The 5 Principles of Thoughtful Aging with Alina Wilson

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of the Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self, love, empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
Did you know that the anti-aging industry generates over $60 billion annually, fueled by societal messages that equate beauty with youth? But what if true beauty lies not in resisting time, but in embracing it? Today, we’re diving into the transformative journey of redefining aging with Alina Wilson—a woman whose life’s work is dedicated to helping others see the beauty within themselves, at every stage of life. Alina Wilson is a mother, grandmother, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and advocate for women’s well-being. Since founding Bridgeport Laser & Wellness Center in 2007, Alina has supported thousands of women in embracing their personal and professional growth. Her approach is heart-centered and grounded in spirituality, inspiring women to live authentically and compassionately. Beyond her work in aesthetics, Alina is a writer and board member of Gather:Make:Shelter, a Portland-based nonprofit empowering individuals through creative connection. Her book, Thoughtful Aging: Restoring Honor to the Aging Process, is a guide for women seeking wisdom, confidence, and the courage to redefine beauty on their own terms. In this episode, Alina shares her profound insights on aging gracefully, the power of mindset in transforming self-perception, and how to resist society’s impossible beauty standards. Whether you’re navigating the complexities of change, seeking a deeper understanding of your own beauty, or simply looking for inspiration to live more authentically, this conversation will leave you empowered to embrace your story—and your reflection—with newfound grace and confidence. Let's discover how to rewrite your narrative, honor your journey, and radiate beauty from the inside out.

Jennifer Norman:
Welcome Alina to the show.

Alina Wilson:
Thank you Jennifer. Thank you for having me. What a beautiful introduction. I appreciate that so much.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, you are a beautiful soul inside and out and I'm so excited to have you because this topic is so resonant with me personally and I know it will probably be very, very inspiring to so many women out there who have been under pressure to live up to these beauty standards. Now, I would love if you first could share a little bit about your own personal journey. What led you to become an advocate for women's well being and to focus on redefining beauty and aging?

Alina Wilson:
Sure, it was kind of an evolution of just living with my eyes open. I always had an interest in fashion way back when I was 15, 16, buying the teen magazines. And so I've been exposed to beauty makeup in a conservative Christian household. Where I was raised, we weren't allowed to wear makeup. So of course I naturally gravitated toward that, wanting to know everything about the thing I wasn't supposed to do.

Jennifer Norman:
Same

Alina Wilson:
Yeah, it's funny how that works. That stuck with me. And as I was kind of putting this book together and looking back, where did that start for me? I can trace it back all the way back to when I was probably five years old and watching my mother get ready for my father's arrival home from work. And so she would spend all day taking care of all four of us girls and any number of neighbor kids who happened to show up that day. But at nap time, we would go down for a nap, wake up. And what I would see her doing was transforming from this overworked, stressed out housewife to a mother who was calm and collected. She would take the rollers out of her hair, she would sit down at her dresser and she would apply a little bit of a light colored pink lipstick and pinch her cheeks like they did way back when and take off her apron. And then all of a sudden, her grace just exploded. She kind of floated. And I remember watching this transformation happen and realizing it's not the lipstick that is creating that in her, it's how she transformed when she utilized that tool into the person that she wanted to be and present herself as when my father got home from work.

Alina Wilson:
And so she had a whole routine that she would go through.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow.

Alina Wilson:
So then fast forward to 2007 when I opened our first aesthetics clinic and all of these beautiful women, women were coming through the doors. And it dawned on me, after about a year and a half or two years of being open, I started thinking about why can I see their beauty but not my own? And how is it that they can see my beauty and not their own? And so that got me thinking, then just philosophically, what happens to us as we age and when does that shift occur? And exploring those thoughts, I could trace it back for myself. When I lost connection with my body, when my mind and and body became disconnected. And that was right around the time of adolescence when your body is changing and you're growing so quickly and you hear words like muffin top and thunder thighs. And you start applying those images to your own body, it might not be what you have. Like I was a size 8, I didn't have a muffin top unless I wore that one pair of low rise jeans. And then I did. But that was enough to make it true, right?

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Alina Wilson:
And so then that disconnect happened between having a body that carried me through the days and that I lived in harmony with to a body that was suddenly perceptively fighting against me and harming me. And once that disconnect happened, it was really difficult for me to see myself in a positive light. My body hadn't changed, but my perception of my body had changed. And so then of course, as you go through adolescence, you go from a size 8 to a 10 to a size 12, and all of a sudden you just, you, you're out of control. But really your normal side, you're growing as an adolescent, there's nothing wrong. But perceptively, the world is falling apart and you have to stop eating and you have to exercise and you have to do all these things to try and maintain this standard of what I believe we develop through inoculation of beauty images, beauty conversations. All the conversations I overheard of my mother with her sisters talking about looking old in pictures and the glossy images on the magazines that we didn't know back then anything about image, touch up or Photoshop. What we saw was what we saw.

Alina Wilson:
Now we understand that. At least that part of it. We can understand that part of it. And I just developed this passion for wanting to explore the origins of how we got to where we got as a society of women, where we live under this unrealistic idea that anti aging is attainable. It's not attainable. It's inherent in the word itself. Anti, anti aging. And I was in an interview one day with a prospective employee at the clinic and she asked me, what kind of anti aging treatments do you do? And it just came to mind suddenly, we don't do that here, but we don't do anti aging.

Alina Wilson:
And I took a deep breath and I said, what do we do? I said to myself, what do we do here? And I thought, we do thoughtful aging. Thoughtful aging programs. We help patients make informed decisions about the type of they wish to receive. And so that's where the idea of thoughtful aging was really born, was from this cumulative effect of being dissatisfied with an industry that was doing so many positive things for women, helping them change their appearance in ways they wanted to or felt they needed to, and then realizing that we collectively, we need to shift this paradigm from something that's unattainable to something that we can actually achieve from a place of want instead of a place of need.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow, you just really elaborated so beautifully on what's going on. Pretty much what the thought process is of so many individuals. And nowadays I think that we're realizing that it's not just women who have these insecurities, but men are also many men. I had a model, a male model on the show and I think that I learned in research that like 90% of men are dissatisfied with their bodies as well. And we do so much comparing with other people with images and we end up dysmorphic and we don't realize our own beauty. We can't see it because we're so like holding ourselves up to a standard, which is before it was probably much more unrealistic. But now I think even with social media filters and such, seems like that's swinging back around again where people want to look like the filtered them, not necessarily the real them. Interesting.

Jennifer Norman:
And so what is it that you see when people come in for anti aging treatments and you tell them, well, we do thoughtful aging. I'm just curious, what is their response like, do they seem like, what does this mean? Or did... Are they starting to kind of embrace it? Is this something that they're adapting to when you have these conversations with them?

Alina Wilson:
Yes. I have people now coming in asking for thoughtful aging plans. And when I introduce the concept to women in the clinic, they just, they look at me how when you hear something and it just resonates like, oh, of course, that makes so much sense. So for so many decades now, we've known that this was a problem, we've felt that this was a problem, but there really hasn't been a language to understand this problem or a pathway toward the solution. And that's really where I hope to lead people. Is okay. We collectively understand that this is a broken industry.

Alina Wilson:
It's an image driven society. We can go into all of the research and details that define who society is and is it the anti aging industry or is it us who's driving the cart, if you will? But really what I want to focus on is not so much how we got here, it's helpful to understand that. But what are we going to do now? Where are we going to go with it from here? Because collectively, as women, we are really smart. We have the ability to come together, to decide for ourselves how to step outside this box and live from a judgment free space and invite other women to do the same. And so when I present this idea of thoughtful aging to women in the clinic, they have so many questions, and it's such an honor to hold those conversations with them that allow them to feel seen and feel heard and be validated. In the research that I did for my book, I surveyed a thousand women, and one of the questions that I asked them was, you know, what's the most difficult part of aging for you? And overwhelmingly, it was answers and responses having to do with feeling invisible and no longer feeling relevant, losing relevance. Well, how does that happen? I think that is one of the driving forces. And from conversations I've had with women in the clinic over the past 17 years, one of the driving forces that brings them in there is they don't feel like themselves anymore.

Alina Wilson:
They just want to look as young as they feel, or they want to get the attention that they used to get and regain that relevance and that feeling of importance in social settings, in the workplace, they may have been victims of ageism at work, or a lot of times their husbands have left them for a younger woman. And so they immediately think, oh, I, if I just looked younger, then that would solve all my problems. And there really are. And that can be a pathway toward growth for many, many women. But it's most effective when they're doing that again from a place of want instead of a place of need. So we really try and circle those conversations back around to, okay, I understand why you're here. I understand that you're doing this today for a certain outcome. Is this something you feel you want, or is this something you feel you need? Because ultimately, if we're doing it from a place of need, we won't be satisfied.

Alina Wilson:
We'll just come back and we'll do more and more and more, and there won't be an end point to it.

Jennifer Norman:
Right. I think that a lot of people would say, well, you own an aesthetic clinic. And isn't that completely, like, reverse of what we're trying to talk about here? Shouldn't, like, aging gracefully or the idea of thought thoughtful aging be like, do nothing. Like, let your natural beauty shine. Just like, let the natural process be what it is. We describe the anti aging industry as potentially corrupt and harmful to women. And so where do you bridge that gap between the fact that, like, we're flipping the script here? We want it to be that this is on your own terms. It's not fear that we're selling here, like a lot of the anti aging industry does.

Jennifer Norman:
This is empowerment. Like, how do you... I'm just curious because I want to make sure that this is conveyed to the people who are listening to this conversation. It's like we are empowered human beings that are not doing things because we're worried that we're going to become irrelevant. We're doing things because we're embracing our age and we want to look as good as we feel.

Alina Wilson:
Sure. Yeah. That's, Jennifer, what you're talking about is you're talking about how we've been conditioned to apply a moral framework to the choices we make. And when you apply that moral framework, suddenly, whether you're doing it or someone else is doing it, you are putting it in the category of right and wrong. And when it comes to personal healthcare, beauty, being your own advocate, making your own decisions, right and wrong has no place in that conversation. When we're talking about one woman to another in the world, in the landscape of beauty, we can't get to a judgment free space until we understand that right and wrong has no place in this conversation.

Alina Wilson:
If I have a girlfriend and she goes and gets a facelift, I might not ever do that. Maybe I would, but. But if I am applying my moral convictions to her life choices, I'm creating division. And once that division happens, you lose that bridge to connection. And if we collectively as women are going to shift and change this landscape, we have to stop judging each other. And really, conversely, you cannot feel judged by another person unless you are judging yourself. And so if you think about that, if you feel like you're leaning toward, I'm judging you because of the choices you're making, girlfriend, all that is really is an invitation. Look inward, because that means there's an insecurity in you that has not been brought to light.

Alina Wilson:
So it's really an opportunity and an invitation to more deeply explore your inner landscape. And that's what we do for each other as friends. We bring to light opportunities for growth within each other. And if you can build a little group of friends around you who know you well enough and accept you for who you are, who can say, hey, girlfriend, you're off track. You need to get back on track. From what I see, you have the opportunity then to shift this paradigm from living in a space of judgment and right and wrong when it comes to beauty, towards stepping into a space of, I'm doing this because I want to, and I invite you to do the same. Whatever your decision may be, whatever aging gracefully means to you, I accept you and I want to know more about that and what that means to you. And I want to share with you what that means to me.

Alina Wilson:
Here's what it means to me. And then we can just sit back and say, oh, cool. Oh, you got that thing done. Well, I'm happy for you. That's good news. You're excited about that? No, I don't want to go do that thing. But you know what? That's okay, because my moral convictions are mine to hold, not yours to carry.

Jennifer Norman:
Live and let live, love and let love. I'm such a strong proponent of people letting other people live the lives in the way that they best see fit. And to your point, not judging or putting some moral code. I know that when I started to get into launching my own skincare line and I really wanted to do naturals, I had a hard conversation with myself to say, okay, well, is this antithetical to the fact that I'm okay, okay with Botox? I'm okay with filler? I'm okay with plastic surgery or boob jobs, liposuction? All of those things. And it's kind of like, no, the two can coexist. It's like your ideas about natural and what you're putting on your skin and then what you're doing to actually further your own beauty, it's really just a personal choice and something that other people can't really define as something that is right or wrong for everyone. It's kind of like if that is the way that they choose to live their lives, as long as there's no harm to other people, or if it's potentially animals... I know that, you know, that's a big topic on cruelty free and whatnot, but it's kind of like, who cares? It's really that person's business.

Alina Wilson:
Exactly. And if you have those friends who can't step outside that box who still want to view your decisions through their lens of right and wrong, it's okay. You just got to know your audience. Maybe that's not the person that you go to to share this experience with. Maybe you don't go to them and say, hey, I had some volume restored in my cheeks yesterday, and I love the way it looks. Tell me what you think. You don't go to the with this information who can't see you, you know, who haven't evolved to the space where they can live and let live from that judgment-free space.

Alina Wilson:
But we lose 1% of collagen per year from the age of 25 on. And so by the time you're 35, you've lost 10% of collagen. It's not because you've done anything wrong. It's because aging is universal. It's happening to all of us. And as you know, our skin is our largest organ in our body. We have a responsibility to take care of our kidneys and our liver and our heart and main maintain muscle tone. Why don't we approach skin the same way? It's a responsibility that we have to protect our skin barrier and make sure that we're doing everything that we can to allow ourselves the opportunity to live well and live longer and become our own healthcare advocates.

Jennifer Norman:
I think part of the fun of being human is the ability to decorate and embellish and just have fun. I mean, that's what fashion is about. That's what art is about. That's what decor and all of the wonderful things that we do. And so, yeah, our bodies become a manifestation of the things that we enjoy and appreciate and like to look at because we have eyes for a reason. And I think that a lot of the beauty industry has conflated the concept of ideal beauty with the idea of fertility and the fact that, like, if you are looking like you're maybe 25 years old, that's considered ideal and so look like you're fertile. Show all of those genetic or those evolutionary cues of fertility, and then that is what is considered most attractive to either the opposite sex or to other people. And certainly there's a whole lot that goes into that truth which has caused us to want to cling to that concept of youth.

Jennifer Norman:
But then we also have to say, there's such beauty in all of the seasons of our lives and being the best of ourselves, rather than trying to, like, really, like, with reckless abandon and desperation, try to cling to something that is not anymore. That's something that only you will be able to know. And other people may have judgments about what you decide to do, but it's really nobody else's business. It's kind of like, do you know why you're doing it? Are you doing it because you fear losing your youth, or are you doing it because it's like, yeah, I just want to feel great about myself right now and all of those things. So it's really just like one of those mental and spiritual and emotional connections. To your point, what you said before is like your body and your mind got disconnected. It's like, can we regain that connection to say that everything is harmonizing and I'm showcasing and presenting my way myself in the most beautiful way that I wish to be presented at this time?

Alina Wilson:
I totally agree with you. And taking that a level further, we would have to... We would have to talk about... Okay, so where did that beauty standard come from? And what is that beauty standard, that youthful beauty standard? And if we're basing it on what I believe it is, and based on my research, the American beauty standard, very, very few people fit that standard. Yet we're all trying to achieve that and attain that for what we perceive as some beneficial outcome. When the truth of the matter is, who would you rather be? That pretty girl with blonde hair and blue eyes and symmetrical features, or that extremely confident woman who can kick ass in the boardroom and wear high heels and knows her own beauty from the inside out? That's the type of woman that I believe we are all striving to be while we're chasing this ideal of the American beauty standard. Because we're strong women. I mean, we're smart and we're strong, and we keep things running every day.

Alina Wilson:
I mean, we've got kids, we've got jobs, we've got families, we've got husbands, we've got aging parents. We do all of these things for all of these people. Yet if I asked you to name all of the things that you love, how long would it take you to name yourself? That's what I want to get us back to, is just moments throughout the day. Can we create moments throughout the day to nurture ourselves and explore for ourselves what it is that we find beautiful about us? And we're not always going to have those days when that's possible. So in those cases, return to gratitude. Find beauty in something else around you, something you haven't seen before. But staying in the present moment, which is one of the five principles of thoughtful aging, staying in that present moment allows you to have that moment where you can breathe and not think about anything other than what's right in front of you. And that's when we can connect to our true beauty, is when we pause and we take a breath and we focus on that.

Alina Wilson:
Maybe it's the butterfly in the sky or the color on the petal of the flower that we're looking at, or that blade of grass moving in the wind. Any small thing that you allow yourself to just come back to the present moment with is going to immediately get you back in touch with your own beauty. If you recognize that for what it is.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, you are so right. I will often say these days that I feel like beauty is more a feeling than it is, is like a visual effect. It's like what Is that thing inside that just lights you up, whether you're responding to yourself or something else. A rose petal, a beautiful insect, whatever it might be, that nature is always such a beautiful reflector of beauty. And do you sense that appreciation? I will often say beauty cannot happen without appreciation because if you recognize beauty, it's appreciating that from either an aesthetic or an emotional aspect and being like, oh, that is so beautiful. And there is appreciation there there. That's really what it is about.

Jennifer Norman:
However, I know that when I was young because I didn't see myself reflected in media being an Asian woman. And a lot of people of color and whatnot have a similar story, perhaps even more severe than mine. They were conditioned to feel that they were ugly, that they did not belong, that they were not beautiful. And then it led to a self loathing, it led to feelings of I just don't like myself, I'm not beautiful. And then what can I do to shapeshift myself to look like more of an American standard of beauty. And it led to years and years and years of self conflict with myself. I know it wasn't until I finally got to a place where I'm like, I love that I am Korean, I love that I'm exotic and different. I love that. And it just came to a place where I started to appreciate my differences rather than trying to fit into something that I would never ever be able to achieve.

Jennifer Norman:
Probably with no amount of surgery or it would just be, oh, you know, you just can't take a 5' 2" girl and make her 5' 10". I'm sorry. You know, so and so, all of those things where I was battling myself, fighting myself, it was beyond the muffin top. It was just like my whole persona was just wrong. And so there's a lot that we just want to say to individuals that it's hard a lot of times. Yeah, society takes its toll. It's like the media has done a number on so many of us and we have been conditioned in so many ways to feel othered. And it now becomes our own task of empowerment, of self work to be able to get to that place where we are okay with ourselves, where we love ourselves and we can find all of those wonderful aspects of beauty within ourselves that then can resonate and light the way for others to also appreciate and love themselves too.

Jennifer Norman:
You started to mention some of the points, those five principles of thoughtful aging and being present as one of them. I would love for you to share some of the others, those four others too, because I think they'll be so helpful.

Alina Wilson:
Yeah. So with thoughtful aging, you have to be open to the idea of shifting this paradigm. So it starts with cultivating a growth mindset and realizing that change is possible if you believe it's possible. And if you seek change, then you'll find it. So that's where the cultivating the growth mindset comes in. After that, we talk about embracing curiosity, figuring out the why. Kind of you don't have to go back and unpack your history, but just stand where you are right now, today and get curious about who am I today? Not only who am I today, but who do I want to be tomorrow? And realizing that as we sleep every night, we've got, you know, 30 billion cells in our body that are renewing as we sleep every night. And so in essence, we wake up a different person every day.

Alina Wilson:
If you've got a partner or a spouse, you turn over in bed and you look at them and they're literally waking up a different person so we don't have to hold ourselves or carry things from day to day. Who we were is not necessarily who we are. And who we are may not necessarily be who we will become as we move through life and staying curious about why we do the things that we do, why we think, the things that we think will allow us to evolve and elevate and in some cases reparent ourselves because that's necessary and allow us to be open to having compassion for others, to step outside of that right and wrong paradigm, applying our morals to others. When we really start looking at who am I? And then after that there's a whole landscape that opens once you get curious about yourself. And so we practice self compassion and empathy and that's really the next step that follows curiosity when you get introspective and when you become reflective about yourself, really, really doing it from a place of empathy and compassion. You mentioned feeling like you didn't belong. Dr. Gabor Mate, who's a renowned Canadian physician and author and speaker, he says human beings at the base level, if they are faced with a choice of self acceptance or belonging, they will always choose belonging.

Alina Wilson:
That's who we are, we people who are meant to live together and we want to live together in harmony, but we don't ever want to stand alone. It doesn't feel safe to do that. So a lot of times, especially as we're younger, before we know the things we know in life about relationships and friendships, and we're always going to sacrifice what we know is right or what we feel is the right thing to do if it means that we can belong to a group. So giving yourself compassion and empathy for the decisions that you've made in that arena is really helpful with kind of cleaning the slate, saying, yes, I did that, that accountability factor, yeah, I did that, but I only knew what I knew, and now I know more, and now I can do more. And then after, as you're exploring yourself through curiosity and empathy and self compassion, then we work on staying mindful and grounded, because now we're creating this new space for ourselves to think a different way, to step outside the box. But we want to stay grounded in that and being mindful and grounded as we're developing those skills and revisiting our own character traits. And what's important to us, Is it honor? Is it integrity? Is it honesty? What are our core values and our core character traits? And then staying mindful of those and grounded in the present moment when we're starting to feel a little bit unsteady and go back and find a moment of beauty. And through the book, of course, I take readers and listeners through activities that allow them to develop these skills, to see themselves with beauty, with love, to find the good things, not the negative things.

Alina Wilson:
And then finally, last, be proactive and responsible for your own care. And I think that beyond the surface, of course, this is a beauty industry that I'm in, But beyond the surface, we're all aging from the inside out. Let's be proactive and responsible for the type of care we're getting. And I think so much of hormones when I think of this, because how many of us have gone into the doctor and said, hey, I'm getting these hot flashes at night. I'm sweating through my sheets. And your doctor, bless his heart or her heart, will look at you and say, yeah, yeah, that's aging. Good luck for the next 10 years.

Alina Wilson:
Oh, for the love of God. We have so many more options now. And I think that we're at a point collectively, as women, where we...I'm going to make some enemies here...but we can become our own primary care providers. We have the ability to learn the language that it takes to go into our doctors and ask them to partner with us more than just care for us. We can be proactive about our health care from the inside out, whether it's changing something about our appearance or figuring out why the heck we can't sleep at night.

Alina Wilson:
Stay curious. Go back to curiosity. Okay, I hear what you're telling me, physician, doctor, friend, but I really think there's more to it than that, can we partner together and maybe find alternative treatment methods? And so there's a language there with longevity care, what I call longevity care. I'm not looking for a physician or an OBGYN or a naturopath. I'm looking for longevity care providers. And so I really have defined what that is, created a language around that that allows readers and listeners to approach these providers from a really collaborative sense and invite them to be part of the care rather than handing over their autonomy to these people and just waiting for what happens next.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. I know when people go to get their hair done, a lot of them are like, oh, my stylist is like my therapist. I can talk to him about anything or her about anything. This is above and beyond what you are doing here. It's like really like. It is mind blowingly rich in terms of being able to shift people's perspectives and their beliefs about themselves, their awareness of their own beauty and what they are hoping to gain in not only in their longevity, but in their stages of life. If you're in your 30s or 40s, 50s, beyond how you will thoughtfully be able to step into each new time of your life with true awareness, with true presence, with gratitude, with the option of having that curiosity about what can actually come about if you really found the joy rather than fighting yourself at these stages. Yeah, I adore that.

Jennifer Norman:
I was intrigued when many years ago, Allure actually decided to take the word anti-aging out of all of its publications. And then there seemed to be this whole anti-aging backlash. And then I hear stuff like last year or whatever, it's come back and I'm like, what happened?

Alina Wilson:
Yeah, they got us again, didn't they?

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, it's like maybe they just weren't making enough money. They realized that the beauty industry was going to tank unless they made people fearful of aging.

Alina Wilson:
Well, we have a whole other generation coming up, so a whole nother generation they can influence now.

Jennifer Norman:
That's right. And that's probably it, unfortunately. Yeah. They're going to try to get them while they're young. What do you think is the key for people? Just, they'll go through these beautiful five steps, they'll buy your book, and then they're on their way. And they wish to honor each stage of their aging journey, despite what society tells them. What other kind of advice would you wish people would gain like that? One piece of advice from Alina Wilson from this podcast.

Alina Wilson:
You are beautiful just as you are. And if you can build your belief system around the fact that you belong here, that you are not an accident. Whether you felt like you fit into your family or not, you were born born here perfectly into an imperfect world. You have all of the skills and abilities that you need within you to elevate, to grow, and there is really nothing holding you back from doing that. You have everything that you need. It just takes a little bit of resilience against what hasn't worked and a lot of motivation to find out what will work. But the bottom line is that you belong. You are no accident.

Alina Wilson:
You are here for a reason, with a purpose. And you are beautiful.

Jennifer Norman:
Beautiful words. Alina Wilson, everyone. Founder of Bridgeport Laser & Wellness Center and author of Thoughtful Aging: Restoring Honor to the Aging Process. Thank you Alina so much for being my guest on The Human Beauty Movement Podcast today.

Alina Wilson:
Thank you Jennifer. It's been a pleasure and an honor to see you today.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement podcast. Be sure to follow rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.