WHEN THE HOUSE GETS QUIET — FACING LONELINESS AND RECLAIMING YOURSELF IN THE EMPTY NEST YEARS | EP. 57
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional roller coaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 57.
Hello, my friends. So last week, I was at the beach with my parents, my brother and sister, and their families. Both of my boys had to work, so they didn't come with me.
I went on my own, and they were planning to meet up with us for the fourth. So I don't get to see my parents as much as I'd like to, and the time I get to spend with them is precious. And so it made sense for me to go alone.
But there's something surreal about going on a family vacation, one that we would have traditionally all done as a team. So as I was getting on the ferry, I posted about this, and I couldn't resist backing the post to the cats in the cradle. That verse about the son coming home from college.
So much like a man, I had to say, I'm proud of you, son. Can you stay for a while? So he said with a smile, what I'd really like, dad, is to borrow the car keys. Can I have them please? Never have the lyrics of a song felt more appropriate to my life right now.
I used to think that the point of the song was to not put off spending precious time with your kids, because eventually they'll do it back to you. But in fact, what I'm realizing is that this is just what kids do. They move on.
They'd rather go out with friends than sit around talking to me. And that doesn't have to mean that we're bad parents, or that we set the wrong example. Intellectually, we can know all of this, but we may be still feel a little bit hurt by it.
It was probably easier for me to not interpret my current situation as being about me, because the boys were actually working. And I'm thrilled that they both have summer jobs and that they're taking them seriously. For me, the emotion is more about realizing that this is a sign of what's to come.
We can't take for granted that vacations will be spent in the same way anymore. The boys' spring breaks won't overlap. They may actually start wanting to spend spring breaks and other holidays with friends or girlfriends.
This is all just life. We wouldn't have it any other way. We want our children to launch, to be confident and independent.
But at the same time, we can't help but feel that, in fact, we are the ones who need our kids. In total contrast to my life right now, over the weekend, I got the chance to observe my brother and sister, who have a total of four kids ranging in age from 1 to 11. It was exhausting watching how little time they both got to relax.
In any moment, someone needed something. A diaper change, a snack, a shower, some change of scenery. It was almost comical to see them spend 20 minutes getting ready to walk down to the beach, getting everyone lathered up with sunscreen.
They'd get down to the beach, and then the kids would be bored almost faster than the time it took for them to get down there. Then they'd make the trip back to the house, everyone needing a shower, sand everywhere, then more snacks. And then the kids would be pressing on for the next adventure, a trip to the pool, going to town for treats.
I remember those times so well, and so many of my memories of those times are picture perfect. But if I'm honest with myself, it was also exhausting, never having a moment to myself. To me, I also felt this overwhelming sense of boredom, like every day was a little bit like Groundhog Day, particularly with babies who aren't in any way independent.
So while my brother woke at 6am every morning to give his son a bottle, I slept in. I walked for miles on the beach. I read on the beach.
These things were unheard of luxuries for me when my boys were little. So as I observed my siblings over the weekend, I definitely noticed there are many things I don't miss about having really young kids. But I also noticed how much free affection my nieces and nephews give their parents, how much affection they give to me, and really anyone in their family circle.
It was precious witnessing and receiving these spontaneous hugs and I love you's, the readiness to cuddle, those parts. It almost hurts how much I miss those parts with my boys. Really what I miss is that version of my boys who wanted to cuddle with me, who would hug me 10 or 20 times a day, who would stay wrapped in a hug without wanting to let go.
How precious is it that we had that gift of this love with our kids? Of course we get why our kids aren't as openly affectionate with us now that they're older. We don't expect to cuddle with our 18 year old, but it's also normal to feel like it would be nice to have some type of affection. A regular I love you, a daily hug, even a smile when we walk into the room.
Is it so much to ask? In contrast, sometimes we feel like we've traded in our cuddly kids for eye-rolling teenagers who can't stand to be in our presence, who in fact seem like they'd rather be anywhere than with us. My brother and sister's kids are not always happy, but when they're upset or angry about something, my siblings don't take any of it personally. They never for a moment think that their kid's emotional meltdown is about them, but they also have the tools to down-regulate their kid's emotions a lot of the time.
A hug, a patient acknowledgement and redirection, maybe a sense of ignoring, and within a fairly short period of time their kids are back to being the happy, energetic, cuddly versions of themselves. How much would you give to be able to just hug or redirect your teen when they were angry or sad about something? If someone could solve that mystery, they'd have a million dollar business. But the reality is that a simple hug or a word of advice from us doesn't fix a thing for our kids.
Even worse, they don't want our hugs or advice. In fact, our advice can sometimes make our kids even more annoyed at us. So we're left, in stark contrast to the times when we were wrapped up in our kids' lives 24-7, we're left with this emptiness and a lot of worry and frustration filling the void.
I think this is why this transition into the world of teenagers and through the time when they actually become independent adults is so challenging. We feel both empty and filled with negative emotion. Let's talk about the emptiness.
Do you even realize how much of your life has been wrapped up in your child's life so far? Of course, there are the day-to-day activities, the driving, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, but we've also spent a lot of time worrying and planning. It's not only our time, but our minds that are tied up in our children's lives. We think about how to encourage them in the right way.
What activities should they pursue? Are they in the right school? Do they need a tutor? Is it too late for them to learn an instrument? We've spent our kids' lives constantly trying to navigate the right path for them, always a little bit worried that somehow we'll get it wrong. And notice how as our kids have gotten older, the purpose and focus we've dedicated to them extends far beyond the sheer number of hours we spend together, maybe by a multiple of five or ten even. It's common for us to look at the separation from our kids and feel a sense of loneliness.
It can be there even when your kids are in the house but locked behind closed doors. But interestingly, that still feels better than having no one home at all. And then we project into the future when there's literally no one in the house, being truly alone.
And it's common for us to fear this a little bit and want to find a way to fill it. You often hear people saying there's peace and solitude, but there's not as much peace and loneliness. Just because it's quiet, just because you have time to yourself, doesn't mean that you're in this place of peace.
There's certainly nothing wrong with us that we experience loneliness. In fact, it's one of those feelings that we will all experience at different times in our lives. We may feel lonely when we find ourselves in new situations like moving to a new place or starting a new job.
It's funny that we can also feel lonely when we're in a crowd of people because we don't feel like we fit in. Have you ever been to a party or a networking event and just felt totally lost and out of your element? It seems counterintuitive to feel alone in a group of people but it happens all the time. Some of us might feel loneliness because we don't have a love connection, either because we don't have a partner or frankly some of us could even feel alone in our marriage.
Many of us women at this stage in our lives might feel lonely because we perceive that the other women in our life just don't seem to have time for us. Look, we all get caught up in our lives, we do it ourselves, but then it becomes hard for us to connect because we're all finding ourselves at the whims of our own unpredictable family schedule and not making time to connect with friends as much as we used to. We could even be surrounded by women who work where we do or who are at our church or who volunteer with us and we can't find a way to figure out how to take the step to move beyond the situational friendship.
Sometimes we grow out of friendships as well. Over the years I've been friends with many women who I just don't see as much of anymore, either because our kids no longer go to the same school or because we just don't have as much time or as many things in common anymore. We might have grown apart or may no longer be a match for any number of reasons, from different values and interests to actual disagreements or decisions to set boundaries with our time.
The author of the Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin, wrote an article about loneliness and described the quiet presence loneliness. She described this as feeling lonely missing someone else's quiet presence. Even if we have plenty of friends or family living nearby, even if we spend the day at work and feel connected to our co-workers, we can come home and miss having someone in the house with us.
This seems particularly relevant as we look ahead to our kids leaving for college. Before they leave, they may be home behind closed doors, but somehow that still feels better than missing that quiet presence when they leave. In all of the types of loneliness I've just described, the issue is a change in circumstances.
It's uncomfortable, but also this loneliness leaves you with yourself. We're often tempted to fill the time so we don't have to be alone with ourselves, but it's interesting that if you were to let yourself be truly alone, what would you uncover about yourself? Moms with young children just don't have the luxury of being alone with their thoughts. Did you actually know that scientists estimate that each one of us has on average 10 to 70,000 thoughts each and every day? 70,000 thoughts.
Apparently the National Science Foundation also found that roughly 80% of those thoughts were negative and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. That last statistic makes sense when you think of the sheer number of things that we do on autopilot seemingly without thinking, like brushing your teeth. You probably never proactively think about brushing your teeth.
You just automatically do it at the same time or the same point in your schedule every single day. Well, to brush your teeth, your brain has to actually have a number of subconscious thoughts. Walk in the bathroom, pick up the toothbrush, open the toothpaste, and so on.
So the vast majority of our thoughts are just directing our body to function in our daily lives. But that other statistic, 80% of our thoughts are negative. So if you've been listening to my podcast, you've probably heard me connect our thoughts to our feelings, meaning that our thoughts actually create our feelings.
So unsurprisingly, if we have 80% negative thoughts a day, we have a lot of negative emotion. So let's talk about this for a second because so many of my clients come to me thinking that there's something wrong with them, that they have so many negative thoughts that make them feel terrible. And I just want to normalize this for a second because if scientifically it's been observed or even proven that 80% of our thoughts are negative, and that's on average in the world for everyone, no matter your age, this is an experience that we all share.
And so I wonder if the only real difference that we're experiencing as women at this age is that we're so much more aware of the thoughts we're having, or perhaps it's even more that we're aware of the feelings these thoughts are causing for us. Because again, I'm comparing this to my siblings who of course have negative thoughts that they grapple with in their life, but they also don't have a whole lot of time to ruminate in these thoughts. In addition to being more aware, or at least having more time to sit in this awareness, when it comes to our kids, we have so much less power to do anything to address or relieve the negative thoughts we're having about what's happening in our lives.
So what are these negative thoughts? Well, the majority of them are tied to the part of our brain associated with fight or flight. You can even think about this as the primitive part of our brain that wants to avoid danger and seek safety and pleasure. So there's this protective aspect of our negativity bias, which is what they call this tendency to focus on the negative.
And from an evolutionary standpoint, you can see how this would be helpful. Because if in prehistoric times we were walking around not looking for danger and not seeking safety and the comfort of food and shelter, then we probably wouldn't live that long, because we wouldn't have been attuned to all of the things in the world that could hurt us. And in prehistoric times, the world was a pretty hostile place.
But now we live in a world where we're not in danger in a literal sense on a day-to-day basis, and we have all of the comforts of home and easy access to food. But our brains are still wired to look for dangers and to find ways to keep us safe and seek out as much pleasure as possible. That's just how our brains operate on default.
And it's fascinating to consider that when we have negative thoughts about our lives and even ourselves, there is some reason that our brain thinks this negative bias is helpful to us. Here are some simple examples. When we're driving, we're constantly looking for danger, driving defensively.
We have a subconscious thought that we're driving a two-ton vehicle at 60 miles per hour and that it would be a really bad thing if we got in an accident. So we're constantly looking in the rearview mirror and keeping our eye out for bad drivers. We don't think of these thoughts as negative because it's helpful to us to think this way.
And honestly, we now do it without consciously thinking about it. Negativity bias has taught us not to touch a hot stove or to walk in traffic. We've learned not to overeat because then we know we'll feel sick.
In our interactions with people we don't know, we subconsciously analyze their behavior for signs of danger or reasons we might want to distance ourselves from them. We might judge things we've done in the past and think we want to do them differently in the future. Ultimately, our brains learn more from negative information than they learn from positive information.
So there are many ways that this is really helpful to us. In fact, it's been incredibly helpful to us as moms in our effort to keep our children healthy and thriving throughout their lives. From the moment you knew you were pregnant, maybe before, you were taking care of yourself in a different way to protect your child.
Remember that first car ride home from the hospital? How petrified you were that first night? How protective you were when your baby was on the changing table? Your brain was constantly scanning the environment for possible danger to keep your child out of harm's way. So our ability to be highly attuned to the negative has been incredibly helpful to us as moms. And you could say that because this protective tendency is such a deeply ingrained habit, particularly as it relates to how do we interact with our kids, it makes perfect sense that we continue to do this even as they don't need us anymore.
But here's why this can be a problem for us now that there's not as much for us to do to react to the negative thoughts and anxiety we have around our kids' lives. When our kids were little, if we saw a danger or a potential problem, we likely took steps to fix it. But now our kids may not be listening to our advice anymore.
And so we're still looking for problems, but with no ability to find the relief of solving the problem. So we make these problems even bigger in our heads by going to the worst case scenario. We can also find ourselves stuck in negative thinking, not being able to let things go.
We might also find ourselves stuck in judging ourselves as moms, judging our kids, feeling like a failure. I want to offer that in my own experience and in that of so many of my clients, it is 100% normal for us as moms to be experiencing a very uncomfortable awareness around our negative thinking because we simply don't have as much to distract ourselves anymore. So what I'll often hear women say is they want to find purpose and that they're scared of being bored and alone at home doing nothing once their kids leave the nest.
It feels so obvious that the solution needs to be replacing that void with something. And look, I'm all for creating purpose and pursuing activities that bring me feelings of accomplishment and happiness. Absolutely, we should create new purpose.
But consider that we have in our lives right now, this incredible opportunity to really get to know who we are. Throughout our lives, we've operated largely on default based on certain ways of thinking that have kept us safe. A large part of this is a pursuit of things, activities, relationships that we think will make us happy.
And in this pursuit, we've probably seen both success and failure, meaning sometimes we found happiness and accomplishment and other times we felt disappointed, hurt, or unsuccessful. But for most of us, we think those feelings come from something outside of us, something that we need to do or the people we're connected to. So here's the problem for us now.
If our purpose comes from our kids, we feel like we're losing it. If our peace of mind exists only if our kids are doing what we think they should do, we're out of our minds with anxiety. If our happiness comes from things outside of us, we'll always be chasing something outside of us to find it.
And think too of the discomfort of being alone with ourselves when we can't find happiness, peace, and purpose within ourselves. Because the reality is right now, we're envisioning sitting alone with our negative thoughts, worrying about our kids, judging ourselves, wishing things were different. And it feels terrible.
Even thinking about it feels terrible. We want to find anything we can to fix it, to distract ourselves from all of this negative emotion. But what if those negative thoughts weren't a problem? What if, like our thoughts about the possible dangers while driving, our negative thoughts could be agents for forward momentum? I've said many times before, the pain will leave you when it's finished teaching you.
Think about touching a hot stove. The pain taught us not to do it again. Future pain solved.
But what if the negativity bias in your mind right now is trying to teach you something about you? About what you're capable of? About what you might be missing out on? The biggest thing I realized I was missing out was a deeper relationship with myself. One where I didn't need anything outside of myself to create joy, peace, purpose, a sense of fulfillment in my life. As you find yourself spending more time alone, as you look ahead to the empty nest, consider that the biggest gift you could give yourself is loving the time you have alone with yourself, getting to know yourself, and loving who that woman is.
If you want to learn how, check out my one-on-one coaching program, Mom 2.0. Until next time, friends. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
