Parents have called to share their feelings and questions about attending their child’s college orientation.
Some will be going to move their college children into dorms or apartments about a month after orientation, so they are passing on taking off work, spending the money, and sharing this experience.
It isn’t an easy decision. Parents look forward to this transition before the big hug goodbye. They want to be part of the community even though they know it isn’t really their community. They want to share in the experience and still be mom or dad who nurtures and takes care of their children. They aren’t wanting to let go, yet of protector and problem solver. They know the final curtain call is around the corner.
It is a vacation for the family. It is ease on down the road time.
Each family evaluates the pros and cons of being there for orientation. We have an orchestra of voices inside us that want air time. Let them speak to you by doing a walking meditation or sitting. Ask the question, “What value is there in my going to the college orientation?” “Do I need to go?’ “Will I miss out?” “Will I regret that I didn’t go?” You will have many questions and many answers. This is a sorting time. Whatever you decide, trust you can handle the outcome. Isn’t it all about trust and not about the right answer? We forget to journey inside and keep asking the questions. We ask once. Ask when you are pouring your coffee in the early morning and sitting before work. Repetition is a good thing for clarity and getting to know yourself.
If you don’t go, make a plan for yourself for the time she/he is gone. You need to feel nurtured and have fun at home. If your inner critic hammers you for not going, say, “THANKS FOR SHARING AND I AM FINE.” If you feel sad, feel those feelings. Who wouldn’t feel sad with all these changes and role shifts?
Are you going?
Share with us,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Los Angeles, CA
818-763-0188
800-446-3310
Surprises that lift Empty Nesters and baby boomer. Rick Bayless’s new restaurant, RED O, just opened in my home town of Los Angeles. I have been fortunate to take a cooking class with him, eat at his Chicago restaurant and have him sign menus I saved for seven years when we were on my daughter’s college tour.
Food Channel and Top Chef watcher is where I fantasize my other life.
His Los Angeles restaurant does not disappoint and allows me to make a plan to return.
My wish for you is to daydream about what lifts your spirits. What did you like to do after school? What vacation pops in your mind as a memory? If you only had the time and money, you would……….? Don’t edit those initial pops in your precious mind.
For years, I have wanted to build more of a community in my neighborhood and not drive those bumper freeways. Finally, this is happening. A friend said to me, “Thanks for calling me for dinner tonight. No one does anything spontaneous anymore.” Is that true where you live? I loved walking to her house and then for chopped salad and roasted chicken where we sat outside and chatted about motherhood, relationships, work, and hopes for a better collaborative world.
Trying new things, like taking yourself, solo out for lunch, is great. You don’t have to do it again.
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
I am so excited about returning to teach at Rancho La Puerta Resort and Spa, LIFE IN TRANSITION, WHAT’S NEXT? I want to remind you and me that dreams do come true since this winner for best resort and spa, 2010, voted by Travel and Leisure Magazine truly lives up to a spectacular vacation spot. I have made lifetime friends from being there. I learned from other teachers. I ate the most delicious foods and saw night skies that I don’t ever see in the city. Peace and beauty topped with music, great service, and treats unending.
For years, I heard about this place and imagined I would get there someday.
Someday is around the corner. Whatever that voice says in your head that you can’t have a dream come true, say, “THANKS FOR SHARING and I AM GOING FOR IT.”
– Make your dream or good fortune list that has happened to you.
– Make a new one of what might be possible.
– Make another that is top on your list.
Yes, that photo is Rick Bayless, the top chef winner, cooking at the beautiful kitchen at the Ranch. When my daughter was a senior in high school and we visited colleges, going to his restaurant was top on our list. We went. I saved the menu and photos and he signed them for me as we were both teaching at the same time at the Ranch. Seven years of wanting that to happen and what matters is, I fortunately got that dream. The icing on the cake is that he is opening a restaurant in Los Angeles – how would you like it if your favorite chef opened a restaurant in your home town?
We don’t get everything want. We do get to enjoy moment to moment of dreaming and still moving forward when dreams don’t happen. Don’t take it personally.
Life is life and thank goodness we get another day.
It is passion and new experiences that help lift us from our worries and losses for awhile. A mother told me during a consultation that she mostly wanted something to look forward to, so we began her journey from where she was right then to possibilities that would shift her energy. They don’t have to be vacations, new career, partners, moving. They can be ordinary experiences that feed you, like a day drive with a book on tape or music and yummy food. You stop and walk and explore a new area.
Writing possible interests you have, helps you focus right there on the question, “WHAT DO I NEED TODAY?”
Enjoy these summer days and stay connected on our free message board or by sending me an email asking for what you need.
The photos are from Rancho La Puerta that I captured last year.
Take good care,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Los Angeles, CA
Summer is playful and dreading because back to school is around the corner. A mother shared with me that she knows change is coming but her brain doesn’t know how to have fun NOW with the family. Brain chatter chills her. Loss, again, brings her down and out of the moment. Her heart aches for the forever myth in movies and story books. She isn’t ready to give it up. I love when she said these real feeling words. I DON’T WANT TO GIVE UP HAVING ALL THAT I WANT. I FEEL LOST
Good news is change, emptiness, makes room for parts of you that had to go dormant. I found my inner photographer where I share my new passion in my blog photos and my photos with my friends, family, and professionals. My house finally has framed photos that make me smile.
If you had told me a year ago that I would wake and grab my digital to catch a surprise in the morning, 6:oo am, before sipping coffee, I wouldn’t have known that. Not knowing is the good news.
Uncomfortable for the part of you that feels like you need to know how to be a parent, partner, friend, sibling, son/daughter, leader, job seeker, re-locator, etc. Is it realistic to think life would be happier if you just knew what you wanted?
Why don’t we celebrate the unknown and change? Do you wish we had been exposed while growing up to stories and teachings about awkwardness being normal behavior?
Change is for sure awkward. Not knowing feeds the celebration of mystery, surrender, and surprise. PRESENT MOMENT is a coping skill for the unknown. We get to change our mind as adults and that reminder propels choices.
You probably have many thoughts about being exposed to awkwardness and the unknown earlier in life. Maybe you could post comments here to share why we don’t celebrate the unknown and changes?
Wishing you compassion and possibility of celebrating the mystery of not knowing -yet,
Natalie
818-763-0188
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
I am an empty nest mother.
I was doing fine with my children being out of the house. I don’t know what triggered this loneliness and sadness. One is married, the other is a sophomore in college, and one more is in grad school.
I wonder if it is because I really haven’t found a deep new meaningful passion. I want that so much. I am busy and still not really connected it seems. Connected to clarity. I think about moving and downsizing. I think about a trip, as the clock ticks in my age numbers. I think about relatives I don’t see much and don’t even know if I want to see them.
Health is good. Normal issues I think. I am not really in love. I want that too. Who thought I would be wondering and feeling all this now. I thought when I got free time I would enjoy it. Seems I don’t know how to do that very well.
Creature of habit gets in the way and the lack of vavoom.
I don’t think there is a check sheet about this life now. I don’t even want to live by a check sheet. I don’t think enough people talk about it, either.
All the books and movies and groups were when we were raising our children. I will live a long healthy life so I want to find that passion and meaning for life, again. Is it normal to lose it and then find it?
How do you deal with the funk for so long? I am good at problem solving quickly. No quickly here.
Well thanks for letting me write to you.
A Woman Wondering
Who do you want to give a shout out to this summer? You forget that it can be simple to begin a conversation.
A mother called me feeling lonely. Her friends were on vacation with their partners. Her children were never home. She felt that no one was really talking about the up and coming empty nest, except for her.
You can probably relate to times when you felt isolated and didn’t want it to be that way.
Summer can be a time to reconnect with nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles. You send an email saying you would like to see them. When would be a good time for them?
You give a call to an organization that you are just beginning to take interest in exploring. You don’t have to make a long commitment. You go once and decide after that experience.
You get in the car and connect with nature. Pack your favorite picnic and sit by flowing water.
Head out to an outdoor concert in the park. You can go early so you avoid the parking rush. You leave early if you aren’t into it.
Explore websites and post on forums.
Walk your neighborhood as if you had a dog and even if you are tired, the dog has to go out.
Find old friends from high school, college, work on an online website and say hello.
Sounds simple and you just have to gear up a little to risk.
When you don’t make a connection, please don’t take it personally. Reach out later.
Connect with your inner beauty, your inner wisdom, your inner quiet self.
Take notes on what you discovered.
Buy a newspaper and sit outside at a caf
Do you wish you would win the WORLD CUP or simply be in the game of relationships?
Even when you are in the partnering you wonder, is this as good as it gets?
During the World Cup events, did you take sides or enjoy the games? I think when you watch the games you begin to shout for a team that wins your heart. What made that happen in you? Intensity, trust, sportsmanship, honor, skill, focus, loyalty, the unexpected, the following, the smile on his face?
I know the relationship of parenting won your heart. The sorrow is, it’s over. Game over. Not true. It isn’t over when they leave the nest. It is a major life shift in the role you play with your children as you empty your nest or sit in it. Parenting doesn’t end.
There are a bag of balls to kick around on the field of partnering. When the children leave, relationships get a review time….an update for where you are right now and where you thought you would be. Hopes of tomorrow will be easier to talk about then how it is right now. Right now isn’t forever. It is review time. Course correction, over haul, or sad wave goodbye? Actually, all relationships are up for review when you are in this transition stage, but no rush to get clarity quickly. Pauses clear the field and see a new.
When you and your partner disagree about what your children need or should do in this life transition, guess what, that is to be expected. You’re different. You hear things differently and have different ideas and solutions based on your needs, values, and history of life. Some people ponder internally. Some chat and chat to sort their thoughts and heal the feeling of being out of control. Some chat because it makes a connection and hopefully, intimacy. Some need to move when they talk others want to sit. Some write it down. Others hate writing.
What can you do?
You can shift and welcome new perspectives simply by listening to each other. Sounds simple but feathers get ruffled and listening flies away. Power struggles. Need for control pops up on your screen since you are feeling out of control with the change in your parenting role. Loss and entering the unknown is deeply uncomfortable to say the least. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room, which could be, WHAT WILL WE DO NOW without the bond of our children in the next room? Will I like you? Will you like me? Will I want more time to play? Will you want to work more for comfort?
Begin a conversation without having the goal be to solve the issues. There is no winning. There is team playing in partnership. You want him to be happy. He wants you to be happy.
Simply begin to say what you are thinking and feeling. Set it up to listen and not solve. Reflect what you hear. Add inspiration. Action works. Words fade when shifts don’t show up in the room and they become repetitive like that hamster on a wheel.
Celebrate that you are able to talk about uncomfortable issues and that you don’t have answers, yet. Say what you need. Check during the week to see if that is showing up or did you toss it out the field because of habits?
Fill your cup with curiosity and compassion.
Take care,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188, Los Angeles, CA
Baby boomers, empty nesters, new parents, grandparents, newlyweds, adult children, teens, divorced families, well you can add to this list, all wonder , WHY CAN”T WE GET ALONG?
You are not going to be able to change me and I won’t be able to change you. Why is that idea so difficult? Parents want to change their children and their spouses for that matter. Children want their parents to change. The key to the heart is negotiating and acceptance. The myth is once you learn that, it will stick. Not true. Practice means practice. Vulnerability is vulnerability. You feel uncomfortable because you could get hurt by what you are expressing. It could be used against you at the worst times and you might fear you just won’t be loved when someone hears your limitations and your deep feelings.
The paradox is, you will still need to express what you want, “I want you to call me once a week because I want to know how you are doing and I just want to hear your voice.” You get to ask your children for what you want. You need to let go when the behavior doesn’t show up. Focus back on what you need each day that doesn’t always include your children or your spouse. I know, you have heard that before. It really does work and that is why you hear it over and over.
You can ask you partner, “Please just listen to what I need to say and don’t get defensive or try to immediately come up with a solution. It feels like you are trying to end the conversation fast or control how I should be thinking and feeling. Listen first, pause, please. Get out of your sweet mind and drop into your soft heart. You will express in the way you express. Reminder is, you won’t have a chance to get what you want if you aren’t honestly open to hearing the other person’s response. If it is the same ole, same ole response, “I am trying and I need to try harder.” That response can be frustrating for sure because it doesn’t move you in the direction you want. It makes you feel like the person really doesn’t want to change or they would think about it and come back at some point with new ideas or thoughts. Figuring out why the behavior isn’t changing is a helper. You need to dive below the surface or the same behavior continues as a habit. Adult to adult diving is different than adult to children. Children are young even if you call them, ADULT CHILDREN. They aren’t the same age as you. Partner to partner can shift behaviors.
Partner to partner, might not shift behaviors. Feel what you feel. Say what you need to say without screaming by keeping in touch with your feelings so you don’t send out a canon. When you do trigger your canon and you will, SORRY and naming more than that, “I am sorry I attached you. I needed to wait until I cooled down. I needed to have it be ok for me to be angry and to let you know I am breaking with the same old behavior problems that don’t get shifted. I just fear I will always have to tolerate your behaviors because I don’t see signs of new behaviors. It doesn’t make sense to me that same, same keeps showing up on the weekends when we have time to go out and do fun things together or be home and laugh.” Each of us has our own style of words and thinking process. It helps to learn the style and teach each other so that one partner doesn’t feel like he or she is always leading the feelings and discomfort discussions. Doesn’t it sound so easy? It is not, so don’t set yourself up for thinking it is. Communication takes practice and the willingness to pause before you speak and to plan ahead.
Natalie Caine
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
(800) 446-3310 or (818) 763-0188
Los Angeles, CA
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
This summer of fireworks, picnics, road trips and gatherings might be different if you are in a transition.
Our neighborhood makes it easy because we are a community. Fourth of July morning we have cupcakes, popcorn, BBQ for lunch, kids decorating their bikes with ribbon, fire trucks, chalk drawings, and a parade of red, white and blue walking the neighborhood. Each street is assigned goodies to drop off on the porch of a designated home before the celebration.
I no longer have children at home so the experience is different. I do stop by and say hello when I drop off my donation. I walk the neighborhood.
Some families decorate their dogs. In the evening we walk with our folded chairs and snacks to watch the fireworks.
Independence, freedom, choices, liberation, and not being controlled are sometimes taken for granted, especially when we are hurting due to losses or pending goodbyes or uncertainties of your future. I for sure have had sad days on the Fourth of July.
I like remembering what the family use to do. Picnics, pony rides, face painting, banners, and the smell of food on the barbeque, sided with cole slaw and pickles. I love that our neighborhood has this yearly celebration as a choice for the day and evening.
With all the challenges of today and the past ones we all have traveled due to illness, divorce, death, role shifts, moving, job loss, financial changes, and dreams that didn’t come true, I plan to make it a fun weekend and hope you find something playful to do. Start a new tradition. I know starting over again and again requires energy. If you don’t have it this weekend, curl in, watch a movie, and simply name all the freedoms you do have. It takes five minutes and might lift a dreary feeling.
Happy Fourth of July,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Los Angeles, CA
Changes are around the corner, again this summer. Vacation time, goodbyes, celebrations, and moving into new roles with your family. What do you want to remember about the role you have played that grew you and grew your family?
We forget to stop and reflect about the value we have added to people in our lives. Is it your smile? Is it your ability to sincerely listen? Are you a great problem solver, organizer, teacher of life, example of getting back up when you fall, asking for help, saying what you are feeling, seeking help for yourself, creative, or adding beauty and health to your home? You might be a combination.
As you are heading into a TRANSITION and tears fall, let them drop. Feel what you need to feel. Make plans for nurturing yourself by asking, “What is fun for me that I use to do? What helps me shift when I am down? What is frightening right now? Who can support me?”
A big change you are traveling is learning how to FOCUS BACK ON YOURSELF.
You have been there for others for decades and it structured your time and mind, as well as your heart. Your turn now, to slowly reflect, appreciate you, and begin to wonder what will be next for you.
A mother shared that she doesn’t want to think about the end of summer because of her children leaving, again. She dreads feeling all those feelings of emptiness and uncertainty. She doesn’t like the silence and the not knowing how her children are doing. Sometimes our ANXIETY is bigger than what we know we CAN HANDLE. It doesn’t mean we like the situation, but REFLECTING on times we have made it through a challenge, builds that muscle, again. Get support.
Take care,
Natalie
You already know that planning for a fun time, makes it happen. These photos are from a night out to see the play, IN THE HEIGHTS in Hollywood. We even bought candy which we never do and dressed up, a little. We had a great time. Fantastic music and dancing….we were lifted!
You might have a long list of why not to plan:
Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
