FILLING THE EMPTY NEST
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. Episode number 17.
Hello, friends. So if you're listening, particularly given the title of this podcast, I would imagine you are either coming up against or in the midst of the empty nest. Your kids are growing up and becoming independent, and they don't need you as much anymore.
During life's major transition points, we tend to think about the past. Think about that beautiful time when your children were eight or nine, and they just loved being with you. You could take adventures with them, and it was just fun.
They were in it, and they weren't particularly whiny. They were interesting to talk to. And then we come against the skid mark of the teen years, when our kids are trying desperately to find independence from us.
For every kid, this looks entirely different. Some kids find their independence in very subtle ways, and others test the boundaries relentlessly in their effort to figure out who they are. And there's no way for us to predict how our children are going to do this.
I wish we had a roadmap. I know with my two boys, the way they've each exercised their independence as they've gotten older has been drastically different. And my perspective on how they have tested their boundaries has been challenging for me in both cases in very different ways.
And let me underscore that statement for a moment. Their behavior or the things that they've done and said in their effort to find their freedom, it's not those things that have been challenging for me. What's been challenging for me is that I've typically interpreted their actions or words in a way that has brought me some kind of pain, worry, anxiety, fear, anger.
Now, I've talked a lot about this concept of perspective and how you view the circumstances of your life in a way that brings you pain or joy. And we don't necessarily have a choice in how we instinctually interpret the circumstances of our lives, particularly if we practice this perspective for a really long time. And one of the things that we've practiced a lot is our interpretation of our role as a mother in our children's lives and the responsibility that we have to nurture and support them.
And I think for many of us, as our children exhibit this independence, redefining our perspective of our role as a mother is difficult because it's not often clear that letting go of our responsibility to keep them safe and to guide them is going to benefit our children in the short or even the long run. It's so easy to see them making mistakes and think to yourself, they need me to get involved here to guide them on the right path or else things are going to go terribly wrong. So you've probably heard the saying, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems.
Look, the size of our problems is always a matter of perspective. I thought my problems when my kids were little were still pretty big or at least overwhelming and exhausting. Looking back on those days, it almost seems like taking care of little children requires so much physical energy.
You feel like you're on call 24 hours a day. They constantly need your attention. You're always on the move with them, but raising teens and young adults requires a lot of emotional energy.
And a lot of that is energy around how we try to support our children emotionally. It's almost like we've taken on the weight of their emotional lives, put it on our own shoulders. We assume that it's our job to keep them happy and safe.
And that is a really, really challenging thing to do when our teens and adult children are doing the best they can to forge their independence from us. When you think back on your child's life, how do you interpret the past? Do you remember how colicky they were as a baby or that they didn't sleep through the night until they were two years old or older? Do you remember how whiny they were as toddlers or the first time they got in trouble in elementary school? Do you remember the challenging parts of learning how to be a parent? I would be willing to bet that while you probably do remember the circumstances connected to the challenging moments of raising your kids, that you don't carry the pain of these experiences in the same way that you carried that pain or frustration at the time it was all happening. For example, I remember being beside myself when I couldn't get my kids to sleep or particularly nap.
Because for me, the downtime of naps, the sleep during the day, it felt critically important to me for my own sanity to have that break. I remember how challenging it was and often feeling so frustrated, but that was then. I certainly don't carry that frustration with me into the present.
I just think, oh right, that was challenging for me and I leave it there. And I think my ability to let go of the pain of the past has a lot to do with the fact that everything worked out. Obviously at some point they started sleeping through the night and then of course eventually they stopped going to bed at all at any type of reasonable hour altogether.
My point is, you may look back on your child's life with rose colored glasses because everything turned out okay. Or at least you know how it all turned out up to this point. In most cases, barring serious illnesses or heaven forbid loss of a child, you discount the pain, which from this vantage point feels fleeting.
If you're no longer carrying the weight of the frustration you felt when your child was an infant or a toddler, then we tend to give much more weight to the joyful moments from our child's past. This is a really beautiful thing actually. Here's another example.
So many first time mothers are petrified about childbirth because they've heard horror stories about the pain of labor. Whenever I'm talking to a first time pregnant mom, I'll tell her, if it was really that bad, why would so many of us go back to have a second, third or fourth child? And of course labor isn't fun. And I know some of us have had incredibly challenging time giving birth.
But once it's over, what you remember about it is that you gave birth to this precious child. You remember the joy of bringing this beautiful life into the world. And it's like the pain is muted or maybe we just make an unintentional mental shift to decide that the pain was a hundred percent worth it.
I want you to think about every difficult experience you've had as a mother with your child over the many years of their lives. Don't dig deep, but just think overall about the different periods of your child's life and appreciate how often you were really challenged as a parent, whether it was because you were just exhausted keeping up with them or because of their behavior during difficult phases, even just managing their activity schedules. Every single one of us experiences difficult challenges with each of their children.
But as these challenges pass, we let them go. Now here we are, our children are older. You may have a high school student who's still at home, but doing their best to forge his or her independence from you.
Or you may have children who are already out of the house. Maybe they're in college, but they come home for breaks, or maybe they're out on their own entirely except for the times when they still desperately need you in some way for money or other support. So here we are in a new challenging era of dealing with our children.
They're doing everything in their power to be independent, but what that looks like is often somewhat counter to what we want from them. Our high school kids may be hanging out with the wrong crowd or not connecting with friends enough. They may be studying too much or not enough.
Our college kids come home and they act like they're still living at school, no curfew, no concern for how they keep their room clean. Our adult children may expect us to watch their own young children or support their living expenses. Or we may offer support to our children and perceive they're not appreciative of everything we do for them.
There are an infinite number of circumstances that we might face with our children at these stages, and they all have the potential to bring us pain in some way, depending on how we're thinking about them. Our children have their own wants and desires. They will be motivated or unmotivated based on what they want out of their lives, and this will fuel the results they create at any given stage for themselves.
And then there's what we want for them, our wants and desires for them. And since we can't control what they think, feel, or do, we're left feeling powerless and frustrated to get them to see our point of view. It would be one thing if they were really independent, as we hope they eventually will become.
But the fact is they still need us in so many ways, yet they're determined to exercise their independence as much as possible. And this often means that they don't want to just copy and paste our desires for them. They don't want to just listen to what we encourage them to do.
So here we are again in this new challenging phase of parenting. We're thinking back with rose-colored glasses to the happy, easygoing young children we used to have, and we miss those carefree days of parenting. Of course, conveniently forgetting many of the frustrations we felt even during those stages of parenthood.
And even now with these adult children, we have these perfect moments of pride and joy. Those times when they hug you out of the blue and tell you they love you. The thoughtful Mother's Day card.
The times when they've really succeeded in doing something, and they have a moment of openness when they invite you to celebrate their success with them. Maybe an athletic accomplishment, graduating from high school, or winning an award, a performance. They want you to be there to celebrate with them, to witness their effort and hard work.
These are precious moments that we know we are going to carry with us into the future. You can feel them even as they're happening. The weight and importance of them.
You take endless pictures in hopes that when you look back on the images, you will be transported back to that precious moment in time. You see your child smile, and you perceive that they are truly happy and feeling proud of themselves. And it's like we hold that image in our hearts, because by the way, this is it.
This is everything that we want for them in this moment. When we see them happy, it's like a gift to our hearts. A little pat on the back that tells us we're doing it right, and that it's all been worth it.
Any of the challenges of the past, any of the fights and disagreements, the sleepless nights, it's all been worth it for this precious moment. And if we're lucky, we get to have a lot of these moments with our children as they grow up. In these moments, you are just so incredibly grateful.
So let's talk about the empty nest. Think about this concept, the visual image of what is implied about the empty nest. Look, the nest is a home, and its purpose is to keep eggs and baby birds safe until they're 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 and cold. I imagine it's winter, actually. The image has an air of loneliness, a lack of purpose, no one to care for.
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 on the loss of our children and purpose with kids at home than on the opportunity of this new stage in our life. In addition to the loss of our precious baby birds and the loss of the purpose of caring for them on a day-to-day basis, it can be most scary when we don't know what will replace this purpose, when we can't imagine what comes next. Even when our kids strike out on their own, we know that for some period of time, they're still going to return to us fairly regularly.
But then for some of us, when we see our teenagers pulling away before they've even left, it can be easy to project that the minute they get out in the world, they're going to forget all about us, that they'll never call home. And even when they do come home, that they'll be caught up with their friends, maybe only call us when they need money. We can imagine that they are just so ready for the world that they're going to leave us behind.
And it's not even so much for many of us that we don't think that we'll be able to move on and find ways to busy ourselves after the kids leave. It's more about the loss of this important purpose. Even if my main job as a parent over the past few years has been to drive my kids around and make sure they're fed and clothed, the weight of this purpose has felt so meaningful to me.
On a day-to-day basis, I've been so emotionally invested in my boys. My purpose in life for so many years has revolved around caring for my kids, worrying about them constantly, managing their schedules. Think about the amount of emotional energy and brain power that you invest in your kids on a daily basis when they're living at home.
I think that we just need to offer ourselves a little compassion that this concept of the empty nest, yes, it's about the physical absence of our kids, but perhaps even more, it's the loss of the purpose in our lives that has been so meaningful and joyful to us for so many years. And again, remember, it hasn't always been joyful. It hasn't always been this blissful experience.
In fact, I would venture to say that 50% of parenthood sucks, or at least 50% of parenthood has been tedious, if not painful. Driving our kids around, waiting for them to get out of practice, worrying about them when they come home late and don't answer the phone, stressing with them about exams and assignments. We don't want to think of it as 50% awful because we focus on the joy and the privilege of it all.
Again, it's that positive 50% that's so beautiful and makes it all worth it. You would do it again and again and again because the joy and the beauty of raising these beautiful children, notwithstanding their attitudes and bad moods, the purpose and importance of having the privilege of raising these kids has made the negative 50% so worth it. So now that we're contemplating or in the midst of the empty nest, it's the feelings of joy and purpose that we feel that we're losing, that we have to let go of this joy and purpose.
I want to take a moment for us to just hold space for that loss for ourselves because this is a significant chapter in our lives that we're closing. It's something that we can never revisit in the same way. Maybe our kids will have their own children one day so we may get to experience caring for infants again in our lives, but it will never be quite the same.
And so for 18, 25, maybe even 30 years for some of us, we have invested so much love and attention and emotional energy in bringing our children to the point where they leave us. We need to hold space for this loss. It's the kind of thing we can even begin to dread well before the last child has left the house because every single child that leaves the house, it's like a piece of your heart has left the nest and you've got to redefine your parenting and your focus as you let go of each child.
That empty room is this constant reminder of the emptiness. It's funny that when you have teenagers, the house can still feel so full even when all the doors are closed and no one's talking to you. You know that they're there and accessible, that they're safe and you can talk to them for the most part.
And that's a lot. When they're gone, you get a sense that they're not as accessible to you. So again, I want to hold space for this loss because there's sadness and grief there.
And I don't want to discount that because we're thinking about all of the joy that we're letting go of, all of these memories, all of this investment. It's never going to be the same again. And we get to feel sad about that.
One of the practices that I've really opened myself up to as it relates to this is just recognizing when the sadness is there and loving myself through it. Because pretending it's not there or forcing yourself to look on the bright side just has the effect of making that pain bigger. You feel like you're pushing against the pain and the pressure just builds up to a point where it can be overwhelming.
The way I try to think about experiencing sadness is just to allow yourself to flow through it. Just float along with it and tell yourself it's going to be okay. I like the imagery of thinking about a little version of myself and just holding space for her, giving her a hug, and telling her it's all going to work out okay.
Here's an interesting perspective. Can you imagine knowing what you know now about how it all turns out with your colicky child or your whiny toddler? Can you imagine being able to go back in time to that woman who you were when your children were really little and you were totally overwhelmed? That you could go back in time and just give her a hug and tell her it really all works out okay. Think about how powerful that would be.
Now think about how powerful it would be if our 75 year old selves could travel back in time to see us today to just tell us everything is going to work out okay without giving up the details that we could hear from our future self that there is joy and beauty ahead of us. What an incredible gift it would be to know for certain that there was beauty and happiness ahead of you. If you could have that certainty, how would you think differently about this transition? I know it's scary and I know it's undefined.
I've often said to friends it's like your whole experience up through having kids is like a series of boxes that you can check. High school, check. College, check.
Job, check. Find a partner, check. Marriage, maybe check.
Home, check. Kids, check. Maybe it's in a different order.
Maybe there's a divorce in there, but there are these phases in life that you go through that are kind of predefined or anticipated. But after the kids leave home, there are no obvious boxes to check. Sure we could go back and find a new partner or get a new job, focus more on the job we have, but our choices are so open-ended that it can feel unsettling.
And this is particularly true if one of the reasons we are so desperate to find the next thing to do, the next purpose, is because we're trying to fill the void of the empty nest. Think about it, any relationship you find or job you take from this feeling of loss, fear, and emptiness, it's not going to fill the void. It might keep you busy for a time, but doesn't necessarily address the root of the problem, the loss, the sadness.
So I don't want to discount any of the joy that we've had as we reflect on the past of our children's lives, but I do think it's a little bit of a helpful reality check that it hasn't been all moonlight and roses. There have been plenty of times that have been challenging and painful. I think it's valuable to recognize that as we look back on our lives as parents with these rose-colored glasses, we've rewritten history a little bit in our minds.
We're focused so much more on the purpose and happiness that comes with being a parent as we look back. In the present moment, however, we're often a bit more cognizant of the dichotomy of the joy and pain in our lives. 50% pain, 50% joy on average.
In the present, we're experiencing the joy of seeing our kids take these important steps in adulthood. We see them succeed. We see them happy.
And almost in the same instant, we can worry about them, fear for their future, get frustrated about the decisions they're making. It might be helpful for you to make a mental note as you go about your day. How often are you experiencing positive emotions, and how often are your emotions more negative or painful? In fact, you may even find that your brain tends to skew towards the negative.
It's actually human nature for us to focus on the negative in the moment. When we remind ourselves to be present, it's often easier to focus on the positive, to call up gratitude. But unsupervised, our brains tend to complain and judge.
It's literally how our brains have evolved. So on average, the experience of our life right now is really 50-50 in terms of joy and pain. Some days, it may be 80-20.
Other days, it feels like 20-80. But on average, throughout the week, throughout the month, it's about 50% discomfort and negative emotion, drudgery or boredom, and 50% joy, love, and gratitude. So then we look ahead, and we're contemplating the empty nest.
The way we feel about that circumstance is entirely dependent on our perspective. For some of us, the empty nest represents a void that we feel compelled to fill because we're petrified that the loss and sadness will consume us. The not knowing how it will turn out is scary.
The things that we envision doing without our kids at home can feel potentially emptier. Like we may not have loved doing laundry every day, but at least it felt purposeful. You have the upside of being able to interact with your kids, but now what's left is the laundry, albeit quite a bit less laundry, but without the upside.
Or if you worked to support your family, you may still be working, but now you're coming home to a quiet house. You no longer need to rush home to have dinner with the family. You find yourself alone quite a bit more of the time.
So I want to offer that it is possible that as we reflect on our past, particularly as it relates to the joy of being a mother and raising these kids, we can inflate our perception of the joy we've experienced along the way. We have a selective memory, discounting the more painful or challenging moments, but then as we experience the present moment and we project ahead, we focus more on the negative, the loss, the uncertainty, the void of purpose. Now some of us can think about empty space, particularly those of us who are creative thinkers, and we can look at this blank canvas of our future and only see opportunity, space for creation.
But if your brain doesn't think that way, a blank canvas can be scary because it's so much easier when we know what the next steps are. We've been on a pretty steady path for a long time. Sure, there have been times that have been challenging and stressful and times when we haven't been sure how it was all going to work out, but we've been able to cross each hurdle as they've come.
And at the very least, what has felt somewhat stable has been that we've been a parent with children at home. We've carried the weight of this responsibility. So even when life was uncertain, there were some elements of our life that were certain and predictable.
So we're feeling loss of the joy and the purpose of being a parent with kids at home. We're feeling sadness, the anxiety and fear of what comes next, fear of the blank slate. I think it's so important to be honest with ourselves about how we're feeling.
For so much of my life, I would experience painful emotion and it would be overwhelming to me. It would just pervade every aspect of my life. And frankly, it felt like it was coming from outside of me.
I had no control over it. It wasn't until I realized with coaching that my emotional experience is entirely dependent on my mindset. The way I think about the circumstances of my life dictates how I feel, not the circumstances.
Now, this is really good news because more often than not, I have absolutely no control over the circumstances of my life. But I can observe and control the way I perceive the circumstances of my life. I can't control the fact that my kids are leaving the nest.
I can't change the fact that they're growing up and want to be, need to be independent from me. I can't predict the future and I can't change the past. But when we think that these circumstances of our life dictate how we feel, we're powerless to feel better without changing the circumstances and we can never do that.
But if the empty nest is a circumstance, it does not dictate how we feel. I know after everything I've been saying leading up to this point, you're thinking, what? I thought we were holding space for loss and fear. But here's the thing.
The circumstance is that our children will leave home or that they've left home. That circumstance is neutral. There's no emotion in the words our children have left home.
There's no emotion until we have a thought about it. My kids are my whole world and I feel like my joy and purpose is leaving me. My future is a big question mark.
I don't know what I'm going to do with my time. I'm going to be lonely without my kids at home. In between the circumstance of our kids leaving and the emotions of sadness and fear, there is a sentence in your mind.
What is that sentence? Through coaching, I've been able to understand my mindset around my kids seeking their independence and pulling away from me and how this creates frustration, anxiety, and sadness for me. Understanding this doesn't mean that I'm able to change my mind right away and be happy all the time, but it does give me a moment of respite. I'm no longer overwhelmed by my negative emotions because I understand where they're coming from.
I also understand that I don't want to take action from fear and sadness. I give space to these emotions. I allow them to be there and then I'm able to slowly let them go and ask myself, now what? I don't think the goal in life is to be happy all the time.
If we were happy all the time, how would we ever be able to appreciate happiness and joy and love if there was never a dichotomy of pain and loss or discomfort? Now that I understand that it's my mindset rather than the circumstances of my life that create my emotional experience, I have so much more compassion for the negative emotional experience of my life. So for example, when I feel lost and sadness, when I think about my children leaving the nest, I can feel compassion for myself about it because I know it's because I'm thinking about the loss of this purpose. So I can feel compassion for myself and know that it's okay that I feel this loss.
In fact, I need to grieve this loss and if I feel fear about what comes next, I understand it's not because the nest is empty. It's because I'm thinking about my future as a big question mark because I'm thinking that I may not have what it takes to open my mind to whatever the next challenge of my life may be. Once you stop and appreciate how you are creating a perspective around your current and future life and how that's driving your feelings and how you experience your life right now and how you show up in your life right now, once you have that understanding and deep awareness, you become someone who can take power back in your emotional life.
So it may be that I carry my sadness and my fear around with me for a while like something I keep with me in my purse every day, but do I want that sadness and fear to be the only things that fill my nest? Because here's the thing, the nest is not empty. Your emotional life is how you experience the world and it's never empty. Your entire life is the range of emotions that you experience on a minute-to-minute and day-by-day basis.
If you feel sadness and you feel fear around what comes next, I see you and I want to assure you that there's nothing wrong with you that this is your experience right now. But recognize that if your days are filled with sadness and fear that you are filling the emptiness, filling the void with these negative emotions and they may be keeping you from opening your mind up to the possibility that there is joy and love and accomplishment and forward momentum waiting for you in this next chapter. Letting go of our children is our curriculum right now.
In the same way our children have forged their independence from us, maybe it's our turn to forge our independence from them and to create a life that brings us joy and personal accomplishment which is separate from our children. Our kids are heading out to create a beautiful next chapter for themselves and we get to do that too. Our kids aren't concerned for one second that they're going to lose our love and we're not going to lose our love for them either.
But our lives will be so much richer for creating a personal experience that is independent from them, whatever that looks like for you. Think about how you want to fill the nest. What emotions do you want to experience and cultivate on a regular basis? Happiness, love, motivation, purpose, gratitude.
Then recognize if life is 50-50, what are those emotions that you are willing to feel alongside the joy and the purpose? Are you willing to feel a little fear? Maybe to feel discomfort in taking on new challenges and stretching yourself in new ways, whether that be to find a new partner, make new friends, start new hobbies, or expand your horizons with new careers or advancement in your profession. How will you fill the nest? Because it's never empty. It's filled with your emotional experience and you have the power to make that experience whatever you want it to be.
If you're not sure how to move forward and you want to learn how to fill your nest to create the life that you want in this next chapter, I would welcome the chance to talk with you and share with you how learning to manage your mindset around your life can give you the power to create anything you want in your life. It is the greatest gift that I have given myself in my life and I love to pass it on to you. 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.
