Second Life at Sixty: Why I’ve Never Felt More Alive

By Alison Weihe, entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Belonging

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I used to think ageing meant becoming invisible. Slowing down. Shrinking into a version of yourself the world expects you to be.

But at 60, I did the opposite.

I rewrote the story.

I became a speaker. A writer. A woman who finally felt brave enough to share the parts of her life that had once been hidden in shame - the years shaped by anxiety, disordered eating, and a constant battle with self-worth.

Now, I say this without hesitation:

I love ageing.

Not because it’s easy. But because it has brought me closer to myself - and to a life that feels deeply aligned.

The Moment Everything Changed

It started in my early 50s, when everything around me collapsed.

Our company was hit by internal fraud. We lost not just money, but trust. I was left trying to rebuild our systems, support our team, repair my marriage - and somehow keep my own body afloat.

I was exhausted. Spiritually flatlined.

At the time, I couldn’t have told you exactly what was wrong. But I knew I felt broken. And in the years leading up to that moment, I’d tried to hold it all together with emotional eating, perfectionism, and pushing myself to be “fine”.

Food was never just food for me. It was comfort. It was numbness. It was control.

But it wasn’t working anymore.

The Power of Movement

Desperate for something - anything - to change, I started moving.

At first, I dragged myself to the gym. Then I started running. Slowly, painfully, breathlessly. And somewhere along the way, I began to feel something new.

Peace.

For the first time in my life, I experienced my body not as an enemy to shrink, but as a place I could live. A place I could move through grief and fear and anger - and come out lighter, not because I weighed less, but because I was carrying less pain.

Running became my therapy. Not the finish lines, but for the quiet. It was there, in the rhythm of my breath and footsteps, that the shame started to lift.

I’d spent years trying to control my body, hoping that if I could just get it right, I’d finally feel enough. But it wasn’t what I was eating - it was what was eating me.

Movement helped me begin again.

From Survival to Soul

As I approached 60, the journey deepened.

My mother passed away. I went on a ten-day silent retreat. And in that silence, I felt something shift. I wasn’t just healing my relationship with food or fitness anymore - I was healing the patterns that had shaped my entire identity.

I stopped weighing myself. I started eating intuitively. I let go of the guilt, the rules, the comparison. I came back into my body - not to sculpt it, but to trust it.

And from that trust came joy.

I took up yoga. Reformer Pilates. I swam, hiked, paddleboarded. I laughed with friends. I danced in the kitchen with my husband, who affectionately calls me his “second wife” - because I am, in many ways, a new woman.

One who doesn’t obsess. One who doesn’t restrict. One who lives.

A life that feels like mine

These days, I don’t think about my body much. I think about making memories. About playing with my grandchildren. About living with meaning and showing up in service.

I think about the women who still feel trapped - in diets, in shame, in the quiet desperation of not feeling good enough. I know that space intimately.

But I also know what’s waiting on the other side.

You don’t have to be perfect to feel free. You don’t have to be 25 to feel powerful. And you don’t have to stay stuck in stories that no longer serve you.

At 60, I feel more alive, more confident, and more connected than I ever have. I am not defying age. I am living it. And in doing so, I’ve found the kind of peace that can’t be measured in dress sizes or milestones.

If this story resonates, I share even more in my book, Belonging: Finding Tribes of Meaning - a journey through self-doubt, identity, and finding home within yourself. It’s about love, acceptance, and becoming all that you are.

This is my second life. And it’s the one I was always meant to live.

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