Sh8peshift Your Life

Elder vs. Older: The Sacred Responsibility of Becoming

• Zakiya Harris aka Sh8peshifter • Season 1 • Episode 18

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What does it truly mean to be an Elder? In many cultures, Elders are honored wisdom-keepers, guides, and stewards of communal well-being. But in today’s world, age alone doesn’t guarantee that title. In this episode, we explore the difference between being older and becoming an Elder, and why trauma, ego, and disconnection have left many simply aging without evolving.

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Sh8peShift YourLife (00:

03.096) Thank you for tuning in today, shapeshifters. Your presence means the world to me, and I deeply appreciate you being here. If something resonated with you, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Leave a comment and spread the love by sharing with others. Until next time, keep shifting. 33.314) Welcome back, shapeshifters. This episode is about elders versus olders. We know that being an elder is an honored position in. community. Elders are the wisdom keepers of the community. They are the guides. They are the stewards of communal well-being. Elders are often sought after to be the mediators in community. They are often the ones that hold the wisdom of the community. They hold the history of the community. But in today's world, we know that age alone does not necessarily guarantee the title of And so we're going to explore the differences between being older and being an elder and why trauma and ego and disconnection have left so many people simply aging without evolving. And it's time to reclaim the responsibility of elderhood, not just for ourselves, but for future generations. So let's talk about the difference between age and maturity. We know that age is about how old you are. But maturity is really a matter of initiation. It requires a level of self-awareness. It requires a level of service. One of the examples around age versus maturity, if any of you are familiar with Maladoma Somae's amazing work, Like Water and Spirit, if you have not read it, I highly recommend that you check it out. Essentially, Maladoma was from the Dogon tribe. And he was taken away at a very young age to go study with missionaries. And so because he was studying with missionaries, he adopted Western culture and Western ways and Western religion. And then when he was kind of in his 20s, he found himself back in his village and essentially his village was like, yeah, go over there with the little boys. And he's like, why would I be over there with the children? It was because, well, you have not gone through your rites of passage. You have not gone through.

Sh8peShift YourLife (02:

37.09) the reg... you have not gone through the religious initiations that are critical to take you from adolescence into manhood. So even though by age, Maladoma Somae was older, he actually was not seen as a man. We've seen rites of passage in all cultures. You see it with quinceañeras, you see it in bar mitzvahs, even the notion of a sweet 16. Even my daughter, when she started menstruating, we... had our own rites of passage that we created for her. There were things that she had to learn, things that she had to study, and then she had to share her studies, her knowledge. He tested to ensure that she had received the rights, the knowledge, the education to truly pass on from this place of adolescence into being a young woman. So what we learn in Like Water and Spirit, his experience having to now sit literally with nine, 10, 11, and 12 year old boys as a 20 something year old and go through initiation as the eldest person in the group to literally go into the forest. And he had all these metaphysical experiences in the forest and it kind of led him to the shamanistic work that he ended up making his life's work, which is really powerful. These cultures understood that age in and of itself is insufficient without rites of passage, without the critical ways of learning that you are actually unfit to be in the position of being an adult. If you haven't gone to school, if you will, you don't get to sit at the grown folks table. You're still at the kids table because you have not gone through what everybody's gone through. You have not learned the necessary insights and lessons of life. You need to go sit down at the kiddie table. And I think that that is something that we have lost. Shout out to like the millennials. I think that what they have brought to the consciousness is this self-awareness and self-actualization in many ways that is pushing the culture forward. But I think sometimes what we miss is the fact

Sh8peShift YourLife (04:

45.389) that just because you read a couple of books or you went to college or does not give you the ability to stand next to people who have been studying this work for 20, 30, 40, 50 years and think we're on the same level. We're not all in the same class. I work in the social justice field and I steward a cooperative and there's this whole notion of non-hierarchical leadership. you know, you have people coming in and they feel like, well. You know, it's non-hierarchical leadership. I get to make the decisions that you get to make. No, boo, you don't. I've been doing this work for over 25 years. You just got into the game. I'm not saying that your opinion does not matter, but to assume that just because you entered the room, then we get to sit down and make the same levels of decisions is just not true. I have too much skin in the game, expertise, knowledge, wisdom that I have learned, life experience that entitles me to a different level of perspective. So age and maturity are not the same thing. And I will say this can even happen in the inverse. Sometimes you have people who are very quote unquote young. I will put my daughter. not to brag on my daughter, but I will put her in that category. We do have young people who just come in as old souls. My daughter has grown up in a family where she was constantly immersed in music and arts and culture. She watched her parents perform. She was backstage. She was on stage. She was in the studio. She was a production assistant. She helped style. She has been there all along the way in production and in creative. She wrote her first book when she was 12 years old and now at 19, she's already released three publications under her name. So yes, although she's only 19, there is some wisdom there. So I don't want to say that just because you are young, you don't have maturity, but we have to make sure that we don't clump age equals maturity. And this is why sometimes we look at people and we say, well, wow, they're this age. Why are they still acting like this? And typically what happens is because they have unresolved trauma.

Sh8peShift YourLife (06:

50.123) Unresolved trauma stunts your growth. When you have a traumatic situation happen to you in childhood and most of the trauma that many of us experience happened during childhood. And so what that does is that splits you. It locks you into that inner wounded child that was abused, that was harmed. And so even though you might be aging and getting older, you're still acting like that small child. I know certain men I've dated, no, no shoday to them. It's like, okay, you're supposed to be older, but really you're acting like that scared little boy that got his feelings hurt when he was 12 years old, but you a grown ass man because you have not done that work. Same thing can happen for women. No disrespect, not discriminating against the men. can stay locked into that. And that is why inner child work is so critically important that as we get older, we have to learn how to go back and mother and father those inner children within us all that maybe did not receive the healing from our own parents and our own family to ensure that that trauma gets resolved because it doesn't just go anywhere. It doesn't just go away because you've gotten older. If anything, it starts concretizing. If anything, it starts solidifying. If anything, it becomes more and more of your identity. And that is why many of us can look at older people in our life, and even though they're older, they're not necessarily acting like a true elder. So what are the traits of a true elder? We know that number one, elders are humble. Elders don't have to go around trying to put other people down. They're so clear in who they are. They're so clear in their lived experience. Elders don't need external validation. They're rooted in their own confidence. Elders also are able to listen. Elders have a deep level of listening. a matter of fact, elders are going to listen much more than they talk. Elders really don't even have a lot to say, right? Elders can just sit back and watch and observe because the reality is they've seen it all before. Even though it might be a different time, place, even though it might be a different person or circumstance, the situation you live long enough on the

Sh8peShift YourLife (09:

09.679) planet, you start seeing patterns in life. So when challenges or new opportunities come up for an elder, they don't have to loud talk. They don't have to say a lot. They just can be in a place of listening. Also, elders hold community stewardship. Elders are in a position where, yes, they definitely know that self-preservation is the first law, so they're not about to sacrifice themselves for nobody. but they also recognize that this life is about being of service. This life is about giving. This life is not just about them. This life is for the next seven generations. They're not caught up in competition with other people. They're not caught up in selfishness and trying to hoard things for themselves. They're looking to the future. They're making decisions in their own actual life that are going to support the next seven generations forward. Elders have a level of spiritual clarity. Elders know that when something pops up, they can just tap into the spirit of the Most High, tap into God. Again, I think of my grandmother who when I would wake up in the morning, I would hear her praying out loud, sweeping her home. singing to God, singing to Jesus, right? I come from a bad family and the number one priority for my grandmother was God. They knew that the real work happened in the spiritual realm, health happened in the metaphysical realm. Elders also can be trusted mediators in community. These are the people who you can go to to offer wisdom. These are the people who can settle community disagreements. These are the people who can be objective. I know that when I was going through a very painful divorce and I was like venting to my mom about him and my dad, I was venting. I'm like, yeah, he did this, he did that. And my parents were like, no, that's the father of our grandchild. What you and him got, what you and him don't got is fine. Y'all don't want to be together cool, but we're not going to stop loving him. He's always going to be part of our family. We understand that

Sh8peShift YourLife (11:

24.151) relationships come and go, but he is family. He is with us. And the same thing with my ex-husband's family. His mother is still my mother to this day. She never judged me because the relationship ended. There's a level of wisdom and discernment. Elders aren't out here taking sides unless real harm has happened, which was not the case with my ex. There was no harm. It just was the relationship didn't work out. Elders move slow. They don't need to move fast because they understand that they're not rushing out here to get anything. They understand that what is for them is for them and never can be taken away. Look at someone in your family or in your community that you know that's not just an older, but that is truly an elder. And watch the way they move. Watch the way they talk. Watch the way they get ready. Look at the things that they prioritize. Elders are able to just sit in silence, sit in a place of stillness, right? Grandma's just on the porch rocking and humming. She don't need a bunch of computers and technology and things to satisfy her or to keep her entertained. She understands that the entertainment is within herself. She understands that she is the own temple. So those are the traits of a true elder. absence of elders in our community is killing our community because the community is intergenerational that we all know that when you walk into a space and you have young people and you have adults and you have elders that there's an energetic difference when a bunch of adults get together it's one vibe when a bunch of young people get together it's one vibe but when the elders and the adults and the children are all in the same room that it really creates this container of support. There's things that you just not gonna say. There's things that you just not gonna do, because you just don't feel comfortable doing it. And so we live in a society now where we have pushed the elders out. Many older people don't even have a place to be. We don't see them. Many of them are invisibilized. Many of them are isolated and at home. They are not able to be mobile.

Sh8peShift YourLife (13:

37.079) Many of them don't have the opportunities to just get out into the world. We don't have activities, particularly in Western culture, where you look at Caribbean culture, you look at African culture, you look at Indian culture, you look at Asian culture, you see elders and you look at Mexican culture here in Mexico. You see full generations when it's family day and Sunday is a big family day here, you see. the children, the adults, and the elders. And that's one thing that I love about this country is elders are integrated into community. Elders are not isolated and outside. That heals the community. We need every generation to be part of the pot. Western culture has created spaces where it's just not a welcoming space for all the generations. And so what is the cost of that? The cost of that is consequences of leadership because the reality is It does take a village. There are going to be things that people in your village are going to be able to say to your child, whether it's an elder, whether it's an auntie, whether it's an uncle, whether it's a cousin. A lot of times when we look at indigenous societies, what we see is you have the babies. But the babies are being taken care of by like the 10 to 12 year olds, right? But the 10 to 12 year olds are actually being overseen by the high school and the 18 year olds, right? And 18 year olds are really being overseen by the 30 somethings. It's not like all of the responsibility of motherhood falls on one human in the community. Everybody is responsible, right? If you talk to my parents, they will tell you they grew up in a community where every neighbor on the block had the ability to discipline them. And now We've lost that. There's no respect. There's no container. But again, if we have a bunch of older people cosplaying as elders because they have not done their own rites of passage. And let's be clear, rites of passage and let's be clear, rites of passage happens throughout your evolution as a human. So your first rites of passage is when you're born. Just surviving through the birth canal and making it into the physical world is

Sh8peShift YourLife (15:

46.071) Rites of passage number one. Then you're going to have a rites of passage when you move into adulthood. Then if you choose to get married, that's its own rites of passage. Then if you start joining societies, affinity groups, taking titles, getting initiations, that becomes another form of rites of passage. Then as you move into being an elder, many of us as women who bleed and have wounds, we learn that the idea of the crone, the idea of no longer bleeding. that the highest rites of passage in many cultures is the woman who has now stopped bleeding because she is now taking all of that power that she was losing through her menstrual blood. And now that power is activating within her own physical body. That the last rites of passage, the last title, if you will, you can't even get until you become an elder. So we learn the significance of that. And in our Western culture, We've missed all of it. And unfortunately, when we do have rites of passage, it becomes so much more about consumption. It becomes around how much money you can spend on a party. So if you've missed all of those critical moments of rites of passage and you have not done your own trauma work, you're just an older broken human. And so then when many of us adults look at the older people in our life and we see their character, We see the traits. We see the way that they're moving. We're like, I can't trust this person. This person is not an elder. I can't go to this person to be objective. This person is literally causing harm and community. Here's the thing. If mama hasn't dealt with the trauma at 60, she not going to do it at 70. If she hasn't dealt with the trauma at 70, she's not going to deal with it at 80. So a lot of us are looking at our parents and we love them dearly, but we have to accept that they just don't have it. They just don't have the traits of eldership. They birthed us and we believe in ifah that we actually choose our parents in order to fulfill our destiny. And we cannot blame our parents' trauma for our trauma. Once you become 18, you can't still say, well, my mama did this and my daddy did that. No, boo, you're responsible for your own healing. parents are responsible for theirs. So we have to then embody

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06.323) and individuate as adults while loving our families and while setting healthy boundaries around them. But sometimes many of us cannot go to the older people in our life, in our own family, to support us through some of those critical roles because they just haven't done the work. And so that can be really difficult. When you're trying to hold on to a set of values that says, wait, I should be respectful of older people. I should have this connection with my mom. I should have this connection with my dad. But at the same time, you're seeing that mom and dad actually can't show up in a way that can truly hold space for you. Some of us go to our families, go to the older people in our lives, and they're the most disrespectful. They're tearing you down. They're comparing themselves to you. They're not helpful. Some of us. are in a situation where we have to be the elders for our own parents. Let's call it out. Some of us have to be the wise. Some of us have to be the discerning. Some of us have to be the still people. Some of us have to embody the nonviolent communication. We are now parenting. our parents because they are not able to hold the eldership. And so that level of disconnection is literally killing our communities. It is not allowing our communities to grow. If you want to look at the health of the community, look at the way it treats its elders and look at the way it treats its young people, period, point blank. And if you look at the way America and Western societies treat young people, the way that we treat elders, you'll see that we are sick. And because of that sickness, we're not going to evolve. You can't leapfrog over the older people in your life and you can't ignore the youth. so oftentimes we like to say, young people are disrespectful. Young people are this. We're always down talking to how young people are, but who raised them? They're so disrespectful. Well, where did they learn that? Yes, society will pull our children into the spell of fuckery. However, your household is the first place of teaching and we can't just blame society.

Sh8peShift YourLife (20:

09.433) for our lack of parenting. And many of us don't have our own solidified container of parenting because we weren't parented. And many of them don't have the container of parenting as elders because they weren't parenting. And so we have to see that we are cycle breakers. Many of us are having to break those generational curses and those cycles of trauma in our family to say, I'm gonna be the one to go to therapy. I'm gonna be the one to learn how to communicate. I'm going to be the one to deal with my unresolved trauma. I'm going to be the one to go back and learn the stories of our ancestors. I'm going to be the one to bind out with the names of my mother's mother and father's mother. Daddy was I'm going to put the altar up. I'm going to feed it. I'm going to nourish it. I'm going to pray to it. I'm going to reconnect to it. I'm going to heal myself so that we cannot keep passing on this generational harm. I'm going to do it for myself. because I'm looking at my child for those of us who are parents and all of us are parents in some level, even if you have not biologically given birth, because again, it takes a village. When I look at the children in my community, I want to make sure that they're better than me. I want to make sure that the design is improved. I want to make sure that they're going to not have to go through what I had to go through. That was something that was so critical for me as a mother giving birth to a daughter that every issue, every trauma, every pain, every challenge that I had to go through. I'm going to give you the toolbox and the medicine bag. But you know what? I can't just talk the talk to my child. I have to embody it. And this is why a lot of young people don't respect adults, because they see you out here talking it and you a hot ass mess behind closed doors. I have to embody the womanhood, the adulthood, the wisdom that I want to pass on to my daughter. I can't just can't preach to her about being respectful. I have to be respectful. I can't preach to her about how she needs to get off social media if I'm addicted to my phone. There were times where I had to sit at my altar and had to meditate and she wanted my attention and I had to model, no, this is mama's time and you could sit down here next to me and you can get this meditation too boo, but this is what mom does.

Sh8peShift YourLife (22:

30.627) There are times where I had to say, Hey, mom's getting on a plane. Mom's going to have to go and fulfill her destiny, fulfill her creative endeavors, fulfill her entrepreneurial endeavors. can't just tell my daughter, I want her to be free. I can't just tell my daughter, I want her to be confident. I had to live and embody that work. So it's not just about judging the older people in your life. It's about doing that level of personal reflection on yourself and ask yourself, am I on track to be an elder. As my teacher, Namin Yahu, shared with me, if our goal is to become revered ancestors, when we pass on and we move into the ancestral realm, who's going to honor you? I have shrines in my home. Who's going to hold on to those shrines? Who's going to appease and pray and maintain our family lineage? I have to embody that and I have to teach my child that because she's going to be the one to inherit those shrines. She's gonna be the one to inherit these traditions. And so many of the challenges and the voids that the disconnection we're seeing in community right now is because we have a lot of elders and we don't have a lot of elders. Through my own vibrational frequency, trusted elders that came into my life, who came around and said, you know what, we see your light and they pushed me and they affirmed me and they poured into me. It doesn't mean that my parents didn't. But there were times where my parents just didn't have it because they were focusing on and dealing with their own life stuff, or they just didn't know how because nobody poured into them. So you can still magnetize elders in your life. And I would say if you don't have trusted elders, again, not olders, but elders in your life, it's time to get you some because there is nothing more powerful than being able to sit at the foot of an older person. who is now in an elder position and tell them what's going on. Tell them about your life. Tell them about your challenges and they can hold space for you and they can affirm you and they can say, baby, I've been through that already. Let me tell you how I got over. Let me tell you how I navigated through that. And so if that's something that you don't have, you can pray for it. You can start affirming it. There's a lot of elders that again are sitting around in homes isolated. No one's taking them out.

Sh8peShift YourLife (24:

53.088) No one's time with them. Just because they got older doesn't mean they still don't want to express. They still don't want to enjoy life. Even that relationship with a young person. If you're a parent or if you have young people in your life, there's nothing more powerful than being able to have that young person be with an elder. Grandparents and people of that age group are able to pour into your child in a way that you can't even do it. Because spiritually, The child has just left the ancestral realm and the elder is on their way into the ancestral realm. So children and elders are actually closer. Some of you have parents that are elders and you've watched the way they are with your children. Look at the way that my mother is so patient. and so open and so gentle with my daughter. And I'm like, who are you? Because that's not the mother that raised me. So becoming an elder is a choice. It's a calling. It's not something that happens just because you got older. Being older than me is not enough. If you are not embodying Ewa, if you are not embodying good character, if your character is off. And some of us are having to do so much spiritual work right now because we got people in our families that didn't do their spiritual work. And now we got to deal with it because that's how spirit works. The sins of the father are inherited by the sons. Whatever work that your family has not done. And guess where it shows up? It shows up in future generations. So some of us are still cleaning up other people's work. It ain't even ours. But we've got to clear it up so that we can move forward and so that our future generations can move. So those are the key takeaways from today's episode to know that just because you age and you get older does not mean that you are actually maturing, does not mean that you are moving into a place of wisdom, to understand that when you have unresolved trauma, it stunts your growth. And that growth is stunted by the lack of initiations and spiritual containers.

Sh8peShift YourLife (26:

59.01) that hold and remind you of your destiny, that remind you of who you are and the work that you are here to do in the world. That traits of a true elder, humility, deep listening, community service, wisdom, and discernment, that the absence of elders in our community is harming and destroying our community, and that that work of elderships, we need to ask, what type of elder are you going to be? based on the trajectory of your life right now. Go find you an elder, go call that elder in your community, spend some time with them. Until next time, keep shifting. Bye.

Sh8peShift YourLife (27:

40.792) Much, much love and light for showing up today's shapeshifters. You could be doing anything right now and you chose to be here and I do not take that for granted. Looking for extra support on your journey? Explore my affordable coaching programs. Whether you prefer personalized one-on-one sessions or engaging group coaching, I'm here to help you align your vision and thrive on your own terms. Visit shapeshiftyourlife.com, that's S-H the number eight, P-E, shiftyourlife.com and schedule your free shift call to discuss your coaching goals. Keep shifting.

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Zakiya aka Sh8peshifter

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