When my nest emptied and the tears stopped occupying my thoughts, I started taking photos. I had no idea how much I would love grabbing a camera, especially at sunrise, walking out the door to my yard or neighborhood, and teaching myself about photography.
Two years ago, I finally stopped using my throw away camera and bought a digital.
Now I am capturing SHADOWS. Who hasn’t done some psychological work on their shadow side whether they wanted to or not? But now, through photography, I see the mystery and beauty of shadows.
Other people told me when their time freed, they took watercolor classes, painting, scrapbooking, jewelry making, knitting, singing classes, piano, baking classes, cello, guitar, assemblage art, writing poetry, memoir, fiction, and mystery, gardening, decorating and wood work with drills.
Well, I am sure you can add to the list.
Art is healing and a surprise. You think you have the idea and that idea feeds another. When you are out and about, suddenly you see things differently because you shifted your creativity. Your eyes are drawn to different details and responses.
Jasmine told me she pressed big leaves and flower petals. She wasn’t sure what she would do with them, but she liked looking for the plants and pressing them in her yellow pages book. For her too, it was the element of surprise that she loved. Seeing them change in the book and then lifting them onto paper or glass or canvas.
Remember when you were bored going on museum trips as a young child? No touching. Stay in line. Hold someone’s hand. Well, maybe you were one of the ones who loved the museum. As adults, more of you visit museums now and secretly dream of opening a gallery, volunteering as a docent, being an artist with opening night, taking your journal and pencil sketching what you see, or fantasizing about meeting the love of your life as you fake some dialogue about ART just to keep the connection going.
Give yourself quiet time and ask yourself:
1. What do you think your inner artist would love for you to have fun bringing forth?
2. Do you have someone to support you in finding that dormant part?
3. What did you love doing as a child?
4. Who do you wish you could have a conversation with about the artist within in them?
As I have shared before, when my house got silent and I started building my website, I actually remembered my third grade teacher saying to me, “You could be a writer when you grow up. This story is really good, Natalie.” I still see her sitting at the brown desk and my standing beside her when she passed me my story with a big red “A” written on the cover. I was in third grade. Someone in your memory bank could remind you what might be fun for you that you had to put on the shelf until you had more freedom.
I love writing because I never know where I will be taken. You can see surprises are fun for me and I love surprising others.
Just begin something small this week and see where it takes you.
Share with us what you discover or email, natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Have fun,
Natalie
Los Angeles
818-763-0188
My cat is the model of being persistent. I think that is why I chose her, and she is a cuddler. I, too, am persistent. Sophie, my cat, leaps to get water in vases more than her bowl. It doesn’t matter how jammed the water is with my garden flowers, she pushes her face to get what she wants.
Initially when you are going through a change, persistence is limited.
Grieving for what was and no longer is, takes your energy into more stillness and a fog. That is normal and needed. But do you remember times that you were persistent? What did you go after and how did you do that?
I like to go out of the box when I feel I am stalled. I look in a different direction rather than what I have always done or what seems logical. Then, I send an email, I call, I even pop a note in the mail. I go to a “different window” if the window I have been trying to get into is jammed, closed to me, or unavailable.
So pushing when you need to be turning in another direction is intuitive. Comes with practice. Comes with stopping and asking what are you wanting and where is the availability? Are you knocking on a door that is closed? Are you not seeing what is real and have gotten propelled by fantasy or hope? Do you ask for help but ask the same person who hasn’t been available.
Life is learning. We hear that all the time but we push it aside. We do learn from disappointments and joys. When I take the flowers away because I don’t have any in the garden, Sophie goes to the bowl and is still satisfied.
Let us know how you are doing and how we can help. We are building an ongoing community.
Take care,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Los Angeles
818-763-0188
These three photos show where I take an hour and a half drive to walk a place I call paradise. I feel refreshed, and get reminded of the bigger picture of life. ENDLESS and GREATER than my personality, needs, and woes.
OK, I also fantasize about who lives here and what their life must be like with the vastness of an ocean, boats, and people of all ages playing outside in sand and water.
I identify with the parents who dig in the sand with their children, carry baby wipes, fly a kite, spin Frisbee, and the bigger kids, who bring their friends, pitching their towels far from their parents. Boomers walk their dogs.
I like to people watch. Catch an eye to eye. I am consistently surprised by the loud sound of the water. I collect rocks and drift wood. I walk until the tide shuts me out. I sit. I watch the surfers who I think are so brave. I have wind surfed but never was a surfer. I am not from the West Coast. Happy to have lived here since I was nineteen.
Peaceful Place. Never fails me. Never asks anything of me. Drops me deep into being here now. I take photos of life at the beach and the flowers and bridges on the way. There is a bench planted in the sand and another one on the trail in memory of a loved one. I love that. The trees are huge.
The dogs, strollers, backpacks, and folding chairs all pass down this trail that ends at the ocean. FREE I get to be there for FREE.
Where is your peaceful place. What does it do for you? If you don’t have one, go find a place on this earth that lifts you and effortlessly fills you with wonder. A place where you are reminded of who you really are, verses who you think you should be, could be, need to be.
I don’t think much when I walk the beach. Beauty gets me quiet, carries me,
opens me to play, and smile. That is more than good enough for me.
I have memories of walking there with my daughter. We try to drive there when she comes to visit. I pop here a photo, “Do you remember this place and your playing in the water in your blue overalls?” It makes her happy to be transported back there. Makes me happy to share the memory.
Every time, this peaceful place, surprises me. Memories wash in and new ones imprint, like those sandpipers whose little feet mark the sand until the water takes them to an unseen place.
Share where you find peace. You can email me, natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Take care, Natalie
Susan called with excitement that her daughter got into the college of her choice. Now the family is leaping into details for their daughter’s move out of state and the celebration in June. A couple shared last week that they finally made a plan. They are renting a flat, rather than a hotel in Paris, and will use that location as a hub for other destinations in Europe.
For months a single mom explored dating again. Last week she met a great guy at a wine tasting/fundraiser Spring event.
Next weekend they are going to a community gardening plot to see if they want to garden there since they both live in apartments.
Good news moves us. What do you wish would leap out of you? What would put a smile on your face?
Little things can bring a lift. The challenge is making time for them and knowing yourself. Habits get in the way. Kids write a note on their hands to remember something they have to do. Maybe writing on your hand is a useful way to remember to do something that leaps you into a smile. You can always turn around and head back home. A woman shared with me that she waits for a friend to do something and this month her reminder is DON’T WAIT. LEAP……
Share with us here by commenting or send an email to natalie@emptynestsupport.com
HAPPY LEAPING,
Natalie
Los Angeles
818-763-0188
– Private telephone consultations
– Speaking engagements
– Workshops
– Support groups
Holidays bring gatherings and memories. I have received calls of what do you do if you have no family around for Easter or Passover and tears fall. Crying is a good thing. Let yourself feel what you need to feel whenever and wherever. Who wouldn’t be sad missing traditions that have changed.
A woman shared she feels she is on the Hunt for a new group of friends or ways to celebrate holidays that she enjoys, like painting Easter Eggs and filling baskets. She decided to go to her community park where they will be having a hunt. We got to a laugh after tears about her bringing her dolls in a stroller and sitting them on a swing in a poke dot bonnet with plastic eggs in her pink dress, filled with jelly beans.
Oh changes? Just not easy when your television shows holiday celebrations with families and friends and you are alone.
Make a plan. Hunt for something to do that day where you will feel connected, even if it is to go to your local caf
I don’t know about men/ single dads, wondering why women don’t look at them anymore, but moms/ single women of a certain age and married women, talk about how no one notices them anymore. They try and have a sense of humor that their kids get more “looks” eyes meeting eyes, than they do.
This chick in the photo wonders too, “ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME?”
I was looking at photos with a longtime friend and I said, “I think that photo makes me look OLDER than I feel.” Her response was, “You ARE older.”
“Ouch” Of course I know I am older but I don’t think I was expecting to see it in a current photo. Fantasy was working for me. I feel young so that should reflect in photos. Yes, being na
During my weekend walk, I wanted to find a cloud that looked like a bunny. I did. You might need to use your imagination in the photo to see the bunny. Passover and Easter are festivals of Spring. I think it is also a reminder of endurance and freedom.
Who doesn’t want to get outside and celebrate Spring? We long for beauty and new beginnings. We have memories with our parents, children, family, and friends. We just want to spend time together. I wasn’t able to be with my daughter to celebrate this year. I was so happy when she emailed and said she had a great celebration and missed me and grandma. I think the traditions and rituals we seed are for connection and humility, as well as, something to pass to our children as happy memories, appreciation, and hope for their future.
Traditions change because our lives shift whether by choice or circumstances. Make up new traditions and do something to celebrate life, new beginnings, and beauty. I planted my tomato seeds outside that finally got green and tall enough to be freed from my garage and paper cups and land in the nourished soil under the sun and moon.
I took down photos I had in my office and just left the green wall blank. I like it that way for now. Openness.
A mom called telling me she felt so lonely since her parents both were gone and her children lived too far to celebrate with her. She missed the life she had and didn’t have the ignition to start anything new. Being still has value. Big value. Rest, hearing just yourself think, feeling whatever you need to feel without interruptions, and learning you can move through a situation you dread. Crying. Change is never easy. Voices in your head can make peas of thoughts or huge watermelons of burden. Whatever floats in during grieving for what was and not knowing what will be, is simply feelings, not monsters.
Another mom shared during a session that she felt she was being punished since she was having so many days of sadness and disappointments. It hurts to be in grieving. It makes sense you would wonder if you were screwing up your life or having a life that just wasn’t a good day or week. When you check in with yourself, get quiet, and see more than the week or month of your life, I think you will be able to feel your value and gift of life. I for sure know it isn’t natural to shift to the bigger picture of your whole life verses short term. I also know that allowing that critic to push you down when you are already down is unhealthy. You aren’t screwing up your life or a screwed up person. There is more to you than you are remembering during sorrow and loss. Compassion and curiosity for yourself might lift you. Who wouldn’t be sad when life changes and you didn’t ask for it? Reach towards someone who can hear you. One mom shared with a stranger in the grocery store in the meat department. She felt better.
Festivals of Spring. Share here how you are celebrating or email natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Take care,
Natalie
Los Angeles, Ca.
818-763-0188
My hope in speaking engagements, retreats, consultations, writing, and teaching, is to provide safe spaces, resources, and ongoing support in finding your dormant parts, peaking into your freedom and joy that is just ahead of you, and being with what you are thinking and feeling today. You are forced into a major life transition of emptying from the day to day life you loved. The void of vibrancy, connection, and meaning, may leave you anxious, fatigued, irritable, and isolating. Normal for sure.
I wanted to share this photo with you as one of the visual tools for telling your story. We all have stories. Some like to share one on one and others love a circle. These rocks tossed on the sand by the ocean are an ignition for your story. Look again at the rocks. Which one are you drawn to? Does one rock remind you of something? If you could take one home, which would you pick?
Here are a few of the responses that you might relate to from these rock
formations:
1. Wanting to speak out more but closed up because I feel criticized.
2. Left out
3. Need to be cradled in a blanket and comforted
4. Kissing
5. Loss of family
6. Isolated but in view
7. Brightly shining
Look at the photo again. What do you see? You can use the above responses to start your story and see what you uncover about what you have been thinking and feeling these days. Stories heal us. Some people don’t like to write. They want to just speak it. Anyway that works for you is the right way. Maybe you have no words today and you just like looking at the rocks.
May found objects, like these rocks, bring out your story. Heal you and lead you to curiosity and compassion.
Comment here or send me an email of your story, your found objects, natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Take care,
Natalie
818-763-0188 Los Angeles, CA
Featured in Time Magazine, Washington Post, Associated Press, N. Y. Times, USA Today, L.A. Times, Better Homes and Garden, Chicago Tribune, and radio.
I remember having a warm one on one chat with Gloria in February this year at a celebration. She said something like, JUDGE LESS AND HAVE JOY. If what you want doesn’t exist, YOU START IT and here is an idea for just you.
Today I celebrate your remarkable 75th birthday; for always I will appreciate the path you dug and stand tall on for humanity.
Who inspires you? Pass it on by commenting here or sending me an email, natalie@emptynestsupport.com
Happy Celebrations, Natalie
Changes stop us whether for a good change or challenging. Some parents I speak with say they RISE UP no matter what and then collapse. The collapse shows itself in anxiety, fatigue, isolation, and depression. They wish they had a way to prepare so they wouldn’t hurt or feel off from who they usually are. I can relate.
I think a sure preparation is to plan for inward time… refreshing time.
You can’t prevent feeling what you will feel. You sometimes get a heads up that a challenge is heading your way, like loss, but feelings are still going to pour out of you. This photo is from an early morning drive I took to the beach. I needed to refresh. The bird just reminded me that we do move on. The sound of the waves were so loud at first , shocking, like a sudden change, and then I fell into it.
Do you make time to curl in after being on a go go go schedule or care-taking or loss? Do you feel like you can’t stop the train from running down the tracks until brakes screech?
Jen called to talk about her tears that Spring Break is over. She loved being back in the daily mother role and dreaded started over again separate from her son and her role. Transitions are wobbly. You feel this vibrancy at home and connection. Then silence… a void.
You know you will move on , you just wish it would get easier each time
Sometimes that doesn’t happen. The worst is when you had a bad night sleep.
Over and over parents and boomers share what helps them is to slow down when they have RISEN UP and to have a plan of something comforting and uplifting.
I feel better when I get quiet and into nature. Nature holds me.
I hope you find comfort when transitioning.
Share how you moved on or through the collapse. You can email me, natalie@emptynestsupport.com or post a comment here. We are building a community of ongoing support.
Take care,
Natalie
I thought I was done posting my Spring Jasmine, but I just can’t help myself. Beauty wins.
It reminds me of times I thought I was done telling my daughter or husband that I wasn’t going to clean the dishes after dinner. Your turn. I cook.
You clean up. You cook. I clean.
Actually, I don’t follow rules all the time unless they serve me. Can you relate? Sure, there are times I cook and do dishes. Mostly I want the family to be considerate and pitch in without my holding up the TO DO SIGN.
That isn’t an issue anymore since she doesn’t live at home, being a college graduate.
A mom called telling me she thought she was over Spring Break without her children coming home. She wept. It wasn’t really about Spring Break. It was about the break in the relationship. Break from being the everyday mom that she loved. She missed the little things like hearing them talk on the phone, drop their back packs in the kitchen and dive into the refrigerator as she asked about their day. Now she sees them only twice a year. Distance, scheduling, and finances changed the traditions of family time.
A Boomer mom, who doesn’t have an empty nest, but does have a senior in high school, thought she was done nagging him because she knows it doesn’t teach him or give the results she is hoping for. She shared she has said, SORRY, more this year than any time in her life. She fears how she will be when he leaves for college. Will she promise not to hover and then show up at his dorm unannounced because she just couldn’t help herself? We had a good laugh after the tears.
Maybe you thought you wouldn’t RESCUE them financially, but still put money in their account.
Maybe you were going to stop the OBSESSION about not knowing what is next for you but are still hammering in your head to get THE ANSWER NOW.
Maybe you said you were going to take better care of yourself by saying NO but that YES just slipped out.
Maybe you thought you were in the swing of being an empty nester and they MOVED BACK home.
What did you think you were done with and aren’t at times?
Take care,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Speaking engagements
Private consultations on the phone
Workshops
Support Groups
My surprise is this photo. Jasmine are invisible outside my window until they burst like a wedding bouquet.
I have been celebrating warm days, dahlias, and peaks of vegetable seeds coming up green that I started in my garage. I love the surprise of looking at them daily, like newborns…well not exactly like that, but I do talk to them.
I love the calls from happy and tearful parents saying, “He got in. She got her first choice college. We were so surprised she got a scholarship.”
What surprise have you had this year? What surprise would you like to have?
Emily called to tell me her daughter is getting married in August and she loves her new son in law. They are having a destination wedding in Napa. She was shocked.
My neighbors called to say they are moving to New Orleans. What a surprise.
They had been brainstorming how to make that happen with their two young children and now they are leaving by summer.
Jeannie got engaged and she thought that would never happen since she is in her fifties and not real social.
Are you getting inspired to make a list of what happy surprise you would like this year?
I would like to travel. I just love everything about it, including the airports, different languages, seeing how little I can pack and carry, the foods, the architecture, the schools, the gardens, the wines, the music, taking photos, and the way they live their lives. I get inspired and creative.
So tell us what is on your surprise list?
Happy Spring,
Natalie
natalie@emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
