When we are younger, particularly in the ‘Western world’, we tend to not see the hidden treasures all around in the form of elder people because we are not looking at them. We have been trained by media, TV, sports, music and fashion to pay attention to and follow youth, and to disregard elders as if they are irrelevant and embarrassing reminders of where we are going, that we don’t want to go. So we make the elders invisible.

I observe many elders desperately clinging to youth and not rising to their grace and wisdom. I have found there are many treasures, like the grandfather of a blog commenter I recently read about, who quietly goes about ‘being an elder role model’.

They have learned and accepted that nobody might be looking and benefiting from the wisdom and grace they offer, but they continue to just be who they are, without raising a ruckus to get attention. They also offer infinite patience and understanding, and the great love expressed by allowing others to just be where they are. After all they’ve probably “seen it all and done it all” themselves and understand what’s going on for you.

These are some of the hidden treasures that younger people often miss because they, like most of the elders, are too busy racing around with their heads down in their own concerns. And, in fact, weird though it seems, many younger people are also desperately hanging onto youth. Not in the ‘looking young’ way, but in the ‘playing the kid’ way. That is, hanging onto being irresponsible, reactive against parents and authorities, self-centered, wanting to do their own fun thing without having to consider others, avoiding commitment to relationships, work and life, all driven by the fear that if they step up into responsibility and commitment, life will become ‘restrictive, dull and boring’ (which can only be true if you make it so). I know people in their twenties and thirties who still live like this, and even people middle aged and older than me who still live like this!

I observe that we have ‘teenage’ energy and mindset spread throughout the whole population, regardless of age. In truth, as many people have lately been pointing out in blog comments, we can have elder energy at any age.

Hmm… it would be interesting to do a detective job on why we at any age choose ‘childish’ irresponsibility over the elder wisdom and grace that is available to all, and is even present in babies and young children.

I’m not a mother, by choice. I have done 16 years of part-time step-mothering but was, and am still, not a mother, so when I interact with children it is not in ‘mother’ energy or “I’m an adult and you’re just a kid” energy. It’s wonderful!! I get to be me, let them be them, and see and feel them as equals with as much wisdom and understanding as I have just with a little less training in the specifics of this particular time on the Earth. I enjoy lots of awesome ‘eye to eye, heart to heart’ moments of silent, ageless, mutually-conscious understanding with little ones. The physical age of our bodies means nothing in that context.

Adding the factor of reincarnation makes a huge difference to relationships – to know that the 8 year-old girl you’re chatting and painting pictures with has been (many times over) all genders, all ages, many societal roles and a wide range of occupations, and may have even been your own grandfather in some life or other! This awareness imparts an equality that can be felt and sensed by the child, who then is free to express their elder wisdom and grace, which is part of who they have always been.

When adults arrogantly treat children like ‘kids’, lesser beings who ‘don’t know as much’ and have to be constantly told, it suppresses the equality of relationship and the children then play out what you expect them to be: irresponsible, lesser and trivial.

Without blaming, because we’ve all been a party to and entrapped by the same belief, this is a deep, insidious form of training to be NOT ONLY not themselves, but also not in the wisdom and grace of elder energy that is innately within all children, as in everyone.

If it were not for Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, I may have continued ignoring the factor of reincarnation as being of great relevance in our lives and relationships. It would have remained at best a curiosity of nature in the 95% of the universe that our scientists currently admit they have no access to, and at worst, a fable that has no validity or value to our life. But seeing it in the whole context makes sense of a great many mysteries of human experience and psychology, and makes a fruitful foundation for the understanding and correction of interactions, attitudes, behaviour and purpose.

Let’s give ourselves and all humanity a big gift by changing the way we relate to our children and our elder people, offering respect and equality right from the get-go.

Thus children can grow up in their elder energy and never have to lose it and painfully re-find it as so many of us current older adults have had to do. Then our children will naturally have respect and appreciation for all the phases of life, and not end up trapped in ‘youth culture’. And our older people can continue to respect themselves and be respected by others for who they truly are without feeling pressured to be anything else, as some most beautifully live now.

Inspired by the comments of Helen Simkins, Rebecca Briant & Lucinda G on Being an Elder Role Model

by Dianne Trussell, BSc Hons, Goonellabah, NSW, Australia

Further Reading:
Our Lineage
Not the ‘unusual’
Reincarnation: Does Everything Start and End?