Empty Nest Success Evangelist specializing in coaching mothers entering the empty nest. โ Master Motivator โ Podcast Host โ Together we'll channel your freaking out energy into freaking awesome energy! ~ Christine, Your Empty Nest Coach
Here we go. Another attempt at college during a pandemic. What an adventure for all of us - whether your child is heading back to campus with face masks, symptom monitoring, physical distancing, and no group hangouts, or if they are home.
No matter the choices that your family has made, motherhood is an adventure. Empty nesting shows up in our lives a little bit differently for each of us, but in the end, we all are doing our best to navigate this thing called life. If you need help discovering your future self, I'm here for you when you are ready to get to work.
Take deep breaths, my empty nest friend (or future empty nest friend), and do your best to enjoy the ride.
Coach Christine,
Your Empty Nest Coach
"I thought I would do a quick rundown of resources that I have available to you as you adjust to the empty nest - and for some of you the not-so-empty-nest."
Take a listen or read the full transcript at the bottom of this post.
โโโ More goodies below, too! Scroll down โ, so you don't miss anything! โโโ
New Podcast EpisodeCoach Christine shares resources she has created specifically for mothers who are having trouble adjusting to the idea of the empty nest (not-so-empty-nest, too)! #EmptyNest #NotSoEmptyNest #EmptyNestSyndrome
You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine - Episode #107: Empty Nest Transition Resources. I work with mothers of high school students and beyond, who are in the trenches with sad and possibly, overwhelming thoughts about what their life will look like when their baby heads to college and begins to leave the nest. My clientsโ big question is what will I do with my time? Is this you? Iโve been there, and I get it. Empowering you to write the next jaw-dropping, amazing chapter in your life is my passion. I am energized by leading you in the process of exploration and am thrilled when you unlock the power that lies within you. This podcast is my gift to you.
[intro] - be sure to use new 2020 intro: podcast creation files folder
Hello, my empty nest friend and CEO of Your Life!
00:00:45
Tomorrow, our daughter heads off to her senior year of college, in the midst of a year that continues to challenge the resilience of all humans. As promised in my last episode, this episode is going to be a quick one. I thought I would do a quick rundown of resources that I have available to you as you adjust to the empty nest - and for some of you the not-so-empty-nest.
First Iโll start with the podcast. Many of the episodes and resources I have created are pre-pandemic, so adjust as needed, as you listen.
00:01:20
In episode 2, I discuss Is the Empty Nest real?, and some ways to combat the sadness and loneliness - remember, you arenโt alone. I created this entire podcast for amazing humans just like you.
In episodes 3 - 7 - I dive into how much power you are giving away in your life through the thoughts in your mind. This is a deeper series and youโll find the concept of thought deliveries throughout my podcast episodes.
I have episodes on specific areas such as when you arenโt a fan of your childโs major (episode 9), how to get rid of guilt (episode 18), now that you have more time together - maybe your partner is driving you crazy? (episode 25), maybe you have no idea what to do with your time ahead - then check out episode 29, or if youโre looking on how to find friends in the empty nest: episode 31.
00:02:14
I also have interviews with experts - one of my favorites for the first semester is my chat with Katy Oliveira in episode 28 where we chat about what mom should expect during the first semester in college.
I did a not-so-empty-nest-series when the physical distancing began for our family, and the wrap up of that series you may find particularly useful if your student is staying home for all (or part) of the school year - for whatever reason.
00:02:42
Of course, I have the GPS Support Flock Membership that will quickly fill your empty nest with ideas, thoughts, and activities for you to begin to discover who you are beneath all of the roles youโve had for the last 18 or so years. Should you be interested in learning more about those, check out my free on-demand training session: Why You Donโt Know What is Next For Your Life.
Iโve also been hanging out in Pinterest Stories lately, and have tried a few Instagram Reels - you may want to check those out.
00:03:12
Of course, there is my website where you may search for anything Iโve discussed - that is YourEmptyNestCoach.com. Should you be looking for quick tips and thoughts Iโve shared with others, be sure to check out my media & press page for additional interviews or posts that Iโve done on other peopleโs websites or podcasts - youโll find this by clicking on Work With Christine and there youโll find Media & Press in that sub-menu.
00:03:37
Yes, fall 2020 is going to look different than fall 2019. Thatโs a given. If you find yourself, now, spiraling in thoughts that their school life should look different, that maybe it isnโt fair to them - or to you - ask yourself, โwhy?โ Why do I believe that it should it look different? Did you get a different life-manual than I did that promises you things like the world you know isnโt going to change drastically? Yes, I am sneaking in a little bit of tough love here. But, I like to do that. Remember that when you live in the should have, you are arguing with reality. Look at what it IS, what is right now in your life, and choose to move forward. If you arenโt dead, my beautiful friend, how about you choose living in the now, rather than arguing with it and living in the should-haves.
00:04:30
Feel those emotions, and try remembering this: PSPF - Patience for self, Self-Love, Patience for Others, and Fun: Be patient with yourself as you adjust to the next segment of your lifeโs journey, shower yourself with love - especially in your thoughts, have patience for your partner and other household members as they are navigating the change, too. Remember that their emotions donโt have to match yours, and donโt forget to have some fun along the way. PSPF.
00:05:03
Okay, while youโre getting this on Friday, Iโm off to enjoy the final week at home with my daughter - unless there is a last minute โhey, weโre all going all onlineโ announcement - yeah, letโs keep it real - this is 2020.
I think I already talked longer than I had planned. Thanks for listening, today. I appreciate you more than you know.
00: 05:21
I was invited to chat with the amazing and wonderful Lauren Kinghorn of Inspiring Mompreneurs. It was great to connect with her, after meeting virtually online probably over a year ago . Take a listen and learn all about my grope calls - I mean group calls - yeah, nothing like getting that wrong in an interview - [giggle] - she has our chat on YouTube as well. Links, as always are in my show notes.
00:05:58
My resilient friend, you are navigating a journey that no one could have expected a year ago. Your choices are right because they are the choices you have made - live in the now and consciously choose when you are thinking about the future - always remembering that YOU, my beautiful friend, ARE AMAZING! Have a great day!
[bloopers]
00:06:35
Thanks! Thank you! Itโs time to thank our sponsor. This episode is sponsored by my membership community, The GPS Support Flock; Your Flight to Success in the Empty Nest. If you are ready to find the GPS of your life, sign up to receive an immediate and free download of my PDF, "How to Find Yourself in the Empty Nest," our GPS Life Principles document. You will also have the opportunity to learn about our community. See the link in this episode's show notes or fly on over to my website, YourEmptyNestCoach.com. Click the GPS Support Flock button. See you soon!
106: Whether Your Child is Going Back to Campus or Not, Feel those Feelings
Hello, my ah-mazing empty nest friend,
This is your reminder to feel those feelings.
Coach Christine,
Your Empty Nest Coach
"...whether your child (or children) are heading back to campus or staying home - for whatever reason, I encourage you to feel those emotions. Trust that you are strong enough to process through them."
Take a listen or read the full transcript at the bottom of this post.
โโโ More goodies below, too! Scroll down โ, so you don't miss anything! โโโ
New podcast episode Coach Christine shares her thoughts on emotions around back to college (or not) season. #EmptyNest #NotSoEmptyNest #BackToSchool #Emotions #NewEpisode
Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine. Episode number 106: Whether Your Child is Going Back to Campus or Not, Feel those Feelings, Parents! I work with mothers of high school students and beyond, who are in the trenches with sad and possibly, overwhelming thoughts about what their life will look like when their baby heads to college and begins to leave the nest. My clientsโ big question is what will I do with my time? Is this you? Iโve been there, and I get it. Empowering you to write the next jaw-dropping, amazing chapter in your life is my passion. I am energized by leading you in the process of exploration and am thrilled when you unlock the power that lies within you. This podcast is my gift to you.
00:00:48
Hello, my empty nest friend and CEO of Your Life! This episode and my next one are going to be on the shorter side. Well, at least that is my plan, as my daughter is gearing up to head back to campus a week from when this airs.
This is my fourth round of her heading back to or heading to college - yes, sheโs heading into her senior year. I know that there is a level of anxiety that seeps into all we do. Even on the best years of on-campus returns, it is there. From all of us - yes, even my husband partakes in it. It manifests in different ways for each of us but it is there. Iโve seen it peek out in all of us over the last week.
Iโve noticed it in me. Iโve bumped up my presence-work a bit. But before diving into the present, I do my best to name the emotion Iโm feeling - or at least to recognize how it feels in my body - and then I see if I can identify the thought that is causing it. If you are a regular listener of my podcast, you know the drill from here.
00:01:50
Then, I work on pulling myself into the present, if the thought and emotion continues, I always find the more present I am; the less power that has on me, until eventually it has no power. That is the beauty of being present: โin the now,โ as Eckhart Tolle says. In Coach Christine speak, hmmmโฆ kind of like that,
It is as if, I wake up and check in with my protector. I ask them what the delivery is, I see it, notice what it is doing to me (oh, there is a lump in my throat, my stomach feels off), and by noticing it, the power in that thought delivery begins to already subside.
With that in mind, whether your child (or children) are heading back to campus or staying home - for whatever reason, I encourage you to feel those emotions. Trust that you are strong enough to process through them. Sometimes, by simply naming that it is anxiety, or it is nervousness, resentment, you manage to remove a layer (or sometimes ten layers) of that emotion that has a grasp on you.
00:02:54
Remember, you arenโt your emotions. You arenโt your feelings. You arenโt even the thoughts that you have. You are an amazing human doing their best to get from one day to the next. Be kind to yourself. Gift yourself with love.
And, yes, whether your child is heading back to campus or not, I invite you to process through those emotions, and then use the extra time you have to spend some time hanging out with them.
Give them the space to feel their emotions (of course you wouldnโt call it that, but youโll know what you are doing) - some ideas would be to take a walk with them - destination (or no destination), have a coffee date, maybe play a board game that they loved as a child - itโs always fun to revisit things like this.
00:03:40
Sometimes, we look back at board books or childrenโs books that were beloved in our house and we see the flaws in them or the things that we loved about them and it is a really fun discussion. So, while you are looking at the supplies they need for school, in the midst of all the doing of what needs to be done - be careful not to ignore what is going on behind all of those doing actions - for all of you.
Again, spend some time focused on your protector. Calm them down so that you may hold space for your family to see what lies behind their protectors. It is a gift that you will give you and your family - even if they are completely unaware of it.
Iโll be back in a week with another quick bite episode. Now, my beautiful friend, those family members that live in your house and you donโt have to socially distance from, give them a hug - give them a couple of extra ones this week and create some memories.
00:04:37
And never forget that you are amazing. See ya!
[Bloopers]
Thanks! Thank you! Itโs time to thank our sponsor. This episode is sponsored by my membership community, The GPS Support Flock; Your Flight to Success in the Empty Nest. If you are ready to find the GPS of your life, sign up to receive an immediate and free download of my PDF, "How to Find Yourself in the Empty Nest," our GPS Life Principles document. You will also have the opportunity to learn about our community. See the link in this episode's show notes or fly on over to my website, YourEmptyNestCoach.com. Click the GPS Support Flock button. See you soon!
๐ Send audio feedback to Coach Christine now: voicemail/text to 920-LIFEWIN (920-543-3946).
What You Will Learn in this Episode
Your friend’s circumstances are not your circumstances
There is power in processing through your emotions
Episode Questions for You To Consider
Do you find yourself often ignoring your own circumstances in this way?
Dumbo, did you see they are doing a live-action, well mostly live-action, version of this movie coming up? Are you going to go see that new live-action Dumbo? (fun question)
Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine, episode number 11, Misery Loves Company, But What Does That Get You? … Misery loves company.
Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine, episode number 11, Misery Loves Company, But What Does That Get You? This podcast is for you, a mother who years ago walked away from a career to raise your child. Sure, you’ve been busy with volunteering, car pools, maybe part-time work and taking care of everyone. But your main gig, that’s been your child. Now, that they are in their later years of high school, the empty nest looms ahead for you and it’s freaking you out. I’ve been there and I get it. Together, we’ll turn our freaking out energy into freaking awesome energy.
Hello, my empty nest friend! Thank you for spending your valuable time with me today. This podcasting thing is a huge learning curve for me. I’m trying to figure out what topics to do, all that kinds of stuff, and I decided that I would create a title for the following episode as I finish the prior one, and then just see where it takes me. Where I landed on this topic was nowhere near where I thought it was going to. This whole process is super fun.
Misery loves company. This isn’t a fact, or anything. It is a proverb that dates back hundreds of years. Shakespeare did not pen the phrase. It appears that John Ray, an English naturalist and botanist from the mid-17th Century is credited with the phrase. Although, it was in use well before that. The meaning is that if you’re miserable you will be comforted by the idea that others are not happy.
I don’t know about you, but my mind instantly jumps to the extreme, someone like the fictional evil stepmother in Cinderella. There’s a lady who really enjoys seeing someone else feel miserable. You can almost feel the enjoyment she gets from seeing Cinderella’s pain and misery. I am sure that you are thinking I would never be that cruel. I give you, I would hope you aren’t but, I want to challenge you with this. Don’t we sometimes, as humans, like to find an example of someone who has it worse off than us to make us feel better about our own circumstance? In our minds we think, I have no right to be upset, they have it so much worse.
I know this may seem like an odd jump but stay with me. Isn’t that pretty much what this phrase is all about? That’s tough, right? Think about it. When you are super upset about something, and then, you hear that someone else you know has a circumstance that makes yours pale in comparison, isn’t that kind of what we’re doing? When we say oh, their situation puts yours into perspective. It seems harmless. I totally get it but when you decide that someone else has it worse, what are you saying to yourself about your circumstances? This is the challenge that arises. What are you actually doing here? Are you working through your own thoughts, feelings, actions? Of course you aren’t. You are simply ignoring them. That isn’t helpful to you.
Your circumstances, your thoughts and your feelings are yours. They’re all yours and you need to work through them. I am not talking about publicly. If your friend just found out that their child has a terminal illness, it isn’t the time to share about your child not getting into their dream school. That would be rude. You aren’t a jerk. I know you aren’t. You are a good friend. You listen. You love on your friend and you support them in any way that you can. But when you go home, when you’re with your thoughts, whatever you are dealing with, if it shows its head as misery, I do not want you to ignore it because you’ve decided that things could be worse, look at what my friend’s going through. I want you to figure out what your circumstance is, and then do the work to process through it. Your friend’s circumstances are not your circumstances. Your circumstances are your work.
Ignoring things never solves things. I challenge you to stop ignoring thoughts in your life that you deem aren’t worth addressing because of excuses, such as in the scheme of things, this is nothing, or everyone else I know has it so much worse, or I’m lucky this is all I have to deal with. This might all be true in your mind but if you don’t 100 percent believe the thought that you’re saying, it isn’t true for you then. You need to figure out the thought that you need to have to get you the feeling and the result that you want.
Dumbo. Remember that movie? Remember the feather? That feather. He had to hold onto the feather to fly. That is what he believed. I’d like you to imagine that you are Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Yes, another fictional character from Christine today. Imagine that the feather you’re holding is the line you are telling yourself. The excuse you have, such as I’m lucky I don’t have that to deal with. Do you know how scared Dumbo would be to lose that feather? I think that might be us. Because, if we hold onto that excuse or that feather, we don’t have to deal with our current circumstances.
When you think about your own circumstances, when your friends are going through tough things, it almost feels self-indulgent, doesn’t it? It might, but I bet that is because you aren’t used to doing it. Doing what? Being an emotional adult. You need to do the work. You need to process through it, so you can be who you need to be in your life, for your friend, for your family, and for yourself. I’m willing to bet that the you who processes through your own circumstances is profoundly stronger than the you who is ignoring things. Actually, I’m sure of it. That version of you is worth getting to know. If your brain is seeing misery somewhere, it is worth working through. You are worth it. You deserve it.
Let’s go back to Cinderella. I have no doubt that Cinderella’s stepmother saw misery everywhere. Just a hunch. What if her stepmother didn’t need to see others in misery to make herself feel better? I guess we wouldn’t have a story then. What do you want? A story about others in your life, or to write your own story? For the record, I am preaching to myself in this episode, for sure. Confused? I might have confused myself in this episode.
Fly on over to my community forum to see if I’ve gained any more clarity on this by the time it goes live. You may jump in by answering this episode’s questions, which are:
1) Do you find yourself often ignoring your own circumstances in this way? 2) Dumbo, did you see they are doing a live-action, well mostly live-action, version of this movie coming up? This was one of those movies I re-watched with my daughter when she was younger and found myself either cringing or crying through almost the whole thing. My question is are you going to go see that new live-action Dumbo? What does that movie even bring up for you? Something different to talk about. Will you go see it?
As always, I provide content to make you think, my empty nest friend, and my hope is that I am able to provide you with thoughts that impact your life in a positive way. My next episode’s title is The Power in Understanding That Life Isn’t Supposed to be Perfect. Don’t forget to sign up for my free Thursday Thoughts About email. Sign up and every Thursday you will receive a thought from me, and I also share Your Empty Nest Coach updates. Do me a favor? If you like this podcast, or you find it’s just making you think and you are listening to it on your phone, do a quick screenshot and post it on your favorite social media site to let others know about this podcast. On Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, I’m @Empty Nest Coach, if you want to tag me, and I will say, “Hi.” If you have a question you would like me to answer on the podcast, you may submit it in my Empty Nest Flock Community forum or email me at podcast@youremptynestcoach.com. This is where I’ll have listener feedback, and I’m in such an early stage, I really don’t have too much going on, so I’m going to save the other one that I have currently, for my next episode. Please, if you are listening to this on Apple podcast, please take a moment to review and I will read it here. Thank you so much! Thank you so much for listening, and remember, you are amazing!