LETTING GO OF WHO YOU ARE — A MIDLIFE MOM’S FIRST STEP TOWARD PURPOSE, PEACE, AND POSSIBILITY | EP. 1
Welcome to The Small Jar, a podcast where we explore how to intentionally design the life that you want in the space between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins.
Hello, friends. I'm going to jump right in. I'll tell you more about me towards the end of this episode, but let's get to it.
I've been thinking a lot about letting go lately. Maybe it's because my birthday is approaching, my oldest son is a junior, and it feels like college is looming. It feels as if during this time as mothers in our 40s and 50s, we face so many circumstances out of our control.
Look, in life, there are always circumstances out of our control, but during this time, it just feels like so many of the circumstances feel like loss, feel like things are being taken away from us. In fact, I've started to think about this time, this space between motherhood and the empty nest as the long goodbye. And I'm not referencing the 1970s movie.
I'm talking literally about a 10 to 15 year period of saying goodbye. Think about it. First, we say goodbye to our infants and the time that they're nestled in our arms, feeding them bottles, breastfeeding.
Then we say goodbye to our cuddly, adorable toddlers who always wanted to play with us. We say goodbye to that relationship we had with our nine-year-old who confided in us, who didn't have secrets. We say goodbye to our ability to influence what our teenagers do, how they see the world, how they tackle opportunities and challenges of their lives.
Don't get me wrong. We try to influence them, but we are faced on a daily basis with our lack of control and influence more and more as our children become teens and young adults. We say goodbye to our children as they head off to college.
To be honest, the process of saying goodbye feels like it starts before high school as we contemplate how quickly high school will go and going through the college process. The whole time you're thinking of what it will be like to say goodbye to them. Then we contemplate having our last child leave the nest when we are forced to say goodbye to the purpose of being a mother with a child or children living at home.
During this time, we might have to say goodbye to other things in other areas of our lives. We may lose parents or others in our lives who are close to us. We may be coming to terms with the relationship we have with our spouse or partner, and this often involves saying goodbye to the vision we had of what that relationship could have been, what it was supposed to be.
We may be in a career transition, or if we haven't worked since having children, we may feel like we said goodbye to the professional version of ourselves too long ago to be able to start something new. God, then there's menopause. It feels like a long goodbye to our youth.
Every year as we get closer to and then further away from 50, everything seems to become more challenging. Maintaining our weight or losing weight, managing our emotions, weathering the fluctuating changes of our bodies, finding motivation. It feels like we have to say goodbye to any control we thought we had over our bodies.
The long goodbye. It feels like loss, frustration, maybe even grief. And we wonder why we feel awful so much of the time.
So I found in my own life and in the experiences of many of my clients that we're looking for inspiration to create what's next in our lives. This could be in part because we want to escape the pain of this transitional period. But I think it is also because we know intuitively that we want to create something for ourselves in the next chapter.
I titled this podcast, Letting Go of Who You Are to Become Who You Want to Be. Here's the thing. There are so many parts of who you are that serve you that are beautiful and perfect.
And I certainly don't want you to let go of any of those. But most of us don't even know that we have a choice about who we are. We think it's just the truth, how it is.
Think about it, who determines who you are. Many of us do let others opinions influence how we think about ourselves. But entertain for just a moment, the idea that you are the only one who gets to decide who you are.
I'll say it again, you are the only one who gets to decide who you are. So let's play with that for a moment. And I invite you if you're not sitting down as you're listening to this, make a mental note to return to this exercise when you have time, writing your journal or just on a piece of paper.
Think about who you are. How do you define yourself? What is it about yourself that makes you feel most proud? Now try not just to write about things for which you are grateful, your children, your partner. Instead, focus on the things about you that make you feel proud, worthy, accomplished.
Now think of one area of your life where you feel frustrated or stuck. You can always return to this exercise to focus on another area, but start with one area of your life that you find challenging. Write about who you are in relation to this problem.
Write all about it. What is the problem? Why is it a problem for you? How does this problem make you feel? How do you show up when you're faced with the problem? And what does this problem keep you from achieving in your life? Take your time, write as much as you can. Then take a step back and read what you have written.
Just take it all in. Now I want to suggest to you that you consider that what you have written is your story. It's your narrative, your interpretation about who you are, and what's holding you back.
Now your story might be factually true, or at least large pieces of it could be true. And it might not be true. It actually doesn't matter.
And here's why. Whether or not your story is factually true, it's true for you right now. And this story is what has created the life you are living in this moment.
How do I know this is true? Well, the way we interpret our lives fuels how we feel and therefore how we show up in our lives. Our actions fuel our results. So if we believe we are stuck, not capable at the mercy of someone else, needing to wait for circumstances to change before we can take action, unworthy, we're not going to be able to generate the forward momentum, the positive action to create a result that's different from what we have right now.
We think motivation, inspiration and determination, those traits and feelings that we know intellectually will make us take action. We think those things come from outside of ourselves. So many of my clients have told me I'm just not motivated.
I don't know what I want. I don't have time. I don't have the willpower or determination to go after this dream.
They tell me this as if it's the truth. And here's what's fascinating. As long as you believe that about yourself, as long as you believe your story, you will prove yourself right over and over and over again.
Let me share a few examples just to bring this home. Let's take the example of weight loss. Let me share a story about someone named Caroline.
Caroline says, I've struggled with losing weight all of my life. I've tried every diet there is and I'm never able to stick to it. I just don't think I'm the kind of person who can stay motivated to lose weight.
Caroline might be able to produce pages of data showing a history of not being able to lose weight. I've struggled with losing weight all of my life. This is what's true for Caroline right now.
It feels like a fact. Now Caroline might start a new diet. And in the beginning, she might be thinking, this time it's different, this time I'm going to stay committed.
And in the beginning, she feels motivated. And she sticks with a diet for a period of time. Then Friday comes around and she goes out to dinner with friends.
She has some drinks, before you know it, she's had French fries, she's had dessert, more than she had originally planned. In fact, she had planned to go into the evening saying, I'm going to be good. The next morning, she feels awful, defeated.
She beats herself up thinking, why can't I just stick to the diet? I planned to stay on my protocol. And look, I can't lose weight. As she goes through the rest of the weekend feeling defeated, she eats whatever she wants.
She tells herself she'll start again on Monday. Monday rolls around and Caroline thinks she can make up for lost time by starving herself only to come home famished on Monday. The diet is then officially over.
Caroline now has even more evidence that she can't lose weight. Her belief that she has struggled with losing weight all of her life is a self fulfilling prophecy. Now I'm personally so familiar with Caroline's story and you may be as well.
When this happened to me in the past, I absolutely believed without a doubt that I struggled with losing weight. I mean, look, I had data, history, long logs of weights and weigh-ins that proved that I couldn't lose weight. And ultimately, it came down to an underlying belief that there was something wrong with me or lacking in me that I wasn't capable of sticking with the plan.
And it always resulted in me eventually giving up. But what would happen if Caroline let go of her story that she had always struggled with losing weight? What if instead of beating herself up on Saturday morning and then continuing to overindulge the rest of the weekend, she thought, okay, so I had dessert. I had a few drinks.
It's not a problem. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with me. What if next time she went out with friends, she could plan to have dessert instead of going to the situation, forcing herself to feel deprived, and then ultimately letting herself down? What if on Saturday, she didn't waste time beating herself up and instead just decided to move forward and get back on track with her plan to lose weight? Even just the ability to let go of the judgment, let go of the story that you're not capable of losing weight means that out of those three days, only Friday night's dinner was off plan.
What if we could let go of the story that we're not capable and embrace the story that we are learning? Let me give you another example. Sabrina has three children. And she says, My children are my sole focus.
I love them, and I'm so grateful for them. But I'm always running around and taking them to some activity. My responsibilities at home and with my children make it impossible for me to find time for myself.
I can't work out. I don't have time to relax or see friends. I just feel like there's no time for me and my goals.
Think about how that statement feels. There's no time for me and my goals. Sabrina might say it feels like the truth.
But really, how do you think it makes her feel? My responsibilities are standing in the way of my dreams. Or if Sabrina was really being honest, my children are standing in the way of my dreams. How does that feel? You might say stuck, defeated.
You might even say selfish. Let's go with selfish. So if Sabrina thinks my children are standing in the way of my dreams, and her immediate reaction is to feel selfish, how dare I ever even think that thought? She reminds herself how lucky she is to be a mom.
She consoles herself by saying it isn't forever. And she'll miss her children when they leave her. So she better stop being selfish.
She's judging herself for thinking this and feeling guilty. She may even double down on her commitment to her children. Because by the way, that's what good mothers do.
She certainly doesn't contemplate if it's even possible to find time for herself or her dreams without letting her children down. Her result, no time for her dreams, little time for herself. We believe our stories so deeply, so fully that we actually create results that reinforce the belief even more.
I'll share one more example. Veronica is married to Walter and she might say, Walter shouldn't play so much golf. I take care of the family and household all week and then he gets to spend the weekend playing golf with his friends.
This is a problem for me because I don't get a break. His selfishness means I'm stuck at home. And I feel like he doesn't want to spend time with me or the kids.
There's a lot to the story. But let's just take one piece of it. His selfishness means I don't get a break.
This makes Veronica feel resentful, maybe even angry. When she's feeling resentful, she gives Walter the cold shoulder or she might snap at him and say something like I have to do everything. She nags at him about playing golf.
She bitterly drives the kids to their activities. She may even feel a bit like a martyr. She spends her time being angry at her husband rather than approaching him with a plan to work out how she can get a break.
She never considers that Walter might need a break. And when Walter is home on the weekend, Veronica doesn't even want to spend time with him. Her result, she doesn't get a break.
And she pushes her husband further away instead of building the connections she desires with him. But who would Veronica be without the story that Walter is selfish and it's his fault she can't get a break? Who would she be without the story? She could be willing to talk with her husband about her need for a break. She would be in a much better position to create a situation where they both got what they wanted.
All this by dropping the story that Walter is selfish and it's not possible to take a break. It sounds almost too easy when you break it down this way. Sure, you might say if I could just change what I think, it would be great.
But it's not that easy. In the moment, I feel so angry, frustrated, defeated. And you're absolutely right, it's not that easy.
But here's the main takeaway I want you to consider. If you've taken the time to write down your thoughts about an area of your life where you feel frustrated or stuck, if you've really taken the time to explore who you are in relation to this problem, how it makes you feel and how you show up when you feel this way, then just entertain the possibility that this is a story that can be rewritten. You are the only one who can write the story of your life.
And you can believe whatever you want about yourself. But before you can write a new story, you might have to let go. You have to let go of the belief that you are unworthy or incapable, that it's someone else's fault, or that there are just too many obstacles in the way.
Those stories are optional. Even if you have data to back it up, you have proof that there are obstacles and it is someone else's fault. Even if the majority of your friends would agree with you, ask yourself, does the story help me move forward? Does it help me create what I want in my life? Or does it simply reinforce the same old story that keeps me in pain? Don't try to just change your story, or repeat a mantra to try and change your mind.
Start with letting go of the belief that the story you have written about yourself is absolutely true. Just allow your mind to open to the possibility that there might be another story waiting for you. In upcoming episodes, I'm going to share much more about how to let go, how to create the life you want to live on purpose.
Because I know from personal experience that it's not easy to let go. The stories we have in our mind are stories that we have practiced over and over. They're belief systems.
They're who we are. I know it's not easy to let go. There are so many areas of our lives where we are being forced to let go and say goodbye.
Do we really have to let go of ourselves too? Turn the other cheek, get over the obstacles, take responsibility for all of it? It just doesn't seem fair. The answer is no, you don't have to let go. You get to decide whether or not your stories are serving you.
But as we let go and say goodbye, in so many areas of our lives, can we open the door to what we really want in our lives? Strong relationships with our teen and young adult children. A new sense of purpose and direction for our lives, independent of our children. Love and connection in our relationships with partners and friends.
Care for our own health and wellness, perhaps a new career or volunteer project. Motivation. An inspiration that comes from inside of ourselves.
As we say goodbye, let's write a new story where we are the main character, and we get to decide who we are and what we want to create. But creating this new you, who you want to be, may mean you have to question the parts of your story that have held you back. Even so much about this time in our lives, the long goodbye between motherhood and the empty nest, even that's a story.
If you could write your story exactly as you wanted it to be, what would it say? So as I close out, I want to introduce myself. My name is Jennifer Collins. I'm a Certified Life Coach, and I started Small Jar to help mothers in the space between motherhood and the empty nest, reignite the possibilities of their lives, their power to create what they want for their lives.
The Small Jar is a space where we can safely reflect on those parts of ourselves that bring us pain, keep us stuck, and also where we can build the spark of rediscovery and renewal to create something beautiful in the second chapter of our lives. I am also on this journey with you, a mother with two boys on the brink of letting them go. There is so much beauty, joy, pride, and love in this stage of life.
But when we believe our story, there can also be the pain of letting go. If you've enjoyed this launch episode, I hope you'll follow along with me. Until next time, friends.
Thanks for listening to the Small Jar podcast. Please visit us at www.thesmalljar.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at smalljarcoach and subscribe to this podcast. Remember, you are the author of your story.
