Speaker 1: 0:00

And what happens is we tell ourselves that same thing right Over and over, so our thought starts to seem like a fact. Well, it's just true. Like I can't dance, like I just know I can't dance, I've thought of it so many times, I can't, I'm not a good dancer, whatever. And. But is is that true? Is that a fact in life that I cannot dance? Or is that just something I've told myself so many years and then out evidence and felt awkward about and made it true, right. So we, you're right. Whatever we think, we make a fact, but it's just a thought, it's just whatever we have in our head.

Speaker 3: 0:30

Welcome to this Empty Nest Life. Join Jay Ramsden as he leads you on a transformative journey through the uncharted seas of midlife and empty nesting. If you're ready to embark on this new adventure and redefine your future, you're in the right place. Here's your host, the Empty Nest Coach, Jay Ramston.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Julie Trena. Welcome to this Empty Nest Life. So good to see you.

Speaker 1: 0:58

So nice to officially meet you, Jay.

Speaker 2: 1:00

I know. I know we got connected through other folks and it's the power of the internet right. When people like meet each other, they're like well, I know you, but I don't know you.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Exactly Well, I love that we have so many similarities. I love that we're talking to this game group of people coming at it from a very different perspective. I think it's absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 2: 1:19

Right, yeah, the whole that you do like mindset for midlife and I think that's an important like next step for people is like, yeah, when the kids leave, like what do we focus on? So how do you work with people? Let's start there, then we'll see where the conversation takes us.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Sure, so I would say it's twofold. So I'll say it's threefold actually. So first off, I would say it's through my clients and I do. I do coach one-on-one Um. I've done some groups also and I've done some workshops, so those are the more personalized ones that I work with Um and I've been doing that for for years, for a long time, and but that's not the bread and butter of what I do Um cause that's very limited. It's been a wait list for years. Um, my secondary role I'd say that I spend more time on is on Instagram, because what I've learned is that so many midlife women, for various reasons, whether it's financial, whether they're afraid to branch out, whether they don't even want to admit it to themselves, whether they don't have the opportunity, but they don't look for coaching, for one-on-one coaching, so they kind of sit in their own mess, right? They kind of sit there thinking I'm the only one.

Speaker 1: 2:33

so what I found on social media is that I started just putting up some posts here and there and I started getting so many dms from women that were like, oh my gosh, you're kind of like speaking exactly what I'm feeling. And I realized this was a way for me to be able to teach because I was a teacher for many years before to be able to teach women who maybe wouldn't have access otherwise to coaching, and I'm so passionate about what I do and the purpose that I get from doing this too. Like it's it's. I believe there's no true altruism, right that. Um, so that's my secondary and probably I spend more time doing that now and it's just free.

Speaker 1: 3:14

I just put out as much content as I can to try to help women.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Um, at least start to kind of tiptoe into the idea, like I try to put out like little hacks or little tools or just a little shift in perspective.

Speaker 1: 3:28

So they start to realize, oh, you know, maybe this isn't such a huge change that I'm totally overwhelmed. I can do these little tiny things. And then I sneaky do that so that we create the momentum moving forward, and then they're ready for a little bit more and they'll dive into our personal development and they'll dive into realizing wait, maybe my purpose wasn't just raising kids, maybe I have a lot more to give the world. So that's number two. And number three is I try very hard to walk the talk. I try very hard, in whomever I meet, whether it's at a volleyball practice for my youngest, or friends that I meet walking or people in Starbucks or whatever it might be is kind of also spreading that word one-on-one and setting an example and trying to show people that we very much have different stages in our lives and that when our kids are grown number one we're still just as much as a mom, just like when I was pregnant and carrying my kids, and I was pregnant.

Speaker 1: 4:27

I was still very much a mom when I was my youngest. Our youngest is adopted and we were going through the adoption process I immediately felt like this is our baby, even though I had never even met her birth mom at that point. Right Like so, I think parenting is is a a spectrum and it looks different in every stage of life. And when we finish raising our kids, I like to say we're just as involved, just in a different way. So we go from being the manager of their life to a consultant in their life. So that's a very long-winded answer to your very nice question.

Speaker 2: 5:04

No well, I love that Cause in in the education piece in particular, cause I was in education as well. So if there's a good parallel there is that you know how we used to say, like that, like some teachers come at it from, like we're the mentor in the center.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Oh, love that yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:21

Right Mention the center of the sage, sage on the stage, Like that's how we are as parents, like when the kids are growing up, or like first for the stage. On the stage, like don't touch that, you'll get hot, don't burn yourself, that's hot. And then you become kind of the mentor in the center but like when they leave, you end up kind of it's totally different, right. So you end up being this kind of guide on the side when they need you.

Speaker 1: 5:45

Oh, I have never heard this Dan.

Speaker 2: 5:46

I absolutely love it. You've never heard that I love it, but I will absolutely quote you on that. I love that. So that's like the three stages yeah, three stages of parenting. Right Is like the stage on the stage, the mentor in the center and the guide on the side.

Speaker 1: 6:00

That's really really cool. No, I've never heard that and I absolutely love it. And you're absolutely right. You know what else I find, too, jace. We have five kids and I find that, just like you know, when you're parenting and you've got more than one child, you think you've got it all figured out with the first one, right, and then the second one comes around. You're like wait, like it some degree, and I find the same thing in Empty Nest. Like four of my five are fully grown, one is about to graduate high school soon and each one needs something different from me.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Each one needs more or less freedom, like I call that the tightrope of parenting at this stage, right, Like kind of like give me my freedom but be ready at any moment in time when I need you, and I find each one of those is totally different too. So it's not even like we can say, like parenting is exactly like this and empty nesting is exactly like this, Because not only does it vary from parents, parent to parent to parent, but also within that family unit. I find it varies between the kids too. Right, I find it very individual.

Speaker 2: 7:03

Yes, yeah, absolutely Right. Varies between the kids too, right, I find it very individual. Yes, yeah, absolutely right, it's parenting and emptiness. Parenting is different for each kid based upon what they need at any given point and from both parents, really, right. So it's totally different on how they give and take what they need from us once they leave home. So you talk about before you know people dming you, I'm sure. So you talked about before you know people DMing you, I'm sure, kind of like me, like you. In the last week or so we got a bunch of DMs about Gretchen Rubin's book. You know, in the Atlantic it was out there about changing the concept from the emptiness to the openness, one of my favorites I've ever read on this topic.

Speaker 2: 7:41

Yeah, what made it your?

Speaker 1: 7:42

favorite?

Speaker 1: 7:42

Well, first of all, I'm a huge Gretchen Rubin nerd. Anyway, I've read probably all of her books. I'm not sure if I've missed one, but I absolutely love her books Happier, all of them, I love all of them. So she had me at hello right when I saw the article and I didn't know it was coming out. And I saw on social media she posted something about it and it was rather late at night and I popped on like I'll just look at it quickly and it's a rather short article, like it's very readable, right. But so you would think, like you know, a normal person would read the article and go to sleep. But no, not me. I went through and I'm like this is fascinating. So then I had to dive deeper into so many of the things.

Speaker 1: 8:18

So what I love, what I especially loved about this article, is most things that I read about emptiness, and I read more about perspective and mindset than I do specifically about emptiness. But whenever I do it, I tend to come across articles that are kind of like here's what emptiness is like, adjust yourself around it because here's what it is Right, like it's not changing the perspective of empty nest itself. It's most things that I come across are you fix yourself and change yourself around the concept of this empty nest. And what she did in this article is flip the whole thing on its head. And so I took it and said wait a minute, empty nest as a concept is a pretty depressing way to describe it. She's like it's just that the from I mean, I read this a couple weeks ago, but basically what what I remember her saying is it's, it's a band, it denotes abandonment and loss, that we're being abandoned by our kids and we're left with this emptiness. And she said she sat with that for a long time and add in what you remember because it's been a couple weeks for me, that for a long time, and add in what you remember because it's been a couple weeks for me. But what she said, what? What she?

Speaker 1: 9:26

She started to think of another way to describe it, another title besides emptiness, and she went through all these different gyrations and she said she landed upon open door and at first I'm like, oh, it's a little bit hokey, right. And then I started. I started reading further. Once again, I told you I'm a gretchen Rubin nerd. I'm like, yes, gretchen Rubin, yes. And she said what she likes about it is not only the concept of open door for our kids and that we're all coming and going. We're always coming and going. So whether it's us going away for the weekend or our kids leaving for six months or three, whatever it is, it's the concept of leaving and coming back. And then also she said about, like, even our kids, like it's so common now for our young adult kids to move home for six months to save money or whatever.

Speaker 1: 10:15

My daughter's home for a few months while she's finishing up grad school, like. So there's, there's always that coming and going and I loved that. And then she brought it further, if I recall, was the concept of just a welcoming nature, of like guests coming and going, and that like just the idea of this open door, of this welcoming of the world and bringing everything and your friends and family to you, rather than you sitting in this depressing emptiness.

Speaker 2: 10:40

Right.

Speaker 1: 10:40

And I just thought that was fascinating. I loved how she flipped it.

Speaker 2: 10:44

Yeah, it's so good how she flipped it, but it's also to me it's like, when you think about it in nature, right the not only do the baby birds leave the nest, but the parents do too. Like the nest, the nest is just gone, right, they move on and do other things. They go and do other things, right, they're not. No one is coming back to that nest and which. So trying to get people to wrap their head around that, and being a parent having the kids home like yeah, when leave, like nobody's coming back to that same spot. So there's a little bit of a for me. There's a little bit of a parallel there between like nature and what Gretchen was trying to say was like what, what I say, what I talk about a little bit, is like our kids are like free range kids, like they're out in the forest.

Speaker 1: 11:30

They just happen to be in a different part of the forest and we're in a different part of the forest. Sometimes we come together again. Yeah, I love that I used to do. I did a talk one time about empty nests and I equated us to the trees itself and I equated the parents and I was talking about moms in particular, but parents in general that we're like this sturdy tree and that the roots are formed and then when we raise children, children we build this nest and we have this nest of children, but the tree was strong and firm and whole even before this nest was formed, and then when the children leave the nest, we are still there and I like, like that and I went, if I recall correctly, I went into all of these tangents about, like, how we are seeking shade and that, how, like trees you know trees in a forest there's a, a totality of the life force where, through the root system, they help one another.

Speaker 1: 12:18

And so I love the idea of us as parents and others like cause. I love community, the idea of community that we're all the life force helping one another too. So I like the idea that we were a tree before we raised our children and we're a tree after that. The continuity is still there. That was years ago.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yeah, the continuity. Yeah, that's the biggest thing is the continuity. People feel like it's different. Right, the energy is different in the house, things change. It's almost like it's a dead stop, but there can still be some continuity there.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Oh yeah, and it's again. Well, you know, you know, I'm all about perspective, that if you want to, it's really up to us. Just like everything else, like when we first had kids, right? Like as a mom when I was first pregnant, it was not planned. We got pregnant on our honeymoon and it was not planned. No-transcript roof again.

Speaker 1: 13:38

I'll never see them in their PJs, whatever all the depressing thoughts. Yes, we, absolutely. It's probably true. We could find all the evidence that that's true. And it's dark and it's sad. And, yes, any feeling is valid or equally true. Like what else? What's what else is true? Well, I'm still going to be very connected to them, no matter where they live. I can choose to be. What else is true? I'll still see them on holidays. I'm not losing my children we can now discuss things at a different level because they're adults and we can go deeper that they're going to hopefully bring a partner in someday, or kids to expand our family even more Like that's equally true, right? So we get to choose which perspective, what we want to focus our flashlight on of what we're seeing, because whatever we focus our flashlight on, our brain that wants to be right is seeking evidence to prove that to be true. So it's up to us, right, we get to pick.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Absolutely, we do get to choose right. And you said, like what else is true? And one of the things I love to talk about is like is that true? Like people have like this mindset of like just closing things off. I'm like, well, is that really true, or is that just what you're thinking in this moment, that that's like your truth, when it's really just a thought that you're you're going through in this moment?

Speaker 1: 14:47

And what happens is we tell ourselves that same thing right Over and over, so our thought starts to seem like a fact. Well, it's just true. Like I can't dance, Like I just know I can't dance, I've thought of it so many times, I can't, I'm not a good dancer, whatever. And but is is that true? No-transcript.

Speaker 2: 15:17

It's absolutely just a thought, yeah, and continuing on that, sometimes we think we can't. I don't know if you run across people. I run across people all the time Like, well, I don't know if I can change, I don't know if I want my life to change or I don't know if I want it to be different. I loved when the kids were home and I love the community, the energy and all those things that took place, and I don't want it to be different.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Right, well, yeah, and I get that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:39

A hundred percent Right. You get it because it's a, it's your own little community right Of you and your partner and spouse if you have one and the kids, and life just feels good, even though it's hard. It's hard, yeah, but it's familiar and I think that's what people struggle with the most.

Speaker 1: 16:00

And change is hard, yeah, and I get it. And people absolutely have the right to say I don't want it to change. But the truth is we all know this the only constant is change, right. So the fact is it is changing. So we can sit there and we can stomp our feet saying I don't want this, this is not what I want, I want my child in that car seat. We can say that all we want.

Speaker 1: 16:20

But the problem is, every time we face a change or a challenge, we either wither or we grow. And, yeah, we can choose to stomp our feet and we can choose to find all the reason that life is really hard and awful or we can evolve. And what I have found with most people, like I started saying earlier alluding to, is, if I have somebody that's really resistant to change, I hear them out, I validate how they're feeling because it's true and every feeling is valid and everybody's experience is their own and what I start to do is tell them I get it. Change is really hard for some people. And then I have them change when I say the tiniest little baby step so that they barely notice that they're doing it.

Speaker 1: 17:04

I'm really sneaky that way and then they start to change a little bit and I'm like, wow, look at you, look at that. And then we start to look at the little tiny successes they might have and then move forward. So what I tend to do is if I have somebody that is stomping their foot and they're like I cannot change, I won't, I can't, I'm like I get it, we're're going to work on this and try a little tiny, step and baby step them along the way, and then we peek back like hey, do you see how you did that? That was pretty cool. And help them realize later I don't battle them. It's almost like with a two-year-old Not that I'm comparing clients to two-year-olds.

Speaker 1: 17:40

No, absolutely, when we are like stubborn and we can't see the end, the light at the end. I do what I did when I taught and when I had younger children, which is I was sneaky and I would show them little, tiny steps so they weren't overwhelmed and they weren't stomping their feet, and then they could look back and realize the change they had. Because it's hard. Change is really hard, absolutely. But when we look back and realize how many changes we've been through and how many challenges we've been through, we realize we've made it through 100% of them. We've gotten a little bit stronger in each one that we faced, and we're going to do that here too. It just takes time. Like any change, it takes time to adjust.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Right, right, and I mean with the two-year-old. They're stubborn because this is how they see life in this moment. They can't always articulate it right.

Speaker 2: 18:25

Right, exactly, but that's how they're seeing life in this moment, and that's true for when, like our kids, get to be teenagers, like they come at us a different way. But it's because it's how they're seeing life in this moment and we have a choice. When the kids leave the home and life changes for us, to us to say like this is how I see life, but do I want to see it differently?

Speaker 1: 18:45

Right, absolutely right. It's like I said, like we always can choose how we want to see the world. And there are people I'm aware of this I am a sunnier person, I was born a sunnier person. There are people that are not. We all come with kind of our own set point, so we can choose how we see the world. But we can also always change. We can always shift it little by little, by little.

Speaker 1: 19:07

So I look at like a ladder, right, if you, if you see something, you're at the bottom rung and and you think this just stinks like everything about empty nest stinks and at the top rung, like your dream. If I say, what's the dream? How do you want to feel? If I had like a magic wand and I can make you feel any way you want it, they'd say, well, I want to feel really fulfilled and excited for my kids. Okay, great, that's the top rung of the ladder.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Now I don't know how many steps are on that rung on that ladder. Excuse me, but what we're going to do is we're going to take one tiny one. We're going to take one tiny little step and say, well, could we get to a place that we're still a little bit happier for them. We can see this is positive, but still really sad for us. Yeah, okay, so I can get them there and we can find all the proof to make that true, that feeling true. And once they get there which could take a little while we look up what's the next little step we can find. Can we celebrate one thing that happened to your child in this, like whatever it might be for them in that situation? I do that a lot, which is like we take one tiny little step and we take that step up. We look around to say, well, how can I prove it? What thoughts can I pick that can prove this to be true? And then we move up little by little.

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yeah, I love that you bring up steps, because that's like my life motto is like every step has purpose, like that's how. I live life in my emptiness life. I love that and like I'm just curious, like what steps have you taken in your emptiness life to help kind of define it differently than perhaps when you were, you know, a mom with five kids at home?

Speaker 1: 20:40

So mine is like a really unique situation because I was a teacher before. We had kids and we had four children and my husband was adopted. So we always said our youngest would be adopted. So we adopted our youngest then and then when she was finishing kindergarten, my husband had a stroke like a really severe, disabling stroke, so it's okay.

Speaker 1: 21:01

It's been 10 years now almost, but he it's been 10 years, excuse me. So he can't see or speak or stand or anything. He's very disabled. So he lives at home and I have 24 hour care so that I have help too. So when I was raising the kids, there was a pretty significant period of time where I was like compartmentalizing and he was in the hospital for over a year. So I would drive every single day to be with him all day, come home at night um to be with the kids after school and my dad flew in and stayed with Mike the entire for a year. He didn't leave his side at the hospital. So my parenting um was there were. It was very um stage oriented of like, where was I regarding Mike's health in terms of my parenting? And so mine was really different. But, like I said, it was 10 years ago. So then there was a lot of time of raising them on my own and handling his care.

Speaker 1: 22:02

So my empty nesting. So I think my kids are pretty independent as well and they're a pretty tight crew because of everything we've been through, and I think that has made it harder and easier in empty nesting, because I feel like there are times that I'm like gosh. I want more of them. I feel like I missed out on some things. I just want to suck them in and be with them every possible second. And there are times that I want to give them that freedom and I'm so happy to watch them succeed in life, and I don't mean like a good job or a good school, I mean like these happy people that are fulfilled, and I honestly feel as if I'm putting these wonderful humans out into the world, which was my husband and my number one goal.

Speaker 1: 22:47

So it's hard for me to say the difference between parenting younger kids and my kids now in empty nesting, cause mine was so different. Right, my, my pattern has been so different. Like, what do you find Like when your kids were younger versus now? How do you feel it different? Like, do you see a big difference in how you handle it? Like, do you see a big difference?

Speaker 2: 23:08

in how you handle it. Yeah, I think I think the difference for me is in terms of like. Before I was just kind of like Mr Logistics for the entire household and you know my wife and I were both in education, so you know how this goes, but I was in IT and she was in academics and she was in academics. So her life, school life, happened a lot after school, with meetings and after school meetings, division or department meetings, all those kinds of things, especially as she's kind of moved up and I could do anything from anywhere. So quite naturally I became the person, you know, the partner, who took the kids everywhere and did all the things and made sure everything, like like life, was set Right and being able to balance all those things and making sure that nothing got out of balance, got it Right, and so now it's a little bit different and I think that's what I struggled with a little bit too when they um, my daughter and son both moved into their first adult apartments a week from each other.

Speaker 3: 24:06

And so yeah all at once.

Speaker 2: 24:10

So it was like for me, that was like okay, now I'm not really needed anymore, that was done, and so that's what I kind of. I was like okay, how do I parent now when it's on their schedule, not my schedule?

Speaker 1: 24:21

And that's really accurate way to look at it more on their schedule than on ours.

Speaker 2: 24:25

Yeah, exactly yeah. I think that's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 24:27

That's really, and I said like God, I think that's really interesting. That's really. And I said like God, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 24:30

I was just going to say, through everything that kind of your life has thrown at you, especially, you know, with Mike and his stroke and raising the kids and everything you have going on Like what's something you learned about yourself, either through that process or more recently, that you could share?

Speaker 1: 24:46

Sure. So I would say so. I was a teacher, right, and then we got married and we moved for his job so I became a stay at home mom at that point for five kids, so for a long time. But my master's is in education and I was always.

Speaker 1: 25:01

I always thought of myself as kind of like the, the wind beneath his wings kind of person, right Like Mike is like this like the wind beneath his wings, kind of person right, like Mike is like this, like very successful, handled everything, like if I was anxious or upset or whatever, he talked me off everything, like he was just so emotionally strong and stable and this strong foundation for our family, like I would say he was like the cornerstone and I was like the wind beneath your wings. He was more pragmatic, I was like the emotional dreamer Right and we complimented one another very well, but I really did think of myself as the wind beneath his wings. And then when all of this, when he had his stroke, it was instantaneous. There was no warning Like we. He was very healthy, we didn't know it was going to happen and so the shift was, oh my goodness, completely the other direction.

Speaker 1: 25:55

And what I learned, and I've continued to learn, is that I and I truly believe all of us are so much stronger than we ever could have thought I have a little plaque in my kitchen that says something about you don't realize how strong you are until you have to, and I think that's really true.

Speaker 1: 26:14

So there's a lot of reasons I went into life coaching a ton of reasons. One of them was that I realized that when I really needed to, I could find the strength to not only go through life but to live a really happy, fulfilled, purpose-driven life and to teach my kids how to do that and be an example for them, and I wanted to show other parents the same thing. That change is really hard, but the truth is we're strong enough to handle it. We've handled every change we've gone through. We've handled every problem we've gone through, and we can handle this now too. And that's how you get stronger. Right, Like when you face tough times is when. That's when we actually get strong. So I would say, for me, what I've learned through that process is that I'm really proud of myself because I through example of how I feel, how I live, how I set examples for other people is I'm so much stronger where I could have climbed into bed and never gotten out.

Speaker 1: 27:14

Nobody would have blamed me, Um that when we when we need to find our way, we do and not to say I didn't have moments like that because I did, but that we can. We can reach for more. We moments like that because I did, but that we can. We can reach for more, we can be more, we can do more than we ever thought we could.

Speaker 2: 27:29

We can. We can reach for more. I love that, and thank you for sharing your story a little bit of your journey. We can always reach for more. What are you reaching more for now? What's?

Speaker 1: 27:40

like next? Great question. So I don't know if there is a thing to be next. I started a book. That will be next, but that's more of a continuation. I think of it that way.

Speaker 1: 27:54

I love the workshops. I've done some workshops, some virtual workshops. I'm going to do a live workshop soon, probably in the next month or two for free, probably in the next month or two for free. The only thing so to answer what's next is to reach as many women as possible. I am really happy with where I am now. I am really happy.

Speaker 1: 28:16

I'm very careful to create balance in my life. So, like I said, I do have the one-on-one coaching. I'm not taking on more right now. I love the social media and being able to reach all of these people. That's been really, really what's the word I want to use for this Meaningful to me and I feel like I'm really making a difference, which is important to me.

Speaker 1: 28:41

I tried to be there for our 54,000 children for whatever they need, and they're at points in life where they're just kind of getting started, so they're always somebody moving into a new apartment or somebody with a new relationship or what might be happening, but I try to be there.

Speaker 1: 28:56

Like I said that tightrope parenting of stay back, give freedom, be there when they need me, and I try to do that and I think I and I really enjoy traveling. And I try to do that and I think I and I really enjoy traveling and I'm real I my goal in the last two years has been working on solo traveling, because Mike and I really dreamed of traveling together a lot and obviously he can't do that now and I have friends and the kids travel with me and I can do that. But I felt, um, I had just a push that I wanted to. I wanted to be able to comfortably travel alone internationally and be able to really enjoy it and feel comfortable in that. So that has been a goal. So I think, moving forward, I would say I don't have a specific plan of something big coming on, as much as it is to continue to grow in all areas, but maintaining balance.

Speaker 2: 29:41

Maintaining balance oh, I like that. I like that. Balance. Maintaining balance oh I like that. I like that With the solo traveling piece, because I have quite a number of women reach out to me and say, like like, my husband passed unexpectedly and our plans were to do just that to travel. And they don't. They're struggling with how do you even begin to want to, not how to right it's not. How do you travel by yourself? Like it's a I. How do I even get over the hump of the hurdle of like I want to even try this. So tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker 1: 30:13

Okay, so I think it's. I think that's going to vary by person and knowing what your comfort level is because, like when you, whenever we grow right, like I would say, it's like concentric circles, so we have our comfort zone and where we're happy, or not even happy where we're comfortable. So maybe their comfort level right now is just home.

Speaker 3: 30:29

Right.

Speaker 1: 30:30

And what happens is? This is why New Year's resolutions don't work, by the way, is we tend to say we tend to be like. I like. For example, my two habits in life are diet Coke and Starbucks. I love both. I get one of each per day. If I were to say, my New Year's resolution is I'm going to drink my entire weight in ounces of water and never have caffeine or whatever, we go all the way in, right. And then we, of course, within 30 days we go right back to where we were.

Speaker 1: 30:56

The key to any growth, including New Year's resolutions, but also in terms of solo travel or things that are outside of our comfort zone is tiny steps. So what I would say if I were advising someone, if it were a friend, a client, my sister, whomever find a baby step, because you're not going to know if you want to do it.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Fear overrides all of it right, absolutely, you don't know if it's something you don't want to do, if you're just looking through the lens of fear, and so I would say you want to take a baby step and try. So the first travel would not be alone, in my opinion. It would be with one of your adult kids, or more than one, or with friends, like. The first time we did a family vacation after Mike's stroke was with our best friends. Their entire family with their four kids and me with our five. My five kids, our five kids went together on a vacation and it was hard, but it was like I needed to get over that hurdle of being somewhere without Mike as a family.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Right.

Speaker 1: 31:47

And the same thing with the international travel of I. For me it was like I used under the guise of well, I don't know if it's safe to travel alone, but really it was. It was I was looking through the lens of fear and discomfort. So they could choose to travel with one of their kids or more, with a friend.

Speaker 1: 32:04

They could go on a tour groups for women, just for women, for single women that you can go on and they could be hiking, or they could be like as active as you want, or just go into museums and drink and wine, which doesn't sound so bad to me. So what I did, though? For me my first solo experience was one of my older kids, jack, knew my goal and very kindly invited me to travel with him. So we were going to greece and croatia. This is um a year and a half ago, and what I did is I met him there. It was so wonderful and then in croatia he left and I stayed for three more days and I still. It was my little entree into solo travel internationally, and and I've done like Manhattan and get alone and stuff, but this was like. International is a bigger deal to me. Manhattan I'm comfortable.

Speaker 1: 32:49

And so it was so freeing for me, when I went on this trip, of realizing so what? The reason I did it the way I did is I wanted a comfort level at the place. So we had already been there for like four or five days. So we had an Uber driver we had adopted who became our driver. While we were there. I had areas of Dubrovnik that I loved and I felt comfortable with in being there, and I knew that I knew the area a little bit because we had been there. So when he left I wasn't thrown into this completely foreign area that I wasn't familiar with. I already had a little bit level of comfort. So that really helped me.

Speaker 1: 33:23

So I needed that little bridge right. I needed to be able to step out of the fear a little bit and not be panicked. The key is you don't want to set yourself up for, just like in our New Year's resolution, where you don't want to go from drinking a Diet Coke every day to, all of a sudden, I'm going to drink, you know, 800 ounces of water only and never touch caffeine again. You're going to fail for the most part. So the same with travel.

Speaker 1: 33:45

If you're super afraid of traveling alone, you don't want to book a flight to Bangkok by yourself for six months. Right, you might freak out and get there and it'd be really hard. You want to baby step, just like the ladder. Everything in life is a step, just like you were saying. So I would say, is finding a little step, whether that's with somebody and staying one extra hour by yourself, or one extra day by yourself, or going to an area like Manhattan, somewhere that I'm super familiar with and comfortable with? That was an easy entree for me as well, because I already knew it, so being alone there wasn't terrible.

Speaker 2: 34:18

Yeah, such good tips as it is, like when you break it down to the tiniest thing, like even take a train to the next city over and go have lunch right, like that could be the very first step. Perfect, yeah, exactly right, the train may be the new thing that you haven't navigated before. Absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 34:33

It could be sitting at lunch. I mean, a lot of people have trouble just going to a meal by themselves or a movie by themselves, like any little stepping stone that you can do alone. And then here's the important part also, not only doing it. So, let's say, going out to dinner would be hard to do alone. I would say go out to dinner alone, you can use your phone, you can do whatever you want. Bring a book. Then the next step would be go out to dinner alone and just be, don't be on your phone, don't bring a book, just see if you can handle it. And afterwards, even if you only lasted 10 minutes without opening a book or getting on your phone, celebrate that 10 minutes.

Speaker 1: 35:10

Look for your win, no matter how small it is, because we all need that boost. It's not like I failed, I couldn't do a whole dinner without going on my phone. No, it's like, wow, I lasted 15 minutes and didn't go on my phone, like I rocked. That. That was amazing. Right, because you want to feel proud and see your own growth. We're so hard on ourselves.

Speaker 2: 35:26

See the growth yeah, yeah, it could. It all harkens back to like watching our kids take their first steps. Right, they didn't like get up and walk across the room for days on end. They like took two steps and fell down. That's how life is right. Yeah, when something's new, that's what the mindset you have to take is like no, I'm gonna take going to take a couple of steps and that's going to be okay.

Speaker 1: 35:44

That's right. They tried to walk for weeks before and we weren't like well, give it up, bob, you're not a walker, it's just not working out for you Exactly it's not going to happen, right it's like wow, you stood up. Oh, you held on Right Like the same compassion.

Speaker 2: 36:00

Good, so good. As we get ready to wrap up. You talked a little bit about meaning like meaningful life. So what is your, what's your emptiness life motto.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Oh, that's great, I don't. I saw it. I heard you say your motto and I absolutely love that and I feel like I need to have a better, like planned motto. But mine really is kind of I don't have a specific just these words I always say about emptiness. I don't have a specific just these words I always say about empty nest. But I will say is the mantra that I always use is everybody's next step in life, Everybody's empty nest stage in life or open door stage in life, is a choice. We all get to choose how we view it and how we shift that view.

Speaker 1: 36:43

So if there is somebody listening who's really struggling, I want people to know. Number one you're not alone. This is so common and it's really hard and it really is an adjustment. But that doesn't mean because you're there now, that that's where you're stuck being. That doesn't mean that's your empty nest experience. That means that's your experience right now, in this moment, and you can change it at any point in time. So to look for little tiny shifts of growth. So my mantra to when I talk to clients or my message I try to give on social media is more how I look at empty nest is whatever your choice is on how you want to view it. My perspective on it is is nobody's business and theirs is not mine. It's more everybody has their own experience to honor, where you are realizing that you can grow and get to wherever you want to be. It just takes time.

Speaker 2: 37:37

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a good ending is just honor where you are.

Speaker 1: 37:42

That's right, knowing there's always. Life always changes, good and bad, right Like life always changes. So being willing to adjust to changes, but giving yourself time, grace and compassion to be able to do so.

Speaker 2: 37:56

Wow, julie, thank you for honoring being here today with me.

Speaker 1: 38:00

Oh, it was a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker 2: 38:01

If people want to connect with you online. Where can they? Where can they find you?

Speaker 1: 38:06

So on social media, on all the platforms I am at trainer coaching and it's like trained with an a coaching. My website is trainer coachingcom. They can reach me through there and there's a ton of freebies on both on Instagram, facebook and on my website, so they can go on and and download whatever they want. And then I have a newsletter I put out every month and a journaling workbook every month with daily prompts for free as well.

Speaker 2: 38:34

Yeah, so much value.

Speaker 1: 38:35

Oh, I hope so. That's my goal. My goal, I told you, is to make an impact and a difference in the world. So, whatever I can do, I try.

Speaker 2: 38:42

You certainly are, and I'm glad we had a chance to connect and talk a little bit about that impact.

Speaker 1: 38:47

Thank you so much, Jay. It was really nice to meet you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It was an honor.

Speaker 2: 38:51

It was great to have you here.

Speaker 1: 38:53

Awesome, thank you.

Speaker 3: 38:55

Are you ready to start living and enjoying your empty nest years? If so, head over to jasonramsdencom and click work with me to get the conversation started. This Empty Nest Life is a production of Impact. One Media LLC. All rights reserved.