Today’s topic is a pretty emotional one for me because it’s something I’m going through right now, and it’s something that we experience in so many different ways along the motherhood journey – grief.

I don’t feel like we talk about grief enough, so the intention of today’s podcast is to invite you into a way in which grief is showing up for me and how I’m navigating the messiness of it all. 

Let me start by pointing out that we grieve a lot of things – becoming a mom, our identities, our marriages and what our relationships were like before, lost parts of ourselves, who we thought we would be and what we thought our world would be. But the part of grief that I want to touch on today is its own unique experience – the pocket of time when your kid is transitioning from high school to college or to whatever they’re choosing to do post high school, and they are officially leaving the nest. 

When these kids are growing up we are involved with every move.

We spend so much time with them – we know when they’re hungry, what’s going on at school and what’s going on socially, if they score a goal or not – we are involved with every single thing in their lives. Then, all of a sudden, these kids are supposed to fly off to college and we are supposed to change the way that we relate to them. There is so much grief involved. 

We always hear about how we need to cherish the time because it will go by quickly, and I used to dislike this sentiment because the newborn stage was hard for me. The days were long and I used to wish them away. How could they tell me that the days go by quickly when they are legitimately the longest days of my life?

If you relate, let me remind you – you’re not a bad mom if you wish away the moment that you’re in. I found myself doing that too. 

I’ve now gotten to the stage where I understand how true it really is. Now that I have a 5-year-old who still won’t play by herself and a 19-year-old who is a sophomore in college. The truth bomb is that when they are young the days are long, but it does go by fast. Before I knew it I was dropping my kid off at CU – the same campus that I brought him with me to as a newborn.

so here’s where grief shows up in a really insidious way – it shows up as starting to question everything you’ve done as a parent.

Have I done enough to get this kid ready for the real world?? You start questioning and feeling scared. There is so much grief in the shift of roles. We switch from parenting and total involvement to coaching right beside them. We don’t know if we’re doing it right because there is no rubric.

We don’t know if we should be letting them make their own decisions and experience consequences, or if we should intervene and protect them. 

Camden has been my ride or die since I was 22 years old. We grew up together. Now I don’t know if he’s going to class or sleeping at night or trying drugs or practicing safe sex or brushing his teeth. How am I supposed to have all of these questions unanswered??

we need to learn how to manage our mind and regulate our nervous system, and we need to discover who we are now that we’re an empty-nester.

It’s a process and it’s hard. I had to learn how to be okay not knowing if my kid was okay everyday. 

So what do we do and how do we do it? Again – there is no rubric. There is no formula for success. This is just what I’m currently doing. 

• Normalize normal, always. It’s normal for you to grieve your kid leaving, grieve what they are deciding to do for themselves, all of it. 

• Feel your feelings. You have to feel the grief, because the only way out is through. Acknowledge it, cry, talk about it, move through it. Learn more about it. Do it all without judgment. 

• Trust yourself and that you’ve done enough. Trust that they will find their own way. We can’t protect our kids from everything, and they have to fail forward. This one’s a big shift, but it does get easier over time. 

• Evolve. Adjust the relationship, figure out how to not be so involved, explore who you are now at this stage, expand, try new things. Do these things while acknowledging that it’s hard. We are all finding our way the best way we can. 
  

There is so much grief that we go through in these parental transitions, and we have to feel our way through the process. We have to reframe it in our minds and remember that our relationship with our kid is still strong even though it looks and feels different.

The grieving process is a messy and circular one, but you’ll find your way through it. 

Take care of yourselves and therefore each other!

xo, brooke jean