+ Episode Transcript

Thor Challgren 0:00
Welcome to today's episode. Thank you so much for listening today. In this show, I'm going to do a recap of the previous episode, which was my interview with Tina Souder. If you haven't heard that interview yet, I encourage you to give it a listen. kina is herself an empty nester parent. And she's also a licensed counselor, so she helps people deal with change. And I think we had a great conversation about how to embrace the feelings that we're all going through when our kids had had out into the world. In this episode, I'm going to basically share with you my top three takeaways from my conversation with Tina.

Thor Challgren 0:49
If you are wanting to better manage this transition time in your life, maybe want a little encouragement and support to discover what's next for you. That is something I specialize in. I am a certified life coach, and I work with parents just like you. If you are in that season of life, where you're thinking about what is your next purpose, I'd love to talk with you. So let's jump on a free coaching call and talk about what's next for you. Just go to discover.yourturntofly.com and schedule that free coaching call that's discover.yourturntofly.com.

Thor Challgren 1:33
Okay, so my first big takeaway moment from our conversation was the idea of giving yourself grace, we were talking about how Tina got eventually into her master's degree programming counseling. And she had said that she'd started the program when her kids were still at home. But she made the point that she didn't think it would have been possible to do it. With the kids still at home to actually finish it. She was saying that in her program, she had to have 3000 hours working with clients, and that before she could become licensed, she had to go through that. And that obviously would have taken a huge amount of time. I think a lot of times when we as parents look at that moment when our kids go, maybe we think that we have to have something figured out immediately right away. And that clearly wasn't the case for Tina, she had started it. But she'd still had work to do to finish it. And she made the point she said, you know, it just it worked out exactly the way that it was supposed to. So my takeaway from that is that idea that don't feel that the minute they're gone, that you start beating yourself up about like, Well, why didn't I start something sooner, or I should have seen this coming. Or if only I had used the time now I'd be able to hit the ground running. Because whenever you compare yourself to someone else, or what you think you should have done, now you're creating this negative energy that's not going to serve you, it's not going to make you feel good about where you are. Instead, maybe look at it, like you know what, I loved the time that I had with my kids, when they were at home, I gave everything to that relationship. And now I'm ready for something new. And it'll take however much time it takes. And I'll start to plan and move forward. So that idea of giving yourself grace, in whatever season you're at in life, I think it's so important. So I loved that point that Tina and I talked about.

Thor Challgren 3:54
The second takeaway that I had to highlight from our conversation was how we communicate with our adult kids. And that sounds strange to say, our adult kids, I feel like I need a better term for that. But how do we communicate with them? Once they've left home? Tina's main point, I'm sure this is reinforced by her work as a counselor is to listen. She said let them know that their ideas are valuable. She tells a story about how her son I think it was her second son arrived at the college that he was intending to go to and went through the process of getting his badge and like really, like almost everything was set up where this is where he was going to go and she said that she could tell that he was not necessarily feeling like this is the perfect fit for him. And she was watching him and and I think she even said that she would ask me questions like How are you feeling? Which I thought that's a great question to ask and not to just immediately assume something's wrong or to go, Hey, what's wrong? But to go, How are you feeling right now? If you so if you notice something, and you obviously know your kids really well. But if you notice that something seems off, ask them, How are you feeling.

Thor Challgren 5:21
And then we also talked about how the opposite of that can happen. And a lot of times I think as parents who've raised kids, that's our instinct, like, we just want to solve problems, like if I see that my son or daughter is feeling upset about something that kicks in my desire to want to solve the problem right away. And so for me anyway, as a dad, that means like, I'm going to give advice, I'm going to say, well, here's what you should do. And her point was that when we do that, when we immediately step into the situation, and we're like, full of recommendations and advice on what they should do, then what happens is we push them away. Maybe not always, but if you are in their face with what you think they should do, it's natural, they're going to pull back. And she made the point that when they do that, they may not come back next time. If you push too hard on what you think they should do, it may push them away and make them less likely to come to you for advice in the future.

Thor Challgren 6:30
So from her point of view, like the hardest thing, and I so agree with this, because I've seen this, I mean, still in my life where I've had situations where I give advice, and and I get pushback, and I'm like, oh, that's fair. Like, I deserve that. Tina's point was just bite your tongue, and listen, and ask questions that elicit a conversation. You know, ask them how they're feeling. Ask them what they're thinking, what are you leaning towards? That was another point that she made when we were talking about that, that a lot of times, they may have an idea of what they think they should do. And they're looking for validation? Maybe they're kind of like, I think this is the right course of action. So if you say something like, well, what are you leaning towards? Or how you feeling about this choice? Sometimes, all they need to do is have someone else be there and be willing to listen to them. And then they can make the decision for themselves. And then what's great for you is you got to see them make that mature decision. And they didn't need to like, ask you and like, well, what should I do? And there are times where that may happen anyway. But just know the difference between when you ask, do you want advice? Or do you want me to just listen? And that's a great question. Because sometimes people just want someone to listen to them. They want someone to hear what they're saying, We get so little of that in our lives where someone is just willing to listen. So when you do that, with your kids, they're much more likely to come back to you in the future. So I loved that. And Tina certainly had the experience with her son's where that was the case that she could see how that worked out.

Thor Challgren 8:24
The third point that I wanted to talk about this is such an important one was the idea of grieving, an identity loss. And I never thought of it that way. But you know what we are parents, all of our life. Up until the time that our kids leave home, we have a certain identity, we are either a stay at home parent, or we're an involved parent, whatever you are, you had a certain level of involvement. And that was your identity. You know, you would say to people, when they'd ask you how you're doing, you would say, oh, you know, my kids doing this or that. So that is your identity. And when they leave. A lot of times we can feel sadness, just like the grief that you might have when you lose someone. And so that idea that your identity is changing. And now you need to take the time to process that. Tina, in her work as a counselor, she was saying that one of the biggest things that she sees and I think she said it surprised her was how many times people come to her with issues involving change in their life. Something is new, either a job loss or relationship change. You know, in our case, an empty nester parent who is going through that change. And she said that with all of those, there can be that grief period of discovering what your new identity and mourning the loss of the old identity. And she said, Grief can have a cycle, it's normal, and that you have to let yourself be in that state. And I think that's really important. Because a lot of times, it's so natural. And I'll say this, as a man, I think, probably even more. So it's, it's not encouraged for you to express your feelings. It's funny, my wife and I were watching the bachelorette the other day, something we started watching with my daughter when she was here, and it's kind of fun for our family. And there was a scene where one of the men was having a conversation with the bachelorette and, and he, like, started breaking down and like crying, and I could see my wife, you know, she's like, it moved her so much, because I think that's something that we don't see men do very often. And I think all of us, that plays into an extent, where we feel like, well, I've got to just get over it, like, I don't have time for this, or I got to move on. And the point that Tina made, and I'm sure that in the work that she does with clients, is to allow yourself to feel that it's normal. And once you have processed it, and and honestly, it may come in waves, I don't know that there's any sort of definitive linear way that you process grief. But allow yourself to feel it when it comes up.

Thor Challgren 11:32
And then once you do, then, as Tina said, start to look at what your new purpose is in life and start to look at what is your new identity, you know, you're not a stay at home parent anymore. You're not the parent of a child who is at home who needs you. So if you've got another 20 or 30 years of your life, what's your new identity, and you may have multiple ones, you may have multiple things that you do. But I think the point that in our discussion that came out was start to look for what is that next purpose? What is the next thing that's gonna light you up.

Thor Challgren 12:14
One of the last things that we talked about this is kind of a bonus takeaway was she used the phrase where she said, paint a vision for your life. I love that paint a vision. And we're talking about as a parent, you can be in this position where you're like, Well, what is my purpose now? And I don't think there's a lot of thought that we've given to, well, who are we now that I'm not this person that I used to be? What's my role? Now? What does my life look like? What is my future look like? And the idea if you think of it as painting a vision, I love that those two words like paint, as in, be creative, be thoughtful, have fun, be bold, you know, do something that others will appreciate that will enrich other people's lives. So I love that idea of painting. And then the word vision. I love the idea of something that you can see. You can imagine that excites you that gets you going in the morning and keeps you going at night like that, having that vision. That's part of your life part of your future. I think that's going to help so much with that idea of purpose, and what is your new identity. So that is my top three takeaway moments from this episode. I encourage you to look at your own life and paint a vision of what you want. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time.