Episode 30 - Dr. Ronda Beaman, Author Of the Book, You’re Only Young Twice, Shares Her Secrets of Her Book to Awaken Your Inner Beauty – Part Two

Transcript

Announcer: This is part two of a two part podcast. If you would like part one you will find it at personallifemedia.com

[Music]

Terri Hausman: I am Terri Hausman host of “Beauty Now”, a weekly podcast that gets the latest in all things from lasers, lashes, lips, breast agues, and injectibles. But today we are talking about something much more important. We’re blessed to have an expert on inner beauty Doctor Ronda Beaman. She is the author of “You’re Only Young Twice”. This is our second podcast with her so if you didn’t listen to part one please listen to part one and this is going to be part two.

[Music]

Ronda Beaman: The most beautiful women in any room is the woman who walks in  sure of herself, confident, smiling at others, asks other people about themselves, brings a level of energy and a vibrant sense of joy into the room. It has nothing to do with what she has on or how many wrinkles or what color her hair is. It all exudes from the inside.

Which year are you going to remove? Are you going to remove the year that you got to go to Paris? Are you going to remove the year that you fell in love? The year that you had a baby? What year are you taking away?

[Music]

Terri Hausman: Welcome back Doctor Beaman.

Ronda Beaman: Hey, it is great to be back. Thanks for having me.

Terri Hausman: I am so glad that you did the first podcast and we talked about your book “Your Only Young Twice”. There are so many uplifting ideas about anti-aging from the inside out. So we could continue from where we left off. You where talking about wonder and seeing things through the eyes of a child.

Ronda Beaman: Yes, well one of the things in my book is I define old as your outlook language, and drive. So wonder, optimism, and resilience are all part of your outlook.

Now let’s talk a little bit about the L, the language. If you start to listen to other people you will age pretty quickly.

[Laughter]

Terri Hausman: That is so true. You have women go, “Oh, my God I am going to go into menopause. I am this. I am that.”  I don’t need to think about it.

Ronda Beaman: I know it is just depressing. I am a university professor and so a lot of my days are spent around 18 and 19 year olds and they give speeches where they go, “My role model is a much older woman, she’s 32.

Terri Hausman: I know. That is sad.

Ronda Beaman: I am just like going, “Oh my gosh”. So everybody’s got this thing about numbers and they don’t want to say how old they are. They start taking off years.

In my book I ask the question of the reader and I ask this of your listeners; which year are you going to remove? Are you going to remove the year that you got to go to Paris? Are you going to remove the year that you fell in love? The year that you had a baby? What year are you taking away?

How sad is that that you start to deny your experience, your wisdom, and everything that you gained in those years that you are pretending that you haven’t had? I find that really sad.

Terri Hausman: Even removing a bad year would be removing your experience

Ronda Beaman: Yeah exactly.

Terri Hausman:  and your growth.

Ronda Beaman: There are so many people- Terry you know this. –fighting for every day or year of their life that they could have and we are denying ours. I think that that’s a mistake. So in language what I am really trying to stress is that if you say you are to old for something you are right. If you argue for your limitations they’re yours. If you are always walking around like Eyore- remember Eyore from “Winnie The Pooh”?

Terri Hausman: I’m a Tigger.

Ronda Beaman: That is right. I am a Tigger too. If you are walking around like Eyore first of all nobody wants to be around you.

Terri Hausman: Right exactly.

Ronda Beaman: So you are going to find yourself kind of lonely.

Terri Hausman: But if you are Eyore, what is your advice to people that do feel sad. I mean it is easy for us to sit there and say we are happy people but there are people out there, there are listeners out there, that are really sad. They can’t pull themselves out of a funk. What would you advise them?

Ronda Beaman: Well one of the things that they have found out that I think is extraordinary- Again your body and your spirit know all the answers to these questions. They have found out that simply going for a walk it is equivalent to talking one antidepressant pill. So the very thing that you don’t feel like doing, which is getting up and moving, just the sheer movement and participation in life begins to make you feel better.

I have a mother-in-law who has been on antidepressants for I would say 37 years. Her life is wonderful actually. She complains a lot and one of the things that I told her that I would tell anybody that I love is, “Go work at a soup kitchen,” “Go wok at a homeless shelter.” “Go participate and help other people.”

If you are feeling pretty sad about your life- and man there are reasons to feel sad. I understand that. I have felt that. I am not happy every single day. I am a human being but as soon as I help others, or teach, or do something that gets myself out of my own way. I think that is what it Terry is getting yourself out of your own way. You begin to feel better.

I understand chemical imbalance. I understand that there are some people that are going to need additional help but they have shown that for most people you can really do a lot by participating in life rather than shrinking away from it when things get really tough.

Part of the language of growing old is that shrinkage. That backing away from life and challenges because we feel like it is not proper to wear that outfit, not proper to drink that drink or hang with that crowd. Again, these are your choices in life. If you tell yourself, I  can’t do something or you tell yourself  I am to shy or I am to old or I’m to this you will be right. So why not try? Why not give it a shot. Tell you self what you can do?

There are days I can’t run because of my MS. There are days that I can’t do the things that I normally like to do because I hurt to much.. What can I do that day? I don’t think about what I can’t do. I think about what I can do.

I really would caution your listeners not to think that I am a super human or that I am different than them because I am not. I grew up in a really dysfunctional home. I grew up with really critical parents. I have fought my own battles. I am not an idiot that just walks around on my own like ambien or whatever.

[Laughter]

Terri Hausman: Right

Ronda Beaman: I face this kind of stuff every day but I have worked really hard, and it is hard work Terri. That is why I am trying to stress this in this book. You have to matter to yourself. You have to get that you get this one precious life. That’s it.

Somebody should tell everybody that life is like this really great cruise ship that has everything on it that you could ever want. You can dance. You can meet people. You can fall in love. You can drink exotic drinks. You can wear great clothes. You can climb. You can roller blade, tennis, whatever you want. Would you get on that ship? Heck yeah.

Terri Hausman: So what are going to tell our listeners? How do they get motivated to do this? One of the ideas in your book that I liked was music. I think music is so healing. I feel like if you are sad or you are depressed and you feel like you can’t do any of these things, get your favorite music out.

Ronda Beaman: That’s it. I teach aerobics to this day I started teaching in the 80’s and I listen to the XM 80’s. It starts my day off right. The other thing they found ought too is if you hum, if you are humming, people who hum [humming] along the day, live seven years longer than people who don’t hum. It is something about tuning into and turning into the basic and given melody of the human soul. No one can explain it. Nobody understands it, but it is there.

Terri Hausman: I have to tell you something funny. I read that in your book about the humming. The other day I was at the airport and this man was sitting next to me just humming away. So I just felt compelled to tell him, “You know I met this lady and she says that by humming you are going to live seven years longer.”

Ronda Beaman: Isn’t that great.

Terri Hausman: He started laughing and that is how we got to talking about this other product, Zengostein. So that is so funny and I met him because of you

Ronda Beaman: Oh great.

Terri Hausman: and humming.

Ronda Beaman: See it not only makes you live linger, but you can meet other people.

Terri Hausman: That is exactly right. It was so funny because he was just so happy humming away. I had to laugh. I was like that is so funny because he is humming in the airport.

 I wouldn’t mind humming but my voice is so bad that people would be like going, “Do you mind?”

Ronda Beaman: Well see that that is the thing. Again, we let other people silence us. I wanted to be a singer and I begged and begged for singing lessons. My parents made me try out in front of them and I sang a song. I am in the third grade. I have to try out for my parents. I try out and they say, “No.”  And I quit singing ever because I was so embarrassed.

I have to tell you real quickly. Again. I have to practice what I preach.So take on new challenges, try new things. I tried out for that game show “Don’t forget the lyrics”

Terri Hausman: How hilarious.

Ronda Beaman: and I got on.

Terri Hausman: You did?

Ronda Beaman: Out of 15,000 people I was on. I got to sing with the band that does “American Idol”.  I had my sons on the stage with me. It was fabulous.

Terri Hausman: Oh my gosh, I am wondering if I saw that episode.

[Laughter]

Ronda Beaman: My story now about singing is that instead of being turned down by my own parents. So I rewrote my own history by doing that.

Again, that is the thing about “Language Out Look Drive” ,O L D. You can rewrite your life. That is what is so great about a second life. You get this chance that is all yours.
A lot of times we are finished raising our children. We have accomplished things in our jobs. Now we get this chance to find out what we were really meant to be and how we can really use our talents and our skills.

The last thing is drive. What gets you up in the morning? You can only play so many rounds of golf. You can only paint so many pictures before you start to go, “Ah, I am a little bored.” You here those stories about people who retire and die a year later because they feel like they have no purpose.

So what is your purpose?  What have you always wanted to do? What do you want to be? This is a second chance that you have.

The great thing about O L D and those are the neotononous traits. I take ten of them and break them into chapters under outlooks, language, and drive. By the time your finish with the book you have some ideas that I call ‘do overs’ of ways to reinvigorate and reignite these childlike and youthful qualities that we are all born with and we need to reenhance so that we can optimize the second part of our life and indeed grow young.

I’ve got this great story for you about wrinkles, talking about inside out. This woman that I know had her granddaughter over and was going to take her here to Pismo Beach. The granddaughter is covered with freckles and she did not want to go to the beach because she was so self conscious about her freckles. Again, think about what we just talked about in neotony. Think about how old that is already not to want to go to the beach, and she is 14, because other kids have done that to her or her own ideas of beauty because of what she has been seeing on television and freckles aren’t it. So she wants to stay all covered up. Her grandmother goes “Come on you will be so glad you went. It is so beautiful.”

So they go to the beach and the little girl doesn’t want to take off her tank top and all this kind of stuff. Her grandmother looks at her real seriously in the bright sunshine and says, “Sweet heart what could be more beautiful than your freckles?” The girl looks up at her grandmother and says, “Your wrinkles.”

Terri Hausman: Oh my God that is so sweet.

Ronda Beaman: and she meant it. This woman had never ever thought of it that way but to her granddaughter those wrinkles were beautiful. They were the map of her life on her face. She looked at her self very differently after that and felt very beautiful.

Again, so what is our definition of beautiful? What is our definition of age? How are we going to manifest in our lives what it means to be older and to have these choices in life? That is really what I am trying to say in the book about being young twice. Some of us never had the chance to be young once.

So to take this advantage and to really discover some of the beautiful inside that you were given and maybe didn’t really have a chance to develop.

Terri Hausman: Well that is really good advice. I think what you are saying to is that it’s the way that you look at your life and that as we get older I am finding that I did not have it so bad.

[Laughter]

I  actually had it pretty good. I think when you are young your younger you are like oh this happened and this happened. Then you get older and you start comparing stories. I actually had a really great life growing up.

Ronda Beaman: See that is what is so great about this second part of your life. Now if you reinvigorate your childlike qualities like imagination, and wonder, and song, and dance, and work, and learning, and all those things you were given as a kid; if you reignite those and you couple them with the wisdom and maturity that you now have there is no stopping you. The quality of your life and the scope of what you could be, and do, and have, and think, and enjoy, is boundless.

That is what a human being strives all their lives to be, boundless. Most of us think about boundless in terms of the size of our house, or car, or educations, but what we are really talking about Terri, you and I, is the boundless spirit. The boundless energy that comes inside from knowing who you are, and where you are going, and living your life fully, and living it as a young person so that you do indeed die young as late as possible.

Terri Hausman: Like Tigger.

Ronda Beaman: Exactly

Terri Hausman: And we are going to need to take a break again. We are going to break for a commercial break and we will be right back with Doctor Ronda Beaman.

[Music]

Terri Hausman: You are back with Terri Hausman and beauty now. We are interviewing Doctor Ronda Beaman the author of “You’re Only Young Twice”.

This is so fascinating welcome back Doctor Beaman.

Ronda Beaman: Thank you

Terri Hausman:  This is about inner beauty today. So, you know what, take it away. I love listening to this.

Ronda Beaman: Well we were talking about the way that you define old. The very last youthful quality that I talk about in the book, that you need to maintain and work hard at, is love. Not just love of other people; it is really about loving yourself. That is what this all boils down to is caring  enough for yourself and being proud of who you are and enjoying this chance that you have at the party.

I was saying earlier if somebody told everybody that life is a cruise ship that had everything that you wanted would you get on. Sure. Here is what they don’t tell you, the boat never comes back. It just sails out on this endless journey. You never get to come back.

That’s the truth about life. We get this one shot at it. So how do you want to spend it?

The most important person to love is yourself. You have heard that since you were a kid; that you can’t love somebody else until you love yourself. It is really the bedrock of everything that we are talking about here. It is very hard to do because we are judged from the time we are in the first grade on.

One of the things that I found really fascinating about growing young is; when you are in the fourth grade your creativity, wonder, imagination, is at an all time high. You are about 8 or 9 years old. You are at your peak. The world is your oyster as far as your mind goes.

What happens is that by the end of the fourth grade most people’s creativity levels drop precipitously. That in itself is a sad thing but what is more tragic is that for most of us those levels of creativity, and wonder, and imagination never return. They are burned out, gone, desocialized. We are minus that capacity for the rest of our lives. Now some people that go into advertising or whatever keep them alive for a lot longer but for most of us we don’t ever get that level of creativity back.

So again everything seems to expire against keeping us young, keeping us vibrant, keeping us interesting. We all just kind of muddle through. Most men and women lead lives of quiet desperation.

Terri Hausman: That is so sad. How do I change that?

Ronda Beaman: Yeah exactly. That is what you are trying to do. That is what I am trying to do. That is what a lot of people in the world are trying to do; to point to what a magnificent and just exceptional thing it is to be a human being and to have your chance on the planet, whatever that chance is.

I should tell you I went to India to present this work on neotony to a group of people from around the world. It was a really great experience and really fun. I was really honored to do it but here’s what struck me the most; people in India you know when they say, “Namaste day”, that is how they great you. “Namaste Day” and it means the god within me sees and recognizes the god within you. Well they are not just saying it. You know, how in America we go, “Have a nice day.” We don’t really mean it. We don’t really care. We just say it. When they say, “Namaste Day” these people… I have not seen contact like this in my entire life. They really look at you as if you are a god. They really talk to you as if you are a god; as you should be speaking to them the same way.

When a beggar would come up to me in the street my husband would pull me away afraid the beggar was going to try to get something. The beggar would come and just look at you so deeply and go, “How are you enjoying moomba?’ I would go, “I love it. It is really beautiful. The people are so nice.”  They go, “Oh good thank you.” They were thrilled. They understood that someday, in their beliefs, they would get their chance. They would get their chance to not be poor or whatever the case may be and they were going to enjoy whatever form their life took.

It was an unbelievable thing for me because we don’t do that in the western countries.

Terri Hausman: No. They are shoving you for a cab.

Ronda Beaman: Yeah exactly.

So I came back a different person in the fact that it is possible to appreciate your circumstance no matter what the circumstance is.

Again, we go back to the whole common theme through out “You’re Only Young Twice”, through out “Beauty Now”, through out a persons life, is choices. We always have the choice to love our self or to pick at what is wrong.

You no who looks oldest the soonest?

Terri Hausman: Who?

Ronda Beaman: The people who look in the mirror the most. If you are looking in the mirror every single day, every ten minutes, every whatever, the more you look the older you are going to start looking because you are so worried about it.

Terri Hausman: Right. You’re not living.

Ronda Beaman: Exactly. The people that look the youngest are the ones that aren’t interested in that. They interested in everybody else and they are interested in the quality of their experience that day. 

I have a story in the book about when I met my husband. He is seven years younger than I am and he was 29 when we met. That was the same age span as Curt Russel and Goldie Hawn. We were talking on the phone one day and I was going well if I ever get really old looking, if I start to look like your mother or something, I might have to have a face lift. Now on the phone this 29 year old man, boy, goes, “Why would you ever do that? And I said well I don’t want to look old. He goes,” Do you know who the most beautiful woman in any room is?”  I am like, “No”. He goes, “The most beautiful woman in any room is the woman that walks in sure of herself, confident, smiling at others, asks other people about themselves, brings a level of energy and  a vibrant sense of joy into the room. It has nothing to do with what she has on, or how many wrinkles, or what color her hair is. It all exudes from the inside.

Terri Hausman: Well that is easy for a 29 year old male to say.

[Laughter]

Ronda Beaman: But I am listening to him going, and I am thinking to myself, “Ok, I have to marry this guy.”

Terri Hausman: That’s true. That is good if your husband appreciates that. Unfortunately my husband is a plastic surgeon.
 
[Laughter]

Ronda Beaman: But again I am not saying one way or the other that it is not something to do but I’m saying that the truth of that statement is that beauty always comes from the inside.

Terri Hausman: That is so true. Actually that is why I wanted to do the show today because I loved your book and I had a young listener call me who actually has had a lot of plastic surgery. We were going to do a show on that because that is another really sad phenomenon is a girl in her twenties who has done numerous procedure and she was trying to say it is about inner beauty. I am like well yes but you have had all these procedures. Does this mean that you are going to stop because you don’t love yourself? You know, your twenties are flawless pretty much.

Ronda Beaman: Yeah who isn’t beautiful when they are 20? That is what people don’t understand. They have done a lot of studies haven’t they- I know your husband would back me up on this. If you have plastic surgery thinking that it is going to make you a different person then don’t do it.

Terri Hausman: No, then don’t do it. They turn away people today for that because their body gets morphic. There are a lot of different problems and psychological things that go along with surgery. You just have to make yourself look refreshed, not to be a different person.

Ronda Beaman: Yeah exactly because if you think that it is going to change your life and all of a sudden men are just going to be falling in love with you, and people are going to want to be your friend, and you are never going to be lonely again, that is wrong.

Terri Hausman: No, in fact you have to listen to Mark the producers song. Hopefully he puts that on some of my podcasts. It is “You’ve Had a Little Work Done” . You can find it on youtube and I think personal life media. If you go to that and click on you could get the link to that song. It is so hilarious. I loved your song. So we are going to have to give him a little plug there. 

But it is true and I think that your book is amazing. It is chalk full of tips for making yourself happy. And one of them is laughter and I love to laugh. In fact, my sep kids and my kids say they love to go to the movies with me because  I am laughing so hard at the most dumb things that we are watching.

Ronda Beaman: That is so great. That is a great trait to have and it is healing. You know the old saying, in fact I put this in the book, that when you are a kid- again think about these youthful qualities. When you are a kid you laugh and like 300 or 400 times a day. By the time you get to be the age maybe 30-35 you laugh 3 times a day.

So there is a humor survey in the book to figure out if you have maintained your sense of humor and one of the things I suggest is start your own comedy club. Forget about a cooking club or a book club. Start a comedy club. Bring people together  that like to laugh or people that need to laugh, and watch funny movies, share cartoon, funny stories. Have a week, a month, to just remember how funny life is. 

I love watching Steven Colbert and John Stewart now on Comedy Central.

Terri Hausman: I do to.

Ronda Beaman: I mean they kill me.

Terri Hausman: They kill me to.

My daughter is actually really funny, my daughter Jenna who goes to USC. We could hire her.  She gets all the funny clips and she gets the funny like the jerky boys and those phone calls. We just set in the car and laugh and laugh. She makes me…Oh the Adam Sandler clips. There’s just this…We laugh all the time and I think that is so important.

Ronda Beaman:  It is so healthy. I also suggest putting a comedy kit in your car, like when you are stuck in traffic or whatever. Put on one of those pairs of noses with the glasses and look at the car next to you.

Terri Hausman: That is really funny.

Ronda Beaman:  I mean it is so fun because then you look at the car next to you with that on and they look at you for a second like, “What they hell?’ Then they start laughing.

Terri Hausman: They are like are you a clown in the day.

Ronda Beaman: Oh it is hilarious. It is hilarious.

Terri Hausman: No, my son loves Chubby Chase too. So that was great. I think all of these things are so important.

We are running out of time and we actually want to do probably another segment with you. So we are going to have to have you back. I love your book “You’re Only Young Twice”.

Please go to personalmedia.com for all the links to Dr. Ronda Beaman’s book. Also you can email me. I have an email nowbeauty@AOL only because I couldn’t get the beauty now. With any show ideas, questions, comments or ideas.

Thank you Ronda you’re a doll.

Ronda Beaman: Oh thanks.

Terri Hausman: We have to have you back.

Ronda Beaman: It was really fun to be with you.

Terri Hausman: And I love these two podcasts. I hope that everybody is going to download them and get your book.

Ronda Beaman: Thank you so much.

Terri Hausman: All right, we will have you back. Thanks Ronda.

Ronda Beaman: Thank you Terri. Bye bye

Terri Hausman: Bye

[Music]

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