The Freedom We Inherit Through Connection
This weekend I spent time with my parents. They have both gone through a number of surgeries over the years from accidents, work-related injuries, and simply growing older. Being with them lately has made me more intentional about slowing down, showing up, and taking in what they choose to share. It reminded me of how grounding it is to hear the stories carried by the generations before us. As a child, I spent many days with my great-grandmother, who filled my early years with stories from her past. She told me things that felt unbelievable at the time, stories that were so different from the world I was living in as a kid. Those memories taught me early that the generations before us carry entire worlds within them, shaped by experiences that feel far away and yet continue to influence who we choose to become. Sharing more moments with my parents now brings me back to that same feeling. There is comfort in listening and a sense of connection in honoring the people who came before us. Spending more intentional time together has allowed more of those stories to come forward, and I find myself holding them with a deeper sense of gratitude and awareness than I was able to as a child.
Sitting with them has reminded me how naturally storytelling flows when we feel safe and connected. One minute we are talking about something that happened that morning, and the next they are weaving in a memory from their youth or retelling wisdom that was once shared with them. It is a rhythm. A practice. And, honestly, a way of passing time and wisdom all at once. It reminds me that sharing lived experience is not simply tradition, but a deeply human instinct. Long before history books and the internet, storytelling was how families made meaning, taught survival, shared identity, and stayed connected. And in many communities, this is still true.
There is something regulating about it, too. Listening to elders speak about who they were and what shaped them really seems to bring us back into connection with our own humanity and purpose. Their stories carry resilience, humor, grief, joy, trauma, and perspective. They remind us that we are part of a lineage of people who have endured, adapted, created, and pressed on. In therapy, we see this too. Relational work reminds us how healing it is to be seen, to matter, and to feel held in connection. The sharing and exchanging of narratives is another expression of that care. It allows us to bear witness to one another and to remember that our lives are woven into a much bigger collective story. And at the same time, listening to elders does not mean romanticizing every past or viewpoint. Some stories have caused harm, and part of honoring lineage is discerning which legacies deserve to be carried forward and which deserve to be transformed or consciously laid to rest.
There is also something deeply meaningful for the storyteller. To be listened to with care can offer its own kind of healing. For many older adults, sharing memories is a way of knowing that their lives, lessons, and lineages will not fade into silence or be forgotten. It can provide a sense of purpose and continuity, a feeling that who they are and who they come from will continue to live on in the people they love and the communities they have poured into. Being heard allows them to see that their experiences matter and that their stories do not end with them.
Collective wisdom is a form of liberation because it interrupts the idea that we have to figure everything out alone. It reminds us that we grow through connection, not isolation. We learn and heal in relationship with one another, shaped by community and by generations before us. When we listen to the experiences and memories of elders and community storytellers, we honor not only who they have been, but who we are becoming. In doing so, we protect and preserve history, culture, identity, and resilience. We remember that our lives take root in the soil tended to by those before us, nourished by their survival, creativity, and care.
As we move into a season where many of us gather more, I think it is worth pausing to appreciate the gift of the voices around us who have lived long before we could grasp the world the way they did. There is value in recognizing not only what our elders have done, but who they have been. Who they have loved. How they have cared. What shaped them into who they are. Elders are living archives, and this extends beyond family. It includes community historians, neighbors, church elders, cultural leaders, mentors, chosen family, and those who create and protect memory in our communities. Our wisdom is nurtured through them, and our liberation expands when we honor them.
This season, I hope we make room to listen. To slow down enough to hear not only the facts of their stories, but the meaning within them. To notice what happens in our bodies when we allow someone else’s memories to unfold and invite their narratives to impact us. To honor the healing that can happen when someone feels heard. Our elders and community storytellers do not simply hold memories. They hold perspective, culture, and care that cannot be replaced once gone. These stories are gifts. And honoring them can be as simple as sitting down, asking a question, and witnessing the parts of themselves they choose to share.
So, I leave you with this: whose stories live inside of you? And how might you continue welcoming the wisdom still being gifted in the spaces and relationships around you?
