In this interactive group coaching session, Aaron Doughty guides a conversation with two participants (Speaker A and Speaker C) centered on the challenges women face regarding body image and aging. Speaker A, a 56‑year‑old woman, expresses feeling irrelevant in a society that equates worth with youthful appearance. Aaron reframes age as a non‑essential construct, emphasizing that presence, self‑acceptance, and authenticity become stronger with time. He references spiritual teachers (Bashar, Adyashanti) and personal experience, noting that stress accelerates aging while flow states and mindful presence can make one “age less.” The dialogue shifts to the practice of observing thoughts rather than controlling them, using a candle‑flame meditation to dissolve sticky mental patterns. Speaker C introduces Adyashanti’s insight that many people uncritically believe their thoughts, encouraging participants to question the thinker. Throughout, the session blends personal anecdotes, spiritual philosophy, and practical meditation techniques, concluding with a call‑to‑action for a consciousness‑level quiz and meditation.
Chapters
As a female, body image is so important. And I am at the age where I'm more irrelevant than ever.
When we talk about age, I don't give it much importance. When you are in a f— you age less. What's the challenge with it? Part of what I think really transformed my life the most in 2012 was—
I know we're a spirit having a human experience, but as a female, that's the only experience I know. Body image.
Yeah.
So important. There's so much value in it, especially from a young girl. That's what makes you lovable. That's what gives you attention.
Is that what you believe?
Obviously. Okay. Because that keeps coming up.
That's what's coming up for you. Yeah.
Yeah. And then me asking this question, it was this whole thing about my body, but, but I'm a— I'm— this is just an experience. This is a meat suit. Like, I know all that. Yep. But it's right in my nervous system. So yeah, what is it?
Is there a certain—
oh, and then I'm also 56 yesterday. Um, I'm in a—
Happy birthday!
I'm in a—
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, I'm—
My birthday today.
Happy birthday!
Oh, happy birthday!
Yay!
It was mine 4 days ago. Can we get some claps?
Yay! Um, it'll be mine next June too, so yay!— and I'm at the age where in this matrix I'm more irrelevant than ever as a female. That's the, the story. Thank you.
So that's, yeah, that's the story. And the thing I want to really point out there is that that is a story. That might be a collective story or a social conditioning story that you learned. But nonetheless, it is a story. And what I've realized is there's a certain level with age that I get made fun of for this from Victor and one of my other friends. Because when we talk about age, the way that I relate to age is I don't give it much importance. I believe that as time goes on, not only will I age better,, but I'll have more self-acceptance. I'll know more about who I am and I'll be more comfortable with myself. And I remember hearing stories where they're like, once you get to like this age, once you get to 38, that's when you can't like work out as much and that's when your metabolism slows down. And anytime I would hear that, I would just, I would personally choose to be like, okay, maybe, but maybe I'd also, that doesn't have to be my reality. That doesn't have to be, what I tap into. And I know that in the future it could get injured, like something could happen. But so I'm not just being delusional, but I really believe that many of the most magnetic people I've met are people that are older and know themselves. But that's because I value authenticity and energy more than I value what something looks like or how someone looks. So there are like, there, have you ever met someone that just had, maybe you weren't physically attracted to someone else, but they were so magnetic and so charismatic and so centered into themselves that you're like, you were just gravitating to them? Yeah. And have you ever met somebody that on paper looked completely perfect, had all of the things you think you'd have in like an attractive, you'd be attracted to someone, but the energy was just off or you just weren't attracted, you were repelled? Well, those are very different things that you will attract or gravitate to depending on your values. I personally choose to value, I think with age will come more wisdom, will come more comfort. And what I've noticed and something that I've heard Bashar talk about, if you know who he is, age, when you are in a flow state, and you're doing what you love, you age less. Age speeds up the more you stress, which is funny because a lot of the people you see that are like the world's like leading biohackers, some of them, not all of them, want nothing to do with aging. They resist aging. They might get plastic surgery, they might do these different things and then do these like processes to not age. But I tend to notice that 'Cause some of them stressed out about aging and it actually ages them a little bit faster. Whereas people that are very present to the moment and very vibrant, there's such a magnetic energy to that, such a wisdom. I remember watching this YouTube video. So there's times where I not enjoy it, but there's a part of myself that feels attracted to like connecting to death in a way. And there was these YouTube videos of this old woman that was like 106 years old., and she was talking about her life from this really higher level consciousness perspective. And it had millions of views on YouTube, but she was so vibrant. It was like being tears to my eyes to even watch this video of this woman talk about life and death. And there's such a magnetic energy to it. And I was so just like inspired by that. So the thing that I guess where I'm kind of going with this is that, Age is a construct. If we maybe learned as a kid that age is, you know, age or beauty or how we look is what makes us worthy, we're then attaching our worthiness to an external thing that does change.
And I know all this.
Yeah.
Like I know it.
Mm-hmm. Then what's the challenge then? What's the challenge with it? Now, real quick, before you go more into the video, have you calibrated your level of consciousness yet? And received a meditation for getting to the next level. I have a free quiz that you can go through that will show you your current level of consciousness as well as give you a meditation for raising it to the next level. So if you haven't done this yet, go ahead and click the link below. Go ahead and calibrate your vibration, get a meditation, and watch how after 21 days you notice your energy shift.
You know the teacher Adyashanti by chance? Now, do you guys know Adyashanti? Some of you do. He's an awesome spiritual teacher, right? He's one of the enlightened ones. Literally, look in that card, totally Adyashanti. He's one of those guys. And he said from when he was a really young kid, he was like 7 or 8 years old, he noticed there was something off with all the adults. And for a while, he didn't know what. He noticed that it was always a matter of defending each opinions. He noticed that sometimes people would be feeling something and then say something else, and he couldn't quite he couldn't grasp what is it? Why is everything— what is off about all these people? And then at 8 years old, he had this epiphany. He said, "Oh, I know. It's because they believe all the thoughts in their head." They take it as truth. So what you just uttered off were a bunch of conditioned ideas. But the question is, do you actually believe that? Or how would it feel to at least question them?
Just keep witnessing it. I do keep witnessing that.
Yeah, there's a lot of collective momentum. If you go on Instagram, you're going to be bombarded with exactly with what you said. And it's one— it's like one perspective essentially, but you get to also question that. And that's what awakening is, is starting to question the thinker. And that just the fact that you and I Am Presence can question for an alternative perspective implies that you are different than these thoughts. So you might try to solve it on the level of thought. Well, I'll do this or think about this. But sometimes getting to the root is just questioning those thoughts. And it's hard. You get sucked into them. Adyashanti calls them sticky thoughts. But the fact that you're sharing it and then also not happy with it implies that there's some level of separation already.
I think doing this is already Yeah.
So just—
I'm separating, like, that's bullshit.
Just question the thinker would be what Adyashanti would recommend, would be my— which I concur with.
Yeah. And part of what I think really transformed my life the most in 2012 was when I learned how to observe my thoughts. And at first I would have these thoughts and I would try to control my thinking. I'd want them to go away. And for 2 or 3 days, I felt so much resistance. Because I was trying to control them. And I had seen the movie "The Secret" and I didn't wanna manifest something bad.
And resisting it.
And exactly. And what I eventually did is I stared at a candle flame because I learned that this was a meditation practice that allowed you to have your eyes focused on one point. When your eyes are focused on one point, it's like a mind that wanders, and eyes that wander is a mind that wanders. So eyes focused on one point and then allowing the thoughts to come into my mind. And allowing them to go. And if they would come back, I would simply observe them. And what I found is that by not needing to control them, they eventually dissipated more and more. Think of the thoughts sort of like having a consciousness of their own. And when we wrestle with it, it gets bigger. It has more, it's almost like the neurosynaptic connections in our brain begin to connect to it more and more and more until we have this belief pattern. Yeah, but the more we observe it, it's like the neurons in our brain then begin to like disperse because we see it and then it, it dissipates. You see it.
So a week ago my mom turned 80 and it was a whole thing about her age and I was like, I'm not like her, I'm not like her. Yeah, here I am, I'm not like her. Oh, that's the resistance I kept.
Yes.
Yeah, I am, I am like her. That— or not. I need to witness this. Yes. Okay, thank you.
Yeah, it's interesting how even if we have an aversion, there's this idea of attachments and aversions. Even if you have an aversion where like, "I'm not like that." By not being like that, it's still controlling us because we're trying to rebel against it versus accepting it, accepting her and accepting this part of ourselves and even accepting the thoughts.
