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Letting go as your kids grow up. Sitting with the discomfort of change. Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace.
I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins. There is no doubt that change is uncomfortable. And if you're parenting a teen or standing on the edge of the empty nest, you may be feeling that discomfort more than ever.
In this episode, I'm talking about why change feels so hard, even when it's the change that we want, and why so many of us try to avoid that discomfort by staying busy, trying to fix things, or just avoiding our pain. I'm also going to explore what it actually looks like to sit with that discomfort in a way that brings you peace instead of emotional overwhelm. If this season of motherhood is feeling harder than you expected, join me as I talk about what's really happening underneath that discomfort, and how to face change in a new way.
Let's dive in. Hello, my friend. As I'm recording this podcast episode, I'm right on the brink of that time in January when life starts to go back to normal.
That weekend before the first Monday after the new year, when schedules return to normal and the holiday season comes to an end. And I've been noticing this discomfort in myself as I anticipate that return to normalcy. In some ways, I actually welcome it.
I like having a schedule. Structure feels comfortable to me. And yet it's amazing how uncomfortable I feel thinking about getting up early again on Monday, getting back into a regular workout routine, and working full days, really just stepping back into the rhythm of my regular life.
The inspiration for this episode actually came from a workout I did recently after a longer-than-usual break from working out over the holidays. And that workout felt really uncomfortable. And it struck me in that moment that throughout the course of every single day, we're constantly facing the discomfort of change.
I mean, I think it's just true that change is uncomfortable. It's honestly easier to keep doing what you're already doing. No matter what stage of life you're in, we all get into a rhythm of our lives.
And changing that rhythm is uncomfortable. And when you think about it, there are two different kinds of change we experience. There's the change we choose.
And this is the kind of change we tend to think about or focus on at the beginning of a new year, starting new habits, breaking old ones, or making intentional changes to how we live our lives. And then there's another kind of change, the change that's inevitable and also very much out of our control. And this is the change that comes from the seasons of our lives changing, our kids growing up, and the evolution of the roles that we play in their lives.
This isn't change that we choose. In fact, it's change that happens whether we want it or not. And here's the thing.
Whether it's change you choose or change that happens to you, navigating that change can be really uncomfortable. As much as people might tell you that you need to embrace change, I actually think something else is more true. I think we need to learn how to sit with the discomfort of change rather than trying to run away from it.
Because whether we like it or not, discomfort is part of being alive. And it's definitely part of being a mom, raising kids who are inevitably going to grow up and change themselves constantly. And then eventually they're going to leave and create lives of their own.
So it's interesting that if change is in many ways inevitable, then why is it so hard? I mean, shouldn't we be used to it by now? I think the truth is there's a part of us that thinks that it shouldn't be so hard. We're very quick to judge ourselves for not being able to handle change well. For example, we judge ourselves for struggling to follow through on our intentions to change our habits, as if it shouldn't be hard.
We judge ourselves for not knowing how to navigate our kids' changing needs and attitudes as they grow into teens and young adults. We even judge ourselves for our emotions, for the way that we feel as we navigate the changes of our lives. So there's really a big part of us that thinks that it shouldn't be so hard.
What if there's a very practical reason change feels hard? One that has nothing to do with how disciplined or motivated or resilient you are. Because the truth is, the real reason change feels difficult, regardless of your circumstances, is because our human brains are wired to keep us safe, comfortable, and to make our lives as easy as possible. And what makes life easier to our brains is predictability.
This is why our brains are wired to create habits. Because familiar patterns that we can repeat time and time again require far less mental effort. We don't have to think about them.
And developing habits is a valuable skill of the brain. Because you don't have to relearn how to drive every time you get behind the wheel. You don't have to rethink every step of your morning routine.
Anything you repeat often enough eventually becomes automatic. So when you really think about it, habits aren't just behaviors. They're systems your brain has created to conserve energy and to create predictability in your life.
And predictability feels safer, because you know what to expect. But the problem is, when we experience change, when a situation changes and our old ways of showing up stop working, that predictability disappears. And when we can't predict what's going to happen, or we're not sure how to respond to that change, our brain and our nervous systems experience that as lack of safety.
So what does the brain do? It reaches for what's familiar. That's why even when a habit is no longer working for you, even when you want to change it, you tend to fall back into those old patterns on autopilot. Because familiar behaviors temporarily restore a sense of ease and safety for you.
So unless you consciously interrupt that cycle, your brain is always going to default to the habit that feels familiar in the face of change. What's interesting is that when we talk about change, we often first think about change in our habits. And these are typically changes we intentionally want to make.
Changing how we respond to our kids, or changing a habit like eating or drinking less, scrolling less, or maybe working out more. We tend to think that changing habits is hard because of the action itself. But what I've learned is that that's actually not true.
I remember one of my early coaches talking about breaking the habit of over-drinking. For a long time, this was something I really wanted to change, and yet I struggled with it. I couldn't figure out how to stop drinking, even though I didn't want to keep doing it.
This coach said something that really stuck with me. She said, If you think about it, it's actually easier not to drink than it is to drink. Because drinking requires you to buy the wine, and open the bottle, and pour the glass, and lift it to your lips.
Not drinking requires you to do none of those things. So in fact, not drinking should be easier. But the reason it's not is because of the feelings you have to feel when you stop drinking.
When you don't engage in a habit, you're left sitting with a feeling. And that feeling could be as simple as the urge to do that thing. But it could also be a feeling that that habit was shielding you from.
For example, some of us eat to alleviate anxiety. Or we scroll or shop online to cure our boredom or loneliness. So if you've developed these habits, and I am not here to judge if you have, because we all have them.
But if you have these habits, even if you don't like them, there's a part of your brain that's been trained to believe that this habit helps you in some way. It associates the habit with relief or comfort. So when you stop doing that thing, your brain responds by creating discomfort.
It sends you urges. It essentially makes the absence of the habit feel wrong or intolerable. Which is really why we often break down and engage in the habit anyway, almost against our own will, because it's uncomfortable not to.
And you can see this with so many common habits. Take scrolling on your phone, for example. We tell ourselves we want to scroll less.
But think about what the scrolling actually does for you. It gives you a little dopamine hit when you see something funny or interesting. It might make you feel connected if you see a post from a friend or just something that makes you feel a little less alone.
Scrolling distracts you, keeps you from feeling bored. In fact, these apps were designed to keep you scrolling for as long as possible. And they do that by engaging the reward centers of your brain.
So when you don't scroll, you lose those dopamine hits. But then on top of that, you're also left with whatever emotion you were avoiding while you were scrolling. So in the absence of the habit, you're now sitting with those uncomfortable emotions, and your brain wants those uncomfortable feelings to stop.
This shows up in our parenting, too. One of the episodes I recorded recently was about the illusion of control, how we respond to our discomfort by trying to fix what's going on with our kids. And this also can become a habit.
As our kids get older and no longer need or want our guidance in the same way, letting go of that habit is really uncomfortable. Because now we're left sitting with the discomfort of watching our kids struggle and not being able to close the loop of the habit of stepping in, which used to help us feel better, especially back when we could actually do something to help. So whether it's eating less, scrolling less, or changing how we relate to our kids, chosen change is uncomfortable.
Not because the change itself is hard necessarily, but because it requires us to feel things we've learned how to avoid. So that's the change we choose. What about the change that we don't choose? The hard reality is we can't opt out of the changes that come with our kids growing up.
Our kids are going to change year after year after year. They're constantly becoming new versions of themselves, and eventually they're going to leave the house. No matter how much we want to slow down time or the pace of that change, it's inevitable.
And because of that, it's also inevitable that our role as moms is going to change, and the way our kids need us is going to change. As much as we might want to resist this kind of change or fight against it, we can't actually stop it. This change is coming for us whether we like it or not.
And with this change comes a wide range of emotions. On the one hand, we feel pride and love. There's something incredibly beautiful about watching your kids grow up.
For me, one of the greatest gifts of raising my boys has been having a front row seat to their lives, watching them become who they are, watching them wrestle with challenges, and seeing them try to figure out how to self-actualize. But on the other hand, this constant evolution brings up some really deep and painful emotions as well. We have anxiety about the risks our kids face and how they're going to navigate the world.
We feel frustration when our kids don't listen or they push back. We can feel hurt if our kids push us away or treat us in a way that feels hurtful or disrespectful. And on top of this, we feel grief.
We tend to think about this feeling only in the context of the transition to the empty nest, but the truth is I think we can feel this subtle, ongoing grief at every stage of our kids' lives. We miss those past versions of them that used to be more open, who used to want to be with us and listen to us. We miss the past versions of them, but we can also miss the past versions of ourselves, who maybe felt more confident in our role as moms because the feedback was honestly more validating, and it was easier, if only relatively easier, to feel like we knew what we were doing when our kids were little.
Is there a part of you that wishes you could go back in time to feel that way again? Maybe cherish that time a little bit more? I know there is for me. When you really think about it, it's heartbreaking to realize that you'll never hold certain versions of your child again. We're constantly letting go of who our kids used to be, even if we're also loving who they're becoming.
And I don't think we always allow ourselves to fully recognize that grief. And the reality of this all becomes even more intense the closer our kids come to that time when they're going to leave the nest. Time starts to feel incredibly fleeting, and alongside the grief, we can feel like we're losing that organizing purpose of our lives.
So as our kids grow up, we're confronted with so many questions about what comes next, not just for our kids, but for us. And in all honesty, this change doesn't end once we're in the empty nest, because we're still worried about our kids. They're still constantly changing, figuring out who they are.
So how do you support them while they're in college? How do you support them once they've graduated and they can't yet support themselves? We're constantly navigating change as our kids grow up, and it's very often not comfortable. And this kind of discomfort isn't the same as the discomfort of making yourself go to the gym or resisting a cookie. That kind of discomfort is hard enough, but the discomfort of navigating change with your big kid is deeper.
It's not just an urge you can power through. It's more like an existential discomfort, shows up as anxiety or confusion, or just this constant low-level unease. It's the feeling of not knowing how to show up anymore, wondering if you're doing the right thing, or questioning who you're supposed to be in this next phase of your relationship with your big kid.
It's the discomfort of loving your kids so much and wanting the best for them, but having absolutely no control. This kind of discomfort can seem to take over how you experience this stage of motherhood. So change is hard.
It's uncomfortable. And whether we're talking about the discomfort of changing habits or the pain of inevitable change, the way we tend to respond is the same. In all honesty, we try to avoid it.
And I want to be really clear that this isn't a judgment. It's just a simple truth about how our brains are wired. Our default reaction to pain is to avoid it.
And one of the most common ways we avoid discomfort is by staying busy. There's nothing like action to keep us from having to sit with our pain. I think this is why when people talk about the empty nest, you often hear advice like, you should find a new hobby or spend time with friends.
I mean, the idea of just sitting with yourself and your feelings can seem unbearable. And we can see this in our lives as moms with kids at home, too. We can default to investing mental energy and time into caring for our kids, even when they don't need us in the same ways.
And I wonder if we do this in part because it feels easier than facing everything that's coming up for us emotionally as we navigate the changes of their and our lives. Another way we avoid discomfort is by focusing on how we can fix whatever's going wrong with our kids. When they're struggling, we jump into fix-it mode, researching solutions, trying to figure out our kids' best next steps.
So we give them advice and we remind them, try to figure out how to help. And in our minds, taking action feels productive, like we're working toward a solution, toward a place that doesn't feel so uncomfortable. And the idea of not doing something, just sitting with that discomfort of seeing them struggle or even fail, just letting things unfold without stepping in, sitting with that discomfort can feel unacceptable.
Moms have even said to me, is this even responsible to just sit back and do nothing? And here's where I want to be very clear, because I would never advocate for doing nothing. If my boys were here, they would tell you I am by no means passive when it comes to trying to help. The problem becomes, at some point, we're not helping.
We're just pushing and nagging, really trying to get our kid to change. And one of the biggest reasons we continue to do this, even when it's not helpful to our kids, is because we want to avoid our own discomfort. Just let that sink in for a minute.
And my friend, if you recognize yourself in this, it doesn't mean you're controlling or doing something wrong. The truth is, we do this because we care so much. And on autopilot, our brains try to relieve the discomfort of seeing our kids struggle in the only way we know how, by jumping in, trying to fix it.
And this habit we've developed worked for a really long time. But now, as our kids grow up, we can find that this habit doesn't serve us in the same way it used to. And so notwithstanding our best efforts, whatever we try to do to help, when it doesn't work, we're still left with the discomfort.
And so often, the only solution we're left with is to try to work through our emotions. And the brain's most convenient solution is to numb them, to do something to distract ourselves. And that's when we scroll, and we eat, or we drink, shop online, or even clean or organize closets, whatever way works best for you.
And it's not that any of these things are necessarily bad, but they can also be solutions your brain offers to ease the discomfort of your life. And look, anything you repeat often enough becomes a habit. So reaching for that cookie or managing your kids' lives, maybe just staying busy, whatever your go-to strategy is, it's simply what your brain has learned to do when you're uncomfortable.
The behavior itself isn't necessarily the problem. The real question is, is this habit actually helping me, or am I doing it primarily to avoid the discomfort of change in my life? And if all of that is true, if so many of our habits are really just ways of avoiding discomfort, then the even more important question becomes, what would it look like to not avoid that discomfort? The truth is, no one ever really taught us how to deal with the discomfort in a different way. Many of us grew up without being taught an effective way to actually process our emotions.
So even though we hear that phrase pretty regularly, have you ever stopped to wonder what that really means, or what it actually looks like? At a basic level, I think many of us believe that processing emotions means getting over it, finally feeling better. And while we've all probably tried things like breathing or yoga to relieve our stress or anxiety, the idea of processing emotions by doing none of those things to feel better, just sitting with that discomfort, doesn't sound like something you'd want to do at all. In fact, it almost sounds like the opposite of what you would want.
But I want to be clear here, sitting with discomfort is not wallowing in it. It's not feeling sorry for yourself or being a victim to your feelings. It's also not letting anxiety take you down a rabbit hole of worry and fear.
These are things that definitely make sitting with your discomfort intolerable, because you get stuck in the muck of your feelings. But sitting with discomfort is also not rushing in to fix or change the feeling as quickly as possible. And this is often our default response.
How can I make this feeling go away as quickly as I can? The other thing sitting with discomfort doesn't look like is forcing yourself to think positive or look on the bright side. That's just another way of stuffing our emotions down. And honestly, it doesn't work.
Because you can tell yourself to think happy thoughts all day long. But if you don't believe those thoughts, or if the pull of the painful thoughts feels stronger, then you're just going to be left feeling worse. It's like you're telling yourself to be patient with your kids because their behavior is developmentally appropriate, when you're really frustrated out of your mind with them.
Trying to convince yourself it's just a stage doesn't work for very long, and it certainly doesn't make the frustration go away. Instead, I want to offer a different way of thinking about what it actually means to sit with discomfort. What I want to invite you to consider is that sitting with discomfort starts with simply recognizing that the feeling is there.
It's becoming aware of the presence of that emotion in your body, what it feels like physically, and allowing it to be there without making it mean that something has gone wrong. When you really think about the role of emotions in the human body, we're designed to experience them. If you name almost any emotion, you can probably identify what it feels like physically.
For me, anxiety feels like tightness in my chest and my throat. My shoulders tense up. Sometimes there's a heaviness in my chest, like it's harder to breathe.
And if you really think about those as physical sensations, none of them are life threatening. They're not even really painful. They're just uncomfortable.
And this is just how our bodies experience emotion. Even an emotion like anxiety, which we tend to not want to feel, is simply a series of physical sensations that don't feel comfortable, but they're not actually physically painful. What often makes anxiety worse is what we do after we notice those sensations.
We feel anxious, and then our mind tells us, well, if I feel this way, there must be a reason. So we start looking for reasons to be worried, and suddenly we're catastrophizing, thinking through all the worst case scenarios, and then feeling even more anxious. We use those physical sensations in our body as evidence that something is wrong.
And in doing that, we often amplify the painful emotion. But what if instead you just felt the physical sensations? What if you let them be there and got curious about them? My friend, what does the discomfort of change feel like to you? You could be feeling sad, or anxious, or unsure, maybe really frustrated. What is it that you're feeling in your body when you're experiencing those emotions? Now I want you to imagine those physical sensations, and imagine holding them, holding yourself, as if it was your own child experiencing those physical sensations.
How would you take care of that child? How would you talk to them about how they're feeling? When I think about what that looks like for me, it means I tell myself, nothing's gone wrong. It makes so much sense that I'm feeling this way, and that we're going to get through this together. I mean, how many times have you said something exactly like this to your kid as they were growing up? Could you also give yourself this same compassion when you're experiencing a painful emotion, especially one that comes from the discomfort of change? Your emotional experience is a series of signals, and they are always an invitation to get curious about what you really need.
This simple process, building compassion and curiosity around your emotional experience, is such a superpower, and I wish it was something we were all taught earlier in life. But most of us weren't, and that's exactly why I created MOM 2.0. Because this work, learning how to sit with discomfort and understand what your emotions are actually telling you, it's a skill set that most of us were never taught. Inside MOM 2.0, this is exactly what you'll learn.
This isn't about fixing yourself or your kids. It's a step-by-step process to understand your emotional experience in a way that empowers you to create something new, not by fixing or avoiding your emotions, but by learning how to respond to your life intentionally instead of reacting on autopilot. We tend to think that some people are just more resilient or better at handling their emotions.
But the truth is, this is a skill set that every single one of us can learn. In truth, learning the skill of sitting with the discomfort is life-changing. It doesn't just help you navigate the discomfort of inevitable change.
It expands your capacity for chosen growth and chosen change. And when you can sit with the discomfort of your life, you stop judging yourself. You stop telling yourself that something's gone wrong just because something feels hard.
You also stop self-sabotaging in the process of creating new habits. And even when you don't get it right, when you don't make the change right away or get the result you hoped, you don't quit on yourself. You understand that change takes time.
You meet yourself with compassion, and you keep showing up for yourself and definitely for your kids, even when the process is slow or messy. My friend, the woman and the mom you want to be lives on the other side of discomfort. Not because discomfort makes her stronger or better, but because she's no longer afraid of it.
Change is uncomfortable, and nothing has gone wrong if you feel that discomfort. It means you're human. It means you care.
And it means you're standing at the edge of something new. When you learn how to sit with that discomfort, when you stop being afraid of it, you create space for confidence and self-trust. And in the process, you realize that you are capable of facing whatever comes next.
Until next time. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes.
You have more power than you think, my friend.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
