Empty Nest Syndrome
Learn how to thrive during this life transition

Empty nest syndrome is the feeling of sadness when your last child leaves home. It’s a time of transition for both the parent and the child. Typically, more women experience this than men.

It’s bittersweet when your children leave home. Intellectually you want them to be independent, free and happy, but emotionally it’s so hard to cut the cord.

In Marianne Williamson’s The Age of Miracles; Embracing the New Midlife she writes so beautifully about when her daughter left home. She writes,

"My daughter was free now in that way that only the young can be free. But I was free, too, in a way only someone who has raised his or her children to a certain age and watched them grow up can be. She and I had earned new wings."

Give yourself a little time to adjust to this major change in your life and then be grateful for the new chapter you get to create. What do you want to do next? The whole world is open to you.

Do you want to

• travel?
• focus more on your career?
• learn something new or go back to school?
• spend more time with your spouse?
• volunteer for causes that are important to you?
• enjoy your favorite hobbies?

Now is the time. Keep busy with things you love to do. You don't have to figure it all out now; just have fun exploring new opportunities. There is a liberation as you get older and are no longer totally tied to the health and safety of young children who depend on you for everything.

This is also a big transition for your children. You raised them so they could go out in the world and live big lives, right? You want them to be open to all that the world has to offer them. And they want the same for you.

Please remember that it’s very normal to be a little sad when your children grow up and leave you, but when your empty nest syndrome turns to prolonged sadness or depression though, it’s time to seek professional help.