Kids ´leaving´ home. Going to uni, on a gap year, moving forward with their lives.
The seasons change.
The photos of our kids on their next first day of school/uni, compared to their first day at school looms in our memory.
Lists and preparations for those leaving home for the first time. Launching into a new chapter, whilst remembering all the previous chapters with us, in our home.
Temperatures changing and light fading – another reminder of the passing of time. The approach of inevitable change and winter (for us in the northern hemisphere at least).
The passing of time. Changes. All reminders of life evolving. The fragility of life.
Of beginnings and endings.
Transitions can be tough and also tender, for us, and for our kids.
But for us mums it can hit us in so many ways.
Excitement for what is next for them.
Fear of letting go.
Uncertainty on how life will now look for us.
Readiness for a new phase of life.
Grief for what has been.
A sense of loss of our children, even if we rationally know they are still our babies. That we know that we will still see them and be there for them. That this is temporary, an adjustment and that they cannot and should not be with us forever. And yet it still hurts.
And maybe one moment we are mourning the passing of time, the evolution into a new day to day life and way of being a mum. And the next we can hardly wait for them to move on, we can see how they are totally ready for what is next and we can´t hold them back.
The nuances of feeling can change by the minute and are infinite.
How do we hold these mixed feelings?
How can we let go of our children, especially without catastrophising and feeling that this is the end?
How can we process it all, without negatively impacting our children?
How do we move through it and onwards, especially in the moments when the emotions might feel paralysing?
How do we not put ourselves under too much pressure for us to be ok, have a new routine, new normal all set up, be ready and excited for this next stage?
Many tips for parents facing empty (or open as I prefer to call it) nest, grief or tough emotions from our western culture emphasise the importance of letting go, getting on with life and focusing on other or new stuff. This type of advice is all well and good, but the reality is that that is often putting a band aid over the situation and can end up keeping us stuck, damaging our emotional and physical wellbeing and prolonging and deepening our pain. This can also often come out sideways, for example, with eruptions or outbursts with our children, partners or elsewhere with other unhealthy behaviours with food, alcohol, etc.
In my experience, and with many clients, the most important, and often neglected, first steps it that I, we, need to acknowledge how we are feeling and allow ourselves to feel it. If we don´t it can end up create way more problems for ourselves and damage the very things we are trying to protect. This doesn´t mean we need to spend days of moping and wallowing, offloading to anyone or everyone (particularly our kids). It is more about finding healthy ways for us to feel and process our emotions, our grief, whatever we are feeling on a day to day, hour to hour basis.
Here are 12 tips on how to help support ourselves and move forward when we are finding things tough, whether facing empty or open nest or finding the passing of time hard:
Acknowledge how we are feeling.
Whether it feels relatively fleeting or something that feels deeper, acknowledging and/or labelling our emotions is an important first step. It can feel very counter-intuitive to many of us, particularly in western culture to just sit with our uncomfortable feelings.
To be with ourselves, hold the complex emotions, sit with and be them, in ways that our parents might not have done for us and/or we have not had modelled to us. In my painful experience, ignoring, dismissing, masking or pretending we aren´t feeling something can just make it worse and keep us even more stuck.
For me personally, I am conscious that I very done a lot of ignoring, masking, dismissing and pretending in the past when I have felt some challenging emotions and thoughts. Particularly with pain, stress, fear, indecision, uncertainty, sadness, grief, I used to regularly turned to food, alcohol and numbing behaviours to escape – which ultimately resulted in chronic anxiety and depression for me (and I know also does for many others).
The first way I started to heal and break free from my pain and my mental health struggles was to get in touch with what I was feeling and acknowledge it. Sounds so simple, but not always quite so easy in practice. But it takes just that, practise.
Whether it is mentally acknowledging and label our emotions and feelings, journalling about them, meditating on them, experimenting with mindfulness practices, making voice notes on them, these can all help with acknowledging, sitting with and processing emotions. We just have to find what feels most helpful to us.
If we allow ourselves to see and feel the feelings, this helps us let them move through us, they will pass more easily.
“I recently read in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor that the natural life span of an emotion—the average time it takes for it to move through the nervous system and body—is only a minute and a half. After that we need thoughts to keep the emotion rolling. So if we wonder why we lock into painful emotional states like anxiety, depression, or rage, we need look no further than our own endless stream of inner dialogue.”
When we show ourselves some kindness, self-compassion and comfort ourselves with our pain, suffering, challenges it also helps us to move through it. What can be called being our own parent or inner parent, witnessing our emotions, nurturing and comforting ourselves is such a simple, yet empowering practice. Again it is quite counter-culture and can take some time and patience to get into the habit of remembering to give ourselves compassion, but it really can make all the difference.
“When someone says to us, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, “Darling, I care about your suffering,” a deep healing begins.”
― Tara Brach (again), Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
This is quite different to the ´Keep calm and carry on´ style attitude, particularly for us Brits, which basically expects us to show a stiff upper lip to tough things and battle through. Just ignore it all and it will eventually go away. Using self-compassion and kindness can be seen as weakness, however the reality is actually very different. We wouldn´t expect someone else going through pain or suffering just to grin and bear it, so why do it to ourselves? A stronger, much more powerful and empowering practice is to hold ourselves with the same compassion and gentleness. Just like we would with a physical wound – give ourselves care and attention.
Remembering that this self-compassion is not a one time practice and will need to be repeated to give ourselves what we most need in any given moment, even if it is giving ourselves a hug.
3. Connecting to our bodies.
Feeling into our bodies, where we feel hard stuff is another powerful way to connect with ourselves, so we can heal our own suffering and pain. For some of us connecting to our bodies is hard, particularly if we have disconnected to it due to a tough upbringing or trauma, so it can be something we have to go gently with and/or do so with a professional.
One very effective way I have found for so many is to help connect with our emotions and our body is through this visualisation exercise, based on the principles of Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) from Dr Russ Harris:
4. Reach out. It might be obvious, but it is also important for us to talk to someone about how we are feeling, a trusted friend or family member, colleague, therapist/counsellor, a coach or mentor. Sharing how we are feeling can really help us by externalising our thoughts and feelings, being seen and heard. Sharing our thoughts and emotions can help create new awareness and also help us separate between our thoughts rather than identifying with them so much. In my experience, we often don´t even need advice or guidance, more to have our experiences reflected back to us and to be asked questions so we can go within, find our own answers and trust our own inner wisdom. Although if we feel we need guidance, it can obviously also help to ask for that too, particularly if someone has encountered a similar situation.
5. Movement. We might not feeling like moving our bodies, especially when we are having a tough time, but sometimes emotions can get stuck in our bodies and then keep us feeling stuck and living in our heads too. Going for a walk in nature, doing some form of exercise you love whether it is yoga, zumba, pilates, kick-boxing, the gym, swimming.
Moving our bodies can help us process our emotions, provided with have also acknowledged them and held them with self-compassion – so we are not using exercise to run away from our feelings or are exercising compulsively (as a numbing behaviour). The releasing of endorphins also helps too 🙂
6. Allow ourselves to experiment with what works for us. Once we feel a bit more ready to move forward – giving ourselves permission to try something new. It doesn´t have to be anything huge, and also allowing ourselves to make mistakes, to fail.
How do we know when we are ready? I love this thought provoking question from James Clear:
“It generally feels better to run toward something than to run away from something. Focus on what is pulling you in, not what you’re trying to avoid.”
We may not ever feel fully ready to try something new or do something out of our comfort zone, but if we focus on what we want to create, to feel, then it can help us edge out of what feels like the safe space to something new and exciting.
As we give our permission to experiment and try new things, I find it important to remind myself that just because one path or thing works for one person, it might not help us in our own journey.
7. Letting down our load. Sometimes when it all gets too heavy, we just need to let ourselves set down our load, our emotional load. To emotionally and physically release what is bothering us and consciously disengage. This might mean saying we are going to watch a movie, go out for dinner, do something fun or nurturing or relaxing and give ourselves full permission to fully be with it and not think about what has been eating away at us or struggling with. Even if it is for 10 minutes, releasing the load for a little bit can feel freeing.
8. Gratitude. Gratitude has become a bit of a cliché now, I know, but it can still be very powerful. Not to avoid what we are finding hard, but to also include what is good in our lives – the warm, sometimes fleeting moments or glimmers as they are starting to be called. Feeling the sun on our face, watching a bird fly, hearing our children laugh, tasting delicious food, being fully present, dancing to our favourite song. It doesn´t have to be anything big or fancy. Being in the moment for when the good things happen and then reflecting on them with gratitude at the end of our day reminds ourselves of some of the good points in life too. I have found that it also helps us look for and create more of those glimmers of light and hope.
9. Add good things. Adding some things that nurture and nourish us into the mix may sound obvious, but we can often forget it and turn to things that are not quite so nurturing for our soul. Sprinkling in one or two things we love can also help ease the burden, enrichen our lives and look after our mental and physical health. This might be reading more, trying new recipes, exploring somewhere or something new, trying or revisiting a hobby, exercise class, seeing a friend, spending 5 minutes longer with a cuppa and savouring it. Giving ourselves the opportunity to add in what feels good to us.
I loved this Gathering Gold podcast with Sheryl Paul and Victoria Russell that talked about adding in good things that might also might be of interest.
10. Perspective shift. Once we have sat with our emotions and given ourselves compassion and what we most need, we might feel ready to consider a perspective shift. For example, an alternate perspective to seeing empty (open) nest or our kids not wanting to spend as much time with us is to view this time as an opportunity for personal and/or professional growth rather than just loss or change. We can value the fact we have done a good job in enabling them to gain their own independence and freedom and see how it gives us the space to start focusing more on our passions, hobbies, or even a new or uplevelled (word?) career, volunteering opportunities, reconnecting friendships, I could go on.
For example, one of my clients, Jane (name changed) who was navigating a crossroads as her children got older and left home, combined with the end of her marriage, moved through a lot of her challenging emotions, reconnected to who she was and what she wanted at this phase. Together we created a personal manifesto (as she liked to call it) that included exercise, nutritious foods, personal development, regular connection with friends near and far, learning – tuning into her desires and what felt nourishing to her in this transitional phase of life. Having this manifesto was something for her to really getting going on and focus on daily. It truly reflected who she was, where she was in that moment and what she wanted to move towards more. It became her foundation and gave her a new lease of life.
11. Rediscovering Identity. I know it can feel a bit clichéd, but rediscovering who we are beyond our role as a mother can also be an important step as our kids become more independent in their teens and beyond. We may have put our career or other activities and interests on hold while raising our children. For example, I have rediscovered my love of football now my kids are in their mid-teens and love it, as it brings me both exercise and a wonderful community!
A good first step in starting to rediscover who we are now at this stage of life (bearing in mind we evolve throughout our lives) is to first connect with our values, what is most important to us. We can then start to see what parts of our life are in alignment with our values and what we would like to include more, move towards. This was a powerful exercise for Mary (name changed) who realised that she had lost touch with who she really was and was going through the motions. Together we worked to help her reconnected to herself and she slowly realised that she wanted to change career and even country as a result. Meanwhile for Gill (name changed) reevaluated and reconnected with how important it was for her to spend connected time with her family and quality alone time too. In practice she decided to practise not being on on her phone so much, particularly in the evenings and also started to invest more time in reading, rather than scrolling which felt more nourishing to her.
12. A rebirth? Whilst much of our western culture can talk about the negatives of midlife, menopause and all that comes with it, I prefer to embrace the more empowering Japanese perspective of midlife – Koneki. Midlife and menopause as an opportunity of renewal, rebirth and fresh starts. You can read more about this empowering perspective here.
Rediscovering who we are and revisiting what we most want can feel quite a challenge, but it can also be so liberating. Another client of mine, Michelle (name changed), gave herself full permission to connect to who she was at this point in her life, think about what she really wanted for her next stage, rather than prioritising everyone else (or caring what they all thought). She wanted to really feel excited about this next stage, but not go too bold or out of her comfort zone. Michelle is now planning to visit Asia to develop her yoga practice and work for a couple of months later this year.
For me personally, whilst my kids are still living at home, I have found it empowering to look at this phase of my life as a way to embrace who I really am and reconnect to me in a way that I never have done before in my life. In midlife I have decided to stop dying my hair, partly as I was sick of dying it, but also I wanted to be more authentic and show the real me. As I have also looked for ways to be more present, less distracted and living in my head I have included more movement in my life – that feels good to me – swimming, football, walking. Listening to and trusting myself more, even when it feels hard or counter-culture. For example, I decided to stop drinking alcohol in April 2018 as it didn´t feel good for me mentally or physically anymore and I knew that my relationship with alcohol was not helping me or the life I wanted to create. I see midlife as having given me the opportunities to reevaluate who I am and what I most want (without always worrying about everyone else) and it is actually quite freeing!
On reflection
So September, the month, the autumnal season of our lives, where we can see our kids getting older and moving on with their lives. It can be a challenging time, it can be both a tough and tender time. Giving ourselves the compassion, support and love that we most need right now is so important. Noone ever truly healed or moved on by pretending it wasn´t happening or chastising ourselves to get over it. We wouldn´t do that to a physical wound, why do it to an emotional one?
Yes, midlife and this phase of our lives provides opportunities and hope, it also brings a whole swirl of emotions and feelings for us. It is important we get the support we need and reach out when we feel we need to too.
I am sharing this poem below that I found quite pertinent and powerful to reflect the complex emotions of letting go and allowing our children to fly. I hope it is of some comfort to those feeling particularly vulnerable right now.
On Children
Kahlil Gibran.1883 – 1931
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923). This poem is in the public domain.
As always, I would LOVE to hear your reflections, questions, comments, feedback at this time of your life, whatever the stage you are at with your children. Please do share below, I read and respond to all comments.
Like a fresh start? To break free from overwhelm, feeling stuck and uncertain? If you would like to join my FREE Revive and Thrive Reboot (23-27 September 2024) and Facebook community for other amazing midlife women, like you, please click here. If you´d rather not be on Facebook – please sign up here.
To find out more about working together, reconnecting to you and what you want to create in your next chapter, please book in for a free, 30 minute chat (zero pressure) here.
Thank you so much for reading, being on this journey together and empowering you and our world!
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