For two decades, I thought 40 would be the age of reckoning. I really did. Didn’t we first realize our parents were old when they turned 40?

Then I turned 39, and the strangest thing happened. I couldn’t wait to turn 40. I felt healthy and strong, and like I was ready to see what a new decade would bring. And as I looked around me, I saw women stepping into this new age with grace, curiosity, courage, and a generous level of badass attitude. 

Was it a change in perspective? Was it local, or a global shift? Was I seeking out or attracting women who were actively looking for more and embracing the number, or was it happening everywhere?

The morning I turned 40, I considered the number and realized I didn’t feel at all different. Certainly not older, and definitely not less than. 

I realized I’d never heard of anyone truly welcoming 40 before. So I went online to my social channels and posted a recent, unedited photo with the caption “Here’s something some of you need to hear:  40 doesn’t need a filter and neither do you” and invited other women to join me using the hashtag #40nofilter if they agreed. Would other women near or beyond this milestone take part and post an unedited, unfiltered photo to show us what 40 really looks like? 

Yes, they would. They did. In droves, and it was beautiful. The day that followed was my favourite birthday in memory. Friends and acquaintances shared photos on Facebook and Twitter. The faces were 40 and beyond, unfiltered, and each one beautiful in their own way. They shared photos from their cameras, from the past weekend, and taken at their desks. 

I realized I rarely saw women like this. Real, unfiltered, and purely themselves in photos. It was enlightening, and so touching to see their smiles, a gentle arch in a brow, and yes, the well-earned lines showing traces of laughter, smiles, and decades of living. The light in each wasn’t perfect, but the moment was. They stood up, they owned their years, and shared the photos and their ages in a gorgeous day of grace. 

The day passed, but the idea lingered. What would it be like to see the unfiltered version of women more often? In media, online, on our social channels? What if we saw real faces, laugh lines, crooked smiles, and tired but kind eyes? When our friends gather, we see beauty, we see real faces, and every line means a moment in the making of the person we love. Who would erase such things?

When our children rush up to us to laugh and hug our legs, we don’t wish away their freckles and dimples and crooked, perfect smiles.

How did we get to a point that almost all photos we see of women have these elements carefully edited out?

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We’ve lost the plot. 

The idea not only lingered, it grew.

What if we heard their voices more clearly as well? What if we amplified the stories that mattered? The thought of celebrating all that women are, simply based on their energy, passion, intelligence, and creativity became a small, but important, mission. Real women do great things on the world stage, in boardrooms, in classrooms, and in their communities every day and we are all lifted when we celebrate each other.

Our mission is to celebrate you when you embrace it all:  what you think, what you say, and especially how you look. 40 doesn’t need a filter, and neither do you.

Welcome to 40 no filter.