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empty nesting

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  • #73616
    gogirl
    Participant

    hi, new here…

    my 4 kids all live nearby but have their own independent lives now..2 are graduated with successful careers, 2 are still in postsecondary school. I was a very involved mother and along with their dad, spent hours at the soccer fields, at music lessons, at the kitchen table assisting with homework, driving to and fro, watching stupid tv shows, laughing at life, and sharing in joys and sorrows. We had a great time.

    I have a job. I have friends. I have hobbies. But i’m so sad that it’s all over…I know it’s not all over, but those years are done. Looking for some guidance, and help with how others moved forward. I have had a delayed empty nest response I think…it all just became apparent to me recently…I feel empty, and unsure about who I am if I am not mom…

    #73623
    Rock Banana
    Participant

    “unsure about who I am if I am not mom”

    Because you were using what you were doing to define your identity, now you are no longer doing that thing, your identity has disappeared. Your disorientation and sadness is therefore understandable – of course, you think you’ve lost your identity!

    But that’s because you were looking for your identity in the wrong place. You were staring at a thought-created identity (“I am mom”, “I am this”, “I am that”). That’s problematic because no thought you have about yourself can get anywhere close to describing who you actually are. You are infinitely more complex than any thought will have you believe.

    What you DO notice now is that in the absence of your four children, you are still alive, you still exist and so on. So to come at it from a different angle: were you ever mom? You are you, right now. Correct? Yes. But you are not mom. So therefore mom doesn’t equal you. And you have been present since your birth, right? You have lived through all of your experiences. So if you aren’t mom now, but you are still you, then assuming you were you throughout all of your experiences, you were never mom. Do you see the logic there? And, also, there must have been points in your life where you hadn’t had any children yet. Were you you then? Sure you’ve changed in some ways but you wouldn’t say that was another person entirely, would you. You have lived through every experience of your life, after all. So therefore, YOU existed before and after your identity of “mom”. “Mom” was therefore never you.

    What the hell am I talking about, you ask. Of course you were mom, you did X, Y and Z. Well, let’s put it this way: if I clap, does that make me a clapper? Even if I clap 10 times, or clap 50 times every day for 30 years, I haven’t become a clapper. Clapping isn’t WHO I AM. It’s something I did a few times. After those 30 years I might never clap again, but I’m still ME.

    So where DO you define yourself? How DO you define yourself, if not in thought? Here’s where I recommend taking up mindfulness meditation, and speakers such as Eckhart Tolle, Noah Elkrief and Alan Watts have helped me to discover who I REALLY am. Hint: Anything you say you are is not who you are…and you are so much more besides!

    You are not any thought you have about yourself. Think about it, if you can listen to your thoughts then there is a you who is thinking, and a you who is listening to thoughts. You are the YOU that observes: hears thoughts, sees things, feels things. You are not a thought, or an image, or a feeling. YOU are the observer of all of those things. That’s who you are.

    Enjoy this journey of self – discovery, it is a great opportunity for you. It goes without saying that acceptance of “what is” is the way forward for you. Change is the essence of life and to deny or try to avoid change is to deny or try to avoid life itself. Accept what “is” now, and your “problems” dissolve.

    #73632
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi gogogogirl,

    I have three kids, one in college. We had a taste of the empty next sensation when all three were inexplicably out of the house for a week on end, each doing different things. I had assumed we would celebrate, parlay in rooms we haven’t before, drink wine, have grown up cocktail parties, etc.

    WRONG! We both fell into this dark depression type mode. No light. Just darkness. It was simply horrible, and they were coming back!!

    Intellectually I knew everything (said above) about “This is not my identity”. But viscerally, emotionally, I felt, “Where are my babies? What do I do now?” (Even though they weren’t babies and I had plenty to do)

    We just have to get through it! That it will all get one percent better a day. And before we know it, Weddings!! And Grandchildren!! And, if we’re lucky, new meanings in life, new passion, travel!

    Hear You,

    Inky

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