HomeSpunHealers

Empty Nest syndrome is that blue funk transition that many mothers (sometimes fathers too) experience when all of the children have grown up and have moved out to start living life on their own.   It’s a passage in life that all parents have to face sooner or later, and some of us are completely unprepared for the total emptiness we feel once we have reached this stage in the lives of our children. 

It’s not just that the house is quiet that’s disturbing, but we are left to realize just how much of our own self we lost in the process of parenting.  We became great mothers.  We sacrificed our needs and wants, laid our own dreams and wishes on the back burner, and invested ourselves entirely to the care, protection, and raising of our children. Now that our children have walked out the door to begin life on their own, it’s like our identity walked out with them. Who are we now? What are we to do with all this time on our hands?  Depression sets in.

 What we are not able to realize, in the middle of our mourning, is that joy waits on the other side of this painful transition, and there are many ways to celebrate this time in your life, and rediscover the person you left behind: YOU.  Consider the following:

• Rest and Restore. Take time to reflect over your accomplishments. Retreat somewhere and do absolutely nothing. Most mothers will find this hard to do because they have spent many years giving all of their time to the needs and demands of the others in their home. It’s time for you now. Take a break, and enjoy it!
• Reinvent Your Relationship With Your Spouse.  Husbands and wives often forget what it meant to just be a couple before they took on the task of raising children. They became so wrapped up in the lives of their children that their relationship with each other shifted and changed.  It’s time to change your focus.  You can now put all of your energy into catering to and spoiling each other. 
• Take A Class Or Cultivate A New Hobby. Invest in your own interests now.  Fill your extra time exploring new things.
• Explore Your Spiritual Side.  Volunteer some of that free time to a good cause that you believe in.
• Share Experiences.  Talk to other women who have walked this path before you. There are also excellent websites on line to help you on this journey.  Check out: emptynestsupport.com and emptynestmoms.com

Most of all, remember it’s your time, now what will you do with it?

Relatives… Everyone has them. As harsh as it may sound, they can be divided into two categories: The Givers and the Takers. This article is being written with the “Givers” in mind. Hopefully, it will be read, understood, and heeded very early in your life.

Givers, as a rule, have boundary issues. The issue is that they don’t have any boundaries. There’s no lines clearly drawn, no fences set up, indicating what is their’s, what is not, and how far they will go, or what should (or should not) be expected of them. The Takers, being the creative, selfish, manipulative creatures that they are, know this. And they press in further and further trying to gain more and more of what never belonged to them in the first place, and have absolutely no right to claim or expect.

Givers are easily identified in the following ways:

*Givers usually have a problem saying “no.” It makes them uncomfortable to see, or to make, their loved ones unhappy. Givers may resent saying “yes”, but they would rather make their own self unhappy and miserable, than to make others feel that way.

*Giver’s feel responsible to try and control the actions and behaviors of those that they love by doing whatever they feel necessary to “rescue” them.

*Givers become increasingly tolerant of the inappropriate behavior of the Takers in their lives. They try to find ways to rationalize it. This gives the Takers more ground to take advantage, and to play out their lives in a totally irresponsible fashion.

*Givers get so tangled up in the lives of others that they become unhappy and their own lives suffer.

While it’s good to be a kind, generous, and caring person, it’s also necessary to establish some boundaries that clearly indicate what we will, or won’t do for others, and what we will not tolerate. It’s important to establish when it’s right to help someone, and when it’s time for them to learn to help their own self.

There are subtle clues that indicate that you might need to set some boundries within certain relationships in your life. If you find yourself saying things like: “I am fed up ”, “I am sick of….”, “I can’t take it anymore”, then it’s a good sign that you need to set  boundaries.

Learn to refuse to “rescue” and refuse to be rescued. Insist instead that everyone become responsible for their own life. You might make a few Takers upset when you pull the rug out from under them, but the goal here is to put some joy and peace back into your own life. Please trust that the world will not fall apart the moment that you realize that you are not the axis on which it spins.

Be good to yourself. Start treating yourself as good as you have always treated everyone else. Claim your property, set your boundaries, and build those strong fences. Learn to recognize what is your property, and what clearly belongs to someone else. If you must rescue someone then save yourself.

As I sit here this morning, sipping on the most delightful cup of Snowflake tea, I am remembering a conversation I had recently with a nearly 60 year old man.  He was sharing his childhood memories with me. Especially, the relationship he had with his parents.  He told me that he didn’t experience any hugs while growing up, that compliments were never dished out to him, and that his father was never around.  The pain in his face, as he spoke, was as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

Many of us are still carrying around the psychic dragons of our childhood. We are quick to blame our parents for our faults and inadequacies, and what was once a wound, now becomes a character flaw that only we are now responsible for.  Until we face our dragons, and slay them, we cannot heal and grow spiritually into all that we are destined to be.

In order to heal it is necessary to become completely honest with ourselves as to who is actually responsible for what’s happening now.  It is also necesary to be willing to forgive what is in the past, so that we can live happily in the present.  Our subconscious will continue to rip open that wound until we are willing to be healed of it.  When we make the conscious choice to bury the pain of our past then change will come.

Slaying a psychic dragon is not as hard as it sounds. It’s helpful to look at our parents now, through our grown up eyes, and realize that they are mere humans also.  They did the best that they could do based on their knowledge and experience at the time.  Knowing this won’t change what happened in the past, doesn’t make what happened right, but it will enable us to be more understanding, to eventually forgive, let it go, and chart a new path for ourselves. If all else fails, turn inward, and seek the assistence of your Higher Power.

What happened years ago does not have to impact the rest of our lives. We can reign victorious over old hurts and wounds. Get dressed for battle and slay those dragons!