Meet Your Inner Elder
David Lowry: The inner elder won’t shout at you. It’s a presence that’s older and wiser than we are, and it speaks to you in the language of your experience. It develops your patience, and it comes from a place of deep knowing.
Hello everyone and welcome to The Inner Elder. I’m David Lowry, and this is a podcast where we listen to life’s quieter teachers and gather small but steady truths to carry forward.
Louisa: What if the wisest voice you’ll ever hear is already inside you? Today on the Inner Elder, David Lowry shares five signs that show when that voice is ready to be heard and one quick practice you can try this week.
David Lowry: Each week I’ll try to share a story, a question, or a practice that’s been inspired either by myself or people I’ve come to trust over the years who’ve learned how to live with curiosity and care. Within each of us is an inner elder. It’s that wise presence that helps [00:01:00] make sense of our journey, especially in seasons of change loss or becoming, some people call it the Holy Spirit or that still small voice, but whatever definition you choose to call it, the inner elder is something we can all learn to listen to.
Sometimes the inner elder is your better judgment, where you trust your own sense of right or wrong, and you see the world differently through lived experiences because it’s working and giving you a better life. The inner elder won’t shout at you because it’s a presence that’s older and wiser than we are, and you may be considerably old for yourself.
It speaks the language to you from your own experience. It develops your patience, and it comes from a place of deep knowing.
What Makes an Elder
David Lowry: So what makes an elder? Well, there are five marks to becoming an elder, and maybe you’ve wondered if you’ve crossed that threshold into this realm of [00:02:00] being an elder. I know when I was growing up, we had men and women.
We called elders in our church. These were people who were little older than the rest of the congregation, but not always. They were always people that we looked to as. Wise people. These people had seen a few things and lived a few things, and we knew they could help us along our journey. You don’t have to be a member of a church to be an elder, and you don’t even have to be religious to be an elder, but you do have to come to trust the process within them. You have to believe that there is an elder presence within you.
Louisa: You’ve heard David describe how elderhood isn’t about age or status — it’s about a way of being. So, let’s explore the first sign. What changes in us when we no longer need to prove who we are?
David Lowry: So let’s begin.
Mark 1 Quiet Authority
David Lowry: What are these five marks of an elder? Well, the first one I’m going to bring for your consideration is this one, quiet authority. [00:03:00] It’s the shift that happens when you no longer need to prove your credibility when you’re younger, so much of your authority comes from the position you hold.
I was once a college dean and it was a title that came with power to hire and fire and make decisions and shape things the way I thought they should go. My credibility back then came from achievement expertise and the role itself. But eventually you reach a point where you don’t lean on those things anymore.
Maybe you’re retired or maybe you’ve moved on to something different. But even if you’re still working, the authority that comes with an elder is quieter. It’s rooted in experience and convictions that are shaped over time. You no longer feel a need to defend what you believe. Or persuade anyone to agree with you.
You simply offer what you know for whatever good it might do. And if someone finds it helpful, you’re grateful, but if they don’t, [00:04:00] it doesn’t bother you. You see your authority no longer depends on being right or being validated. It comes from sharing what you’ve learned in the hope that it might help someone else.
There’s this line I love from the poet, David White. It goes like this. The older we get, the more we understand. Truth doesn’t need our protection. That’s the heart of quiet authority. You don’t guard your truth. You simply live it as an elder, this quiet authority doesn’t dominate the room.
You’re not trying to be the smartest voice in the room or the one who talks the most. You become the person who listens the most, who listens the most deeply. And you speak only when you feel there’s something worth offering, something that might genuinely help somebody. This kind of authority isn’t imposed.
It’s recognized usually by the people who need it the most. When [00:05:00] I was younger, I joined an organization that accredited colleges and universities. I was proud of it. I went through the training, traveled around the country, and I was honored to be a part of something so respected. And if I’m really honest, I wanted people to know that I knew what I was talking about.
I wanted them to see me as credible. But over time, there’s a value of being quiet. There’s no need to announce what you know or advertise your expertise because eventually people simply become aware of the work you’ve done and they’ll start approaching you and asking you, what do you think we should do?
How would you approach this? That’s a different kind of authority. The kind that comes from being recognized, not from telling others who you are, the kind that grows naturally without being pushed. There’s this wonderful line from Lazu that captures this beautifully. When the master’s work is done, the [00:06:00] people say, we did it ourselves.
You see, that’s elder authority. It doesn’t draw attention to itself. It creates space for others to grow. And maybe the simplest way to say this is this, when you stop needing to be impressive, you become truly influential.
Louisa: That’s a powerful shift — moving from needing to be recognized to simply offering what’s true. It makes me wonder, David: When we stop chasing scale and start valuing depth, how does that reshape the way we measure our lives?
Mark 2 Depth Over Scale
David Lowry: The second mark is that you preferred depth over scale when you’re young. Success often looks like numbers.
How many people did you reach out to? How big is your platform? How much money did you make? And whether you are increasing it every year, more is always better, right? But as you grow older, something in you changes the metrics. Shift depth [00:07:00] starts to matter more than numbers. What does that mean? It means that if you say something that helps even one person, it feels just as meaningful, sometimes more meaningful than reaching a crowd.
Your focus turns to being helpful, being of service, making a real difference in the lives of people in front of you. It’s no longer about how many people you know. It’s about whether your presence actually helps someone. One life steady one. Honest conversation. One moment that brings clarity or comfort.
That’s enough. Here’s a line from Richard Rohr that speaks beautifully to this. The mature person lives in deep time, not the frantic urgency of the moment. Depth slows you down. It invites you to pay attention to what actually matters. And here’s another quote from Parker Palmer. A leader is someone who has learned to listen to the voice of the soul.
[00:08:00] When you listen that way, you stop chasing crowds and you start tending to souls, including your own. You care less about being widely known and more about being truly useful. Helping even one person feels like a real success. And here’s the paradox, when you stop trying to reach everyone. You often end up reaching the people who need you the most.
Louisa: So instead of asking “How many?” The elder asks, “Did it matter?” That’s a different kind of success. Which leads naturally to another quality: What happens inside us when our emotional life begins to settle and steady?
Mark 3 Emotional Steadiness
David Lowry: Number three, the third mark. You’ve learned emotional regulation. You’ve become steady. Now, we’re not talking about perfectly. None of us get it perfect, but for the most part, you carry a sense of calm. And to become that kind of person, you have to make peace with yourself.
Elders make peace with their inner world. [00:09:00] You’re not haunted by your past mistakes the way you once were. You’re not as anxious about what’s coming next. You’re more present, more grounded, more at home. In your own skin, you’ve wrestled with your ambition and your disappointments, your ego, your grief, your limits, and your losses.
And over time, you’ve had to face them honestly. Many times you’ve discovered that you came up short. In fact, maybe more often than not, and strangely, that’s what softens you. There’s a line from Carl Jung that captures this beautifully. It says, I’m not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.
Elders know this. They’ve lived it. They’ve chosen who they want to be, not once but over and over, and that’s part of why you’re cautious about giving advice. You’ve lived long enough to know how often you’ve been wrong, so now you [00:10:00] only offer guidance gently and only when you sense it might truly make something easier for someone else.
You know what works for you, and you’re content with that. You’re not trying to impose your way on anyone. You don’t have to fix anyone, and if someone says, no, that’s not for me, you’re fine with it. There’s no urge to correct, to argue or feel offended. You’re comfortable with your own opinions. And that’s enough.
And more than ever you try to be a stabilizing presence, a nervous system steadying the people around you and others may not fully realize why they feel calmer in your presence, but somehow they do. It’s because you’re calm inside and that calmness naturally spills outward. There’s a lovely line from the Benedictine tradition. A mature soul is a shelter in the storm. That’s what elder steadiness feels like. Not flashy, not [00:11:00] loud, but deeply reassuring. When your kids come to visit you give them your full attention. You’re not thinking five steps ahead. You’re not trying to fix their lives. You’re simply with them. When you take on a task, you focus on that task.
Not everything is urgent. Not every job feels like it’s do or die. You move through life, steadier now anchored in yourself, and that steadiness becomes a quiet gift to everyone around you.
Louisa: There’s something deeply grounding about that — becoming the calm in the room rather than the noise. And it sets up the next question beautifully: How does that inner steadiness change the way we guide or support others?
Mark 4 Generativity Without Control
David Lowry: Our fourth mark is what I call generativity without control. It’s shifting from building your own life to helping others build theirs.
When you’re younger, your energy naturally goes towards shaping your own [00:12:00] career and path, such as your goals and directing outcomes and making sure things turn out the way you think they should. Especially in leadership roles, you’re often responsible for results and you carry that weight. But when you become an elder, something in you reorients, your focus turns outward towards the younger ones coming behind you.
You find yourself wanting to help them succeed more than you want anything for yourself. Their growth matters to you. Their flourishing brings you joy. You’re not trying to create a legacy with your name on it. You’re trying to create conditions where other people can thrive. There’s a beautiful line from the Jewish tradition. You’re not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. Elders understand this. They plant seeds knowing they may never see the harvest. They offer wisdom, but they’re not attached to whether someone takes it. [00:13:00] You mentor if invited, but you don’t insist. You guide, but you don’t steer.
You’re there to bless, not control. And here’s the deeper truth. Elders don’t need credit. They want the next generation to find the success they’re looking for. There’s a line from Nelson Henderson that captures this spirit perfectly. The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
That’s generativity. You invest in futures you may never personally experience. When you share something with a younger person, a story, a caution, a bit of hard-earned wisdom, you know, it might not land the right way. But years later, they may say, I remember when you told me that, and suddenly the seed you planted long ago breaks the surface.
You’re not trying to replicate yourself, but you’re trying to release others into becoming [00:14:00] who they should be. You’ve lived long enough to know that control is an illusion anyway, so you offer what you can with open hands, generativity without control. That’s the elder’s way.
Louisa: Helping without controlling — that’s a rare gift. And it prepares us for one of the most humbling marks of elderhood. David, what does it mean to become comfortable with mystery and limitation?
Mark 5 Living With Mystery
David Lowry: Number five, you’ve become comfortable with mystery and your own limitations.
One of the hardest lessons in life is accepting that you won’t get clear answers to everything. There are problems you can’t solve, situations you can’t fully understand, and questions that remain open no matter how hard you try and analyze them. When you’re younger, you often think, if I try hard enough, I can figure this out.
But part of growing older is realizing that some things simply won’t reveal themselves, [00:15:00] not fully, not neatly, and not on your timeline. You may never unravel the politics of your country. You may never understand why someone walked away from a relationship. You may never fully grasp why people behave the way they do.
And sometimes you can’t even explain your own emotions. You just know what you feel and you learn to accept that without needing to solve it. There’s a line from Rilke that captures this beautifully. Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Elders don’t rush the questions. They make a home among them. The world is complicated. Life is layered. People are mysterious, and sometimes you have to bow to the fact that there are forces and outcomes beyond your control. Things don’t have to be perfectly resolved for life to move forward. People can work together.
Not [00:16:00] everything is tidy or comfortable. You learn to say, I thought this was going to work out, but maybe it won’t, and I still don’t know why. Yet. You stay open. You learn to live at home in the mystery, trusting that clarity comes in its own time, if at all. In seasons of grief or illness or deep hardship, people often try to offer explanations, little pieces of wisdom to make sense of the suffering, but the truth is we don’t really know why things unfold the way they do.
Sometimes terrible things happen to truly good people. Sometimes the strongest and most loving among us experience profound pain. Maybe you found an explanation that brings you comfort, but you probably realize that it won’t comfort everyone. So you have to remain open to something larger, a mystery, bigger than any tidy answer.
There’s a line from the mystic Julian of [00:17:00] Norwich that many elders quietly carry with them all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. And not because everything makes sense, but because they’ve learned to trust what they cannot see. You hold on to the hope that one day we may understand more than we do right now, and until then you walk gently with the questions.
Louisa: There’s a quiet freedom in accepting that not everything can be solved or explained. And before David closes, there’s one more quality he wants to add — one that reveals the heart of an elder. What happens when we can celebrate others without needing anything for ourselves?
Bonus Delight Without Envy
David Lowry: If I were to add one more step to the five I’ve already mentioned, it would be this, an elder delights in the flourishing of others without feeling envy. Remember, you no longer need another ladder to climb another title to earn another [00:18:00] dollar in the bank. You don’t need to be the go-to person or in the room where all the decisions are made.
The urgency fades. The competition fades the need to prove yourself fades. Instead, you find yourself smiling when someone younger steps into their gifts. You feel proud when they succeed, not because you shape them, but because you genuinely want to see them thrive. Fred Rogers captures this beautifully when he said One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self.
Elders give that gift freely. They rejoice when others grow into their own honest selves. You’ve become content watching people discover things for themselves, explore life in their own way, and grow in directions you might never have imagined for yourself. Their accomplishments don’t threaten you. They delight you.
And with that comes joy and wisdom. The [00:19:00] wisdom to know that sometimes people need to make their own mistakes. You might think I wouldn’t do it that way. And maybe you’re right, but you also know that mistakes are often necessary teachers. So you allow others the freedom to learn their own lessons.
The lovely line from the poet Kahil Gibran says, you are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. Elders understand that you don’t aim the arrow, you simply steady the bow. There’s a deep freedom in this, a freedom that comes from releasing the urge to compete with the younger folks or to correct them or to make sure they do things the way you would’ve done them.
Instead, you simply watch them rise and you smile. You’re not trying to shape their future. You’re blessing it. You’re not trying to direct their path, you’re cheering for it. It’s a quiet, happiness rooted in the understanding that the future doesn’t belong to [00:20:00] you, and that’s. Exactly as it should be.
Louisa: That’s a beautiful picture — delighting in the growth of others without comparison. So now the question becomes: How do we notice which of these qualities are beginning to take root in us?
Self Reflection and Ripening
Louisa: So perhaps the question isn’t whether we’ve officially become elders yet. Maybe the better question is this, which of these six qualities is beginning to take root in me? Do I still have a need to control things or are things starting to soften? Do I still offer advice that no one asks for? Do I still push to have things go my way? Where am I deepening? Where am I still resisting?
Am I trading the desire for recognition, for the quiet usefulness of simply helping? Sometimes the most meaningful contribution is being the person who steps into the background and quietly does the needed work while [00:21:00] someone else stands in the spotlight. You’ve had your seasons of being out front. This isn’t stepping back.
It’s becoming more helpful, more practical, more grounded, more attentive. Can you loosen that grip a little bit? Can you grow in steadiness? Elderhood isn’t a title that’s handed to you. It’s the natural ripening of a life. It asks for your presence, your steadiness, your willingness to become more fully who you already are becoming.
Whatever the path you’re on the world doesn’t need you to be perfect. It needs you to be present. It needs you to show up, and it needs you to offer a helping hand to the ones who might need it.
Those are generous questions — not to judge ourselves, but to notice what’s ripening. And before we end, David has a simple practice for the week ahead.
Weekly Practice Listen Inward
David Lowry: I want to thank you for listening to The Inner Elder. If something in this episode [00:22:00] spoke to you. I’d love for you to try practicing just one small thing this week from the ideas we talked about. Nothing dramatic, nothing heroic, just one small shift.
When you feel tempted to give advice, pause for a moment and offer encouragement
instead. When you start to feel reactive, maybe take a step back and say they’re going to have to discover that for themselves. When you feel the urge to correct someone, try softening into curiosity. There’s always something we can do. That deepens us on the inside. But the most important thing I want to do is invite you to listen to your own inner elder.
Find a quiet moment early in the morning before the world wakes up or late in the evening when the house finally settles. Let the noise drain out of your mind. Let your shoulders drop. Take a few slow breaths and feel yourself arrive in your own body. Then ask a simple question, something [00:23:00] about life or living or the universe, or whatever it is that may be weighing on your heart.
Ask your inner elder, what do I need to know? Don’t force an answer. Don’t analyze. Don’t try to make something happen. Just wait. Just listen and let the work come to you. And if nothing happens, that’s fine too. But whatever comes, receive it gently knowing that the listening itself is the practice. Because the elder in you is always there steady, patient, wise, waiting for the moment when you’re quiet enough to hear.
Closing and Farewell
Louisa: Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed the show, please like and share so others can find it too. And as you move through your day, remember to listen to your inner elder, the gentle, steady voice that remembers who you truly are. Thank you for listening. We’ll talk to you again real soon.