Be bold
Keep going even when you are afraid
Keep going even when it looks like your hard work is leading no where
Keep going to find your passions and your way to contribute in this world
Keep going when you don’t know what to do
Keep going when you get hurt or abandoned
Keep going when you lose the moment of believing in yourself.
You will make sacrifices.
You will cry.
You will want to quit it all.
Make your life happen by generosity, trust, curiosity and self-compassion.
Follow your gut feelings and allow your head to take a break.
Notice if you don’t like change and do it anyhow.
Ask for help.
Give help.
Listen. Thank others.
Sleep in peace not regrets.
Wouldn’t your life be boring if you knew all the answers?
Go out and discover more of who you are.
No matter where you came from yesterday or in childhood, this is your day today.
Natalie
Natalie Caine M.A.
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
– Private Telephone Consultations
– Speaking engagements
– Online classes
– Support groups
– Workshops
– Free active message board – connect with others
– Story of the Month
– Facebook, Linked In, Twitter
– Los Angeles, CA
Katie called in tears about graduation. “How can I have a fun summer when all I do is drop these tears of goodbye?”
We know goodbyes are part of life but that doesn’t help the heart. Hearts weep. What can you do?
1. Let yourself cry whenever and wherever using the softest aloe Kleenex you can find.
2. Who wouldn’t cry when their roles are changing, unknown is ahead, and you are grieving for what was?
3. Make time to get nurtured. You decide what nurturing is for you and put it on the calendar.
4. Ask for help. No one wants to go through transitions alone. You would be there for someone. So make the call for you.
5. Check in with yourself daily, asking, “What am I feeling? What do I need today? Who can help me?”
6. Enjoy the moments and have that be good enough.
7. Trust that this sorrow won’t last forever. You have been through challenges before.
8. Get into beauty, outside. Let nature uplift you.
9. Know who you are and aren’t. For now, honor that.
10. Play music at home and in the car.
11. Write yourself a letter about what compliments people have said to you over the years.
12. If you have tried different ways to shift and that isn’t working, seek guidance. No need to suffer alone.
13. Make a plan to connect and get out of the house twice a week. Write a plan on your calendar so you will have choices.
14. No matter what, be kind to yourself.
Change is an invitation to be where you are and at the same time go within to hear whispers of what might be ahead. You don’t have to sit and meditate for hours. Walk and be present with yourself. Asking, WHAT DO I NEED? Keep asking over and over each day. Let it be. Clarity will come when you stay connected with yourself by checking in on what you need.
“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” ~ Alan Cohen
Take good care,
Natalie
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
– Private Telephone Consultations
– Speaking engagements – Invite her to speak in your community
– Online classes
– Support groups – Begin one in your area
– Workshops
– Free active message board – connect with others
– Story of the Month
– Facebook, Linked In, Twitter
– Los Angeles, CA
Proud parents and children have called for celebration ideas and with the anxiety of what will be next for them. I remember lists of details for the grad party, gifts for everyone who helped my daughter be who she is, and happily, gifting her milestone, along with my spontaneous tears of another goodbye.
Change continues to happen.
The photo I am sharing is from a workshop I facilitated for men and women about transitions. They are proudly displaying their circle of new connections, the wearing of the toe ring gift I happily gave them, and their written possibilities of what they will take home and begin.
Dipping your toe in the water is a reminder to DIP INTO SOMETHING. JUST START.
You can begin any idea and see where it leads you. What will you dip your toe into as a new beginning of possibilities?
Change might become stalled because of the mind deciding what to do. Do you think the mind is the only tool? What is your gut reaction to the creative ideas you are exploring?
Take a walk and check in with yourself, what are you feeling today? What do you need? What ideas keep visiting you ? Who could support you in your exploration?
Is your head spinning like a hamster on the wheel rather than jumping off and beginning? The number one FREEZER in change is that you don’t START SOMETHING. Did you know that your no’s can lead to your yeses? No, I don’t want to work for someone else anymore. No, I don’t want to volunteer at a museum. No, I don’t want to join a hiking group. No, I don’t want to live with my parents for more than six months.
Kate felt the emptiness. She decided to join a book group. Kate hated it.
Her old Kate would have stayed for all six groups. Her new Kate called the organizer of the book group and said she made a choice that wasn’t a match for her, goodbye and thank you.
Each experience builds your confidence and teaches you who you are today and who you aren’t.
Adults get to change their mind. Begin something and see what you learn about yourself. No judgment. You are on a learning path.
WANDERING IS A GOOD THING. We haven’t been shown or given permission as adults to wander with ideas. Like a recipe…try a little of this and a little of that and give a taste. Like vacation, meander down streets and shops and see what catches your eye and your smile. Wander with your ideas.
Begin one. Leave one. Begin again.
BEING IN THE MOMENT AND APPRECIATING IT is practice. Clients call and say, “I had a great time, but it didn’t lead to anything.” They discount the value of the moment that made them happy. HAPPY. False expectations of an experience having to land something can take away the joy you had.
Keep going…
Natalie
Natalie Caine M.A.
Empty Nest Support Services
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
On the web www.emptynestsupport.com
Featured in Change is inevitableTIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
– Private Telephone Consultations
– Speaking engagements
– Online classes
– Support groups
– Workshops
– Free active message board – connect with others
– Story of the Month
– Facebook, Linked In, Twitter
– Los Angeles, CA
You wanted fields of seeing tulips in bloom. There were buds. You were having one of those deep days of thought. Have you had those? “Oh, this is like my life, not fully blooming, not what I expected my life to be by now.”
You were on the hunt that day to find full blooms. You found yellow daffodils. Not thrilling since you grew daffodils at home or saw them in the neighborhood. You wanted what you wanted…fields of blooming tulips.
Ok. So what you learned again, is your expectations can darken a day. You have a part of you that also doesn’t take in what is and thinks the experience you had wasn’t enough. You wanted more. Are you driven, YES.
Are you an active thinker, YES. Do you fall easily into vulnerability, NO.
Do you let a part of you cloud your day, by the unrealistic young self who will always want the experience to be more, YES. Thank goodness you know yourself and can say, “Alright, you had your air time. Bye bye. Thanks for sharing.” Perfection has left the room. Unrealistic behavior has quieted.
Appreciation has blossomed, again. How, because you practice shifting behavior in the moment.
Expectations can mask beauty. Beauty of living. At the same time your adult stage of life practices carrying the hope and the reality of what is.
You want to raise your bar and hope for what you hope for whether that is a vacation that you spent weeks planning, a relationship that you hope will bring more growth and joy, a job that satisfies and challenges, a home that makes you smile when you walk through the door. Key is to be with what is right in front of you and be sad if that too visits your heart. Carry both at the same time. Paradoxes and ranges of thoughts and feelings are normal.
Communication is your thing. The expectation that others have that thing as a priority is false expectation. You don’t like it and yet it is what it is. They don’t communicate as you do. You don’t have to like that and you don’t have to ruin your day because you didn’t get what you wanted. You do get to feel what you feel no matter what. Probably you won’t get that behavior from that person. You don’t like that realization and that is part of why you keep the hope and the expression of your need. You can teach it and yet can’t make them drink it. They don’t bloom when you want them to bloom after all the tending, feeding, and care you gave them. They say they want that communication too, and yet no new behavior. Sound familiar? Some seeds never bloom. What do you do with emptiness? What do you do with hurt and disappointment? Feel it. Self- comfort. Seek help. Pause. Open to clarity on its time, not your personality time.
Not what you expected. You thought if you voiced your needs, role modeled, checked in with yourself and them, you might receive that need. Ya, well, might is the detached word. Now you get to decide what to do to care for yourself, and how to be with not getting what you need. Is the pain more than the gain?
Clients share these disappointments and hopes. That sharing is their new journey of being in the unknown, practicing tolerance and moving into change. They begin to look out a different window rather than a closed one.
They weep. They be. They go within for comfort and clarity. They pause.
They reach toward a friend for love.
Unbloomed tulips. Who knew they would trigger unbloomed needs?
May you take in the simplicity and awe of beauty and allow expectations to be
awareness of different parts of you.
Natalie
www.emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
View Boomers, empty nesters, and parents have re-invented themselves over the years with birthing new experiences. A room shifts. Life changes whether chosen or delivered. How do you set your unknown for beauty and support?
Who would you invite to celebrate and grieve with as you enter a new room of your life? What would you try to comfort yourself? The key that you forget is simply to start something when you feel the inner urge. Start. You get to change your mind and come back home.
A client shared with me on the telephone that she feels cluttered with rapid thoughts. She wants to dump her old stuff and clear out the nagging thoughts of needing to have answers.
Practically she went room by room and gathered stuff no longer beautiful to her for a garage sale. She had no one to help her and still she went for it. What she discovered were new friends in her neighborhood and cash of three hundred dollars in a weekend.
She used the money for a spa day which was SO NEW for her. She is frugal and practical.
She even took a photo of herself as we talked about, so she would have a reminder of treating herself well with little effort.
For a weekend, she never cooked, answered the phone, and one day she didn’t shower. All new for her. She wept in bed with all that hasn’t come into her life. She watched movies and ate pasta in bed. She wept. She wept.
She couldn’t write a thing about her feelings or thoughts.
She did ask before she fell to sleep to REMEMBER A DREAM I WILL REMEMBER A DREAM.
She jotted memories of the dream. She was doing a job, teaching, when she thought she would be doing the job of singing. What she felt the dream was telling her was that she needed new teachings to stimulate her life and she needed to just sing when times were sorrowful. She won’t get what she wants and still will have a great life. She looked at who inside her wanted want in terms of the young girl, the old woman, and the present woman. It is her dream. Her interpretation.
This new dream journal made her hopeful. She doodled dreams. After months, we chatted weekly and she decided not to turn this newness into a “career” or product, but to simply keep going and see what she feels and thinks.
We are programmed to do something, fix, be productive, rush and get an answer.
For her, she needed to flow. Her life has been so active, productive, and giving. Now she enters her inner world and spontaneously chooses her plans.
May you discover some tool that supports you and allow the unknown to be a new friend.
Natalie
www.emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
– Invite her to speak in your community
– Call for a private consultation
– Gather 10 people and she will come to you.
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An empty nest parent called shyly tearful about her daughter leaving for college and her not knowing what life will be like in the emptiness.
When you leave the familiar to the unknown, tears fall and your inner doubter chats away in your sweet mind.
You are not alone. You are on a walk where you are invited to go within and unfold new parts of you that had to go dormant while daily parenting.
Who wouldn’t feel scared with a major life shift of roles? The parent you were is called to step back.
I wept on the airplane flying 3,000 miles back home, alone, after dropping my daughter off at college. The stewardess came over and said, “Are you alright?” I nodded, yes, propped by the window.
Of course I wasn’t alright, but didn’t want to talk. I just couldn’t believe she was in college. College, that seemed a long distance from the days of watching and hearing her change at home and share herself with me.
I felt my clock ticking. I felt that end, big end of a relationship as I knew it. I felt relief that she was in college. I had no idea what would appear in me or not appear. Curiosity and self -compassion were my best friends as well as feeling whatever whenever feelings sloppily caught me.
Long story short, I am very happy in my new role with her, the working college graduate, and with me, the woman who loves her freedom,
The photos are ones I took this week in my garden. Before being an empty nester, I didn’t even think about bouncing out of bed to see what I could capture in a photo from my garden. My digital camera and I are velcroed where my past Velcro was shared with my daughter.
Stay curious about what makes you happy.
Ask yourself what you use to do before parenting, before marriage or divorce or career. One mother remembered she loved folk dancing. She wasn’t ready to do anything but make a note.
Another mother got into planning holiday gifts just to lift her energy.
Your shift of roles is a grieving. Treat yourself as you would treat your best friend who feels a deep loss.
I wrote myself a letter about what I loved about parenting and what I wouldn’t miss. You forget there are different parts of you that hold wisdom. Connect with them, maybe through writing or walking and chatting the stories to yourself.
May you comfort yourself. There are gifts in new beginnings. No rush.
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true
that makes life interesting.”
~ Paulo Coelho
Natalie
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
Graduations, retirement, job loss, divorce, empty nest, marriage, new career, travel, are transitions. You know where you have been.
You enter a cycle of both excitement and uncertainty about your new daily life. Beauty in the pieces means you allow yourself small steps, reflections, and openness to see beyond what is visible. You recall what you love about the life you had.
List those thoughts. Take just three minutes and write. Read it out loud to yourself. Write what you love about you. Don’t think about doing this practice, just sit and let the words come to the page.
I love the part of me that is…….and keep that writing going for three minutes. I
love that I ….. If you don’t want to write it, say it to yourself.
Make the time for you to know more about you.
– You have a hope list of what might be.
– New friendships.
– Creativity.
– Intellectual stimulation.
– New career path.
– Love.
– Increased ways to up your health.
– Explorations.
– Spiritual practices.
– Emptiness.
Change asks us to go within.
You could ask yourself,
“WHO AM I NOW?”
“WHO WAS I”
“WHAT NEW PARTS OF ME MIGHT GET SOME ATTENTION?”
“IS THERE SOMETHING I TRULY AM SAYING GOODBYE TO?”
“WHAT RESOURCES DO I NEED THAT I DON’T HAVE?”
Beauty in the pieces.
You probably guessed, when looking at the photo, that it was a rose, now fallen, blown by wind and time into single petals, no longer a group, a clan, a family, a partner and yet part of a whole.
– Still beautiful.
– Touched by water.
– Landing on stone.
– Beauty in the pieces.
May Spring open you to the beauty of your present life and the reflection of what has fallen. We simply long for reminders that parts of us are
unseen or uncertain for today.
Both carry gifts.
Mystery is exhilarating and challenging. Can you imagine feeling peaceful by allowing slow and unfamiliarity to be a good thing rather than pumping up or dashing?
Do you believe it is possible to let go, feel the air as you extend towards the solid bar swinging your way?
Transitions…leaving one cycle and leaning into a new.
Natalie
www.emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Los Angeles, CA
Invite her to speak in your community
Call for a private consultation on the phone.
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I still look forward to a note, even though she doesn’t live at home. It will probably be an email note. Well, I hope!
Hand prints, plants, rainbows, photos and popsicle picture frames…
What gift do you remember?
Did I tell you I still, yes still, love seeing her sleep. Peace for me.
I hope my love for her brings her peace in knowing no matter what, I believe in her and want her to love and be loved, and keep hiking with me.
Love to all you dedicated Moms.
Natalie
Rancho La Puerta
Tecate, Mexico
North America’s legendary health & fitness resort; family owned destination spa that’s been changing lives for 70 years. 3,000 acres of mountains, meadows, & more.
http://www.rancholapuerta.com
Life In Transition, What’s Next? I will be presenting again at Rancho La Puerta Resort and Spa, the week of May 14th.
Please email me with any of your questions.
You arrive in San Diego and the resort will pick you up for a beautiful short ride to the resort. The staff is dedicated to service. Check out their website for activities, photos, and accommodations.
When traveling changes in your life, it helps to know who you are, aren’t and from there have the support to pull up new inner resources in order to gently step forward. No one needs to go through transitions alone.
We forget to ask ourselves more than once what we need and how we might receive that support. Five times of asking is shown in research to reveal inner answers, not once.
You are no longer where you were and yet uncertain about what is next for you. I look forward to being with you. I have lived a life of transitions. Compassion and curiosity help me everyday.
Please email me, natalie@emptynestsupport.com about the workshop.
Take care,
Natalie
Natalie Caine M.A.
Empty Nest Support Services
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
On the web www.emptynestsupport.com
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
I know it is a celebration, big celebration. I just am afraid I will cry and draw too much attention to me. Crying is OK. It is his day.
I feel so shocked that he is leaving for college, college. We all are well educated and worker bees. I love being mom and think that will change when he leaves. I had no idea I would be tearful, weepy unexpectedly. I am mom more than worker bee. What will I be when his room empties and he isn’t home for weeks and weeks. I have no idea.
All his friends, and teachers, and that life at school is closing. I sure complained about the after school games and hours of homework and of course, the driving which I won’t miss. The spontaneous talks in the kitchen and the little and big decisions about camp or going to a friend’s. Now they are his decisions.
What is mine? What in life is mine. I never thought about that before. This is the beginning of new thoughts. I hope I have a community to share with as I crawl on this new road.
Thanks for listening. His mom….
A mom called with mixed feelings. She always did mother’s day with her mom. Now she is gone. She used to complain that she never got HER DAY. Now she has it and isn’t sure what to do with it. Her children are out of the house. She wants to change being stuck about having fun.
This mom is an over-worker in order to feel satisfied. No judgment about that choice. Her sense of humor is a giggle… “too many hats I wear got crushed by the elephant in the room.”
Ready or not here she goes. Here is her plan:
1. Make a plan once a week that has no value, like exercise, even though fun, and do something pure fun. Close your eyes and ask five times, WHAT MIGHT BE FUN FOR ME? Listen and see if any images pop.
2. Write a letter to herself, DEAR….. You are a great mom because you…. You don’t miss being mom today because you don’t have to…. You don’t miss being the daughter today because….
Just quick notes, not complete sentences. Thoughts to ponder or toss.
3. Practice loving the life you have by paying attention to your life in a sweet mirror. WOW, I HAVE SUCH A GREAT LIFE BECAUSE…..
4. Honoring MOTHER … what does that mean to you in the family and in the bigger picture of life.
5. What has mothering taught you about yourself? What surprised you?
6. Down the road, what might you be doing for YOU?
Celebrate and pass it on,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
No pictures of this. Early this morning while watering my blooming garden of roses and rosemary budded in small tomatoes, I looked at the pattern of bamboo leaves that wind tossed in our small pool.
There in the corner, face down, was a baby possum. YUCK. I walked away. SAD. Poor mama. Poor baby.
Conscious stepped up. I got a shovel, box, and fished face down dead possum from the pool. SORRY.
What brave act did you do that surprised you?
Onward to new behaviors…..
Have a fun day,
Natalie
Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
