Susan Avery Stewart - Winters graces: the surprising gifts of later life

Praise for Winters Graces

Dr. Stewarts Winters Graces gives us all a persuasive and satisfying guidebook on aging, uniquely presented through a rich synthesis of personal story, solid research, and myths and legends spanning time and culture. This writing represents a clear voice characterized by the very same powerful qualities it encourages in order to cultivate an attitude of agelessness: healthy defiance, optimism, and openness to change. Dr. Stewart invites us to question our collectively reinforced assumptions and face our fears about becoming older. We are reminded to invoke wisdom, compassion, humor... and a little necessary fierceness.

Eve Maram, PsyD, Clinical and Forensic Psychologist and author of Psychopathy Within

Dr. Susan Stewarts work has inspired me to watch for and to celebrate the many wonderful gifts and graces that come with the process of aging. Our society is prone to seeing the disadvantages of age. What a joy it is to focus rather on the many reasons to embrace aging in light of the continuing development and deepening of the human being in later life.

The Rev. Jeannette Myers, Episcopal priest

In this wise volume, Susan Stewart offers a compelling vision of what aging can be, not only for women, but for us all. In particular, the eleven qualities she dubs as the Graces of Winter articulate a profound depth-psychological model, rooted both in contemporary cutting-edge research and ancient wisdom.

David Van Nuys, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and creator/host of the Shrink Rap Radio podcast

At lasta glorious look at the gifts of aging! Winters Graces takes readers on a magnificent journey through the later years, in all their joy and fullness.

Mary Ann Clark, RN, retired

Susan Stewart guides her readers through the thorny thicket of aging in America to a quiet clearing where misconceptions are peeled away, and our fears are not denied, but embraced. Were led with gentle hands through contemporary science and solid cross-cultural, age-old traditions that help to re-awaken our own forgotten memories and understandings of the richness and value of each season of life. With the skill of an alchemist, Susan invites us to explore eleven qualities that ripen in later life and can transform the leaden fear of aging into a grateful recognition that the golden years are indeed gold. This book is to be read and then reread, one chapter at a time, whenever we need an infusion of audacity, contentment, or courage.

Jackie Cato, bi-lingual teacher

Winters Graces is full of grace. For me, reading it was like opening a treasure box and discovering that a time of life I was anticipating with some dread is actually rich in beauty and many other blessings. I envision groups of women coming together to receive its reassuring wisdom and to be awakened to the inviting possibilities that age has to offer.

Margaret Potts, retired teacher

Dr. Susan Stewarts book is a gift to all of us who are making the transition to late adulthood. Written in a beautiful, moving, personal, and descriptive style, her work is inspiring, healing, and filled with timeless wisdom. Susans writing has reaffirmed that I am not alone with the challenges that I am facing in the second half of life, and has given me the courage and perspective to forge onward with a renewed optimism about life and all that it has to teach me.

David F. Sowerby, PhD, adjunct faculty member, Sonoma State, Sofia, and Dominican Universities

Copyright 2018, Susan Avery Stewart

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-63152-379-3 pbk
ISBN: 978-1-63152-380-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944203

For information, address:
She Writes Press
1569 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707

Cover and interior design by Tabitha Lahr

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

In memory of my grandmother Winifred Gregory Avery and my mother, Wilma Lou Nichols, who grew even more loving as they aged.

And in gratitude for my sons, Avery and Logan, and their children, Natalie, Madison, Lona Louisa, and Lukasmy greatest teachers and blessings.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made.
Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra

W hat if the winter of life really was the best seasona time of completion and fulfillment, rather than a misery or a failure? And what if the primary problem wasnt aging itself but the misguided tale we have learned to tell ourselves about it?

In many cultures, elders play a variety of valuable roles and are respected, even revered. The Japanese, for example, regard their elders as national treasures and even have a wordshibuifor the beauty of age. And in societies where elders are valued, You look old today is a compliment. In the United States, though, a number of factors, including an exaggerated fear of death and the overvaluing of autonomy, appearance, and achievement, have led to an inaccurate view of aging as a humiliating decline into misery. Demeaning ageist stereotypes reflect our collective aversion to age and cause enormous suffering for older as well as younger people. Being an old woman is seen as a particular misfortune, rather than the blessing that it can be.

In an environment where fear-based attitudes toward old age are so pervasive, it is easy to internalize them without realizing it. Some women resist these negative stereotypes by clinging to youth, hoping to avoid what is increasingly construed as the sin of aging. A multi-billion-dollar industry promises redemption, capitalizing on womens fear of losing their looksand therefore their valueas they age. Most consider it high praise to assure a woman that she doesnt look her age. But the subtext is hardly a compliment: to be her age is bad.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who buy into the misconception that when youth fades its all over and who simply resign themselves to an inevitable downhill slide. Sadly, the belief that the winter of life is necessarily a time of debilitating decline usually goes hand in hand with a lack of health-promoting behaviors. Thus, many of us help bring to pass the very losses we dread.

Thankfully, resistance and resignation are not the only ways to approach the last season of life, and there is mounting evidence that the dread of aging is more rooted in fear and fallacy than in fact.

This counterstory is apparent in the lives of many of todays elders who are living far beyond the boundaries prescribed by ageist stereotypes. It is also illustrated by little-known folktales from around the world that depict the old woman as a multifaceted and valuable charactera far cry from the stories of wicked witches and ugly hags that most of us heard as children. And a growing body of research is confirming this heartening view of later life and yielding some surprising findings: