The Awesome Secret of the Gray-Haired Women

We gray-haired women know:

There comes a moment in a conversation or a goings-on where, right there! we can lean the full weight of our elder-hood to push the outcome one way or another.

Often younger folks expect, when we open our mouth to speak, that they are going to get scolded. What a surprise! -- and this magnifies our influence greatly -- when instead of a scolding they hear:

-- words of understanding about their difficulty,

-- a tone-of-voice that says "I believe in you,"

-- a look on our face of bubbling goodwill and affection!

We know this.

We gray-haired women know:

That our words of encouragement, spoken when the time is ripe, can de-rail a disaster-waiting-to-happen. Can steer a group away from a "slippery slope." Can deftly re-motivate someone after a setback. Can boost a young person's belief in herself, sending her life in a new direction.

We know this.

We gray-haired women know:

That encouragement is free -- it costs us nothing! Encouragement uses our wisdom in place of our doing. We know we can hand out encouragement "like it grows on trees" -- even when illness or poverty prevent our "doing anything useful."

This is power! -- to freely hand out "I believe in you" to the younger folks -- and let them do the legwork for our dreams as well as their own. They have marvelous dreams for their lives and for the world.

We know this. You know this.

I invite you to use The Awesome Secret of the Gray Haired Women to the utmost. I apologize to anyone who thought it shouldn't be given away.

All discouragement is "old."

Say WHAT??!!

Well, OK. 99 percent of discouragement (that's like a glassful minus a few drops) is left over from discouragements that happened in, more than likely, our first year of life. Most of us didn't get a chance to fully recover from discouragements back then, and the "baggage" from those events still weighs down our present-day feelings.

How can I say that? Because some of my friends have been doing field studies.

In the horse world, we have extensively field-tested that we can rehabilitate most lame horses (so that they don't have to be euthanized) by removing the iron horseshoes, trimming their hooves (think giant toenail) to imitate the way wild horses self-trim their toenails, and leaving them barefoot. It works.

Traditional veterinarians and farriers have pooh-poohed what we've learned, because there are no scientific studies yet to "prove" it. In the meantime, thousands of us since about 2000 have saved our own horses from lameness and death, and have even rehabilitated many of them to full rideability. (See www.barefoothorse.com for more information.)

Likewise, among my listening friends, we have extensively field-tested that when someone feels discouraged in the present, the feeling can nearly always be traced back to a big discouragement at a very young age. Further, we can "listen" someone through to a resolution of their discouraged feelings -- which their parents, back then, were unable to do for various reasons. In this way, the "old" feelings are relieved and no longer influence someone's present attitude about what's going on in the world.

We sometimes see a surprising effect on a person's hopefulness, creativity, and get-up-and-go.

One day when you're feeling discouraged, take a chunk of time (maybe sitting in a traffic jam) and just say this out loud, to the steering wheel:

"All discouragement is old."

Let it sit for a long moment, and come again, this time reaching for a confident, cheery voice:

"All! discouragement is old."

After several repititions, you may find yourself deep in a jaw-stretching yawn. This is a good clue that you have tapped some ancient discouragement and it is being relieved, right this very moment! Enjoy the yawn -- this kind is not about being sleepy -- and when it's finished, come again:

"All discouragement is old."

You can yawn (or chuckle, or shiver) your way through half-an-hour or more of past events which you may or may not remember. Some time later, you may notice that things seem more hopeful now and that you do, in fact, have what it takes to handle a present difficulty.

"When you move, things happen."

If we take as the definition of leadership, "Seeing to it that everything around me goes well" -- then we are swimming in leadership ability!

We can grow each other as grass-roots leaders by:

-- not criticizing each other's beginner attempts;

-- telling each other what we like and appreciate about each other's leadership activity, style, even how we deal with setbacks;

-- listening to each other think and plan, and to the daily stories of small victories and of setbacks.

We are the leaders now. Humankind has grown up. We have full and sufficient adult reasoning, caring, imagination, and personal power for the challenges humanity faces.

We are no longer children! Granted we may still feel like children -- nearly everyone has some "baggage" from times when we were disrespected, not loved well, punished when we should have been praised, or frightened within an inch of our young life. Baggage can be healed (by our listening to each other) and we can move beyond -- can come into our own as adults and as the adulthood of the human species.

At this point in history, we don't really need a single "great leader" any more. Instead, each of us has areas where we function pretty-well-to-brilliantly. We can put together a picture of "the complete human" from the well-functioning facets of the people around us.

Until everyone has had a chance to heal the areas where they were not well encouraged as a child, we can ask one another for help in those areas. I can ask A how to handle a situation that needs more kindness than I know how to provide; can ask B for some artistic help; can ask C to give my courage a boost; can ask D how to communicate clearly in a tricky situation.

As a species, at this very moment in history, we have everything we need, to face "the challenges which reality places before us." Among 6 billion human beings, we have all the skills, all the talent, all the ingenuity, all the hard-working grit, all the joy and love that it is going to take to ensure a living world to pass on to our grandchildren's grandchildren.

Humanity has grown up. Just in time. We are it -- and we have what it takes.

We are living in a time of major overload of the spirit. As a friend said to me this afternoon, "Early humans had only a family group of maybe 25 to keep track of, and the dangers were few and obvious -- the occasional angry wild boar or hungry tiger, or the river flooding your campsite. The dangers were down-to-earth and handle-able.

"Now there are billions of us," she said, "and along with the daily handle-able problems, we have these gigantic things that are way too big to think about. I tell you, I hear on the news about global warming and I just block it out. It's overwhelming!"

After she told some recent discouragements I asked, What would a "story for our times" need to have in it, that would help people start to approach what seems overwhelming?

She answered without hesitation: "First of all, that 'We are all one.' There can no longer be divisions among us. We need everyone.

"Then, I need to know that the big challenges -- ending war, fixing the environment, good health and non-damaging work for every person on earth -- can be done by me, by lots of us, each doing our small part. To know that I, working in my little corner, am part of the whole."

And I said, "That's exactly what I'm writing about. I'm writing about how each of us has areas of competence, skills, things we care deeply about -- that can be joined with the various skills and caring and competence of the people around us.

"I'm saying, with all of us doing our small part -- the little things we have time for, the things we're good at -- that we do have, between all of us, everything we need to get the job done.

"All we really lack at this point is someone to touch each of us kindly on the shoulder and say, 'I believe in you. Go for it!' (Gray Haired Women take note.)

"That's what I'm working on. I think we could come up with a new "story" for this moment in history, that would provide a "harness" of understanding and focus so we could all pull together.

Not the old story that "people are children and need to be led." Not that "people are bad and need to be saved." The new story will have to convey our capability, our competence, our goodness and kindness, our adult skills and wisdom, our caring. And how much we want a livable, beautiful world to pass on to our grandchildren's grandchildren.

I don't expect to get this new story right the first time around. What I hope, actually, is that the fact I'm trying will invite lots of others to offer their own version. Over the next several years we might hash out something that will touch anyone's heart and give many that last teaspoon of needed confidence.

And of course a new story will need some new songs...

marjorie@barefoothorse.com