Packing them up, checking the list, finalizing details, as your children are almost in the dorm. You are shocked that this life you have had with your precious one has gone so fast.

Empty nest is not for long because they do come back, but for now, that is not what you are thinking and feeling.

It is so normal to feel tearful, even having the ugly cries. The role you love is instantly going to change when you come back home from that hug at the dorm.

You know the role you played as a parent and who they were as your child will be different. Change is lonely and scary at times.

For now, plan for you.

- Focus on what you need when the house is silent.
- Get some videos.
- Have coffee and talk time scheduled with a friend.
- Get nurtured and rest.
- Put a flowering plant in your bedroom.
- Start your journal.
- Pause before you text or instant message them. Do you need to call a friend for comfort and let your child be?
- Ask a friend to email you in the mornings and evenings just to have some connection and not isolation the first week.
- Write a list of what is fun for you and what you are good at when you have the energy to dream again.

At first, you might be feeling immobile and simply grieving. Normal for sure. Ask for help.

Take good care of yourself and be gentle in this major transition.

Natalie

Posted by Natalie Caine at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cranky and then cranked up.

A mother said I could share that with you as she shared it with me in a telephone session.

For weeks she was, of course, sad when her daughter left for college. She expected all the grieving feelings, but didn’t realize she would be angry.

Long story short, she wasn’t angry with her daughter, but angry that she never felt like she had been nurtured in the way she wanted to be by her mother. She had done therapy in the past and knew this in her head but again the feelings dropped into her empty heart.

She wanted to be the little one again who didn’t have to make anything happen. After sorting through herself and lots of Kleenex, her real crankiness, as she called it, turned into cranking it up.

She joined a gym, hiking group, that meets for a full moon hike, picked one new place in her city to visit each weekend, got a bi-weekly massage for forty dollars, and kept checking out books from the library ,but also stayed to form a reading group for those who need big print.

Her daily practice was to write in her journal and do a silent walking meditation.

Take care,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
800-446-3310 toll free
818-763-0188 local California time

Posted by Natalie Caine at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over and over I am reminded that what gets us through painful times is a friend.

We know that, but when we are hurting we isolate. We don’t pick up the phone and ask a friend for help. We want to be the strong one.

So I suggest you make a list of who you feel uplifted around? Who are you yourself with? Who is cheering for your happiness?

Most of us play the role of supporter and so we feel vulnerable when we reveal ourselves. Surprise is, we become closer to the friend who we speak our pain to. Being vulnerable and telling even a secret, bonds us.

Here’s my take…we are already feeling horrible so what is there to lose if we say everything that is crowding our head and heart? A friend is just like you…a person who listens and honestly wants the best for you, neither jealous nor self centered, a person who is able to be present and not putting their agenda on you. They know you are not them.

If you don’t have a friend near by, use email or the phone. Don’t wait all day for the pain to pass, reach out early. Don’t let the part of you win that says, it will pass, get over it, or whatever sabotage enters your room. Being vulnerable, awkward, is actually normal.

We have forgotten how to put our needs first and receive the compassion and nurturing we deserve. Sounds trite, but over and over, I hear this to be true.

What we know in out heads, we forget to bring to our hearts. Believe it or not, we think to much rather than reaching for a hand. Just reach and call out to someone.
Kleenex wouldn’t exist without us and Kleenex is a good thing.

Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
www.emptynestsupport.com
800-446-3310

Posted by Natalie Caine at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

These are the weeks of planning and attending high school and college commencements. I remember using red bandanas stuffed in my purse rather than Kleenex. I needed a sure thing. No messy, embarrassing nose drips for me. Well, I can’t say that I wasn’t a mess, but I can say it was a good mess. I loved every moment during that weekend of her high school and college graduation.

College graduation was last May, three thousand miles from home. I still can well with tears. We all had so much fun gathering around my daughter and her friends. Dancing, eating, singing, crying, laughing, and clicking the cameras. Flowers and cakes, gifts and notes and one last stroll across the green, flowering, brick buildings of the east coast campus.

I planned a secret wish list for her during the dinner at her favorite college restaurant.

Everyone had a chance to write what they wish for her and roll it, tie it in a ribbon, and toss it in the glass goblet on the table.

Some were funny…hope you learn cleaning skills and some were wishes for dreaming and living one dream at a time.

As empty nesters, during one of my gatherings, we talked about our dreams which started to unwrap after the impact of them leaving.

I think it was a good idea to talk and write about those dreams.

Here are a few of the dreams parents shared. I pass them to you while you are in the midst of excitement and messy bandanas:

- Join a book club
- Travel once a year for more than a week away
- Go back to college
- Entertain with adults after cooking and wine classes
- Learn to fly fish
- Belly dance and perform
- Spend time alone with a camera and nature
- Get fit and eat well
- Join the arts
- Take a neighborhood class, so I don’t have to spend time in the car
- Spend time with my nieces and nephews
- Nap outside in a hammock with a sexy novel
- Give myself time to discover what is next
- Be a dog walker

Well, the list continues to grow, as does the support. We just have more fun talking and reaching together. Change takes time and patience. I remember one mother called me chocked up and didn’t call again for a private consultation until, as she said and I think we can all relate, “ I am sick of hearing myself worry and feel left out of life. He is making new paths and I am still hiding at home. I am stuck.” I asked her if I could share that and I thanked her for being so vulnerable and brave. Change seems to be easier when we have had some practice in having to change.

Dream lists are fun if you keep the critic and pusher off the paper. “Well, you will never do that. So, go do it. Stop complaining and go.”

There is a reason for the empty space. It is neither punishment nor weakness. It is suppose to be open and unfilled. You have been filled for seventeen years.

I know it is trite to say to enjoy every moment of commencement, but we need the reminder to have fun. Don’t be the care-taker during these milestones. It is a time for you to be proud and nostalgic. You laid the foundation so they can step on up and make choices. So kick up your heels and do the happy parent dance.

Congratulations to you all!
Hope to hear from you.
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
800-446-3310
California time

Posted by Natalie Caine at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“Being a mom in my empty nest, I can’t believe…….”

For Mother’s Day Celebration how about we add comments to the above opening line?

It can be what was easy, what surprised you, what you miss, what you want back, what you are glad is over, what you still love, what challenges you with your adult children, or anything you feel like sharing.

You can add more than one time.
You can comment anonymously or not.

Maybe we will do this until May 12, the day after Mother’s Day.

Let’s just have fun with sharing whatever comes to mind.

I will start:
I can’t believe I told my daughter when she was 11 and wanted to shave her legs for the first time, “OK, but don’t talk on the phone and shave at the same time.”

I can’t believe, after 23 years, I still love watching my daughter…just watching her, looking at her.

Being a mom has been the best teacher of my life and that surprised me. For some, their best teacher has been other relationships, or illness, etc., but hands down, being her mom has taught me about my warts and my pearls.

Being a mom, I don’t miss car pooling, or sitting outside during the freezing days of soccer seasons.

Natalie

Posted by Natalie Caine at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Talking with parents across the country, working or not, married or single, all say it is a relief to know their feelings are normal.

The fear of their children leaving spins parents into worry about safety, friendships, money, happiness, inclusion, loneliness, but mostly, into the reality that the role parents love living is coming to a drastic change. The grieving journey and opening to new parts of self begins for all parents, but uniquely for each.

Parents are entering the unknown without a timeline of relief and their children are leaping into more independence without the safety of their parents in the next room.

This time of year, more and more children are getting rejection letters from the colleges they wanted. I love the idea that some high schools are allowing them to bravely post the rejection letters at school in order to belong to a group that shows all of them are dealing with the embarrassment, as they call it, and the reality that college is more competitive now. That it is, “normal” to get a rejection letter, which for some, is the first time they have ever experienced that feeling.

Both parents and their children want to feel “normal” and have a place to vent and be inspired.

Change is a paradox of hopeful new beginnings and a range of challenging losses.

We all get surprised when we hear other parents are being yelled at by their children due to fears or at the last minute, children call saying they aren’t coming home. They want to be with their friends. Feels like rejection and rudeness, but is actually so normal…..not that normal means you don’t get to have your feelings nor do you not get to talk about it.

What have you been experiencing these days with changes? Post your comments and add to the community of empty nesters who appreciate not being alone on the journey of changes

Take good care,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com

Posted by Natalie Caine at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi there,

I hope spring is in the air and with it seeds of new ways of being. Parents have been calling and asking about tips for graduation and crying that it is almost here... change. Most of them have said they are so busy that tears still fall with the last events of school days, but they want to make graduation day fun. Oh the art of enjoying and being present, packed with Kleenex.

So, I thought we would share here what helped in the celebration and the falling of tears. I think a reminder is....this is their day so ask what ideas they have and offer ones you have been thinking about. Everyone is so busy and emotional for good reason that the ones, who can offer suggestions, have a chance to take that lead.

One of my favorite high school graduation things was to put things in every room that were part of my daughter's life...soccer uniform, red and white skirt that she had to wear everyday in pre school, art she made, photos, letter to the tooth fairy begging her to leave something but not take her tooth, framed collage saying from here to there with photos at different ages of her life and with the people she loves. I had pamphlets and photos of the college she was heading towards so people had an image of her new life.

College graduation, I didn't ask her, but took a risk that it would be ok if I gave everyone from the family her favorite song on a CD and played it at the restaurant, since the restaurant is a place she worked and they loved surprising her. It was called. “HEAVENLY DAY” by Patty Griffin. I still cry seeing all of us at the dinner table, looking at her in her fresh white sleeveless dress, long brown hair, warm smile, and hearing the song.

I also had two wish bowls on the table and paper and pens for people to write a wish and roll it up and toss it in the bowl...they were funny and sentimental as she read them out loud and we tried to guess who wrote them. I gave each person who came to her celebration a hanky for graduation day.

Photos were taken all weekend with throw away cameras and quickly developed so I could pass them around at our last gathering on campus and then save them for her. I even gave cameras to the little ones and they loved seeing the photos they took and then gave to my daughter.

Parents over this spring break plan to have the graduation celebration planning talk, but realize their children just might not know what they want right now. So here's to planning and helping everyone on the way to a milestone of pride and change.

Lots more to say later about caring for yourself during the celebration, but for sure, crying will happen and choosing to enjoy all of it rather than care taking or worry, will make this joyous moment full.

Feel the pride and excitement of their hopeful future. Believe in them and smile big that you carried love for them all through their growing life and from that, they are blooming.

Natalie

Posted by Natalie Caine at 07:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)