SPEAKER_05: 0:00

As I'm going into this next phase of life, knowing that there's gonna be a learning period, learning curve that we're all gonna have to go through by giving yourself the permission to pause, finding that there is power in pausing, and so learning to give yourself grace to say there is a beauty and hitting that yellow light.

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

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 emptiness coach, Jay Ramsden.

SPEAKER_02: 0:51

Hey there, my emptiness friends. When you were parenting 24-7, it seemed like you never had a moment to yourself. You know, some good old-fashioned self-care pause in the moment moments. And now that the kids are grown and flown, you find yourself with lots of time on your hands, but maybe you just don't know how to answer the question, what do I do now? Well, today I'm joined by Jenny Phillips, author of Yellow Light Moments, and we're going to dive into how you can use the natural pause that comes with empty nesting to your advantage. We're going to teach you how to create a life you love. Jenny, welcome to this empty nest life.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33

Thank you so much, Jay. I appreciate your invitation to come on to the show.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37

I'm so excited to talk to you. The whole idea of yellow light moments and pausing is something I believe in deeply. And so I'm excited to get into kind of this how this came to be for you. So I'm just curious, the concept of pausing and self-evaluation is something that some people talk about, but how did it become a central theme in your journey and your writing?

SPEAKER_05: 2:01

This was something that came at an interesting time of my life when we had just lived through the pandemic. And there was a lot of on time during that, where you had a different amount of pressure in life. And for me, we found not only did life slow down in many ways, it also became a very stressful time in many ways. And our family was going through a little bit of a transition in which my husband was going back to school to finish an additional degree. And I became the solo breadwinner of the house at the time. And we have four children, three that are now out of school and living adult lives, and one that is 16. And I found myself putting a lot of pressure on all the dues, all the things that needed to get accomplished, and making sure that all the bills were paid and life continued as normally as it could during the pandemic. I own a studio. It's called Vitality Fitness Studio in one of our neighboring towns. And with that, during the pandemic, the whole idea was just trying not to get the doors to close. A lot of businesses were failing. And so I found myself saying yes to everything, every opportunity, every client, every obligation, every option was a yes. There was, there was never anything that I turned away because of being afraid of what was going to happen if I did that. And so after the pandemic, we came through that and I found life reopening. And some things that reopened in life for me were running events. I'm a runner and I love to actually go run races. And during the pandemic, those were closed. So you were running by yourself or you were running virtually and just sending in what we called sweaty selfies and us completing the race. And the other thing that opened back up were conferences. And so as a Fit Pro, I know that you can go to conferences virtually, but sit pros don't do really well with that. Personal trainers don't do well trying to go through a conference. Yeah, it's it's not as easy to let's all be engaged and learn this work out when we're behind the camera. And so there was a time where two things happened. Number one, my girlfriend said, Hey Jen, would you like to go on a run trip? Let's get the four of us girls. We're gonna go down to Florida, we're going to run this race, we're finally out of the pandemic. And I said, Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. And then the second thing was this conference. Hey, one of my colleagues, do you want to go to a conference that's in DC? That's awesome. Can't wait to go and be a part of normal again. But what I didn't realize when I said yes to both of those events was that they were on slanking weekends of the week that was in between. So here I am living in the state of Illinois. And one weekend I'm gonna be in Florida, and the next weekend I'm gonna be in DC. And originally the idea was I'm gonna drive with my girlfriends down to Florida and I'm gonna run my race. And then after we get done, we'll pack up and we'll drive back. And then I'll get back home on a Monday night. I'll do my laundry. I will go see all my clients on Tuesday, sit it all in. Wednesday morning, I'll get up, I'll get on a red eye, and then I'll fly to DC for a conference that weekend. And we sat down as a family and kind of started to brainstorm why why am I doing all of this traveling in between? Why don't you just stay in Florida and just enjoy a little bit of downtime? Why don't you hit the pause?

SPEAKER_02: 6:04

Yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_05: 6:06

And take a second. And everybody was on board, all the kids, my husband, are like, this is great. Clients were on board, this is awesome. So my girlfriends leave and I find myself on the beach, my first time alone. It's tranquil, it's seagulls flying and the breeze blowing, it's 80 degrees, and in the in Illinois, it is snowstorm. So, really, even a more beneficial time to be there. But instead of finding peace and calm, all of a sudden I found anxiety and angst and panic and did not know how to handle being alone with no to-do, no pressure, no kids. Why am why am I on vacation by myself on a beach when my family is at home? Is this okay? I worked so hard for the business to not shut down during the pandemic, but here I am intentionally shutting my doors down for a week. Are my clients still gonna be there when I get back? Are they gonna see off they don't need a personal trainer? My head fine rolled. And that was the moment after calling my family and checking within. Is everybody okay? Are we still okay that I'm here? And having that guilt kind of relieve the body. It was finally that I sat down and said, All right, it's time for me to figure out how to hit this pause button and how to reset some priorities. And I literally called it my yellow light day. I'm gonna take a yellow light day, just like as if we were driving a car and coming up to a yellow light of a traffic signal. Sometimes it's green and you go, sometimes it's red and you stop. Sometimes you just have to assess where you're at, slow down for just a second, pause, see if you need to pivot, make some really good choices, and then decide how to go forward with that. And that's what that's what happened to that day. I just sat down and started to evaluate what were the things in my life that really continued to bring me joy. What were some things that I was maybe prioritizing too much? Where did I need to let the balance of my life refall? And for me, especially in the professional world of sickness, that fell into four categories. And so I looked at how I was sleeping, how I was moving, how I was eating, how I was dealing with my self-care. And I noticed that self-care for me felt very much like a luxury. It didn't feel like something that was deserving of someone that was working so hard that I wasn't allowed to hit that pause. And so that's really how the book was born, was in a moment of really that was supposed to be calm that I sound myself not knowing how to react to it. And thought this is something I teach my clients all the time. I teach these four pillars of what we call vitality. I teach those to them, but I was not implementing them myself. So is there a structure that I can put together to teach people and to share with them this concept? And that slowly led to me presenting at a few different institutes with teachers, working with clients in a different way, in a more in-depth manner of teaching them these points, helping them to really ask great questions and evaluate their life. And then that led to the book. And so there was Yellow Light Moments, the book that was born on how to maximize your health and vitality through the power of pausing. And that book very much starts out with 40 questions that evaluate where you are. So it's a moment really to stop and say, I need to really think about this and not just say, I'm okay, I'm fine. It's fine. It's all fine. Because I think we've all done, right? We just kind of brush over life. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 10:08

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05: 10:08

We're completely fine. We we don't live in a natural disaster area. I don't have a child that is fighting a major illness. I have enough money to pay the bills. So we dismiss some of our own angst and anxiety and burnout symptoms as this is just normal. And we kind of wear it as a badge of honor of oh, I just I didn't freet very well last night, or I worked most of the night, or I didn't eat lunch during the day because I had a meeting, so I was rushing through it. We we almost kind of sometimes seem prideful over being so busy.

SPEAKER_02: 10:45

Yeah, definitely. I hear people talk about that all the time, right? Before the kids leave home.

SPEAKER_05: 10:51

Yes. So now all of a sudden we're looking at how do we build a life with balance and as empty nesters, how is it that we can incorporate that so that we start to pause and honor this transition in our lives and to know that it's okay to feel all of the feelings that come with being an empty nester, and that we still want to use what I call the Y L M framework. So this is yellow light moments. We're gonna take the Y, the L, and the M. We're gonna break it apart. This is where my teacher comes into play, right? Yeah. So my why is to yield. That is your pause. We're gonna pause and just feel, just be okay with where we're at. Then we're gonna listen and we're gonna ask ourselves some really good questions. Who am I? What do I want next? What brings me joy? And then the M is move. What intentional action do I need to take next to reignite, especially with empty nesters, to reignite some passions, maybe rediscover some hobbies, redo to redefine your purpose now that the kids are gone. And so it fits in so many different avenues of our life, whether we're teaching this to teens, whether we're teaching this to clients, whether we're teaching this to our loved ones, whether we're teaching this to empty nesters.

SPEAKER_02: 12:19

Yeah, Jen, I love that. You talked a little bit like being on the beach and talking about the guilt piece. And I know parents think about that all the time when the kids are home. When it's 24-7 parenting, like taking a break seems very luxurious, right? It's like something I can't have. But then when the kids leave home, then it ends up with all this extra time. But the guilt and shame is still there. Like, what if they need me? Right. So that then people typically don't do the self-care and figure out what comes next for them because they're waiting.

SPEAKER_04: 12:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 12:53

And so I love where this is like this book was originally written for people maybe who are parenting or in the moment and like stressed out about life and move, move, move. But it's so applicable to those just entering their emptiness life. So I appreciate this conversation to kind of highlight that for people. So I'm I'm curious. Like you you broke down the uh yellow light moments, right? Yellow, listen, and move, which I love. Ties into a lot of the things that I talk to people about. But what can you give us maybe some simple, maybe effective uh practical tips that you recommend for improving sleep and nutrition?

SPEAKER_05: 13:32

Absolutely. Uh and again, sometimes it's just starting with what do I do well and evaluating what are my strengths, and then where do I fall on the weaker side of things? And so it starts by asking, okay, so is it the quality or the quantity of my sleep that maybe is hurting? And maybe it's a combination of both. But sometimes it's okay, I can get myself to bed at a timely fashion so that in theory, I'm in bed for seven to nine hours, which is our recommended amount as adults. But then I sit and my head spins and I can't turn it off. And for a lot of people, it is yes, wondering, how are the children doing? What do I have going on tomorrow? What are ways to kind of disconnect that head? So sometimes setting up an environment where you can get all of that out of your head, keeping a notepad by your bed to write all the to-dos, all the thoughts, just to declutter the brain before you go to sleep. It's creating an environment in which you sleep. Is your room dark and cool and comfortable for you to sleep? Do you maybe need some white noise because you live in a busy area and so that keeps you up? It could be you're hot all the time when you sleep, and so you need to change the comforter or add a fan to that environment. Is it dark enough? Do we need some room darkening shades in that room that will help tone down so that all of a sudden it signals to your head, especially depending on what there are a lot of people that work shift work? And so maybe they're going to bed when the lights are still up during the summertime. Right now, that's really hard. I open the gym very early, and so bedtime is normally around 8, 8:30 for me. The sun is still up. So having those room darkening shades really helps in that environment. For nutrition, it's a lot of meal planning and being intentional and mindful of what you are putting into your body. So, what is it you're looking for? What combination of protein, carbohydrates, fats do you need during a day? Sometimes you can figure that on your own. And sometimes it's reaching out to a dietitian or a nutritionist to say, can you please help me set my numbers so I know what to start with? Sometimes nutrition becomes so overwhelming because of all the different information that is out there that the first thing we do is get overwhelmed by it and then just don't do anything at all. We just paralyze ourselves and say, I don't even know where to start. So I'm not going to worry about that at all.

SPEAKER_02: 16:29

Too many decisions to make.

SPEAKER_05: 16:31

Too many decisions. Yeah. So shopping the perimeter of the grocery store is a great way to start where all of the whole foods are. A whole food would be anything that the ingredient is the food. So an apple is an apple. A carrot is a carrot. It doesn't have a list of ingredients with that. Chicken is chicken. It's all the middle aisles that become those ultra-processed and really sugary foods that were you in a limit. And so even if it just says, all right, I'm going to start by just choosing more foods that I can cook at home or more foods that are not ultra-processed in my life. And that could be a great change right there. For movement, we talk about 150 minutes of moderate movement during the day, 75 minutes of its vigorous movement in which you are, you can talk through it, but you shouldn't be able to sing through it. That means your heart rate, your cardiovascular is really up. And then also adding some strength training or resistance training, which sometimes people get really overwhelmed by that because they get overwhelmed by the idea of going to a gym. That seems intimidating to them. And so I try to teach people you have all the tools that you have at home because you have your own body. So use your body weight.

SPEAKER_02: 17:58

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05: 17:59

Swats, push-ups, things that your body can do. And if you want to add weight, go get a backpack, throw some books in it, and all of a sudden you've got weight that you can throw on your back and do some extra spots.

SPEAKER_01: 18:10

Brilliant. We make it easy, right? Make it so easy.

SPEAKER_05: 18:15

Meet people where they are. Some people will say, No, I need to get out of the gym because I need to have that environment and I need to have the adrenaline and the energy of other people around me. And other people don't. They want a quiet space that they can do that. And then self-care that comes in with our stress management and how we again are listening to what our body is saying. Do you need to meditate and just bring lies down? Do you need to learn to breathe? A boxed breathing is a beautiful method where we inhale for four, we hold for four, we exhale for four, and then again we hold for four. So getting in tune with joyous occasions. Maybe it's listening to music, maybe it's dancing, maybe it's going outside and walking in nature or walking barefoot in the grass. Just sometimes taking it down to say, I am important enough. I am not a luxury. This is my health and my vitality. And I'm going to put that at the forefront many times as busy professionals and or as empty nesters, we don't know where boundaries are. So we don't always put that white space in our day. We are just going and going and going and saying yes to everything, just like I was. And then all of a sudden, you realize that you have no time left in your day because you're getting to everyone else. You're burning yourself at both can at both ends of the candle, using all of that emotional energy because you're giving and giving and giving. So really, again, being intentional about does the choice that I'm about to make align with my ultimate goal? And that could be serving others. It could be as empty nesters, even serving your children after they have left the house. And maybe grandkids come along and you don't know how to say, I don't, I don't necessarily want to be the babysitter every single day. I retired and I wanted to do some of these other things. So where are the boundaries that you're setting with all of the things? Now you're an empty nestro doesn't mean that all of a sudden you need to volunteer for every organization there is and say yes to everything because people say, Well, your kids are gone. You have all this free time.

unknown: 20:38

Right.

SPEAKER_05: 20:38

This is not necessarily that time of your life. It's time for you to also rediscover who you are and what brings you joy and what's going to help you grow in new ways and this new phase of your life.

SPEAKER_02: 20:51

We talk, I talk about it on the show all the time. It's like your time to shine. That's the most important piece of now. It doesn't mean that you forget about your kids or you don't care about your grandkids, but you have to start putting yourself first at some point in your life, and now's the best time to do it. I want to point out something you said. You said meet people where they are. Folks, if you're listening, it what that really means is meet yourself where you are. So many times you want to make this big leap. People think, oh, I'm gonna start running, and they think I gotta go from nothing to 10 miles. This is all baby steps, right? Practical steps. Every step has purpose. And so that was one thing that I really enjoyed you bringing to their attention was meet yourself where you are. Perfect. The next step is take time to figure out what you want to do. Like people think, oh, all these practical tips, I have to do them all. And I like to remind people pick a pick one. Start small.

SPEAKER_04: 21:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 21:50

The sleep stuff was easy because it's easy to do those things. But the nutrition piece or the exercise piece, people think it's all or nothing. So how do you teach people about bringing it in slowly? Is that something that's in the book? Is that something you do in your your practice?

SPEAKER_05: 22:06

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I feel some people want to jump in and do all the things at once. They're just gonna wanna they're gonna wipe the fleet clean and say, I'm all or nothing. But truly things that stick over time are the things that then you can repeat consistently over time. That's really where the change happens, or those small shifts in your day one at a time. So I say find a habit that you can stack with another habit. I brush my teeth every night. Okay, so what is it that I can do every night when I'm brushing my teeth? I can do five to ten squats right then and there. Just make one small change every day. Every morning I make my cup of coffee before I leave for work. And so when I'm making that cup of coffee, can I write down three things that I'm grateful for to shift my focus into positivity for the day before I get started? But really, it is all about starting small and picking one or two things every week, mastering those, finding if it works, because sometimes we try something and say, maybe that wasn't the right choice for me. Sometimes we need to bounce it off with a professional. So if you are unsure what is safe for you in the fitness world after maybe talking to your doctor and getting permission to work out, then maybe talking with someone that says, here's what's good for your body type and for where you are biomechanically, if you have any structural issues or imbalances that maybe we want to address with that. So asking for help in those, and then yes, starting very small and seeing how those one shifts at a time, those one baby steps at a time, add up to making this life that is exactly what you want it to be.

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

Yeah, I love that. And folks, checking in with your doctor, that's a green line moment. So get the green light from your doctor first. Yes, yeah, and then come into figuring out how your l yellow moments fit into your life. So I when you're talking about community, right? I think that's important. Lots of empty nesters lose community because their friends typically are their kids' their kids' friends' parents. But in this journey with yellow light moments, is like how important is supportive relationships and communities in kind of maintaining and reclaiming one's health and balance?

SPEAKER_05: 24:44

Absolutely. It is, it really follows us through all of life. And like you said, when we're younger, it's just built into our day. As kids, we're putting classrooms and our friends just follow us from year to year as parents that it's already built in because you become friends with whoever your son plays ball with, whoever your daughter dances with, because you see each other all the time. Kids leave, and all of a sudden, where are all the adult friends? If they haven't become lifelong friends, now all of a sudden it becomes the ease of not seeing each other anymore, the time, the energy that you would put into those relationships. So now it's a refocus of where am I going to find those people? And one of the biggest things is to find a community and a tribe that is like you. What are things that you enjoy doing that you know those people will be there? So whether it's starting to go to play pickleball, going to an art class, maybe it's dance lessons, finding ways that are building your own new community. And that might even start off with some social media as far as finding out other people that are in your like circles that then you can go out and meet at different times. And it really is important because it gives you the accountability, it gives you the motivation, it just gives you that joy, it gives you that family, that friendship that isn't always just built in anymore during our time.

SPEAKER_02: 26:20

Let's pivot here for a minute. We've give people lots of great advice here, which I love doing on the show, but also I'm curious about your own empty nest experience. We were talking a little bit before, you're not quite there. Your youngest is 16. Yes. But you're starting to see the importance of doing things. I mean, you've written about it, but now you need to apply it in your own life as your youngest gets ready to go off in the next two years. So, what are you seeing there in your journey for the next couple of years?

SPEAKER_05: 26:52

It was really it's been really interesting because I didn't expect to feel it yet. Having my youngest still at 16, I thought, okay, we've got a few years before we really start to feel this. Our three older children have all moved out of the house and now they have their own apartments and their own homes. And it's a different energy in the house when all of a sudden you go from three to four kids bouncing in and out to now having one. And our youngest even said after the last one moved out, she said, I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up to be an only child. And I said, Oh, sweetie. I said, That's just part of the deal as far as being the baby. But now you look at all the great choices you get, right? You get to choose dinner all the time and you don't have to share a bathroom anymore. So trying to spend that for her. But we were all realizing it's very different because there's not the dizziness that's in the household. And again, the mood has shifted a little bit because it's it's the it's the daily conversation that isn't there at it normally is. And as the kids are busy and working their adult jobs, you can't always just pick up the phone because then they're also at work. And so we're finding that, and especially now that the 16-year-old is driving, we no longer have to be in the carpool lane. We never have to be the ones that are in charge. If she needs something, she just goes and gets it. It becomes a little lonely at times. It feels like a little loss. Wow, I spent a lot of time. 22 years, my oldest is 22. 22 years of always being mom and always being needed in some way. And now, even I don't even need, she doesn't need me to go even pick up, you know, a hamburger or a taco for her. She can do it by herself. And so I found myself kind of wanting to sneak back into their lives, like, hey, do you want to go get lunch? Or do you need to go shopping? And kind of asking them, and then realizing again, we're we did exactly what we were meant to do, raise these independent kids that will always need you as a parent, but in a very different way now. And so we want them to grow and be awesome at where they are in life. And now we have to learn, even with still having one child in the house, new ways of being together, new ways to fill the time so that we're not sitting there thinking, oh, gosh, always on Friday nights we knew what we were doing because there was always a game, and now it's not. And so our friends have become much more evident almost in our lives in many ways, because I think we're kind of all hitting that that stays together. And so we all kind of find ourselves like, hey, we don't have to do anything on a Friday night. Do we want to get together and go grab dinner or go for a walk or go to pivotal up courts or Hit some buff ball, like all of a sudden we find we have those opportunities. And so in that regard, it's very freeing. So there's a lot of emotions that I think that we've walked through, even in the past few months, of a little bit of grief, definitely a lot of pride in the children as they are being successful, but uncertainty and sometimes, but then also relief as they are again stable on their own. It's a lot of emotions to unpack. And we're just trying to allow ourselves to feel that. And for me, journaling is one of my favorite things because when all of those emotions start to hit at once, I can sit down with my journal and just write, what is it that I'm feeling? Why am I feeling that? Knowing that it is okay to absolutely feel that. And is there something that I need to do as a shift? If I'm feeling very sad, all right, what are some things that you can do? Do you need to just call one of the kids because maybe you just are missing their voice and so you need to call them, or maybe you need to make a lunch date? Or do you need to reshift the narrative, rewrite the narrative and the focus and say, be happy that they are so successful and doing what they need to do? This is your time now to go write more, go hiking more, go travel more, do more photography, finding the things that you you kind of had to put on the back shelf just a little bit for a while because your focus was on the kids. And so maybe traveling worldwide wasn't always in the budget or wasn't always in the schedule. Okay, now we can do that. Taking time to really just enjoy photography, where the kids were like, okay, let's go. Let's let's keep running, let's keep going. And also yes, now you can slow down and say, I'm gonna take these photos and just really enjoy it. So finding the things we call it the fab four, one of the one of the the four things in your life that bring you joy, bring you purpose, bring you excitement. Um, so I actually just listed my four. That does just it's really easy. Um, hiking, reading, traveling, and photography are my four. And everyone has that. They have something that just when they think about it, it lights them up inside. It brings a spark and a joy. And it doesn't have to be the same as your partner in life. It doesn't have to be the same as your children in life.

SPEAKER_02: 32:35

Exactly. Yeah. It's not a it's just you. Exactly. You could do things together and you could do things separately.

SPEAKER_05: 32:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 32:42

That's an important point. One of the things you talked about was like the energy being different in the house. And I was walking through our town the other day on one of my one of my morning walks, and the spin class has a sign outside that says, Come for the uh come for the rhythm, energy, and joy. And I was like, that's empty nesting. That's the transition point. The rhythm changes, the energy changes, and you lose the joy. And so it's like, how do you reclaim those three things? The rhythm, the energy, and the joy.

SPEAKER_03: 33:13

I think that's actually perfect. I love those three words. Those fit exactly. I must be.

SPEAKER_05: 33:46

When I'm going to take that next intentional move, that next intentional step, what are things that bring me energy? What are things that bring me that joy? What are your new habits, schedules, rituals, routines that will give you that rhythm? Because that changes very much when you're no longer having to get up to get a kid, to get the breakfast, to get off to school. Now all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can maybe sleep in and grab my coffee and go sit on the porch and just enjoy the sunshine. There is a new rhythm in life. And I think that for me, the struggle is my identity for so long was wrapped around their routines.

SPEAKER_02: 34:35

I was You're hitting the nail on the head. Keep running with it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 34:39

Not Jenny sil ups. I was Julia's mom. I was Jessica's mom. I was Brian's mom. I was Allie's stepmom. So now all of a sudden you have this new place where you say, I'm me. I am I am not someone's spouse and just someone's mom. And I don't mean just. Those are very important roles. Those are roles that we would never give up ever. We would do it again in a heartbeat. But now you have a new journey that you get to start. You get to dream big in this season. And maybe those were dreams that you had to put on hold. And I hope that energizes you. I hope that brings you joy. And you can say, I get to find a new rhythm that puts me first, puts maybe my relationship with my spouse or my significant other in a place that maybe that had to take a second or a back row for a little bit while you were so busy with the kids. And so I I hope they're grateful and can look at the past as being something that was a is a beautiful, beautiful story, but not be grateful for this new season and anticipate all of the new that is going to come into their lives.

SPEAKER_02: 36:07

So well said. I love that. When you think about the book, Yellow Light Moments, in writing it, in your journey to having this book come to life, what's one thing you learned about yourself through the process?

SPEAKER_05: 36:21

I don't give myself enough grace. I think I had to learn to give grace and in life, in relationships, in the writing process, writing that for the first time. You know, I I we were chatting earlier. I started as a biology and chemistry high school teacher that then went on to get her master's in curriculum and instruction. So I always loved developing. And I think that's where the natural part of writing came into be. I think I'm just a book nerd at heart. Like I'll always just want to dive into research and those kinds of things. But giving myself grace to know that it's not always easy and fluid. So parenting, not always easy and fluid relationships, not always easy and fluid. Professionalism, not always easy and fluid. And so as I'm going into this next phase of life, knowing that there's going to be a learning period, learning curve that we're all going to have to go through by giving yourself the permission to pause, finding that there is power in pausing. So where I once found myself weak on a beach, thinking I can't handle this, and felt ashamed and guilty and all the negative on that initial part of the trip. Again, when my entire family was supportive and my entire client base was supported. But I was so hard on myself to say I'm not, I'm not, I have to go 110% all of the time. And so learning to give yourself grace to say there is a beauty and hitting that yellow light. And that once I started to talk about it and renamed yellow light, um it was amazing to me how many people said, Yeah, that's exactly I can, I can, I can absolutely understand where you're at. And I feel the exact same thing where you sometimes feel like you're alone in those feelings of hitting the stress and the burnout. You realize you're truly not. There is an entire community of people that feel the exact same way, but you have to give yourself grace to feel that and accept that and to walk through those times and then to hopefully come out on the other side saying, I'm important, I'm not a luxury. My self-care is not just a luxury, this is a necessity, and this is what is really important to build in. And so I'm hoping as people are coming to their parts of being an empty nester, that they can learn to check in with their identity and their emotion and they can start to redefine their purpose and their passion and give themselves grace along the way to feel all the fields and to talk about it openly, knowing that there is an entire community out there that feels the same way that you do. And if you don't know how to connect with that, um, start with you you can come to tinyphillipscoaching.com and find that there's an entire community of Vitality followers that are going through this varied network. And if not, there they are there in your community through your churches, through your volunteer organizations, through Red Cross, through all the different places that you can and be a part of something bigger, but also knowing that it's okay to stay small, not feeling that you have to then jump in and fill all of that time. And so now when I come home from work and it's been a busy day, and I pull my car into the garage and I shut the garage door and I sit in my car for three to five minutes before I even get out of it because I know even when I come in the house, not as many family members in there, but I still have to reset, let go of the day and be able to walk in with a different appreciation of it's in the house. And before, where I thought, does anybody else sit in the garage by themselves for a few minutes to reset their day? And I found out, yeah, there's actually lots of people that do this. And it is, it's just it's taking that white space, it's making your own margins and uh give yourself grace for that.

SPEAKER_02: 41:00

Give yourself grace. Yeah, it's such a great point, Jenny. Before I let you go, what is your life motto?

SPEAKER_05: 41:09

Life motto is it used to be embrace the suck. And you'll read that in the back of my book. That even when life is hard, there's always a beauty in it. And I I learned that once whenever I was running a marathon in Chicago, and I remember getting to the end of it. And it's an amazing relationship when you train for very long races, that you get to a point where the body is just doing what the body does, and it becomes a mental game. And sometimes you just have to embrace the moment that you're in. And I know that the word sex sometimes comes as a very negative, and at the same time, there's a beauty in it that sometimes that you learn so much through those hardships. And so for me, at the very end of the marathon, I saw this sign, and it was held as mile 21. And there were two people holding the sign, and I thought, what an awesome journey to be on. Like I am dying inside, my legs burn, my chest burns, I want to quit, but I've got five miles left. You're not gonna quit at this point. So embrace it, embrace that part of it, embrace that part of the journey and just keep kicking because maybe one day you're not gonna be able to do this, but today is not that day. And so just be uh uh proud of where you are. Again, give yourselves that kindness, speak yourself with kind words towards yourself and know that you're gonna finish your best race. And so teaching the kids too that that is a really important part of life. That even in the dark, hard times, there is something positive to come out of that. We always come back to the grace models. We always come back to, you know, where where you can find that in yourself, where you can sign forgiveness, where you can find ease in yourself. Those would probably, yeah, those would probably be where my two are learning to not just survive, but to thrive through the hard.

SPEAKER_02: 43:14

So good. So good. And I I love the piece about finishing the race strong because folks, that's where you are right now in life. And I think that's what this journey is about is finishing it strong so that you can be an example for your kids. So, folks, yellow light moments, maximize your health and vitality through the power of pausing, is now available wherever you buy books. Jenny Phillips, it has been an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_05: 43:41

Thank you, Jay. It's been great talking with you today.

SPEAKER_00: 43:44

Are you ready to start living and enjoying your empty nest years? If so, head over to jasonramsden.com 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.