Journalist and communication consultant Nalan Miri Sözer wrote “Life Begins at 40”. It will be like a meeting its readers all over the world after Turkey.
Apart from writing her own observations and experiences, her Life Begins at Forty book, in which she talks to nearly 100 women from different parts of the world and tries to add global realism, has reached 10,000 people with the stories of women from Istanbul to New York from Geneva to Malta.
Life Begins at 40 says, today’s Sword of Damocles hanging over individuals is ‘looks’: from Likes on Instagram through to career ladders, youth/vigour/beauty/good looks often count more than experience or ethics. Some people dread the approach of their thirty-fifth or fiftieth birthdays as a final stop or sorts. But is that really how things should be? Should we be forced to retire home? Or give up our dreams at a certain age, like in some dystopic novels?
Nalan Miri Sözer
Journalist Nalan Miri Sözer questions herself and her raison d’être from her mid-thirties onwards. “Would time wrest control over everything brutally?” She says, ‘I stared around blankly for months. In my late thirties, I was already in the clutches of a “Over Forty syndrome” – akin to a cliff edge. So that’s what tempted women to hang on to the thirty-nine claim for ten years beyond that birthday! Ha ha ha, not a bad idea, eh? Who knew they had founded a secret society? Either we never see them, or they hold their personal weeping rites on their own…’
But Sözer resolves to chart a different course. ‘Life begins at 40’ she says, rolls up her sleeves and writes Life Begins at 40 book. Repudiating the collective subconscious trauma created by stunning proverbs along the lines of, ‘A fool at forty is a fool indeed,’ she sets off on her own journey of self-discovery – one that she recommends to every woman.
A New Lease of Life After Forty
‘I have been living in this body and with this soul for forty-two years. What came before, or lay in store beyond today are mysteries. Am I curious? I’m dying to know, but pretend not to. Play it cool. Ice cool. All I know is that after forty, I said, “Oy! Hold on, mate!” deciphered the secret code of life, and transformed the old me! My energy levels are higher by the day; I never quit. There is nothing random in this enlightenment, renewed strength, or development. Quite the opposite: this is the alarm set for the universe by “divine timing”. Set precisely to this period, to the time just after turning forty… Life Begins at 40’s meaning is A New Lease of Life After Forty. As I like to call it ’ for.
Within weeks of reaching forty, Sözer dived into a fantastic adventure with every new experience. Her first step was a total detox to rid herself of the practically chronic exhaustion due to life in the city – and work. She stopped smoking. Became aware of her energy points from top to toe through a deeksha therapy. Cured her aches sitting in an enormous cauldron in a kawa bath in Bali. Participated in a shamanic rite in Africa. Then talked to women across the world on life beyond forty. This book is the product of that process.
‘I am certain that this book will help you break through boundaries, obstacles and rules. Never forget that it’s only in our forties that we begin to decipher our da Vinci Code!’
“Life Begins at 40” published by Mona Books. Mona is an imprint of the Alfa Publishing Group.
Book: Life Begins at 40
“Nalan Miri Sözer talked to countless women across the world, women who had emerged from this period relatively unscathed.” – Sibel Yeşilçay, Women’s Health
