Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast, with Coach Christine, episode number 46: How Do You know When it is Time to Stop Simmering? … Simmering. I talk about this in episode #29. The idea is to take the time to work through your feelings, your thoughts, to discover who you are, to enjoy a time of waiting which will allow you to discover your internal GPS.
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Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast, with Coach Christine, episode number 46: How Do You know When it is Time to Stop Simmering? This podcast is for you, a mother who years ago walked away from a career to raise your child. Sure, you’ve been busy volunteering, car pools, maybe part-time work and taking care of everyone. But your main gig, that has been your child. Now, that they are in their later years of high school, the empty nest looms ahead for you and it is freaking you out. I’ve been there and I get it. Together, we’ll turn our freaking out energy into freaking awesome energy.
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Hello, my future empty nest friend. How are you today? I am sending you lovely thoughts: some love, some peace and some of whatever it is that makes you happiest. Here we go. How do you know when it is time to stop simmering?
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Simmering. I talk about this in episode #29. The idea is to take the time to work through your feelings, your thoughts, to discover who you are, to enjoy a time of waiting which will allow you to discover your internal GPS. Simmering. It is where the recipe unfolds. If you remember, I mentioned in that episode, that when one recipe is complete, you’ll find that another is just on the horizon. Actually, not a bad analogy now that I think of it. As for many mothers, one of our job duties is the role of cook or chef. I’ll be honest, I was more of a cook. I still am more of a cook, chef is not my thing. As we know, some days it feels as if we just finished the dishes from the last meal when we are beginning to prepare for the next one.
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Sure you can order takeout, or pop in a frozen meal to make your life a bit easier and move the creation process along, but there is something about discovering a new recipe, gathering the ingredients and making it from scratch. Who are you in the process of creating the meal? Are you enjoying cutting the vegetables? Are you being fully present, as you open that spice, to where you appreciate the smell of it, the sound of the cap coming off, the color and texture? Which meal is more rewarding for you to eat? Yes, once it is done, there is clean-up. The clean-up is where things can get interesting.
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Let’s say, you are simmering in life right now. You are considering different ways to fill your newfound time, down the road, but aren’t gaining clarity on any one of them. This is where you try one, you try a spice and see where it leads. Remove the drama from it. Will it be your long term solution? There is only one way to find out. If it doesn’t work, you don’t decide that all recipes are awful and you’ll never eat again. You try a new recipe, or the same recipe but modify the amount of spice.
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The key is to remember that the you that is in any path that you take is what is most important. If you don’t have a handle on your thoughts, on your internal GPS, you are going to have a hard time feeling settled in any path that you choose. Those thoughts and that internal GPS goes with you in all of the recipes. Without doing the real work during your simmer, you will have a hard time feeling clarity in any recipe.
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I know you probably want me to tell you something like this, when the temperature hits 325 degrees and the timer goes off, you are done simmering and can move on with no more work from you. Or maybe something like this, you’ll hear a ding in your head and know that you found it. Okay. All kidding aside, these would be unfair for me to share with you, as it isn’t real life. Real life has different ingredients thrown at us every day, sometimes every minute, and how we handle them is everything.
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I’m going to challenge you to become comfortable in the simmer, and to move the analogy to that your life is like the chef in the kitchen, learning with each ingredient of life. You have incredible, amazing, limitless ingredients available to you all the time. You are peaceful with all of it. When you open your eyes enough, when you are present enough, more ingredients are seen by your eyes, allowing you to create a more delicious meal, a more delicious beef stew. You try different recipes. You modify the ingredients. From each ingredient you learn a lesson that gives you the opportunity to apply to future meals, or you can just as easily decide to leave the kitchen and no longer grow in life. But how are you going to do without any food? When you feel good about an ingredient, try it out some more.
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Of course, always evaluate your motivating factors too. For some of us, that is financial resources. Making money to pay our bills, that is one heck of a motivating factor. If this is your top priority, if it is what motivates the inner chef, in you, at this point in time, you do what you have to do. Remember, it doesn’t mean all of your recipes for the rest of your life will have the same motivating factor, it’s simply the right recipe for this particular meal. Finding the peace in reaching for the ingredients to make your next beef stew is the true key. Change in your motivation will happen over time. Change in the ingredients will happen, but you, you, my friend are you, whether you are cleaning the house, working as the CEO of a tech company, or figuring out what is next for you in life.
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Trust me on this. You work on you, on welcoming the simmer of life, on knowing your thought deliveries, and choosing to organize them, and then, you, my friend, you will know when you are done simmering, at least for that meal.
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The questions I have for you in this episode are: what thoughts come to your mind as you listen to this episode? Do you have a particular simmer that you are working through right now? I invite you to fly on over to our Facebook Group to share your answers to these questions with our amazing flock. Our name is Green Popsicle Sticks. Want to know why? Listen to episode number 17, or head to my website, youremptynestcoach.com/community for links to join our flock.
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I know the adjustment to not having your kiddos at home full-time isn’t always easy, but it sure can be a ton more fun with a flock of friends. We look forward to seeing you there.
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Oh, my goodness, did you hear? I have an online program, “The Empty Nest: First Steps Towards Success.” I now offer GPS Reset Weekend Retreats, Unplugged and Charged Up, and I am available for speaking engagements. Seriously, what are you waiting for? Visit my website or see this episode’s full show notes.
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As always, I provide content to make you think, my empty nest friend. My hope is that I am able to provide you with thoughts that positively impact your life. You’ll find the show notes for this, and every episode, on my website. My next episode’s title is: Is This All Just Positive Thinking?
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Thanks for your time and energy with that and thanks so much for listening, my empty nest friend. Remember, you are amazing!
