17. Filling the Empty Nest

The empty nest. Think about the visual image of what is implied by the phrase, the "empty nest."  The nest is a home, and its purpose is to keep eggs and baby birds safe until they are ready to fly off on their own. But what happens then? After the adorable baby birds grow up and leave the nest? In my head, I conjure up an image of a literal empty nest.  Barren cold. Lonely. Without purpose. Empty.

Now, not all of us look at the empty nest in such a negative light. But even the concept of the empty nest tends to focus us more of the loss of our children and purpose with kids in the home than on the opportunity of this new stage in our life.

In this episode we explore the range of emotions that we might experience as we face the empty nest and how we can not only find compassion for ourselves as we grapple with challenging emotions, but also how we can begin to fill the nest in a way that allows us to embrace this next chapter of our lives....and even to create a new, exciting and beautiful purpose, independent from our children.