SPEAKER_03: 0:00

So that started me thinking about more metaphors. And as I would go out biking, it would just inspire me. Something would cross my mind and be like, oh, this part of biking is kind of like this part of parenting or this part of aging or empty nesting, marriage, all the different things that that you're thinking about as you go into those empty nest years. And so one metaphor after another became one chapter after another.

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

Welcome to this empty nest life, the podcast dedicated to helping you embrace this transformative season with purpose, passion, and joy. In each episode, we explore stories, strategies, and insights to help turn your empty nest into an exciting new chapter. Whether you're redefining your identity, pursuing new passions, or finding peace in the pause, you're in the right place. Here's your host, the empty nest coach, Jay Ramsden.

SPEAKER_02: 0:47

Hey there, my emptiness friends. When you started your journey as a parrot, there was a lot of hope and love and purpose in your life, raising those kiddos of yours. And then they launched and they left home. So many questions. But the one you may be wondering about is where do I put all that love, hope, and purpose now? If so, you'll want to stick around for today's episode as I have Linda Hansra in the studio today. Linda is the author of Emptiness Joyride: Hope, Love, and Purpose on the Road to Contentment. So we'll be chatting about her journey to rediscover hope and love and purpose in her own life, and we're going to get all into it right now. Linda, welcome to this emptiness life. Thank you. I'm excited to have you here just because I'm just curious about the whole emptiness joy ride piece. Because I think people are a little bit, they wonder, oh, should I do something? Should I travel? Should I get outside my comfort zone? But you and your husband like started cycling. So tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49

Right. Actually, that started. Well, it started when we first started dating before we ever had kids. We kind of were into cycling together. But then life got busy with four kids. And so we put it all aside for quite some time. And then as they started becoming, you know, being able to be their own carpool driver, they they they were not needing us so much. We started getting back into biking in their teens and early 20s. And so yeah, it was something that as the empty nest was uh in our future, we started thinking about like, you know, all the different uh extra bike rides we were going to be able to add in and the the journeys and adventures we would have. Yeah, so that's that ended up being the impetus for writing this book.

SPEAKER_02: 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:45

You caught me funny when you were like, and life got busy with four kids. Of course it is, right? Like it's even if we have one, sometimes we seem like it's a lot. But you four kids, raising four kids, you and your husband, and like going through all the the things that life puts at us, the cycling became a metaphor for what comes next. It's like, how did that how did you? I know you started cycling before you had kids and you started rolling, but how how did that become the central metaphor of your life's journey in the book?

SPEAKER_03: 3:16

Well, it's kind of the first chapter of the book. It's a bump in the road, and that is three weeks before we became empty masters. My husband had a serious bicycle accident. Um, and in which he I hope he's okay. He is. He has fully recovered. Well, I shouldn't say fully recovered. It was eight years ago. He still has some tingling in his fingers. He crushed his elbow. And yeah, I won't go into all the details. You can't read that in the book. But I was writing more at that time, starting to get into writing. And so I wrote I wrote the story of his accident and sort of how that was all meshed into our becoming empty nesters. And I shared it with a writing coach, and uh she suggested that, yeah, you might have a book here, you know, a a book in the works or something. And so that started me thinking about more metaphors. And as I would go out biking, it would just inspire me. Something would across my mind and be like, oh, that would be that would this part of biking is kind of like this part of parenting or this part of aging or empty nesting, marriage, all the different things that that you're thinking about as you go into those empty nest years. And so one metaphor after another became one chapter after another.

SPEAKER_02: 4:36

Okay, well, so give us an example of what that looks like and how it might resonate with readers.

SPEAKER_03: 4:42

Well, um, one of the first chapters is called winter training. And basically it's, you know, we don't just jump into the empty nest without having any kind of preparation. It's wise to prepare. And same with biking. When I first get on my bike in the spring, if I haven't trained in the basement in the winter, we live in Michigan, so it's kind of hard to go outside in the winter. If I haven't trained on my trainer, I've got to start real slow and build up before I can do a long ride. My husband, he trains all the time. He's he's much more into it than I am. And he can just go out and ride 20, 25 miles, first ride out if he wants. And so similar, similarly, in the empty nest, we need to think about those years when the kids aren't going to be there or it will come upon us as kind of a shock to the shushten. So I I write in my book about some of the things we did during our early years of marriage. We would send the kids off to grandma and grandpa and have a weekend or a week at home, just the two of us, kind of get a taste of what it would feel like to just be the two of us again. We go on little vacations and weekends, we'd go to marriage counseling seminars that just kind of boosted our relationship. And all of those things, I think, really feed into keeping that marriage relationship strong, even after the kids are gone.

SPEAKER_02: 6:05

Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I my brain just went to well, your husband's biking accident eight years ago could be the a metaphor for what happens if you don't prepare for the emptiness. You could wipe out, literally, wipe out.

SPEAKER_03: 6:21

Right. Right. There's a whole chapter on signaling, which is about communication, and that can also, you know, cause bike accidents. It can cause strife in a marriage. My husband's accident, actually, I tie that into sort of the unexpected bumps in the road. You know, we never know for sure what we're going to be facing, but being flexible and open to um other possibilities when maybe life doesn't go as planned.

SPEAKER_02: 6:50

Yeah, you you talk a little bit about preparing for the empty nest and the things that you and your husband did. But I'm also curious about rekindling marriage once the kids leave home. You had four, so I'd imagine how far apart were they in age?

SPEAKER_03: 7:03

Um the they were eight years between the oldest and the youngest.

SPEAKER_02: 7:07

Okay, so you had a you had an extended leaving of the nest, more so than others. So when they were fully gone, how did you go about rekindling and and what advice would you give to people who may be struggling with reconnecting during the transition?

SPEAKER_03: 7:24

Well, in the back of my book, I have a roadmap to from empty nest to mighty nest. The story behind the story behind that is uh that mighty nest, yeah. Mighty nest. That hit me because I changed my license plate. When my kids were young, I was the kid mover, K-I-D-M-V-R. Because my my car was constantly bringing kids this way and that. And so when when we became empty nesters, I wanted to change it and we talked at the family, like, what are some good ideas, guys? And we all came up with M T Y N S T. M T Nest. But when I looked at it on my car, suddenly it hit me that M T Y looks like mighty rather than M T.

SPEAKER_01: 8:07

Yeah, Mighty instead of M.

SPEAKER_03: 8:09

Yeah, you pronounce it on my so I started thinking about well, you know, we do have kind of a mighty nest. We are making new changes and doing new things. And so that part of the book, there's a it's an acronym for all the different things you can do to sort of strengthen that relationship. And like M is mingle your moments and amusements. So, in other words, do things together between the two of you, that things you enjoy together. But then the I is ignite individual interests. So we each have our own things too, and to encourage each other to follow our own in interests rather than you know thinking we have to do everything together. No, there's a lot of things I like. My husband doesn't care about it.

SPEAKER_02: 8:50

Sound advice. Okay, what else?

SPEAKER_03: 8:51

Vice versa. Yeah. Let's see. T is travel together. That's a something we both really enjoy. And my husband's hoping to retire next year, and then we're hoping to do even more traveling when he has more flexibility. The S is uh simply simplify. So, you know, as we all talk about downsizing as as we get older and getting getting our house and things ready for someday when the kids have to come through and clean it all up. Oh yeah. What do they call that? Death cleaning, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 9:30

Oh, I never heard that term before.

SPEAKER_03: 9:32

I think it's a a Swedish thing. Yeah, I don't remember. I think it's called death cleaning.

SPEAKER_02: 9:38

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 9:40

So yeah, it just goes through a whole bunch of different things. One of the things that we did we just took a very spontaneous weekend trip around Valentine's Day up to Traver City, Michigan, and did some we tried some new things. One was fat tire biking through the snow, which I will never do again. It was so hard.

SPEAKER_02: 10:05

Arduous. Yeah, I would imagine it was hard.

SPEAKER_03: 10:08

So hard. But it was fun and challenging. And I mean we laughed and and I got covered with bruises on my legs from falling into the soft snow. You know, it was a softball, but yet the bike kept hitting my legs. And and then we we went to a bunch of wineries and did some wine tasting up there, and there's really cute restaurants and gift shops. We just had a really fun, relaxing weekend. So just doing new things together as a couple is is also just really important. And we finally have the freedom to do that during our empty next years.

SPEAKER_02: 10:41

That is awesome. I know I you had mentioned that you and your husband like the tea was travel together. Now I know some couples some sometimes a cup one person, a couple loves to travel and another person loves to vacation. And so what I mean by that is right, people like the adventure of travel and going and exploring and spending all day out from the hotel. And other people just other parts like to vacation. They like to go and stay, like at a pool or a beach and read and relax. And so what is it for you? Do you like to do you two to travel or do you like to vacation or both?

SPEAKER_03: 11:18

I'd say both. For years we have gone up to Minnesota with our family two weeks every year to a resort. It's something I grew up with, and my husband luckily enjoyed it as well. And so we just that is really uh more of a vacation. I mean, it's the same place every year. We have our same routines and and and uh pastimes when we get up there. We like fishing and just yeah, spending time with family, there's other relatives there too. But then now we have recently about three years ago, we bought a cabin in Minnesota. So I'm spending most of my summer there now, and he spends about half of that time as well until he retires. And so that's our vacation piece. The cabin. But we also love to travel and see new places, and then I'd say we go, go, go and try to see as much as we can. And you know, we go to a new place. We wanna, we we don't want to like leave things on any stone unturned. We wear ourselves out usually, you know, when you're stretch the stretch the days out as long as possible. We get home in the middle of the night and have to go to work the next morning or whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 12:31

So are those typically bike travel? Do you take your bikes and do trips like that?

SPEAKER_03: 12:38

We have a little, we've done a little bit of that, but our biking is often more on on our vacations when we're in Minnesota or here around home. Sometimes in Michigan, we'll go up north a little ways and find some bike trails. I'd say more of our traveling is, you know, we're flying somewhere, so you can't really take your bikes along too well. Or yeah, I it's more to to do sightseeing and we haven't we talked about meshing them together. We'd love to do uh the bike and barge tours in Netherland the Netherlands which uh you take your bikes or they you rent bikes, I guess, when you get there, but you ride around on a barge and then you can you know Netherlands is huge for biking, so that's yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:27

Amsterdam obviously has the huge biking culture, but in general, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 13:31

Yeah, so that's something we both have Dutch a Dutch heritage, so someday that's one of our dreams to to do the bike and barge in Netherlands.

SPEAKER_02: 13:39

Amazing, amazing. And uh I know faith plays a significant role in your story in your book. And how how has your relationship with God evolved during your empty nest years?

SPEAKER_03: 13:53

Well, I I would say I have more time to to put into my spiritual life now. I I have time to do a quiet time in the morning, whereas before it was get the kids out the door, get myself to work. So it's a lot more relaxed and and gives me that time in the morning to start my day off with prayer, meditation. I've also been able to join a Bible study group at my church that and part of that is Neptune nesting, and part of it is I'm semi-retired, so I have more available time during the day too, than I did before. But also I think writing has done a lot for my spiritual growth. Like I I started writing, I started writing when my daughter was very ill and shared some of my faith prayers, the support we were getting from people on that in that writing, and that's kind of how my writing got started. And so um, yeah, it just sort of continued from there. As I write, I feel like I'm more easily able to share my faith than I was before, just because I don't want to be an imposter. If I'm writing about my faith, I should, you know, live it too. And so it kind of is a the words create the actions and the actions create the words. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:15

Yeah, yeah. I think for it makes sense. It makes perfect sense. Folks like myself who like have this podcast and coach people on empty nesting, it's like being an example of what's possible uh in our in our empty nest years, or if we're living into our true authentic authenticity, it is being an example of what we're doing. And so if you are big and have a big, huge spiritual life, well, yeah, it makes sense to write about it and share about it, but also live it as well.

unknown: 15:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 15:43

So is that something that your husband is that one of those things that you all do together, or is that just definitely too yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 15:49

No, we we are we attend church together weekly and we raised our kids in the faith as well. And it's it's a very important family thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:00

That's been always four kids. Eight years eight years apart in total.

SPEAKER_03: 16:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 16:08

All all boys, all girls, a mix.

SPEAKER_03: 16:10

Two boys, two boys, then two girls.

SPEAKER_02: 16:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 16:13

So it worked out very well for hand-me-downs because the boys were just two years apart, so the clothes weren't too out outdated, and then four years later we had the two girls two years apart, approximately. Okay. So yeah. So it worked.

SPEAKER_02: 16:26

It worked. It worked very well. What were some biggest maybe some biggest surprises and challenges in parenting your kids and then as children, but also maybe as adults as well.

SPEAKER_03: 16:37

Um well, the biggest surprise is probably how different they all were. You would think with two same biological parents, the kids would turn out pretty much the same, but you know, the boys were opposites to from each other, the girls were opposites from each other. I'd say the oldest and the youngest have the most similarity, similarities, and the middle two have the most similarities. It it was just they were each just so such individuals. And that's something I do touch on in my book as well. I devote one chapter to each kid. Um, and I got their permission to do so. I tell their story, I use their real names. Again, they they permitted me to do that. And each one of them had some kind of struggle or challenge, either for them or for us as parents, that I delve into in their chapter. And then from those struggles, though, it's amazing how many strengths they were able to gain from them or tools that they use to learn how to deal with those struggles. And so I think that the the chapters really show them in a very positive light because it's not just about, you know, this one was bouncing off the walls ever since day one, but how he learned to to lasso that energy and and uh bring such joy.

SPEAKER_02: 18:03

What was the most rewarding or challenging part or both of writing emptiness joy ride?

SPEAKER_03: 18:43

I think the most rewarding part was just feedback from friends, people that read it ahead of time, and then since then the people that have have received it very well and just give me really positive feedback was also just being able to sort of process all those years myself, like to get it down on paper and know that there's this um, it's not really a history, it's not a biography by any means, but it does go back into our early days of our marriage. Our our engagement is a focus of one of the chapters, just raising the kids and each of the kids and their differences. There's a chapter about during the pandemic, and um, during that time we lost both of my parents. And so just having that, being able to process it all was very rewarding for me. It I'm always surprised at how writing helps a person to really um process what they're what they're going through with sometimes. I can't express myself in words verbally, but when I'm writing, it it falls into place better. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02: 19:55

Oh, it makes perfect sense, yeah. Because some people are visual learners, some people are auditory learners, some people are better writers, somebody people are better speakers, right? And so whatever it takes to express how you're feeling or what's going on in your life, that makes perfect sense. And it seems like writing is your your avenue for doing that. If if people are listening, they're like, oh, you know what? I think I have a book in me. What would be some advice for people who may be aspiring authors who want to share their personal stories?

SPEAKER_03: 20:27

I I would start by just kind of sampling the testing the water, I guess. You know, put put some blog posts together, do some journaling. Maybe first just for yourself, then start to share it with some friends. For me, I never probably would have made this leap if it hadn't been for feedback that I got from others. And, you know, before my daughter's illness, when I really started, that's when I started my blog just because I wanted to like have an easy way of letting everybody know what was going on. It it wasn't really an illness, I should say my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and it was right after she had scoliosis spinal fusion surgery. So she had these major medical things going on. And yeah, it was just hard to let everybody know what was going on. So I just started a blog. And then I got feedback on that blog about, oh you, I love your writing, you should keep writing. And I was like, oh, okay. There's something to think about. And so that's kind of how it got started. So, like, first test the waters, put some writing out there and see how friends and family respond. Or, you know, start a blog yourself. So website, Substack is a good place to to write. And then, you know, if you've got a book in you, start start putting those things, those ideas down. It's it's an it's a daunting process. I can't lie. You asked me before about the challenges. You know, when I started writing, I was reading things like, it'll take, you know, 10 years to write a book. And I was no way, I'm gonna get this done in like a year. But it took me six years. So had I known that it was gonna take me six years, I probably would have given up. But you know, it was something that I was I I just you just do one little piece, and after you do so much, you're like, well, I don't want to give up now. So you just keep going and going. And I learned all about, you know, self publishing and had I hired a cover designer and an editor. I you know, you do. learn a lot by doing and and that's kind of one of the fun things about being an empty nester too is you know who would think that in my 60s I would start something that new you know publishing books so yeah yeah and you said publishing books do you have another one in you are you working on one I do so this is my most recent one Empty Nest Joyride that we've been talking about um but my first book was kind of more of a trial let's see if this works kind of thing it's a smaller book and it's Lent through the little things it's a Lenten devotional um and it just talks about like each day is a the season of Lent so there's 40 40 meditations and each one has like sort of an everyday object or thing to think about and focus on that can remind you of Jesus presence.

SPEAKER_02: 23:23

So I love that yeah yeah and are you working on something new now?

SPEAKER_03: 23:27

Not yet. Not yet no this one released in May and then my daughter got married in September. So I was just like time for a breather and I don't really know what's next. I I still have a lot of marketing to do on my emptiness joy ride.

SPEAKER_02: 23:43

Marketing is the thing that most writers despise the most and so yeah they just they love the idea of writing and getting their word out but the marketing piece is tough for them. Yeah right yeah if you had some advice about that somebody who's well I do want to write a book but I don't know how to market it what would you say well I have found so much online through writers groups there's writers groups on Facebook and there's sub sub stackers who who specifically talk about writing podcasts that I listen to on marketing and writing there there's just a wealth of information out there.

SPEAKER_03: 24:22

It's almost like like hard to say because it depends on what kind of book you're writing to but definitely there's help everywhere. You know there are courses you can take or you can just kind of figure it out step by step on your own. For me marketing has mostly been I set up a launch team to help me sort of get people excited before it came out. They shared little graphics that I made on Canva that they shared on social media for me. And then doing podcasts like this has been a big one and also just collaborating with other writers and sharing guest posts and things like that has helped to really get get the word out as well.

SPEAKER_02: 25:05

I I know probably one of the biggest motivators for you was getting the book done and out and then also getting your daughter married and getting through the the wedding what's your biggest motivator now that that's all done or are you just taking a breather no I I feel like I I can only take a breather for so long and then I have to keep going on something else.

SPEAKER_03: 25:27

I am a kind of a big project kind of person and right now I don't have a big project on the horizon. I do enjoy doing big projects and so like my book that was a big project took me several years and then the last year especially was very intensive. And then right after that I was busy planning my daughter's wedding so that was another huge project that really played a part in in helping me get all of that. Now I'm kind of like I feel like I'm just sort of scattered and one of my goals is just to get organized with my time like maybe figure out a time blocked sort of schedule how many hours or when am I going to write? When am I going to exercise when am I going to go to my Bible studies and I'm also signed up to do some volunteer work at a women women's center in town. So just trying to figure out where all the pieces are going to fit and and I'm also still doing a little bit of part-time work as well.

SPEAKER_02: 26:29

So okay so so you I know part of the book is talking about rediscovering some purpose. What do you feel like your purpose is right now that's that's deep it is I know it is deep I mean my purpose I think you know all of us are here to make the world a better place and I hope to do that through my writing through just loving on my family um helping my my kids to be productive and and contributing members the good members to society and then yeah just I'm I'm I'm lost but that's it that makes sense though right you just completed two big projects right one it launching your book and getting that out into the world and then now getting your daughter married and planning that that wedding it's natural to be like oh what comes next right what comes next and my I guess you know I'm still writing I don't write I'm not writing a book right now but I'm writing weekly or every other week on Substack.

SPEAKER_03: 27:47

And so I still try to be encouraging to empty nesters you know talking about boomerang kids coming home talking about marriage aging hobbies in the emptiness all of those types of things I try to touch on.

SPEAKER_02: 28:04

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 28:05

If people want to find you online if they want to buy the book where where is it available and how can they find out more about some of the things you've written in the past so my book is available pretty much wherever they sell books online Amazon Barnesandlebookshop.org there's also a website or a landing page for my book that's just empty nestjoyride.com so that's the easiest way to find out everything about the book. As far as my writing I mostly write on Substack. I do have a website as well so lyndahanstra.com and then my Substack is lyndahanstra.substack.com.

SPEAKER_02: 28:44

Linda's been a fantastic conversation especially for people who are wondering oh what comes next what if I have a book in me what does life look like once the kids move on how can I reconnect spiritually if that's something that they're interested in. So I I appreciate you sharing a little bit of your story and a little bit about how Emptiness Joyride came to be so thanks so much for being here.

SPEAKER_03: 29:05

Well thank you thank you for having me it's always a pleasure to listen to your podcast and so very exciting to have this opportunity.

SPEAKER_00: 29:14

Awesome. Thanks again for coming thank you for listening to this Emptiness Life. Remember this chapter isn't an ending it's an invitation to redefine rediscover and reignite your life if today's episode sparks something in you don't forget to take that first step and visit this emptinesslife.com and click work with me to get the conversation started. Until next time keep your heart open your mind curious and your spirits shining this EmptyNest life is a production of Impact One Media LLC all rights reserved