'm like, stop. It's none of your business what they do to themselves. And you don't even need to worry if they look good or bad. What are you even worried about? Worry about yourself, nosy. And so anytime I catch myself thinking a thought about somebody else that's none of my business, like, you know.

Lauren Bernick (21:17.355)
I really try hard not to do it, but sometimes I'll be like, why are they wearing that or what? And then I'm like, stop. And then of course, because of my age, after I yell stop, I have to yell collaborate and listen. And then I say, okay, get back to normal. And I say, it's none of your business. You don't need to worry about what that person's doing. And it's a practice, it's muscle memory. So I want you to do that from now on. I want you to make that a practice that.

when you see somebody and you start to judge them, you say stop. And if you have to say collaborate and listen, that's okay. But just stop. If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, it's vanilla ice ice ice baby. Whenever I hear those words, those follow immediately. So stop and stop yourself from thinking any negative thoughts about anybody else and just.

replace it with a loving thought like, okay, what do I find beautiful about this person? Okay, she has lovely eyes. Bonus, if you go up to that person and say, you know what, I just wanted to tell you, your eyes are so striking, the color, they're just so big and beautiful, they light up the room, whatever it is, I'm gonna guarantee you, that's gonna be well received 99 % of the time. And maybe that person really needs it. But if you're too shy or you feel too awkward,

Just stop yourself from thinking the negative thought, replace it with a nice thought, and that's it. Like I said, bonus if you tell that person. Okay, and same thing, if you start thinking something negative about yourself, my God, that's almost even worse than thinking about somebody else. Stop. Stop thinking that bad thought and replace it. Okay, what do I find beautiful about myself right now? You know, what is nice about myself?

It could be anything like, my eyebrows look good today or my whatever, my nails look good. It doesn't have to be anything big, you know, but start practicing telling yourself beautiful things about yourself and start thinking you are beautiful and worthy and that you don't have to do anything in this world except be exactly who you are at this exact age at this exact moment.

Lauren Bernick (23:38.165)
And pretty soon, like I said, it's muscle memory. When you stop judging people, you'll be shocked at how much better you feel about yourself because you won't feel judged so much. You won't. It's like I said, I don't know if it's true that people aren't judging me, but I feel less judged. And that's all I need is that truth that everybody's worried about themselves. They're not worried about me. They're not worried about what I look like.

So that's it, that's my little spiel for today. Let me know when we dive into this episode in March further, if there are any things that you wanna talk about or if you just think this is total shit and crap and we shouldn't be talking about it, let me know too, because I think that's valid. mean, there's been just enough talk about our looks already, but I feel like it's something we all think about.

Anyway, I think you're beautiful. I think that you are perfect the way you are. And I hope that you will practice not thinking any judgmental thoughts about yourself or other people this week. Okay? Mwah! We'll talk soon. Bye.