The Almost Empty Nest—Letting Go, Redefined: Parenting Teens and Finding Yourself Again—with Small Jar Coach

When you are in emotional pain, it is so hard to find the energy to focus on your goals and move forward. 

There are so many reasons that we might be in pain. I can’t possibly do justice to all of them in one episode. In this episode, rather than focusing on any one emotion of pain, we address how we respond to our pain…and also, why it’s so hard to find the lessons that our pain might be teaching us.

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

As our kids become young adults, there is so much new territory for US as parents to navigate. Where is the rule book? Please, someone give me a strategy that works without fail.  Because look, we’re all human. And even experts must struggle in the relationships they have with their own teens and young adults. Because it’s one thing to execute a strategy when there’s no emotion. When you don’t have skin in the game. But these are our kids. Our life’s work. The perceived stakes of “doing it wrong” seem so high.

So, we worry. We try to control. We judge... We check up on them...all in the name of trying to protect them. To help them be safe, happy and successful.

This is not a podcast about parenting, but rather about our own mindset as it relates to our responsibility to parent. How can we let go so our child can fly? 

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

It's not just about the money.  The "side hustle" is an incredible opportunity to pursue something you are really passionate about.

As we contemplate the empty nest, so often we rush to fill our time so that we don't feel so...Empty.  Stuck. Bored. Frustrated. Resentful.

But have you considered that the possibilities in front of you are infinite?  It's not just about getting a job. Or changing jobs. 

In this episode we explore how opening your mind up to the possibilities of your life may unveil the dream you have not been allowing yourself to consider.  

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

It doesn’t matter if the college drop off will happen in a few weeks or a few years….it doesn’t matter if it’s your oldest or your youngest…there is something about the college move-in day that can fill us—as mothers—with absolute dread.

As you imagine standing on the green, about to say goodbye. What comes up for you?  Most likely pride,  love and excitement.  But also potentially overwhelm, anxiety, and sadness. In this episode we explore the many emotions that challenge us as we think about the day we leave our child at college.

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

So often over the past 17+ years, I have longed for more peace in my life. There is something about having children that makes you wonder what you even spent your time doing before you had kids. Given how overwhelming and busy our lives have been for the past 15, 20, 30 years of raising kids…one would think that we would fully embrace the moment when circumstances of our lives became still and we could breathe. But then…there is the reality of the day when your kids are no longer at home.  And suddenly we feel lost...listless....empty...lonely.  In this episode we explore all of the ways we can feel lonely during this transition...and how we can make peace with the loneliness of the empty nest. 

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

As our children grow up and leave the nest, we have an opportunity to re-focus on our professional careers. But when we think about job satisfaction, we tend to focus more on what we don't like about particular jobs rather than really taking a step back to understand what job satisfaction really means for us. In this episode, we take a look at how to create job satisfaction for ourselves--and perhaps even more important, how to create opportunities for personal growth and emotional well-being, no matter the circumstances of your job.

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

When it comes to our children...the people we love...we often can’t help ourselves but think endlessly of all of the terrible things that might happen. The What Ifs. As our children become adults, we have less ability to protect them from the dangers out there waiting for them. So we imagine these dangers and bring the PAIN of that projected danger into our present moment. In this episode, we talk about why our minds think this worry is so important, and how we can begin to see the "What If" mind for what it is....and let go of some of the pain of it right now.

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

Whether you are already in a relationship, wondering whether you should stay in a relationship, or looking for love…this one’s for you.

How do you find love?

Here's the thing about love…we’re frequently looking for somebody else to create the feeling of love for us.

But if somebody else is responsible for how I feel, that’s a pretty helpless and powerless place to be. And I think that’s why love can be so painful so much of the time.  Because if we don’t receive love in the way we want to receive it, or if somebody does things that don’t align with what we would interpret as loving, then WE don’t get to feel any love. 

In this episode we explore the experience of love...what it feels like, what it creates us....and how we can  create more of it in our lives...on our terms.  

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

The empty nest. Think about the visual image of what is implied by the phrase, the "empty nest."  The nest is a home, and its purpose is to keep eggs and baby birds safe until they are ready to fly off on their own. But what happens then? After the adorable baby birds grow up and leave the nest? In my head, I conjure up an image of a literal empty nest.  Barren cold. Lonely. Without purpose. Empty.

Now, not all of us look at the empty nest in such a negative light. But even the concept of the empty nest tends to focus us more of the loss of our children and purpose with kids in the home than on the opportunity of this new stage in our life.

In this episode we explore the range of emotions that we might experience as we face the empty nest and how we can not only find compassion for ourselves as we grapple with challenging emotions, but also how we can begin to fill the nest in a way that allows us to embrace this next chapter of our lives....and even to create a new, exciting and beautiful purpose, independent from our children.

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.

Have you ever found yourself saying, “I am literally doing the best I can….and it’s not enough.”  We are trying our best.  We have the best intentions. We think we have done everything that we could have done.  And yet…things go wrong. Our kids get into trouble. People get angry at us. We disappoint ourselves...

In this episode we explore feelings of powerlessness related to things that have happened in the past that make us feel frustrated, guilty, and even ashamed. These emotions can feel overwhelming and leave us feeling powerless because we can’t change the past or change people’s minds right away…so we are powerless to feel better.

When things go wrong, you get to decide what you want to make them mean.  You can't change the past but beating yourself up about it doesn’t move you forward.  

In every moment you have an opportunity to ask yourself…. now what?  What’s done is done…. I can’t change the past, I can’t change how other people think or what they do….but I CAN decide how I want to show up in the present moment.

Maybe after listening you can decide, for yourself…. that all of it….is good enough.

🎯 Want to take this work deeper? Save your seat for the next free masterclass—click here to sign up: https://www.thesmalljar.com/class.

💪 Curious about coaching with Small Jar?  Check out our Mom 2.0 coaching program: www.thesmalljar.com/Mom-2-0.

❓ Have questions or want to share your feedback? I'd love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. 

This empowering podcast offers life coaching for moms and parenting support for midlife mothers raising teens as they approach the empty nest, teaching them how to let go of control, stop overthinking, and shift their mindset, while also helping them set boundaries, improve communication, reduce anxiety, release mom guilt, and find purpose in the evolving journey of parenting teens and motherhood.